January 2008 Archives

A court has heard a transcript of a Muslim gang in Birmingham planning to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and behead him. According to the transcript, translated from a Pakistani dialect and based on covert recording of Parviz Khan, an unemployed teaching assistant, tells Amjad Mahmood in Birmingham on December 29, 2006:

"Could you get that other job done?" he said, referring to the kidnap plan, "You know what, I have found the people who have said OK."

Not content with having flogged off Britain’s gold reserves at rock bottom prices, and signed up Britain to what is a European constitution in all but name – something his predecessor vowed would not happen without a referendum, it now turns out that Gordon Brown personally authorised abolishing the image of Britannia on the country’s coinage.

Graham Fuller, the CIA’s former head of long-term strategic planning, writes in the lead story of this month’s issue of Foreign Policy, a global politics magazine, that a terrorist attack on the US like 9/11 would likely have occurred even if the “Muslim religion had never existed”.

“In the bluntest of terms, would there have been a 9/11 without Islam?” asks Fuller, the adjunct professor of History at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) has sent out a curious report on a recent behind-closed-doors debate in Paris between the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and the daughter of French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The report of the event, hosted by a private debating forum in Paris, is notable not just for the awful unpalatibility of both participants. Oddest is that the AFP describes the event as a 'left-right clash.'

Tariq Ramadan is perhaps the world's best-known apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood, an advocate of a mere 'moratorium' on stoning and someone whose activities have on various occasions seen him denied entry into Paris and America.

The Netherlands looks set to remain on high alert tonight as it awaits the release of a short film by Geert Wilders which is thought to be highly critical of the Quran. The short film may not be shown for another two weeks, as the Dutch MP attempts to find a television channel which will show his work.

Though the contents of the film are still unknown, they are thought to include desecration of the Quran - which Wilders has already said should be banned in the Netherlands. Comparing the Quran with Mein Kampf (which is already banned in Holland), Wilders has previously said:

Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist movement which wants to establish a global Islamic state, is planning to hold a demonstration outside the Pakistani High Commission on Saturday 26th January.

The group's website says: "Hizb ut Tahrir Britain invites the Muslim community in Britain to attend this demonstration to condemn Musharraf's treachery and British and European hyprocrisy. Make your voices heard across the world as you call for the return of the Khilafah!"

Today's Times contains a report entitled 'Universities join battle against terror as guidelines'. It tells of how Britain's university chiefs have finally agreed 'to inform the police of any extremist behaviour by students or visiting speakers that they suspect may lead to terrorism'.

The announcement of their long overdue agreement coincides with the publication today of university guidelines issued by Universities Minister Bill Rammell on what they can and should do to combat the on-campus radicalisation of students to the point they enlist to commit or otherwise support acts of violent extremism.

The Radical Middle Way, a government-funded organisation set up to counter radical Islamic teachings in the UK, recently held two events in Birmingham (15/01/08) and London (17/01/08). The views expressed by some of the speakers on the topic 'Why Europe needs Islam', arguably call the aims and methods of the organisation into question. Mustafa Ceric, the grand mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, told the audience in Birmingham, pre-dominantly made up of young Muslims, that living under the Islamic caliphate was "one of the "principles of Islam". He said:

"If, as Sheikh Qaradawi says, Islam is Aqidi, Shariah and Khalifah or Imamate, then we are missing one of the principles of Islam because we do not have global leadership."

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has said that the government is considering taking action against websites which promote Islamic extremism.

"If we are ready and willing to take action to stop the grooming of vulnerable young people on social networking sites, then I believe we should also take action against those who groom vulnerable people for the purposes of violent extremism," Smith said on Thursday.

The Yorkshire Post has reported that in Bradford "young Britons of Asian descent are now leading a campaign of intimidation against the new economic migrants from eastern Europe, whom they claim are taking their jobs."

The newspaper also said that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has commissioned Mohammed Ali from QED-UK, a Bradford-based charity, to research the tensions between the "indigenous" South Asians of Bradford and the Eastern European newcomers.

The truth shall set ye free, the good book says, a venerable adage that strangely seems to admit of exception in the case of straight-talking Anglican bishops.

This is especially true of those, like Bishop Nazir-Ali, with temerity enough to claim that Muslim no-go areas have lately grown up in Britain in consequence of large-scale immigration, combined with multiculturalism and the rise of Islamic extremism.

No sooner did his claim appear at the week-end in an article in the Sunday Telegraph than a stampede quickly broke out among politicians and pundits eager to be first into the tv studios to sound off about how lacking in all evidence was the bishop’s claim.

On 3 January 2008, 63 supposedly separate individuals and Muslim organisations urged Muslim Londoners to vote for Ken Livingstone in his re-election campaign later this year. The BBC described these groups as representing 'the overwhelming majority of Muslims in London'. In fact just under half of the signatories failed to disclose their affiliation to one of two Muslim groups - the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) - both of which have links to fundamentalist organisations. Furthermore several signatories have little or no connection to London or have been employed by the Mayor's office.

A three month investigation by News of the World newspaper has reportedly found that several Asian lawyers in the East End are willing to provide fake passports to British Muslims involved in terrorist activity. One lawyer, Mohmmed Kutub Uddin from the Syed Shaheen law firm, agreed to provide a fake Bangladeshi passport, telling an undercover reporter who was posing as a "terrorist on the run":

"I can give my last drop of blood for Islam. Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam. They ruled us for 200 years. They made this country by sucking the blood of the Muslims. Now I want to help my people!"