Last week’s Dispatches discussed irregularities in the voting patterns in London’s 2008 mayoral elections. This Daily Telegraph article goes into more detail in how this was an attempt to secure victory for then-incumbent Ken Livingstone:
In an election lost by Mr Livingstone, the Islamic Forum of Europe helped secure massive and unexpected swings towards him in its east London heartland.
In one ward, Spitalfields, his vote share rose from 29.6 per cent in 2004 – an election he won – to 68.4 per cent in 2008, a rise of nearly 39 percentage points.
In every other ward in Tower Hamlets and Newham with a sizeable Muslim population, his vote rose by between 23 and 36 percentage points. His vote in other Muslim and ethnic minority areas of London also rose, but by far smaller amounts.
When Galloway started going on about the UK police brutality towards the Gaza protesters in London, these were the images of police brutality that went through my head, real vicious sadistic brutality that Galloway chose to ignore. The crimes that the Stop the War worshippers of Galloway do not want to know about.
Under Galloway’s former paymaster, Saddam Hussein:
Andrew Gilligan speaks of the climate of fear in Tower Hamlets and beyond. This is the dreadful campaign which seeks to undermine as “Islamophobic” or “racist” any criticism of the hardline Islamists who now operate out of the East London Mosque. Gilligan writes about Labour party members in Tower Hamlets who declined to speak openly of the problem of Islamic radicalism in the borough:
But I think I know why others are reluctant to address the issues we raised. That reason is fear. In six months of research, we spoke to dozens of people in the Tower Hamlets Labour Party. Almost everyone who talked to us said exactly the same thing – but no one, save Mr Fitzpatrick, was brave enough to say it on the record.
It is not surprising to see why. Most Bangladeshi residents are also fearful of speaking out in public bar a few brave members of the community.
Harry’s Place has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with someone over the last two days to bring you this video of the homophobic lunatic Abdul Karim Hattin speaking at the East London Mosque.
The video has been removed from YouTube three times, each time reported to YouTube for “breach of copyright” or “terms of use violation”.
This is a cross-post of an article by habibi from Harry’s Place
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This post from earlier this week covered the men the Young Muslim Organisation (YMO), the youth wing of the Islamic Forum of Europe, recommends for spiritual advice about Ramadan. Every single one of them is an extremist. Three of the nine have been convicted or charged with serious terrorism offences.
So it is no surprise to come across a page that the YMO lists as its most popular, “Du’a (prayer) for Gaza”, and find a video of this man first on the list: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
There are five more videos on the page. Four have been removed from Youtube “due to terms of use violation” and one has been deleted. Hmm, why might that be?
Current defenders of the IFE peddle the line that is merely an organisation of ordinary Muslims involved with democratic engagement with the British polity. One such defender, for example, is their fellow-Mawdudist, Bunglawala:
For a number of years now, British Muslims have been told that they must all eschew terrorism and instead seek to influence policy through the process of democratic engagement. In Tower Hamlets we have seen young people – particularly following the deeply unpopular war against Iraq – seeking to do just that and join the local political parties including George Galloway’s Respect party. And instead of being commended for this they get smeared as being “entryists” by people like Fitzpatrick. Of course, Fitzpatrick’s bitterness would have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact – not mentioned by Gilligan – that he is up against George Galloway in the upcoming general election and his majority of 8000 might not be enough to save him – just as the pro-war Oona King’s 10000+ majority failed to save her in 2005.
This is a guest post by The Professor first posted on Harry’s Place
Two days ago the Pakistani Sufi organisation Minhaj-ul-Quran launched their remarkably comprehensive fatwa (religious ruling) against terrorism and suicide bombing.
Since then the Muslim Brotherhood’s Azzam Tamimi has been on a one-man mission to discredit it.
On the BBC, he mocked al-Qadri for not preventing suicide bombings in Pakistan before saying that he himself believed that suicide bombing was allowed in “self-defence” (but not against “innocent civilians” – as opposed, presumably, to guilty civilians) and saying that:
‘Then there is the question of utility and whether this is actually good for the cause or bad for the cause and in most cases it’s not good for the cause. And I think this is the argument we need to push forward rather than resorting to fatwas because for every fatwa, there is a counter fatwa.’
Mosab’s father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, senior Hamas figure in the West Bank, currently serving a 6-year prison sentence in an Israeli prison.
Mosab helped Israel’s security forces kill and arrest members of the Islamic militant group, Hamas. He is probably marked for death and but he has published his story in his new book, ‘Son of Hamas’.
A fromer deputy of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service said he was one of their agents, helping to prevent Hamas attacks on Israel. This will be an embarrasment for the militant group, which prides itself on its tight discipline.
Mosab has renounced his Muslim faith, converted to Christianity and denounced his father’s organisation. By doing so, he has exposed his family to persecution in his home town of Ramallah and endangered his own life.
More fallout from the Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary. The East London Advertiser takes up the story of Peter Golds, whom the ruling Labour group are trying to oust because of his involvement in the programme.
Members of the ruling Labour group are planning to table a resolution to suspend Tory Opposition leader Peter Golds after he took part in journalist Andrew Gilligan’s programme Britain’s Islamic Republic.
They accuse him of leaking confidential documents about the controversial appointment of Lutfur Ali as the £120,000-a-year assistant chief executive.
Gilligan’s programme, which heavily researched breaking news from the East London Advertiser over the past three years about the internal politics of Tower Hamlets and the power block at the Town Hall, examined Mr Ali’s qualifications and questioned his CV.
Peter Golds was a dissenting voice on the appointments panel who challenged Labour’s choice and spoke openly on the programme.
For good reason of course, there has been a lot of focus on the Islamist radicalisation and entryism around the East London Mosque (as exposed in Monday’s Dispatches on Channel4), so it is unsurprising that no one has yet made a fuss of the fact that obnoxious lectures take place there inciting hatred of the gay community – as seen in the image above.
So let me be the fist to kick up a fuss.
The slide on the screen has a picture of openly-gay singer Elton John next to a very butch-looking Tupac Shakur. The presenter tells the audience: “This is a little game I like to play called ‘Spot The Fag’.”
He then launches into a rant about the ‘fag’ lifestyle.
