January 2010 

Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares was shocked to discover the FBI is using a digitally-altered image of himself on Osama Bin Laden wanted posters, in an attempt to show how Bin Laden might look after a decade's worth of ageing and possible changes to facial hair.

UK Stop and Search Law Illegal: EU Court
IslamOnline
BRUSSELS— In a major blow to the much-criticized British anti- terrorism powers, the European Court for Human Rights has dismissed the random police stop and search measures as a serious breach of human rights, asking London to suspended them.

Islam4UK to be banned, says Alan Johnson
Alan Travis, Guardian
The Islamist group Islam4UK, which planned a march through Wootton Bassett, and its "parent" organisation, al-Muhajiroun, will be banned under new legislation outlawing the "glorification" of terrorism, Alan Johnson announced today.

The many faces behind the veil
Arifa Akbar & Jerome Taylor, Independent
Jilbab. Niqab. Al Amira. Dupatta. Burqa. Chador. Even the language used to describe the various kinds of clothing worn by Muslim women can seem as complicated and muddied as the issue itself. Rarely has an item of cloth caused so much consternation, controversy and misunderstanding as with the Islamic headscarf or veil.

George Galloway deported from Egypt
Haroon Siddique and agencies, Guardian
George Galloway was today deported from Egypt after police officers refused him re-entry into the Gaza Strip and bundled him on to a plane for London. The Respect MP Galloway, declared "persona non grata" by the Egyptian foreign ministry, arrived back in the UK at around 1pm.

MI5 'still using threats to recruit Muslim spies'
Robert Verkaik, Independent
MI5 faces accusations that its officers have blackmailed and harassed vulnerable immigrants living in Britain as part of a campaign to recruit spies to report on Muslim communities.

The war on terror has been about scaring people, not protecting them
Gary Younge, Guardian
So there was no ticking time bomb. No urgent need ever arose to torture anybody who was withholding crucial details, so that civilisation as we know it could be saved in the nick of time. No wires had to be tapped, special prisons erected or international accords violated.

Pressure on Islamic group to abandon Wootton Bassett protest
Daily Mirror
A town famous for honouring dead British soldiers returning from Afghanistan has called on an Islamic group to abandon plans to march through its streets. Islam4UK - which describes itself as a "platform" for extremists - is planning a parade in Wootton Bassett, Wilts.

EDL calls for ban on veil – and on construction of mosques (Islamophobia Watch)
Terrorists and radicalisation (Enemies of Reason)
Government re-establishes link with Muslim Council of Britain (PP)
Teenage girl: Alpha has 'cult element' (Ruth Gledhill)
Celebrating Orthodox Christmas in Blaenau Ffestiniog (C. Morris, Times)
Winterval: The beast that wouldn't die! (5CC)
Abdurrahman Wahid obituary (Tom Fawthrop, Guardian)

December 2009 

"It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful," said Guillaume Morand, the non-Muslim Swiss businessman who erected a 'minaret' on top of his company building.

Should you be singled out because you are Muslim?
Asian Image
If the reality has not hit home it will in the coming months. Following the failed attempt by Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a major security review will take place across the world. For many Muslim travellers this may mean they are singled out and questioned on a more regular basis.
[Father alerted US about Nigerian plane bomb suspect - BBC News Online]

The real Rain Man dies of heart attack in home town of Salt Lake City, aged 58
Ed Pilkington, Guardian
Kim Peek, the real Rain Man whose almost unimaginable powers of memory were coupled with severe disabilities and who inspired the Oscar-winning film role played by Dustin Hoffman, has died of a heart attack in his home town of Salt Lake City, aged 58.

Copenhagen negotiators bicker and filibuster while the biosphere burns
George Monbiot, Guardian CiF
First they put the planet in square brackets, now they have deleted it from the text. At the end it was no longer about saving the biosphere: it was just a matter of saving face. As the talks melted down, everything that might have made a new treaty worthwhile was scratched out.
[Copenhagen - Historic failure that will live in infamy - Joss Garman]

Anti-Muslim groups protest in vain
Asim Siddiqui, Guardian CiF
Sunday saw the return to Harrow of the English Defence League (EDL) and another group, Stop the Islamification of Europe (SIOE) for an anti-mosque demonstration. The last one was held three months ago to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Green Lane Mosque (Birmingham) responds to the Quilliam Foundation's 'al-Qa'eda' allegations
iEngage
The target of the Quilliam Foundation’s latest press release is Birmingham’s Green Lane Mosque. The Green Lane mosque has responded to the QF’s statement with a press notice of its own.
[Saudi attitudes in Birmingham - Andrew Brown, Guardian]

Muslim inventor set to take orthopaedic prayer rugs worldwide
The Local
Ritual prayer for Muslims with knee problems can be painful, but an entrepreneur in Germany has patented a revolutionary solution to facilitate the centuries-old tradition – orthopaedic prayer rugs.

Muslim ex-inmates to get mentors on release
Catrin Nye, BBC Asian Network
A charity is offering one-to-one support for Muslim criminals on their release from jail in a bid to cut reoffending. The scheme is being run by Mosaic, which runs programmes to support young Muslims living in deprived areas.

Freedom of worship for Ahmadis
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
Here we go again. The Wolverhampton Express and Star reports that an "application to build a mosque" has been refused by a town council, this time Walsall council. The proposal to convert an empty town warehouse into a place of worship was rejected by planning officers on the grounds of it being an "unsuitable location" and that it would cause "traffic congestion".

Prejudice Isn't Daring; It's Boring
Alex Massie, Spectator
So, yes, we all know that Rod Liddle's shtick is to try and be as offensive as possible so that he can chuckle at those po-faced ninnies who dare to be offended by his courageous insistence to tell it like it really is. But like his comrades Clarkson and Littlejohn Liddle confuses being offensive with being provocative.

Swiss poll crushes minarets
Graham Murray, IRR
I'm sitting in a café in Geneva at 8.30am on 'the morning after', which seems like an appropriate expression given yesterday's events. While I write this, the radio news comes on and refers to 'the shock'. Everyone took it for granted that opponents of the ban would outnumber the 'yes' camp. And now Switzerland is in shock.
[Swiss Radicalization: A Sign of Things to Come? - Ahmed Rebah]

Richard Littlejohn -- Viz Character (5CC)

November 2009 

According to the London Evening Standard, the Metropolitan Police have requested that all imagery of its officers hiding or obscuring their badges be removed from news photo libraries and image databases. Hiding numbers is an illegal tactic performed to allow police to act with impunity while committing - often violent - offences against the public. - source  

Rumi's Masnavi, part 1: World figure or new age fad?
Franklin Lewis, Guardian CiF
He died in 1273, but his poetry, his depth of feeling, and his mystical insight made "Our Master" (Mowlana or Mevlana) Rumi the most celebrated mystical poet in the Islamic world, from the Balkans to Bengal and everywhere else Persian was used as a literary, historical and learned language.

Swiss ban on minarets draws widespread condemnation
Ian Traynor, Guardian
Muslim leaders from around the world, senior church figures, European politicians and human rights experts have deplored Switzerland's decision to ban the building of minarets. The polarising verdict in a Swiss referendum held yesterday raised fundamental questions about discrimination and freedom of religion, with the Swiss government itself doubtful over whether the popular vote could be translated into national law, as required by the country's system of direct democracy.
[Swiss poll crushes minarets -- Graham Murray, IRR]

Targeted by the New McCarthyites
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
Cohen is one of a breed of New McCarthyites, who have made it their mission to identify and hunt down "Islamists".

Anti-Muslim Protesters Arrested in Wrexham
Mooneye, Loonwatch.com
Four people were arrested at an anti-Muslim demonstration amid a strong police presence in Wrexham. Around 40 members of a group calling themselves the Welsh Defence League (WDL) shouted racial abuse and gestured towards locals...

Arrests are being made 'to expand DNA files'
R Ford, Times Online
Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national database, according to a report published today. It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned.

Prey for the BNP
Priyamvada Gopal, Guardian CiF
Rajinder Singh, a British Sikh with an extreme dislike of Muslims, is, according to the BNP, "the kind of immigrant you want if you're going to have them". And if, as expected, the party members vote to allow ethnic minorities to join, Singh will be the first...

There can be no 'banning of sharia law'
Bananabrain, CiF
I do not support the aims of the "One Law for All" campaign and today's rally. Nor do I support that which they oppose, namely the use of sharia as a vehicle by Islamist groups to assist their nefarious goals. Obviously, as an observant Jew, the campaign's success would also severely inconvenience me by outlawing Jewish halakhah...

Guests of God: 2.5 Million Muslims Worship in Makkah, Saudi Arabia in This Year's Hajj
Qanta Ahmed, Huffington Post
They will arrive from over 160 countries; many have already departed for their journey as I write. Some are old, some young, some unborn, some about to leave this life and go into the next. They will all come, however, just as the Qu’ran predicted: “on every kind of camel”.

Brown can't even stick to his own nonsense on Afghanistan
Mark Steel, Independent
Bit by bit, as happened with Iraq, the reasons for staying in Afghanistan slide into gibberish. So Gordon Brown's reasons for the war seem to change every week. At one point we were there to stop the opium, then to install democracy, now to prevent terrorist attacks in Britain.

The world's most influential Muslims?
R Butt, Guardian CiF
I was in Cairo International Airport earlier this week, scrolling through Facebook to see what my friends were up to, when I saw Shahed Amanullah had updated his status to say he was one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. I followed his link to see who or what constituted influence these days...

Google opens new chapter as millions of books go into its online library
Murad Ahmed, Times Online
Controversial plans by Google to digitise millions of out-of-print books to create the world’s biggest online library have been approved by British publishing groups and authors. Works from the US, Britain, Canada and Australia will be used, but under the proposals about 95 per cent of non-US books from the original deal will not be covered.

Mentally disabled actors are victims of modern 'blacking-up', says campaigner
Amelia Hill, Observer
The mother of the first actress with Asperger's syndrome to play a fictional character with the condition has launched a campaign to stop actors "playing disabled". Lizzy Clark was 14 when the BBC asked her to play the part of Poppy, a teenage girl with Asperger's, in the television film Dustbin Baby...

Egypt's Darwin debates
Riazat Butt, Guardian CiF
It was perhaps fitting, and more than a little fortuitous, that this weekend's conference on Darwin's legacy coincided with Egypt's crucial World Cup qualifier against Algeria. The British Council's chief executive Martin Davidson joked about natural selection and survival of the fittest, the audience tittered along.

Terrorists smuggle fatwas out of secure prisons
David Leppard, Times Online
In an authoritative (choke!) report, Quilliam, a "think tank" funded by the Home Office, claims “mismanagement” by the Prison Service is helping Al-Qaeda gain recruits and risks “strengthening jihadist movements”. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, shadow security minister, said prisons risked becoming “incubators of extremism”.

The Seattle activists' coming of age in Copenhagen will be very disobedient
Naomi Klein, Guardian CiF
John Jordan cautions, however, that growing up doesn't mean playing it safe, eschewing civil disobedience in favour of staid meetings. "I hope we have grown up to become much more disobedient," Jordan said, "because life on this world of ours may well be terminated because of too many acts of obedience."

Preacher linked to Fort Hood killer has support in Britain ('huge' says front page headline)
Sean O'Neill, Times Online
A radical preacher who allegedly inspired the Fort Hood gunman has a large following in Britain and counts prominent mainstream Muslims among his supporters. The FBI is investigating communications between Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the Texas army base last week, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric now based in Yemen.

Muslims must combat hate speech
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
American Muslim organisations are to be commended for their swift action in excoriating the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan and calling for restraint while the authorities properly investigate what factors could have led to the killing spree. As HA Hellyer noted on Cif, there have been previous shooting incidents perpetrated by non-Muslim soldiers in the US army.

Is man on course to cause the sixth extinction?
Robin McKie The Observer
The subject of eradicated species has become publishing hot property after a bidding battle in the US saw Henry Holt, a publisher, beat its rivals to buy The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert last week. According to the New York Times, a "mid-six-figure advance" has now been agreed between writer and publisher.

Blasting the US with punk Islam
Basim Usmani, Guardian CiF America
Some object to the Kominas' engagement with spiritual or Islamic ideas, others object to us playing punk music while living in our parents' homes. Others object to how we may blaspheme or how most of us aren't Muslim. Rightwing punks think we're fake, self-aggrandising and unpatriotic; leftwing punks think we're un-hip, self hating, and secretly sectarian or sexist.

Spying on Muslims will increase terrorism
Rizwaan Sabir, Guardian CiF
Kim Howells's call for British service personnel to be withdrawn from Afghanistan will be welcomed on the streets of Britain, most notably because people have realised that Tony Blair's support for George Bush's "war on terror" has cost so many lives, including those of British soldiers, without any real results – o election victory of President Karzai

Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute
Michael Ruse, CiF
Richard Dawkins has likened me to the pusillanimous appeaser at Munich, Neville Chamberlain. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, says (echoing Orwell) that only someone with pretensions to the intelligentsia could believe the silly things I believe. And energetic blogger PZ Myers refers to me as a "clueless gobshite"...

When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists
Alaa Al-Aswany, Independent
The Shabaab movement in Somalia controls large parts of the south and centre of the country, and because officials in this movement embrace the Wahabi ideology they have imposed their views on Somalis by force and have issued strict decrees banning films, plays, dancing at weddings, football matches and all forms of music, even the ring tones on mobile phones.

Defining Islamophobia today: the state of the art (Y Birt)
Podcast: Islam Awareness Week (Islam Online)
Regulate international finance and create a global economy that puts people first (TUC)
Tauriq Khalid accused of shouting "white bastards" at BNP supporters, acquitted (Lancashire Telegraph)
Schoolboy confronts Griffin at memorial (Chris Green and Tom Peck, Independent)
 

Sept/Oct 2009