Muslim Leader's Duplicity and the Daily Mail

Panorama airs tonight on BBC1 with a program about Asian men grooming white girls for prostitution. Mohammed Shafiq, Director of the Ramadhan Foundation, appears on the documentary. He is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying:

I think the police are overcautious on dealing with this issue openly because they fear being branded racist and I think that is wrong. These are criminals they should be treated as criminals. They are not Asian criminals, they are not Muslim criminals, they are not white criminals. They are criminals and they should be treated as criminals.

He explains his motivation:

I am the only Muslim leader in the UK that speaks up against this sort of thing and I do it because these teenage girls are somebody's sisters and they are somebody's daughters. I have got two daughters and I wouldn't want that to happen to my daughters. "If there is a drug dealer grooming a white teenager into prostitution then I don't want the police service or local authority not to be open about it.

It all sounds very reasonable. Some of you may even be thrilled to see a Muslim leader speak out against what appears to be too much PC nonsense hampering the police efforts. In fact, some comments on the Daily Mail site say just that:

I for one welcome Mohammed Shafiqs views on policing the Asian sector. Thank God he has the common sense to speak out for justice in this country, unlike others.
The law is the law and should not come under the umbrella of political correctness. Police are here to uphold the law and if young girls are being prostituted then it must be stopped. I don't care what race the perpetrators are they must be stopped.

- Jules Ackers, Eastbourne, UK

There is only one problem - Mr Shafiq is not being straight. On his organisation's website is another explanation of his actions:

Whilst there is no evidence that the Police or local authorities are deliberately not speaking out about this evil practice due to the fear of being labeled racist, their silence is contributing to a vacuum where only the BNP benefit.

I would urge the Police, local authorities, religious and community groups to be open about the practice and encourage all to work together to eradicate it, only working together can we defeat it and ensure that the BNP are not seeking political advantage.

So his accusation is not only baseless but more worrying is his motivation. Far from being driven by some humanitarian desire to help these girls his real concern is that the BNP might make "political advantage" from it.

In fact, the police refute his baseless accusations. Det Supt Graham Herrmann of Lancashire Police told a local paper:

It doesn't matter what part of society these people are from we will investigate stringently. It is not about race. Mr Shafiq has talked about a vacuum where the BNP will prosper but there is no vacuum. We are working hard to target and identify those people who are at risk and work to protect those young people in the future.

Here we have a community leader discussing criminal activity within his own community. He recognises the problem but instead of challenging his community's leaders and supporting the police he flings an unfounded accusation at them all the while concerned only that the BNP should not gain any advantage from it. Shame on Mr Shafiq. And shame on the Daily Mail for falling for it.

UPDATE: It appears that Mr Shafiq has a blog on which he has posted the article from the Daily Mail (without a link) and with no mention of his comments on the Ramadhan Foundation website.

Former MI6 Head Calls on Muslims

Former MI6 head, Sir Richard Dearlove, told a conference that Muslims are best placed to root out extremism in Britain. He said:

At the moment it is very easy for al-Qaida to recruit its foot soldiers. The most effective way for Muslim communities to police the al-Qaida influence in the UK is to do it themselves. Community policing in the UK has failed in this specific area.

Would this failure have to do with the government and media giving all their attention to groups run by extremists and Islamists. A group who's head threatens Britain with 2 million home-grown terrorists is not a group that will tackle terrorism. A group that boycotts Holocaust Memorial Day is not a group that will oppose extremism. A group who's leaders call for non-cooperation with police and who support Hamas and Hezbollah is not a group that want to stop Islamism.

By giving these groups all the attention, the moderate majority are effectively silenced and ignored. Instead the debate about Islamism is skewed because we take the opinion of Islamists as mainstream. The government must lead on this by completely ignoring such groups. If we stop shining the spotlight on the extremist groups we might start to find the moderate groups out there.

Three Suspects Released Without Charge

The wife of Mohammed Siddique Khan, her brother and a third relative were released without charge yesterday. They had been arrested in connection with the 7/7 attacks. A fourth man, Khalid Khaliq is still being questioned.

The lawyer for Ms Patel told the BBC News:

Those in her community are incredibly angry at the way the police have approached this. In my view, if their intention in this case was to destroy what relations they had with the Muslim community, then they have done that.

A police spokesman pointed out that:

In all operations some people may be released early without charge while others may remain in custody for further investigation. This is not unusual and is to be expected in large and complex criminal investigations.

The Muslim leadership in Britain is directly responsible for creating a situation in which any police action involving Muslims apparently creates anger. Instead of supporting the police wholeheartedly in their difficult job of rooting out the extremists amongst the Muslim communities, the likes of MCB, MAB etc have denounced them. They have made unfounded claims of police bias against Muslims and told their communities to stop cooperating. They have tried to make the police into the enemy.

And the reason? Because the Muslim groups who are given media attention are run by Islamists and extremists. They are not representative of Muslim opinion. Channel 4's survey last year showed that only 4% of Muslims said that MCB represents them, and only 1% said it about the MAB. Yet, these groups of radicals are the ones the media goes to.

Is there really anger in the Muslim communities? To what extent? We won't really know as long as the media let the extremists tell us what is going on. The media need to stop talking to the loudest voices and assume that they are representative; they aren't. Let's start having truly representative people on the media. How about an MP or two?

Londonistan Calling

An interesting piece by Christopher Hitchens in next month's Vanity Fair entitled "Londonistan Calling". Worth reading if you have time (it's quite long).

Two main points that he makes. Firstly that Islamist terrorism is not about Iraq or foreign policy but about an ideology. Secondly, that the government has not done anywhere near enough to tackle this problem. One of the points he makes is that the government regularly tries to "engage" with the Muslims in Britain but always seems to pick out people who have Islamist ideals.

The reason is fairly obvious; they shout the loudest. But the government (and media) need to stop holding these Islamists (from the MCB and MAB and others) up as examples of Muslim opinion. These guys are not representative; they are the problem.

IHRC Working For Terrorist Goals

The IHRC has released a press statement regarding the kidnapping of Alan Johnston. Johnston was kidnapped on 12th March but this statement from the IHRC was only produced on 9th May, almost two months later. And what is the purpose of the statement; to express concern about the demands from the kidnappers. The statement says:

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is very concerned about claims on al-Jazeera news that BBC journalist Alan Johnston’s kidnappers are demanding the release of Muslim detainees in Britain in exchange for his release.

IHRC calls for the release of British journalist Alan Johnston and condemns any attempt to link his plight to that of Muslim detainees in Britain.

The point of this statement was to try and remove the link between the kidnapping and the "plight" of Muslims detained in Britain. Why? Well, because the IHRC spends a lot of its time working towards having Muslims released from British prisons, including Abu Qatada who's name was mentioned by the kidnappers.

The IHRC wouldn't like to be seen to be campaigning for the same goals as terrorists. But, that is what they are doing. And this statement will not be able to remove that fact.

The Muslim Association of Britain

The Muslim Association of Britain is an Islamist organisation; a British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group is influential in the Stop the War Coalition and organised the "pro-Hijab" campaign to prevent the banning of the Islamic veil. They have wide support amongst liberal groups who ignore the MAB's connections.

These two articles deal with the MAB's Muslim Brotherhood connections and make it clear that this is an organisation that is far from mainstream Muslim ideas.

Two key players to keep an eye on are Dr Azzam Tamimi, and Osama Saeed. Tamimi has expressed his desire to become a suicide bomber as well as supporting Hamas (the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Hezbollah.

Saeed is often quoted as a spokesman on Muslim matters in Scotland. Saeed is normally discreet although he did tell Muslims to not cooperate with the police.

Stop Quoting Islamists

An article appeared today in The Scotsman revealing that nearly half of police forces in Scotland do not keep proper records of religious hate crime. Most of the article is absolutely fine, except this:

Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said: "There is a climate of fear of Islam and general tension about the international situation. Until you know the scale of the problem, you can't tackle it."

He said there was a "communication gap" between the Muslim community and police, and expressed concern that some officers were treating crimes linked to religion as racially motivated.

Mr Saeed would know all about the "communication gap" because he has helped create it. In November he told a public meeting that the police must "lay off" Muslims, and that Muslims "need to be stronger in our defiance" of the police and that they must "resist" what he perceived as police erosion of civil liberties.

Why is the Scotsman quoting this man as if he was a mainstream Muslim working for a mainstream organisation? He has called for non-cooperation with the police. His organisation's leader, Azzam Tamimi, has supported Hamas and Hezbollah vowing to become a suicide bomber himself if he had the opportunity.

It's about time we opposed the media's love-affair with radical Muslims. They shouldn't be given the opportunity to spread their message, and definitely shouldn't be quoted as if they represented the mainstream Muslim opinion. If the MSM cannot find Muslim spokesmen and organisations that do not support terrorism and oppose the police, then don't quote anyone.

UPDATE (17:05): For those coming from Islamophobia-watch please read this post in which Osama's response is exposed as merely semantics. He argued that the word "non-cooperation" never crossed his lips but ignores the fact that he did tell Muslims to "resist" and be "stronger in their defiance."

MPACUK - It's Foreign Policy, Hamas - It's Islam

MPACUK have reiterated their claim that all Islamic terrorism stems from our foreign policy. In fact, they claim that only the blind cannot see it. And, once again, this is simply not true; MPACUK and most of the Muslim leadership are conflating two issues.

The Iraq war has certainly served to politicise British Muslims. They are far more aware of events around the world and want to do something about it. However, politicised Muslims do not carry out terror attacks and aim to kill non-Muslims, radicalised Muslims do.

The terrorists themselves produce videos stating that they die for Allah, that they will enter heaven, that their religion compels them to act. The only people who cannot see that at the root of Islamic terrorism is a version of Islam are the people who do not want to see it.

This insistence that Islamic terror is because of foreign policy makes it impossible for Muslims to oppose it. By convincing themselves that terrorism is a result of foreign policy opposing it becomes opposing opposition to foreign policy, and they can't do that.

Now, while MPACUK and the British Muslim leadership and the liberals shout that it's foreign policy, Hamas have stated clearly today that it's an ideology based on religion. Ahmed Youssef, an aide to Ismail Haniyeh, has said this clearly in discussion over Alan Johnston's kidnapping. The Scotsman reports:

"It's on the way to being resolved. It's being addressed religiously and ideologically," he said, but would not say whether he expected Mr Johnston to be released in days or weeks.

Mr Youssef said negotiators were trying to convince the kidnappers that the extremist Islamic ideology they used to justify holding westerners is incorrect.

Here we have an Islamic extremist himself telling us that this terrorism is the result of an ideology based on Islam. Any questions?