Scotland’s leading Islamists forced to return tax payer money

By Guest | Published: August 19, 2009

This is a cross-post of an article by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens from the Focus on Islamism blog.

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The Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF), Scotland’s primary Islamist pressure group, was forced this week to return £128,000 of public money.

The SIF is headed by Osama Saeed, who I have written about before, and whose Islamist outlook has been extensively covered by both Harry’s Place and the Centre for Social Cohesion.  Last year, the SIF was awarded a staggering £400,000 by the Scottish National Party (SNP), most likely in the hope that Saeed’s skills in the world of identity politics would win them the favour of Scotland’s Muslim voters.  For this reason, Saeed is also an SNP candidate.

This huge financial award from the SNP to an organisation run by an SNP candidate has led many to accuse the head of the party, Alex Salmond, of cronyism.  It is particularly interesting that this accusation has come from other Scottish Muslim groups, including the Muslim Sufi community whose request for £30,000 to fund a Sufi festival in Glasgow was rebuffed.

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Posted in Your View | 2 Comments

you’d better watch out, you’d better beware… netanyahu’s coming to town!

By bananabrain | Published: August 19, 2009

the jewish chronicle has asked prominent british jews – i would say, in fact, representatives of most streams of opinion – what they would say  if they had a chance to speak to everyone’s favourite prime minister when he arrives in the UK at the end of the month. you’ll find the variety of opinions on display quite interesting considering who they’ve chosen to ask. there are many different party lines here; one can hardly say that british jewry speaks with one voice. on the whole i think that’s probably a good thing, because if it did, it would probably be the voice of vanessa feltz, whose views, i would say, are alarmingly representative of your average community member.  also interesting is the evidence that uri geller has equally good political judgement as he does socially.

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Posted in Interfaith, International Affairs, Israel/Palestine | Tagged | 1 Comment

Fun With Numbers (and the Muslim Council of Britain)

By Yossarian | Published: August 13, 2009

The Muslim Council of Britain likes to present itself as the voice of British Muslims. If you tuned in to Kenan Malik’s excellent programme on Radio 4 this morning, Are All Muslims the Same? then you will have heard MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala boasting that organisations like the MCB have never been out of step with what “the silent majority” of British Muslims are saying.

Quite apart from this making no sense at all (How does he know what the silent majority are saying if they are silent?), it is a portentous claim. If the MCB know what all Muslims are thinking then, as discussed yesterday, it makes sense for the government to treat them as gatekeepers to British Muslims. Bunglawala clearly knows better than British Muslims themselves, only six percent of whom actually believe the MCB represents them.

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Posted in Islamism, PVE, UK Politics | Tagged , | 14 Comments

the narrative has two sides

By bananabrain | Published: August 13, 2009

as, generally speaking, genuine cross-green-line dialogue encounters are quite rare in israel and palestine i just thought i’d cross-post to this blog on the haaretz “makom” site by a friend of mine, rabbi gideon sylvester, on his recent visit to bethlehem.

Our first stop was just a stone’s throw from a Yeshiva where I studied. But, like most Palestinian towns and villages it is served by roads that Israelis don’t travel on, so although for years I have driven past it on a daily basis, I was totally unaware of its existence.

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Posted in Activism, Interfaith, Israel/Palestine | 4 Comments

Hizb ut-Tahrir: The only place is the battlefield between the Muslims and the Jews

By Guest | Published: August 13, 2009

Continuing where Hizb ut-Tahrir ‘Brandishing the Sword’ left off, this is another post where Hizb ut-Tahrir will be allowed to speak for, and thereby condemn, itself. The vicious Antisemitism of this leaflet (dating from December 1992) has never been recanted by HT but, after several years of distribution, they realised that it was damaging their PR and the leaflet was suppressed. These ideas, however, remain an integral part of HT’s ideology.

Taken from ‘The only place is the battlefield between the Muslims and the Jews’ (an official Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflet published by al-Khilafah Publications).

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The recent event of the imprisonment and the killing of a Jewish soldier by Hamas is lawful, for it is a means of resistance against the occupiers according to the Islamic Shari`ah, for the Jews are belligerent enemies and we are in a state of war with them. They have violated the land and driven away its people, they constantly aggress the people of Palestine, killing, injuring, destroying properties, arresting, expelling and breaking the Palestinians’ bones; Islam considers their blood and their property as violable; thus their property and their lives have no sanctity; [..]

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Posted in Antisemitism, Islamism, Israel/Palestine, Your View | Tagged | 24 Comments

MCB Get Ahead Of Themselves

By Yossarian | Published: August 12, 2009

John Denham, new Secretary of State for Communitites and Local Government, recently stated his desire that the government’s Prevent strategy shift its focus from being on “al-Qaida-influenced terrorism” to looking at extremism of all varieties. As outlined by David T earlier this week, there are many reasons for this being A Good Idea.

Here at the Spittoon we have been horrified by the rise of the viciously anti-Muslim BNP; a government policy to address the rise of far right politics must surely be welcomed. But then this was accompanied by the news that the Muslim Council of Britain’s banishment from Westminster may be coming to an end.

The official attempt to mend fences follows a controversial phase in the history of the programme, which culminated in an acrimonious dispute between Hazel Blears, Denham’s predecessor, and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

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Posted in Islamism, PVE, UK Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The rise of the far-right and anti-Muslim bigotry

By Shikwa | Published: August 11, 2009

Last weekend saw some ugly scenes in Birmingham when a group calling itself Casuals United held a protest in the City Centre. There was a similar protest held in Birmingham last month well.

Casuals United say they are only opposed to Islamist extremism but that is not the case. The group is little more than a fascist front, opposed to all Muslims in Britain as this clip of their protest last month demonstrates:

Notable chants in the video come at:

  • 6:26 – I just want Muslim scum to go (a person off camera says this to whoever is filming)
  • 6:48 – We want Muslims out
  • 7:42 – Who are you? Who are you? (The implication being that Muslims are not British)
  • 9:08 – Muslims out
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Posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Democracy, Politics, UK Politics | 8 Comments

Kensington Welcomes Jihadi Preacher

By Yossarian | Published: August 11, 2009

Anwal al-Awlaki is an American extremist based in Yemen. This is his website. Note the picture of a man with AK47 which, very appropriately, Awlaki uses to represent his website. It also distributes a video of British and American troops suffering in Afghanistan, suffering which is celebrated.

On his website, Awlaki publishes a leaflet called 44 Ways of Supporting Jihad. Awlaki tells his readers that, in the current day and age, it is compulsory for them to get arms training then to go and fight jihad. And, before any apologists pop up to say I’m misrepresenting the concept of jihad in Islam, no, he is not talking about jihad  al-nafs. If it entails arms training then what Awlaki is talking about is religiously justified warfare.

This is a point Awlaki makes clear when he tells readers of his website to fight against government armies in the Muslim world.

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Posted in Islamism, PVE, Terrorism | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

We are all Neocons now!

By Guest | Published: August 10, 2009

This is a guest post by The Arabian Neocon and is part 1 of a 2 part report.

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Where to begin with all this? While I unravel the issues here I implore you, gentle reader, to persevere. It gets good. Trust me.

Idrees 2Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a snotty paranoiac doing a PhD at the University of Strathclyde. In his own words he is currently ‘researching the role of lobbies, think tanks and foundations in furnishing the propaganda for the war in Iraq’.

Now then, the crackpot theories of an overworked and undersexed postgrad do not usually merit much attention. But then, I discovered that Idrees has been going around compiling ‘wiki’ pages on all my friends for his new website ‘Neocon Europe’. It is the invasive nature in which he sought out that information that first brought him to my attention. The website supposedly aims to:

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Posted in Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Israel/Palestine, Politics, UK Politics, Your View | 112 Comments

The Entryist

By Yossarian | Published: August 10, 2009

For those unfamiliar with the term, entryism is a strategy whereby members of one group join another with the intention of taking it over surreptitiously or just to manipulate the latter into serving the interests of the former/leach off its reputation. For example, throughout the seventies there were repeated attempts by Scientologists to join Mind (then the National Association for Mental Health) to try and influence policy regarding psychiatric treatment.

It has also become a favourite tactic for Islamists. Shikwa recently documented the efforts of one Majed Iqbal, a Hizb ut-Tahrir member from Rochdale, to use his role as a writer at the ‘Asian Leader’ to push HT’s agenda. He has even managed to appear on Sky News and the BBC’s ‘The Big Questions’ passing himself off as an impartial observer.

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Posted in Islamism, Media | Tagged , , | 55 Comments

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