Law will have to change to keep up with changing ethnic population

CHANGING TIMES: 'Sharia for the UK' – John Abberley poses the question in The Sentinel on March 5. I make this reply neither as a critic, nor supporter, of that contention, merely as an observer. It is the proliferation of Muslim influence in every town and city of this country, that really carries the answer.

[Comment] .... I care not what religion people believe in, but on the question of law, it can be one law and one law alone which applies. Otherwise I may decide to have my own set of laws which suit me best. [The Sentinel] Read more [via National Secular Society]

Blasphemy policies are no laughing matter

From Ireland to Greece and from France to Poland, Europe’s lawmakers strike an uneasy and widely varying balance between protecting freedom of speech and protecting the Church. So when will Europe finally get its principles straight, asks a Swedish journalist.

Artists have been convicted of blasphemy in several European countries. Ireland has just passed an anti-blasphemy law, even as France staunchly defends her secular society. The European Union is far more divided over freedom of speech than it would let on to the outside world.

In the hullabaloo after the Mohammad caricatures were published in the Jyllands-Posten four years ago, one voice was missing: that of a united front of European leaders defending freedom of speech. [Svenska Dagbladet] Read more [via National Secular Society]

In Rifqa Bary Case, Dhimmi Media Cheers on Sharia Law in Ohio

An Ohio minister accused of driving a teenage runaway to a bus station last year has retained a lawyer as police say they’re investigating whether anyone broke the law in helping the Christian convert leave home for Florida.

And why did she flee to Florida? Because, she says, when her devout Muslim father found out she had become a Christian, he said to her, “I will kill you.” And with Islam’s death penalty for apostates, she had to take that seriously. But her father is not in danger of being prosecuted. Brian Williams is. [Big Journalism] Read more [via National Secular Society]

Atheists and other animals

Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (Politics) of the supposedly ‘progressive’ New Statesman magazine, is a man who considers non-believers to be ‘cattle’ and ‘people “of no intelligence”‘. When this came to light, it caused something of a stir. However, Hasan was only actually confirming the Qur’anic worldview when he said this, for in the Qur’an non-believers are indeed described as such: [Edmund Standing] Read more

Camberley mosque plan rejected by council

The local Bengali Association's bid to build a mosque on the site of a listed former school building was rejected by Surrey Heath Borough Council. Local historians and residents had opposed the plans, saying the town's heritage needed to be protected. [BBC] Read more

The Camberley mosque should be stopped .... This new mosque will not be in the interests of all British Muslims as it will allocate less than a fifth of the space to female worshippers. But there is nothing in Islamic theology that legitimises a misogynistic apartheid in the house of God.

Nor does the history of Islamic architecture show that mosques must have towering minarets. Places of worship vary greatly throughout the world of Islam, reflecting local building traditions. From Timbuktu to East Timor, mosque buildings blend into their particular surroundings. [Times Online] Read more

From Secularism to Sectarianism

One of the strange ironies of the Southasian immigration experience to Great Britain was how the near-universal levels of racism in the host community dissipated at the same time levels of religious identity politics and radicalisation became endemic.

White racism started to fall back but at the same time secular politicisation receded in the immigrant Muslim community. We are now living in times when the kind of visceral racism we Southasians experienced in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s is at an all time low, but Muslim immigrant communities have organised themselves into political structures which are emanations of reactionary political groups from “back home”, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islam. [The Spittoon] Read more

Call to Ban Kuwaiti Women from Sport...

Kuwait's female MPs have condemned a call to bar women from international sport competitions as an attempt by an Islamist-dominated parliamentary committee to suppress women's rights.

.... One of the committee's members, Jamaan al Harbash, said: We have sent out a clear message that such participation runs counter to Sharia provisions and we have called for their suspension. [Religious Watch] Read more

Who really wears a burka?

.... The most fascinating figure of all, though, came from the Danish researchers, who actually interviewed some of the covered women. Most were young, or at least under forty, and half of them were white converts.

I think this makes it entirely clear that in modern Europe the burka is not an atavistic hangover, but a very modern gesture of disaffection from and rejection of society, which appeals to a certain kind of extreme temperament. [guardian.co.uk] Read more

Why does the BBC air Islamist propaganda?

.... Over the past 12 months, the East London Mosque has hosted at least 18 hate, fundamentalist and extremist speakers, many of them more than once. Over the past few years, there have been dozens — all approved, and many explicitly endorsed, by the mosque authorities themselves .... But perhaps the most bizarre event of all involved that notorious apostle of jihad, Jonathan Dimbleby, and the hated extremist propaganda network, BBC Radio 4. [The Spectator] Read more

Egypt's chilling conservatism

It's no secret that in Egypt religious conservatism is growing. The only people denying this fact are the conservatives themselves, who tell us that we are on a path to hell in blind imitation of the west.

This conservatism has taken many undesirable forms, all of which highlight the disturbed psychology of the Egyptian people in recent years. Perhaps the most obvious symptom of this conservatism is the abnormal preoccupation with women, and I don't mean women's rights.

The void left by lousy education and unemployment has been filled to overflowing with "religion". If that meant an emphasis on good behaviour, honesty, trust and hard work, we wouldn't have a problem. [Guardian Cif] Read more

Marseille: Court authorizes Le Pen anti-Islamism posters

A court in Marseille authorized campaign posters of the political party of Jean Marie Le Pen, National Front (FN) in the south of France, which undermine Islam and Muslims and incites hatred of Algeria and the Algerians. [Islam in Europe] Read more

Malaysia - Government imposes censorship and self-censorship on religious issues

Reporters Without Borders condemns the censorship and self-censorship which the home affairs ministry has imposed on Malaysia's leading English-language daily, The Star, by issuing it with a warning about an article criticising the caning of three Muslim women under Sharia law. [FromTheOld] Read more [via Religious Watch]

French Resistance to Sharia Restuarants Begins in Quick Hamburger Chain.......

The Tundra Tabloids reported a week ago on the French hamburger chain, Quick, that decided to strip pork products from its menu in order to serve the religious needs of the local population.

They didn't even bother to offer two kinds of sandwiches, one halal and the other with pork, so now the people are (justifiably) up in arms and beginning to show their anger over being force fed with sharia nonsense in their secular state. [Tundra Tabloids] Read more

Yamani or Your Life: A nasty attempt to coerce Danish newspapers into apologizing for the cartoons of Muhammad

I have just finished reading one of the most astoundingly stupid and nasty documents ever to have landed on my desk. It consists of a letter from a law firm in Saudi Arabia, run by a man named Ahmed Zaki Yamani, to a group of newspapers in Scandinavia.

I quote directly from its main paragraphs: "Over the past months my law firm has been contacted by several thousand descendants of the Prophet, who have learned about your newspaper's republication of the drawing, depicting their esteemed ancestor as a terrorist suicide bomber with a bomb in his turban." [Slate] Read more

Muslim leader wants elements of sharia in Australia

ELEMENTS of Islamic law - the sharia - should be legally recognised in Australia so that Muslims can live according their faith, a prominent Muslim leader says.

Addressing an open day at Lakemba Mosque on Saturday, the president of the Australian Islamic Mission, Zachariah Matthews, said parts of sharia could be recognised as a secondary legal system so that Muslims were not forced to act contrary to their beliefs. '

'Sharia law could function as a parallel system in the same way that some traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law was recognised in the Northern Territory,'' Dr Matthews told the Herald after the session. [Sydney Morning Herald] Read more

Petition on body scanners at UK airports

Following news last week that two Muslim women traveling to Islamabad were denied permission to board their flight for having declined to pass through body scanners at Manchester airport, a petition has been lodged urging the PM to ensure that those who object to passing through such scanners are offered alternative search procedures. [ENGAGE] Read more

EU: Human Rights Commissioner against burka ban

Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe writes that he's against a burka or niqab ban. Prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies.

A general ban on such attires would constitute an ill-advised invasion of individual privacy. Depending on its precise terms, a prohibition also raises serious questions about whether such legislation would be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. [Islam in Europe] Read more

British Muslims are running out of friends

I am but Muslim lite, a non-conformist believer who will not be told what and how by sanctimonious religious sentinels for whom religion is a long list of rules to be obeyed by bovine followers.

Readers know I am often critical of Muslim people and nations. Bad things that happen to us cannot all be attributed to "Islamophobia", a nebulous and imprecise concept that, like anti-Semitism, can be used to besmirch and sully and silence criticism. [independent.co.uk] Read more

A Scottish law firm has become the first in the country to offer clients “conventional” legal representation alongside advice on sharia law

Hamilton Burns, based in Glasgow’s south side, has teamed up with an eminent Muslim scholar who will counsel clients on the Islamic aspect of civil law cases, while solicitors give advice under Scots law.

.... Despite public fears over what is deemed “creeping” sharia law, the firm stressed that the sharia advice was not legally binding and would mainly focus on giving Islamic guidelines on divorce or child custody based on rigorous readings of the Koran.

.... Maryam Namazie, an ex-Muslim and spokesperson for One Law for All warned that Islamic law was not as innocuous as the firm claimed. .... She said: “Sharia law is discriminatory. It is antithetical to laws that have been fought for and hard won by progressive social movements, particularly in areas of family matters. [Herald Scotland] Read more [via Islamophobia Watch]

Politiken staff rejects prophet drawing apology

Thirty-eight staff members of the Danish daily Politiken issued a letter on Saturday saying they are against the newspaper's apology for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban.

In a letter published in the newspaper, the editorial staff said "Politiken has nothing to apologize for. [Islam in Europe] Read more

Women's organizations want burka ban

In Paris, sixty activists of Ni Putes ni Soumises made an early start on International Women's Dyy by marching with liberty caps in the place de la République, and then symbolically covering the statue there with a giant burka (picture here), later removed by the police. They were protesting what they see as a delay in enacting the law against wearing the burka in public places. [Islam in Europe] Read more

Muslim Leader's Death Threat calls Over Dress

A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.

Shiria Khatun, 38, has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children. In one they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead. [The Daily Express] Read more

Europe is failing its Muslims

Transcript of complete recording of Intelligence Squared debate “Europe is failing it’s Muslims” held at Cadogan Hall, London on Tuesday 23rd February 2010.

"Welcome to Cadogan Hall, here in Central London, for this Intelligence Squared debate coming to you in association with the British Council. The motion, ‘Europe is failing its Muslims’.

"Well, although we’re focusing on Muslims in Europe, this is a topic which is relevant right throughout the world. And we have a panel of some of the most provocative and stimulating speakers on this subject and there’ll be plenty of disagreement, and we’ll be hearing later from our audience. " [Intelligence Squared] Read more

View the full video of this debate here. The video is edited and omits controversial points that are included in the transcript.

'Europe is failing its Muslims' : Debate .... I entered Cadogan Hall inclined to agree with the motion, but I definitely left feeling much less certain – indeed, the whole audience, who were originally split fairly equally for/against/undecided, when voting again at the end, had swayed rather decisively to the opposition. I wonder, though, if many felt as I did that this was not so much because of the opposition’s main arguments, but more because of those which they only touched upon. [Prime Minister’s Global Fellowship] Read more

Murray Condemns BBC for Being "Scared" of Muslims .... The debate stuck a particuarly sour and personal note when Murray, the controversial head of the Centre for Social Cohesion, was requested by the chairperson of the debate Zeinab Badawi to withdraw comments he had made about Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). [EMMA Trust] Read more

Auntie fights shy of new Muslim quarrel .... Murray, speaking against the motion at Cadogan Hall in Sloane Square, told the lively audience that Dr Bari condoned stoning, only to have Badawi, news presenter at BBC World, tell him he was wrong. “That’s not right,” Murray told me after the debate. “Muhammad Abdul Bari said he did in a 2007 interview with the Daily Telegraph — it’s on record.” In the interview, Dr Bari did say stoning could be justified in some circumstances but was a metaphor for disapproval. Murray and Rose carried the debate by more than 100 votes. [London Evening Standard] Read more

MCB Brings Experts and Parliamentarians Together to Discuss Islamophobia

‘The formation of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia would be a crucial step and one that would inspire confidence in Muslim communities’

.... The event entitled ‘Tackling Islamophobia: Reducing Street Violence Against British Muslims’ brought together distinguished Parliamentarians, academics, journalists, police, public servants, and community representatives who all endorsed calls for the establishment of an All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Islamophobia with a view to holding a parliamentary inquiry on Islamophobia in the UK. [MCB] Read more

Dutch concerns over Islam, globalisation drive Wilders’ support

After scoring gains in local elections, Dutch anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders is now primed to make waves in a national poll in June by tapping into discontent over Islam and globalisation.

In the first test of public opinion since the collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s coalition government last month, Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) became the largest party in the city of Almere and came second in The Hague on Wednesday. [Reuters FaithWorld] Read more