Liberty and Biscuits

Who is Anwar al-Awlaki?

2009-11-09T14:53:00.000-08:00

Who is Anwar al-Awlaki?

At Ford Hood on Friday November 5, after giving away a Koran, Major Nidal Malik Hasan called out "Allahu Ackbar" and began shooting at his fellow military personnel. Ultimately he killed 13 and wounding 29, and the media was buzzing with rumors.

Recently, one American born Islamic academic has been in the headlines, apparently connected to both Major and also to Al Qaeda terrorists. Anwar al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico. He has lived in Yemen since late 2001 or early 2002, but possesses a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University, a M.A. in Education Leadership from San Diego State University.

Though he has not returned to the United States, Awlaki has made promises to appear in Britain, a country that has a less-than-perfect approach to issues of immigration and Islamic extremism. On December 18, 2003 in Britain's parliament, Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool, Riverside, brought up the associations of Alwaki with the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, which had been founded by Kemal el-Helbawy, a senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Ms Ellman said: "It is time that the spotlight fell on the Muslim Association of Britain, particularly the key figures, such as Azzam Tamimi, Kamal el Helbawy, Anas Al-Tikriti and Mohammed Sawalha. All of them are connected to the terrorist organisation Hamas. The Muslim Association of Britain itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—an extremist fundamentalist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928, and the spiritual ideologue of all Islamic terror organisations. It is militantly anti-Semitic and always has been. In June 2003, the Muslim Association of Britain organised a series of meetings with an American imam, Anwar Al Awlaki, as guest speaker. That gentleman is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington."

In America, Awlaki has also been associated with senior figures within the Muslim Brotherhood.

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At the start of April 2009 London's City University had advertised that Anwar al-Awlaki would be a guest speaker at the annual dinner of the college's Islamic Society. When the event did take place, Awlaki did not appear in person but via a video link. In places like Britain, official Muslim "representatives" insist that they are peace-loving good citizens, the leaders of many campus Islamic Societies, such as the one at City University, clearly support the ideologues of extremism and terrorism.

Awlaki's reputation as an extremist is hard for Muslims to deny. His own website carries messages in support of armed jihad. On the subject of Major Nidal Hasan, Alwaki's site carries an uncompromising message. The message, repeated in full here begins: "Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges."

"Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal."

In case anyone is any doubt as to Awlaki's direct involvement with terrorists, they should look at the message which Awlaki published on his website, claiming to come from the Al-Qaeda related terrorists of al-Shabab, who have been fighting the official government and imposing their own brutal and misogynistic version of Islam onto civilians. The message from December 2008 thanks Awlaki for his advice that he sent them. Al-Shabab claimed that Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, the girl who had been stoned to death on October 27, 2008 had been 20 years old, and had been practicing adultery.

The girl was stoned to death in front of 1,000 people. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported claims by Aisha's father that she was only 13 years old and had been raped. Al-Shabab told Awlaki: "O Sheikh, we would not only look at you as only a soldier, but as the likes of Ibn Taymiya during the trials of the Tatars." Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) was a scholar whose views strongly influenced Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century imam who founded the brutal and intolerant Wahhabism that is officially practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Awlaki was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents. He became well-known after the events of 9/11 as he allegedly had links to three of the terrorists involved in the plot that caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people.

Evan Kohlmann on the Counterterrorism Blog makes mention of a work by Awlaki called "Constants on the path of Jihad" (Thawaabit ‘ala darb al Jihad). Kohlmann maintains that the document and its author, seem "to surface in every single homegrown terrorism investigation, whether in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, or beyond." It certainly has appeared on extremist websites, often described by an alternative name "Constants on the Path of Allah".

A Pakistani website has mp3 copies of the oral lecture on this subject, as well as a pdf transcript of the entire lecture. However, I am loath to give a link to such a document. In brief, it maintains that there are constants in jihad. The first: Jihad will continue until the Day of Judgment. The second: Jihad does not depend on an individual or individuals. The third: Jihad is not dependent on a particular land. The fourth: Jihad is not dependent on a particular battle. The fifth: Victory is not limited to military victory. The sixth: The definition of defeat.

There is no compromise in any of part of this work - Awlaki urges Muslims to reject any non-Muslim authority, and to ignore any peaceful coexistent with Christians or Jews, the "People of the Book" (Ahlul Khitaab). Living with them is considered a "defeat". These people should be fought until they are not only defeated but ultimately humiliated. Like Marxist/Trotskyite "permanent revolution", there must always be war for the sake of Allah.

"Jihad to them (weak Muslims) means an inner struggle more than anything. This is a very twisted concept of Jihad via Western propagation albeit it is true from a linguistic point of view. However, the overall Islamic connotation of Jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah (Jihad fe Sabeelillah)..."

"...Regarding Martyrdom bombings, when you have a Muslim who has a chance of success from the worldly point of view, and searches for martyrdom, it completely destroys the theories of the kuffar (i.e., suicide, poor, oppression etc.) and forces them to look at the true reason as to why someone would give up his life."

Awlaki quotes violent Hadiths and violent verses from the Koran. Even ambiguous texts are interpreted as messages of total war against anyone who does not conform to his fanatical and bloodthirsty version of Islam. There should be no discussion with those who insult Mohammed, only savage retribution.

Despite presenting an image of himself as morally scrupulous, by Western standards could be considered as a sex pest. Chitra Ragavan wrote that in San Diego, "al-Awlaki had twice been busted for soliciting prostitutes in 1996 and 1997 but had avoided jail time.... FBI sources say agents observed the imam allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia and contemplated using a federal statute usually reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines. But in March 2002, al-Awlaki abruptly left the country for Yemen.

In Yemen, Awlaki has continued to promote his jihadist arguments. In November 2006 it was reported that he had briefly been incarcerated in Yemen. Awlaki had been arrested in August 31, 2006 and had been held in Central Security Prison in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. He was finally released without charge on December 12, 2007.

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Awlaki is regarded as a protege of Abd-al-Majid Al-Zindani, who was designated by the US Treasury as a terrorist on February 24, 2004. Zindani was a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and he set up the Al Iman University in Sanaa in Yemen. Awlaki also teaches at this college, which has about 5,000 students. Graduates of this institution were arrested for the murder of three American Baptist missionaries on December 30, 2002. The missionaries worked at a Christian missionary hospital in Jibla, southern Yemen. One of those arrested - a man called Abed Abdulrazzak Kamel - was convicted in 2003 and given a death sentence.

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During his trial, Kamel (pictured) had justified himself by claiming that he thought the missionaries - Martha Myers, 54, an obstetrician from Montgomery, Alabama, William Koehn, 60, hospital director, from Kansas, and administrator Kathleen Gariety, 53, from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin - had been trying to convert Muslims. They all worked for the American Missionary board, based in Richmond, Virginia. A fourth individual (Donald Caswell, 49, from Texas) had been shot in the stomach but had survived.

On February 27, 2002, Kamel was executed by firing squad. Kamel was linked by Yemeni authorities to Islah, the Islamist opposition party. It was also argued that Kamel had links to Al Qaeda. This was denied by his lawyers, but on May 13, 2003 a week after Kamel had been condemned and given his death sentence, a bomb had exploded in the courthouse in Jibla, where he had stood trial. Several individuals, including a judge, were injured.

As reported by the Jamestown Foundation, there have been rumors that Al-Zindani gave a fatwa that resulted in the attack on USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in 2000, an event that killed 17 US sailors. Following this incident, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh had become an ally of America in its war on terror.

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Perhaps on account of a request from the US, the Yemenis had arrested Anwar al-Awlaki in 2006. Both Zindani (above) and Awlaki continue to reside in Yemen, with little interference from the authorities. Zindani has a center where he administers a controversial "cure" for AIDS victims - prayer. He also believes that women are intellectually inferior to men.

Links to Major Nidal Malik Hasan

Awlaki was at one stage in the 1990s an imam in Colorado. He later moved to the Washington D.C. vicinity and became the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. He became involved with the Dar-al Hijrah Islamic Center mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, and in 2001 he headed this institution. This mosque has had a checkered history. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was sentenced to 30 years' jail on March 29, 2006 for plotting an assassination of George W. Bush, was a frequent worshipper at this mosque. Ali had attended the mosque, which was founded in 1983, on a daily basis.

Others who had attended the mosque included known and suspected terrorists, and extremists. Muhammad al-Hanooti who, according to the FBI, raised money for Hamas via the Holy Land Foundation. Ismail Selim Elbarasse, one of the mosque's co-founders was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.

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Many of the attendees of this mosque are of Palestinian descent. One former member of the mosque congregation was Abdurahman Alamoudi (above), who was sentenced to 23 years' jail on October 15, 2004. A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Alamoudi had pleaded guilty to charges of financing terrorism. Alamoudi had also been a frequent guest at the Clinton White House. Through the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council he had been responsible for choosing and vetting the Muslim chaplains for both the US military and also the US prisons.

It is known that on May 31, 2001, Nidal Malik Hasan had a funeral service for his mother at the Dar-al Hijrah Islamic Center. At that time, Awlaki would have been an imam at the mosque. Awlaki had been under FBI surveillance before the events of 9/11. He had admitted to the FBI that when he had been living in San Diego he had met Nawaf al-Hazmi on a few occasions. Hazmi had been living with Khalid al-Mihdhar. In April 2001, Hazmi and Hani Hanjour had attended the Dar-al Hijrah Islamic Center. Hanjour, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were among the five men who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11. This was the plane that was flown into the Pentagon, killing all 64 plane passengers, and 125 people inside the Pentagon building.

There will be much that will appear in the following days about Awlaki's possible links with both Major Nidal Malik Hasan and the perpetrators of the Pentagon terrorist attack.

What is certain is that Awlaki continues to have a malignant influence. His website is popular. On October 18 this year, the Toronto Star reported that Awlaki had been influential upon the people who had been arrested in Canada after attending a terror training camp. The "Toronto 18" as they are called, had apparently planned to burst into the parliament building at Ottowa and decapitate prime minister Stephen Harper.

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Most disturbingly of all, Awlaki has a Facebook page. A month ago, Awlaki had 4,800 "fans". Since the recent events involving the army gunman at Fort Hood, Awlaki's fans now number 5,107.

Make no mistake - despite all attempts to reach out to Muslims, who are predominantly peaceful, there are still some who do share Awlaki's interpretation of Islam. In today's times of touchy-feely rapprochements with the political elements within the Islamic world, it is perhaps salutary to read Awlaki's words on the slaughter of the soldiers at Fort Hood:

"The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy."

Exclusive: Al Qaeda's North African Connection (Part Two of Three)

2009-10-22T13:32:00.001-07:00

Exclusive: Al Qaeda's North African Connection (Part Two of Three)

Click here for Part One and here for Part Two

The activities of AQIM

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When the newly re-structured AQIM (Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) attacked foreign oil workers on December 10, 2006, it signaled a new direction. As "GSPC" (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), the group had lost much of its impetus. The attack on Brown and Root-Condor's workers which took place at Bouchaoui, nine miles west of Algiers, was the first attack on foreigners by GSPC Islamists in several years.

Linked with Al Qaeda, the group returned to some of its previous tactics, including the kidnapping of foreigners. The scale of GSPC/AQIM's bombing attacks against Algerian government targets would increase. In a pattern that has continued through to this year, the group has killed foreigners in brutal manners resembling the actions of the early GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé).

On Thursday, October 12, a month after Abu Musab Abdelwadud had sworn his allegiance to Al Qaeda, Rabah Aïssat, chairman of the People's Assembly of the Province of Tizi Ouzou was shot dead in a cafe at Aïn Zaoula.

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With GSPC/AQIM's new allegiance to Al Qaeda, the activities in the south of the group's region became more pronounced. This region had been led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar (Moktar Belmoktar, pictured). Belmoktar had been an ally of Hassan Hattab, the founder of GSPC. When Hassab was ousted, Belmokhtar had consolidated his position as the "southern emir" of GSPC. In 2002, he had been nicknamed "the Uncatchable" by French authorities. He is also called "The One-eyed." Belmokhtar's terrain stretched beyond national borders, extending into Mali and Mauritania.

In September 2006 his right-hand man, an individual known as AbdelHamid, was killed in fighting with Tuaregs in Mali. This man appears to be Abdel Hamid Zaïd Essoufi (aka Abdelhamid abou Zaïd, Abdelhamid Essoufi), a senior figure within the AQIM hierarchy. There are frequent reports of deaths of GSPC/AQIM figures. Mokhtar Belmokhtar himself has frequently been falsely reported as dead.

On October 23, 2006 at least six Malian Tuaregs were killed by Belmokhtar's forces.

By October 31, 2006 a year after the government's reconciliation process had first been announced, 442 jihadists had accepted terms of amnesty. But bombings continued. On October 30, 2006 , two vehicle bombs detonated within five minutes of each other beside police headquarters in the districts of Réghaïa and Dergana in the east of Algiers province. Three people, including a woman, were killed, and 24 people, mostly police officers, were injured.

A week after the Bouchaoui incident, where foreign workers were attacked, French security forces warned that two stages of the Paris-Dakar Rally should be cancelled. These stages, had they taken place, would have taken drivers through eastern Mauritania and northern Mali on January 16 and 17, 2007, passing directly into the territory of Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

A rocket attack was made against an army post in Batna in the east of Algeria, on January 30, 2007. Five soldiers were killed in the attack, and in the ensuing fighting, a further 10 Islamists were killed.

On February 6, 2007, Yakoub Khelifa, a former mayor of Benchoud, in the northern district of Boumerdes, was shot dead. Khelifa was a retired policeman. Four days before, on Friday February 2, a homemade bomb went off in the changing rooms of Benchoud soccer stadium during a match. A year earlier, on March 24, 2006, another mayor of Benchoud, (a href = "http://www.elwatan.com/La-maire-de-Benchoud-assassine" target = "a">48-year old Djellal Brahim) was killed, shot in the head outside his home.

Osama bin Laden added legitimacy to GSPC's affiliation to Al Qaeda. His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had given his blessing to the group on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, but on January 26, 2007, Abu Musab Abdelwadud announced online that "We were anxious to change the name from the announcement of our allegiance (to Al Qaeda), but we could not do so before consulting Sheikh Osama bin Laden, God preserve him. Sheikh Osama bin Laden sent his order and his choice. So, the group tells all Muslims in Algeria and beyond that it has shed its former name... and is now called the Al Qaeda in the territory of the Islamic Maghreb." Nouredine Yazid Zerhouni, Algeria's interior minister, responded by stating that new name or not, security forces would still use the same methods to combat GSPC/AQIM.

On February 13, 2007, multiple bombs were set off in Kabiliye, in the east of the nation. An official AQIM message appeared online, praising "the brave mujahideen" who carried out the car bombings, and denouncing Algeria as a "State of thieves, slaves, Jews and Christians and children of France."

25 fugitive terrorists were tried in absentia on February 26, 2007 and were sentenced to death. Criminal court magistrates at Bourmerdes also gave three others jail terms of 20 years. Two days later, the Boumerdes courthouse saw 11 more terrorists sentenced to death for their part in a bomb and gun attack near Zemmouri racecourse on October 17, 2003, in which four Algerian soldiers had been killed. Various security force checkpoints in Boumerdes district were attacked on February 28, but only two people were injured.

On March 3, 2007, AQIM mounted a bomb attack against a bus full of employees of a Russian company. A Russian engineer and three Algerians were killed. Five people were injured. The attack took place at Hayoun, near Ain Defla in southern Algeria as the workers were laying a gas pipeline. AQIM released an internet statement: "Mujahedeen (Islamic warriors) using a high intensity bomb targeted the convoy of Russian infidels working for the Russian company Stroytransgaz. We dedicate this modest conquest to our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ... victims of the criminal Putin."

Suicide Bombings

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On April 11, 2007, AQIM mounted a double bombing in Algiers, the capital. A total of 33 people died. One of the bombs was aimed at the office of prime minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem (below). The second attack was carried out by a suicide bomber at a police station in Bab Ezzouar at the edge of the capital. More than 30 people were killed.

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The use of suicide bombers had not been a hallmark of GSPC (or GIA)activities in Algeria before it merged with Al Qaeda. The employment of suicide bombers that began on April 11, 2007 signaled a new departure. Between April 2007 and September 2008, a total of seventeen suicide attacks took place.

Localized violence reached a peak in the run-up to elections which were held on May 17, 2007. In the east of the country, in the days before the voting began, a series of bomb attacks and ambushes caused 18 soldiers and 22 Islamist fighters to be killed. The elections, once held, gave the incumbent government a mandate to continue their policies.

On July 11, 2007, a suicide attacker blew up the refrigerated truck he was driving at a barracks at Lakhdaria village near Bouira, 75 miles east of Algiers. Eight soldiers were killed at the scene, with two dying later.

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On August 14, 2007, a former FIS- and then GIA-affiliated Islamist rebel was critically injured in a bomb attack. A bomb was placed in a car outside a mosque, and went off when Mustapha Kertali left the place of worship. Kertali had supported the government since 1999. He died from his injuries.

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A bomb attack by AQIM, which appears to have been aimed at assassinating President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, took place at Batna, 280 miles east of Algiers, on September 6, 2007. The president was scheduled to visit the town when a suicide bomber, who carried his device in a plastic bag, blew himself up within the waiting crowd. 22 people died, and 107 were injured.

At Dellys on September 8, a Coast Guard barracks was attacked. A van which usually delivered food supplies was used as a bomb by a suicide attacker. At least 30 people were killed and 47 people were injured.

On September 14, 2007, at Zemmouri, 31 miles east of Algiers, a bomb was detonated outside a police compound. Three died and five others were wounded.

On September 21, 2007 a suicide bomber in a car loaded with 250 kilograms of explosives attacked a convoy of foreign engineering workers near Lakhdaria. These were under a police escort. Nine people were injured, including two French and two Italian workers. Five Algerian policemen were also among the injured. The engineers were employees of the French company Razel, and were working on the massive Koudat Acerdoune dam project. AQIM later named the suicide attacker as Ben Othman Jaffar. The attack upon the Razel workers came a day after Ayman al-Zawahiri of Al Qaeda had called for support to AQIM, to "purge the Maghreb of the sons of France and Spain."

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On December 11, 2007 two vehicle bombs, driven by suicide bombers, were used to attack targets in Algiers, the capital. The first bomb detonated outside the Supreme Court (above). A bus full of law students was passing when the bomb went off, and many of these were amongst the fatalities. The second bomb was set off minutes later, outside the UNHCR building. At least 10 UN staff were killed. A statement on an Islamist website claimed the attackers were named Abdul-Rahman al-Aasmi and Ami Ibrahim Abou Othman. Picures of the two men were shown, posing with rifles. In all, at least 67 people died and more than 150 were injured.

Beyond Algeria's Borders

AQIM/GSPC activists were already established in the countries of Mauritania and Mali. A notorious GSPC leader in the south had been Amari Saifi, a former deputy of Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Saifi had also been a paratrooper in the Algerian Army. Saifi bought loyalty from officials in Mali, and even married the 14-year old daughter of a Mauritanian tribal leader.

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Saifi became known to the media after 32 European tourists were kidnapped in the Sahara region. His fame would not last long. He was chased by security forces through Mali and fled to Chad where he himself became the hostage (pictured) of a rebel group, the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad. In October 2005 Libyan and Chadian authorities returned him to Algeria. His current fate is unknown.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar is close to both Abdel Hamid Zaïd Essoufi and Yahia Djouadi who command their own factions within the Sahel-Sahara Zone. Abdel Hamid commands a faction in Mauritania. This is called the Tarek Ibn Zaid battalion, after one of his own aliases. He was appointed to lead this group by Amari Saifi. Djouadi's sphere of operation is in northern Mali. On July 3, 2008, Djaouli was listed as an Al Qaeda terrorist by the UN. On July 17, 2008, Djouadi and Abdel Hamid were listed by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

At the end of 2007, AQIM activists in Mauritania committed a horrific crime designed to damage the tourist industry. A French family was on holiday in Mauritiania, and on Christmas Eve 2007 they were in Aleg, 150 miles east of Nouakchott. They were attacked by three gunmen and four members of the family were shot dead. The father had severe head injuries.

Several suspects would be captured in Mauritania after the killings, though two suspects had escaped to Guinea-Bissau. These were apprehended. They were named as Mohamed Ould Chabarnou and and Sidi Ould Sidna, who were described by a police inspector as "presumed al Qaeda terrorists." The two were deported to Mauritania to stand trial.

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On April 2, 2008, Sidi Ould Sidna escaped from custody and went on the run, being givien a "Red Notice" by Interpol. He was eventually captured on April 30, 2008. He had been captured together with Khadim Ould Semane, who was the alleged leader of an attack upon the Israeli Embassy in Nouakchott that had taken place three months earlier.

Khadim Ould Semane was a Mauritanian who had joined GSPC/AQIM. He was apparently sent into Mauritania by AQIM to establish a cell in the country. He called his faction Al-Ansar Allah al-Murabitun. Semane would be a local leader of AQIM in Mauritania at the time of the Aleg attack, and was rounded up after the killing. He had been imprisoned at one stage, but in 2006 he had escaped with two others and was incarcerated once more. When placed on trial , all three had been acquitted for lack of evidence.

The Paris-Dakar Rally, which had been diverted in 2007 on account of GSPC/AQIM activity, would be cancelled altogether in 2008 because of the group's militants. It was the first time since the annual rally was initiated in 1978 that it was cancelled.

On February 1, 2008 gunmen attacked the Israeli Embassy in Nouakchott. Though three French civilians were injured by stray bullets, the Israeli ambassador, Boaz Bismuth, claimed that no embassy staff were hurt. AQIM claimed responsibility for the attack. Nefa Foundation has published a translation of the Al Qaeda statement, which can be read (in pdf format) here.

On September 18, 2008, the bodies of eleven Mauritanian soldiers and their civilian guide were found in Zouerate in Aklet Tourine. The 12 individuals had been kidnapped by AQIM a week previously. All the bodies had been mutilated and also decapitated. Mauritania, politically in the wilderness after a coup that had taken place on August 6, requested international assistance to deal with the activities of AQIM.

AQIM had called for a "Holy War" following the coup. After the murder of the soldiers, they celebrated the incident, which they called the "Battle of Zouerate". This appeared on September 22, 2008, A translation (pdf format) from NEFA is here.

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AQIM were also responsible for the first suicide attack in Mauritania, which took place on August 8, 2009. Two French guards and a Mauritanian woman were injured in the blast. The attacker was wearing a suicide belt, and according to eyewitnesses, he went towards two French individuals who were jogging, and then cried out "Allahu Ackbar" before blowing himself up. Another witness said: "I turned towards him, only to see smoke, dispersed human remains and wounded people. It was a horrible scene, and I have never seen anything like it in my life."An announcement from AQIM named its operative as Obeida Abu Moussa al-Basri.

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The most recent atrocity to be carried out by the southern wing of AQIM took place on June 23, 2009 when an American teacher called Chris Leggett was murdered in Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. He was shot several times. Shortly after his murder, AQIM announced that it had carried out the killing. Mr Leggett came from Cleveland, Tennessee and taught computer skills in an impoverished neighborhood of Nouakchott.

Fighting the "Apostates"

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The suicide attacks which had started in Algeria in 2007 continued in 2008. On July 23, 2008 on the outskirts of Lakhdaria, thirteen soldiers were injured when their truck was hit by a suicide attacker on a motorcycle.

In August 2008, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb mounted a series of attacks in the northern province of Tizi Ouzou. The increased aggression, as suggested by Algeria's Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, may have been a response to actions by Algeria's security forces. 12 terrorists had been killed in Beni Douala in on the night of 7-9 August 2008. This incident in the forested region near Takhoukht was the culmination of an intense security operation that had started in June. This operation commenced after Beni Amrane train station was bombed on June 8, killing 12 people.

AQIM released an internet "press release" in which it identified those who carried out the August 2008 "revenge" attacks. A translation of this press release (in pdf format) can be found here. The press release made no mention of a failed suicide attack that had taken place outside a police station in Tizi Ouzou city on August 3. The bomber ripped himself to shreds and injured 12 people, but killed no-one. What is significant in the AQIM statement is the manner in which anyone supporting the Algerian government is labeled as an "apostate".

AQIM mentions an attack which injured three policemen in the forested region near Tikzirt. Two bombs had been detonated "on the apostate police" on August 10. Two of the injured needed urgent treatment. After exchanging gunfire, the assailants fled into the forest.

On August 19, 2008 at Khamis Kur in Issers, 35 miles east of the capital, a suicide bomber driving a truck filled with explosives detonated his vehicle outside a police training school as recruits lined up to be interviewed. 43 people were killed, 42 of them civilians, including relatives of the potential recruits. The suicide bomber was only identified by AQIM as "Haroun".

The following day, Bouira was hit by a double car bombing, which killed a dozen people. 12 Algerian employees of a multinational engineering firm were killed on their way to work when one car bomb, parked near a hotel, blew up. AQIM, who said that this bomber was called Abdelrahman Abu Zaynab al-Mauritani, claimed that the Algerian engineers were "Canadian". The company they worked for is SNC-Lavalin, which has its headquarters in Montreal. The other car bomb, driven by a terrorist called Abu Bakr al-Assimi had targeted a military compound on the outskirts of Bouira. AQIM stated this attack took the lives of "at least 10 soldiers", a claim which is not backed up by available reports.

On 17 August 2008, 12 military personnel had been killed in an ambush near Skikda. AQIM described this encounter in delirious terms, where "with great bravery and fearlessness the lions of al-Tawheed vigorously harmed the apostates and killed at least 10 police dogs and wounded numerous more." The dogs were canines, regarded as haram by many Muslims. AQIM celebrated the "booty" of weaponry that had been seized in the attack.

A full list of all AQIM attacks during 2008 can be found here.

Kidnapping

Attacks against police and military targets, actions which have always been associated with GSPC and its antecedents, continue to this day. Berbers in northeastern Algeria were reported in April 2008 to be showing signs of resentments at the methods employed by AQIM which incurred high civilian casualties.

It appears that kidnappings, which had been carried out for profit by GIA and GSPC were again being employed for similar means. In Europe, there were numerous cells, and recruiting networks operated in Spain's Costa del Sol, in Italy and also France and Belgium. These cells never made much money, but had successfully recruited individuals to go to Iraq to fight coalition troops. By the start of 2007, most Western governments had been alert to the traffic of jihadists into Iraq.

According to the Jamestown Foundation 200 AQIM activists had been killed between January and August 2008. Thomas Renard stated that AQIM had been "driven to the wall."

Internationally, Al Qaeda's finances are currently thought to be drying out, so bargaining for hostages appeared to promise funding. 32 European tourists had been held in 2003, and some media reports had claimed then that the German government had paid GSPC $5 million for them to be released.

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On February 22, 2008, two Austrian tourists were snatched in Tunisia. They were Andrea Kloiber, 43, and Wolfgang Ebner, 51. On March 14, 2008, AQIM gave a three day deadline for the release of GSPC/AQIM prisoners in Tunisia and Algeria. A statement read; "Austria would be responsible for the lives of the two hostages should the deadline come and our demands are not met. As you care for the safety of your citizens, we care to free our brothers who face the ugliest forms of torture at the prisons of Tunisia... and Algeria." AQIM additionally warned tourists to stay away from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

The deadline for the lives of Kloiber and Ebner passed, with no news of their status. There were suggestions that the kidnappers wanted 5 million Euros ($7.5 million) ransom. Additionally, a radio report claimed that the pair would be freed if a Muslim couple who had just been convicted in Vienna, Austria, for making terror threats, were released.

Eventually, the two Austrians were freed in Mali on October 30, 2008.

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On December 14, 2008, Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler (pictured) and Louis Guay were found to be missing on a trip in Niger. A Tuareg group calling itself Front des Forces Redressement made an announcement on its website, claiming that it had kidnapped the men and their guide and driver.

On February 17, 2009 AQIM announced that it was holding the two diplomats. The spokesman, who called himself Salah Abu Mohammed, claimed in an audio recording that AQIM was holding four European tourists who had been seized on January 22 in eastern Mali, near Timbuktu. They were a Swiss couple, a Briton and a German woman who had been attending a Tuareg cultural event at Anderamboukane, and had been on a trip organized by German tour company Oase Reisen.

The diplomats' driver was released on March 21, and after much negotiation, Fowler and Guay were freed on April 21. With them were released the two women among the European hostages, Marianne Petzold from Germany and Gabriella Greiner from Switzerland. Greiner's husband and a Briton remained in captivity.

On April 26, 2009, AQIM delivered another message. It stated that Britain should release the radical cleric Abu Qatada, who was once described by a Spanish judge as "Al Qaeda's ambassador in Europe." Qatada's sermons were found in the possession of members of the Hamburg Group, a cell which included 9/11 hijackers. AQIM gave a deadline of 20 days for the cleric to be freed, or the British hostage, Edwin Dyer, would be killed. Britain's foreign office did not release Mr Dyer's name.

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On June 3, 2009 it was announced that Edwin Dyer had been beheaded. AQIM issued a statement which read: "The British captive was killed so that he, and with him the British state, may taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the crusader and Jewish coalition to the east and to the west.." The killer is suspected to be Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

Werner Greiner was freed in July 2009, appearing in the desert region of Gao in the north of Mali. On July 13, 2009, Algerian newspaper El Khabar reported that Werner Griener had been freed after a ransom of 3 million Euros ($4.5 million) had been paid to AQIM, though it did not say who had paid the money.

In June 2009, the Jamestown Foundation reported on an interview given by the head of AQIM's Political Committee. Abu Abdullah Ahmad (aka Ahmed Deghdegh) claimed that there had been an influx of jihadists to AQIM. These new fighters had arrived from neighboring nations in North Africa.

Ahmad had contempt for Hassan Hattab, who had founded GSPC in 1998 but had since renounced the path of jihad. Ahmad said: "Hattab does not have any influence or respect in the mujahideen circles. On the contrary, the mujahideen has considered him for years a traitor who sold his eternity for his life." He also spoke of the need to liberate Cueta and Melilla. These are Spanish-controlled ports in the Moroccan coast.

Al Qaeda's leaders have made frequent mentions of "Andalus", the name given to Spain when it was under Islamic control, following the invasion in 711 AD by Tariq bin Zayid (Tarek Ibn Zaid). Earlier this month, AQIM announced that it had formed a new media wing called "Al-Andalus".

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The full transcript of the announcement, translated for the NEFA foundation, can be found (in pdf format) here.

Kelly Doffing of Global Security Monitor observes: "That AQIM created their own media branch and disavowed publications by any other foundation signifies both that AQIM has expanded its focus and that Central Command is losing centralized control over its regional affiliates."

Whether this indicates weakness on the part of Al Qaeda Central Command or not, it signifies a new confidence. The move suggests that AQIM may be nurturing ambitions to expand its sphere of operations, perhaps exploiting the networks already it has established in Spain. Though the task of reconquering Spain may seem impossible, the ports of Cueta and Mellila, colonized since 1415 AD, could be considered credible targets for AQIM. Cueta has already been associated with the activities of Al Qaeda affiliate GICM.

The future of AQIM and its "Al-Andalus" project is unknown. The recent arrest of Adlene Hicheur, the CERN nuclear scientist, suggests that AQIM may have activists in all walks of life. One thing is certain. With existing cells and networks that they can draw upon in most Western European nations, AQIM is not going to fade away in the near future.

Al Qaeda's North African Connection

2009-10-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda's North African Connection

Part Two (of Three)

Part One can be found here.

Connections

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GSPC was founded in 1998 from an offshoot of GIA, the "Armed Islamic Group" based in Algeria. GIA had originally been approved by Al Qaeda, according to jihad ideologue and Al Qaeda "defector" Sayyed Imam al-Sharif (aka "Dr Fadl").

On December 24, 1994, GIA members in Algiers had hijacked an Air France jet aircraft with 227 passengers on board, apparently intending to fly it into the Eiffel Tower. The four hijackers had demanded that the plane be filled with fuel in amounts three times higher than needed to reach Paris.

The Air France plane landed at Marseilles, where negotiations took place. Here, French security forces raided the plane, freeing the remaining 170 hostages, and killing all the terrorists. In 1995 other GIA attacks were carried out in France. These, and the Eiffel Tower plan, had been designed to "punish" France for supporting the Algerian government. The 1994 plan to fly a plane full of hostages into a landmark, if true, happened a year before Ramzi Yousef's Bojinka plot and seven years before the horrors of 9/11.

From 1997 until 2002, GIA was led by Anton Zouabri, who had openly declared that all Algerian civilians who did not support the group were targets. It is generally assumed that during this time, Zouabri's genocidal activities against Algerian villagers caused even Al Qaeda to grow cool towards the operation.

While North African activists linked to Al Qaeda fought wars of attrition at home, others were busy in Europe. Al Qaeda had support from, and influence over, groups such as the GIA, and then the GSPC, as well as the Tunisian Combat Group, and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).

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Additionally, a group called Salafia Jihadia, an offshoot of GICM, had operatives in Morocco and Spain. Between 1999 and late 2001, the head of Salafia Jihadia, Mohamed Fizazi (above) was also the head of the Al Quds mosque in Hamburg, where members of the "Hamburg Cell" worshipped.

Members of the Hamburg Cell - including Mohammed Atta who also worshipped at Fizazi's mosque - would be intrinsically linked with the events of 9/11. Salafia Jihadia carried out the suicide bombing that took place on Casablanca on May 16, 2003, in which 33 people were killed in the explosions, and 12 suicide bombers died. In August 2003, Fizazi was among dozens of individuals sent to trial over the Casablanca attacks. He received a 30-year sentence.

The suspected organizer of the Casablanca bombings, Abdelhaq Mousabbat, died of liver failure in May 2003, shortly after the attacks. Some Salafia Jihadia operatives are also said to have been involved with the attacks on Madrid train station on March 11, 2004, in which 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 were injured. Abdelkrim Mejjati was one of the suspects in the Madrid bombings. He was also a suspect in the Casablanca attacks.

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In February 2009, Saad Housseini was sentenced in Rabat, Morocco, to 15 years' jail for his part in plotting the 2003 Casablanca bombings. Housseini, a chemistry graduate who had been "trained" in Afghanistan is also wanted in Spain, as he is believed to have manufactured the bombs that were used in the March 11, 2004 attacks at Madrid.

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The March 2004 Madrid attacks are believed to have received no direct funding from Al Qaeda. The plot was inspired by Al Qaeda, but not directly connected. Some perpetrators did appear to have connections to related groups. Moroccan-born Jamal Zougam was given a 40-year jail sentence on October 31, 2007 for his part in the Madrid attacks. He was charged with

Additionally, Youssef Belhadj was given a 12 year sentence at the Madrid trial, after being convicted of belonging to a terrorist group. Belhadj is believed to be a member of GICM, and also is thought by authorities to be "Aby Dujanah" the individual who announced on an audio tape that the bombings were the work of Al Qaeda. He too is thought to be linked to the group that carried out the Casablanca bombings.

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A French investigator specializing in terror financing, Jean-Charles Brisard, announced on March 16, 2004 that he had encountered a transcript of a phone conversation in the indictment notes assembled by Judge Baltazar Garzon. Zougam had been in a phone conversation with Imad Yarkas. Zougam told this individual: "On Friday, I went to see Fizazi and I told him that if he needed money we could help him with our brothers."

Imad Yarkas, a former member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was convicted on September 26, 2005 of conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the 9/11 attacks. He was sentenced to 27 years' jail 15 years was imposed for him being involved in the 9/11 plot and 12 years for belonging to a terrorist organization. . On February 16, 2006 Yarkas had 15 years cut from his jail tariff as the National Court had not proved conclusively that Yarkas had been involved in organizing the 9/11 terror attacks.

Markets and Mosque

Abu Doha, a graduate of Al Qaeda's Khalden training camp, arrived in Britain in 1997 and became a regular figure at Finsbury Park Mosque. This mosque had been taken over by hook-handed Abu Hamza, who had also, according to one source, trained at an Al Qaeda camp - the Darunta camp near Jaalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Omar Nasri said that, during an explosives class at Darunta, Hamza had messed up his recipe and blew his hands off.

Many Islamists from Algeria had taken advantage of Britain's loose immigration rules and Hamza's north London mosque became a hub for Islamists with connections from across Western Europe.

In part one I mentioned Doha's involvements with Ahmed Ressam who planned to blow up LAX airport on the eve of the Millennium. Abu Doha would become linked with individuals who were involved in several European terror plots. The first of these involved Strasbourg in France, close to the border with Germany. Two trials ensued, one in Germany and one in France, involving a group of Algerians or French-Algerians known as the "Frankfurt Group". Their plan had been to blow up the Christmas market which took place in a square in Strasbourg, near the city's historic Cathedral.

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The Strasbourg explosive would have been contained within a pressure cooker. Such a device had been used by GIA operatives in Paris on September 3, 1995: Four women were wounded at a street market on boulevard Richard-Lenoir in the 19th arrondissement.

At the German trial of Strasbourg plot suspects, the senior judge, Karlheinz Zeiher, suggested that the order to attack the market had come from "a London-based group led by Abu Doha." On March 10, 2003 four Algerians, Aeroubi Beandalis, Fouhad Sabour, Salim Boukari and Lamine Maroni, were given jail terms of between 10 and 12 years. One of the accused, Aeroubi Beandalis, claimed that the intention was to bomb a synagogue in Strasbourg, rather than the market or Cathedral.

Another member of the "Frankfurt cell" was Mohamed Bensakhria. He had been arrested in Alicante, Spain in June 2001, accused additionally of plotting to blow up the European Parliament. Bensakhria would be extradited to France to stand trial with other suspects. On December 16, 2004, 10 individuals were sentenced to jail for "criminal Association with a terrorist enterprise". Mohamed Bensakhria and Slimane Khalfaoui, thought to be the leaders of the group, both received sentences of 10 years. The lawyer for Khalfaoui was Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, the "wife" (and attorney) of jailed terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Ramirez Sanchez).

In France, another suspect was found guilty in absentia for his part in the Strasbourg bomb plot. Rabah Khadri, an Algerian, was in custody in Britain. He had fled across the English Channel and had been arrested on November 5, 2002 on suspicion of a plot to blow up the London Underground. Khadri was extradited to France on June 23, 2006. Khadri was also an associate of Abu Doha. On September 15, 2006 another French-Algerian apparently linked to the Strasbourg plot was deported to France. Identified only as "MK", he had been arrested in Britain in September 2004. He was also alleged to be an associate of Abu Doha.

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Until GSPC was officially formed in 2002, various North African groups with links to Al Qaeda were operating in Western Europe. Some individuals from these groups also had connections to Finsbury Park Mosque. One of these was Nizar Trabelsi. Born in Tunisia in 1970, Trabelsi had been a professional soccer player. In Germany in 1989 he had been signed to the Fortuna Duseldorf team, but his soccer career ended in stories of cocaine use. Various convictions followed. In 1995 he embarked on a new career, that of Islamic militant. He apparently became a convert to radical Islam at a mosque in Dostrum, northwestern Germany. Trabelsi made several visits to Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. On at least one of one of these occasions, as he would later boast at his trial, he would meet bin Laden.

Trabelsi was arrested on September 13, 2001, and on the same day four people were also arrested in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. On September 30, 2003, Trabelsi was jailed for 12 years for plotting to blow up a NATO air base in Kleine Brogel, Belgium. This base housed US military personnel. The plan had been for Trabelsi to drive a truck filled with explosives into the compound of the base, and then detonate it outside the base's canteen.

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Trabelsi is also wanted by the United States for a plot to blow up the US Embassy in Paris. One of his associates, Djamel Beghal, (Jamal Beghal) had already been convicted for this plot on March 15, 2005, at the end of a trial that that had commenced 14 months earlier. Beghal was given a 10-year sentence. Five other Islamists on trial with him were jailed for terms between one year and nine years. Kamel Daoudi, a computer expert who was in charge of assembling the explosives, received nine years for his part in the US Embassy plot.

Beghal had been arrested in Dubai in July 2001, on his way to Morocco. He had been flying from Pakistan after a prolonged stay in Afghanistan. Beghal gave investigators information that would incriminate Trabelsi in the plot to attack the air base in Belgium. Beghal also claimed that the former soccer player was to be the person originally scheduled to be the suicide bomber to carry out the US Embassy attack. Beghal was released on Saturday May 30, 2009. While fighting a request for extradition from Algeria, he was placed under house arrest at his home in Cantal, southern France.

Beghal had been one of Trabelsi's co-worshippers at the Dostrum mosque. Beghal had moved to Britain in 1997 and, like Trabelsi, had attended Finsbury Park mosque. On June 25, 2009, Nizar Trabelsi lost his appeal against being sent to America for trial. He must first complete his jail sentence for the Kleine Brogel NATO base plot.

Belgian Networks

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Two days before the events of 9/11, a leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, one of the main opponents of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, was murdered in the Panjshir Valley, northern Afghanistan. Ahmed Shah Massoud (Ahmad Shah Massood) had been giving an interview to journalists. Two individuals were present who had traveled from Belgium, apparently instructed by Al Qaeda. They were born in Tunisia but their passports were forged. One of the two men carried a camera. This was filled with explosives. As the two men pretended to interview him, the camera was detonated, and Massoud was mortally wounded. The camera had been stolen in Grenoble, France, eleven months earlier.

When Nizar Trabelsi was placed on trial in Belgium, 16 others were also in the dock, charged with lesser offenses. Five of these were acquitted. One individual who was convicted at the same trial was Tarek Maaroufi. This individual was accused of being at the center of a faked passport ring. He had provided two forged passports to the assassins of Ahmed Shah Massoud, and for this he received a six-year jail term. The assassins were identified as Dahmane Abd al-Satta and Bouraoui el-Ouaer.

Dahmane Abd al-Satta (Dahmane Abdesattar) was a married man when he murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud. His wife, Malika El Aroud, has since gained notoriety as an internet jihadist, using the pseudonym "Oum Obeyda". In 2003 she wrote a book called "Soldiers of Light" (in pdf format here). In florid French, she eulogizes about the love she had for her husband, and their shared love of the Koran. This "love story" has been eulogized in the Western media.

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In 2003, Malika El Aroud was found not guilty of plotting to murder Ahmed Shah Massoud. She has since remarried, to a Tunisian man called Moez Garsalloui. The pair were arrested in Fribourg, Switzerland, in February 2005. In June 2007 Malika El-Aroud was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended, by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court. Moez Garsalloui received six months' imprisonment, with an additional 18 months suspended. The pair had been found guilty of running four websites which were designed to "promote racially motivated crimes".

In December 21, 2007, fourteen people were arrested by Belgian authorities. They were accused of attempting to stage a jail=break for Nizar Trabelsi. According to officials: "They were planning to use weapons and explosives to free him... These means could be employed for another use." A day later, all the suspects were freed without charge.

A year later, on December 11, 2008 Belgian police arrested 14 people, who were assumed to be Al Qaeda members. Malika el-Aroud was among those arrested.

On May 12, 2009, two French citizens were charged in Italy with preparing terrorist attacks. One was a 33-year old man called Raphael Gendron. The other was a 62-year old Syrian-born preacher called Bassam Ayachi.

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Raphael Gendron (above) had been in trouble with the authorities in Belgium in 2006. He had been jailed for five months, with an additional five months suspended, for inciting racial hatred against Jews. Anti-semitic comments had been made on their website Assabyle.com, a site run from a server in Pakistan. Convicted with Gendron on June 21, 2006 was 26-year old Abdel Rahman Ayachi, the son of Bassam Ayachi. He received the same sentence.

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It should also be noted that Bassam Ayachi (above) was head of the Belgian Islamic Center (Centre Islamique Belge or CIB), based in Molenbeek in Belgium. Here he also ran a mosque, which was attended by Dahmane Abdessatar who was close to him. In 1999, Abdessatar was married to Malika El Aroud in this mosque. According to Italian police, Bassam Ayachi was the uncle of Dahmane Abdessatar.

Bassam Ayachi and Raphael Gendron had been arrested in Italy in November 2008, on suspicion of smuggling two Syrians and three Palestinians into Italy. While incarcerated at Bari, their conversations were recorded. The pair apparently discussed conducting a terror attack against the Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Ayachi and Gendron had also spoken of "a need to strike at the English."

Ayachi said: "We will exterminate the others, I have to exterminate them.... you know of the millions of them leave... strike in the whole world." In a conversation with another inmate, the pair also discussed purchasing grenades.

In September this year, Moroccan authorities announced that they had arrested 24 people at locations across the kingdom. These were said to be part of a "terrorist network" that was linked "with terrorists in Sweden, Belgium and the Syria-Iraq zone." The terror group, which was not named, also tried to gain recruits for Al Qaida. The potential recruits were to fight in Afghanistan and Somalia.

An earlier terror network, which was dismantled in Morocco in July 2008, also tried to gather recruits to fight in Iraq. The recruits were expected to train in desert camps run by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The exact identity of the terror network that includes Bassam Ayachi, Nizar Trabelsi and others is unclear. The group seems linked to GICM, and possibly GSPC (now AQIM). One Belgian/Moroccan terror network was led by Abdelkader Belliraj. His group had links to both GSPC and GICM.

GSPC and Al Qaeda

GSPC officially became Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on September 11, 2006, when its leader Abu Musab Abdelwadud announced on the internet that "We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... We will pursue our jihad in Algeria. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes." Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of Al Qaeda, and its logistical chief, also made a video statement on the website. Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda. This should be a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates, the treacherous sons of France."

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As well as urging the reformed GSPC to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders", Zawahiri urged: "We pray to God that our brothers from the GSPC succeed in causing harm to the top members of the crusader coalition, and particularly their leader, the vicious America."

Three months after the official announcement that GSPC had merged with Al Qaeda (thenceforward gaining its new name of "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), foreign workers were attacked in Algeria, at Bouchaoui, nine miles west of the capital, Algiers. Workers were in two buses, traveling back to their accommodation at a Sheraton hotel. The attack took place on Sunday December 10, 2006.

The oil workers were employed by Brown and Root-Condor, an amalgamation of an Algerian company and a Halliburton subsidiary. Te driver of the first bus was killed in gunfire, and several people were wounded. The injured included four Britons, an American, a Canadian and a Lebanese.

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Immediately after the attack, AQIM released a statement from Abu Musab Abdelwadud (above), which declared: "We carried out this raid as a gift to all Muslims who are suffering from the new Crusader campaign targeting Islam and its holy places. We reiterate our call to all Muslims in Algeria to keep away from the interests of the infidels to avoid harm... once (these interests or individuals) are targeted."

When AQIM had been formed from the remnants of GSPC, the latter group had lost many of its main fighters in Algeria. Attempts had been made by the Algerian government to offer amnesties, and many fighters had been imprisoned or killed. Merging with Al Qaeda would give the group more influence and also logistical support. Within Algeria, GSPC had been waging attacks on a scale that was increasingly smaller than when it had started.

In January, 2007 AQIM made a new internet declaration. Abu Musab Abdelwadud stated: "France which left through the door... is coming in through the window. America is also coming back through the door to share with France the spoils of our riches and control of our destiny, with the complicity of the thief of the house, Bouteflika."

Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been Algeria's president since 1999. In 2007, Bouteflika would survive an AQIM suicide attack in which 22 people died and 107 were injured. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was establishing itself as the most dangerous of the various North African Islamist groups.

In Part Three, I will conclude by discussing the actions of AQIM in Algeria, and also how the group created fund-raising and recruitment networks in Western Europe.

Al Qaeda's North African Connection

2009-10-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda's North African Connection

The Scientist

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On the morning of Thursday October 8 2009, two suspected Islamists, believed to have links to Al Qaeda, were arrested at Vienne in Isère, southeastern France. The men were brothers of Algerian origin, 32-year old Dr Adlène Hicheur and 25-year old Dr Halim (Zitouni) Hicheur. They were arrested at their parents' home.

After three days, Halim Hicheur was released without charge. His brother, however, was detained in Paris, where the pair had been subjected to intensive interrogation. On Monday, October 12, Adlène Hicheur was officially charged for "association with criminals with relation to a terrorist enterprise."

Adlène Hicheur was an employee at CERN, the nuclear research estalishment which site on the border of France and Switzerland. Founded in 1954, CERN is famous for its particle accelerator research, in particular its Large Hadron Collider, which is partly funded by the USA.

The Large Hadron Collider sends hadrons around a circular track at high speed in opposite directions, their trajectory guided by magnets, and then forces them to collide. The reactions at impact, conditions that are thought to mimic the forces present at the Big Bang, are studied intensely studied. Of particular interest is the elusive Higgs Boson, a theoretical particle that is smaller than any other subatomic particle. So far it has never been found, but the Large Hadron Collider's collision chamber is expected to be the most likely place where the theoretical particle's presence might be detected.

Adlène Hicheur works on the Large Hadron Collider project. After his arrest, CERN issued a statement in which it affirmed that his work "did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism". The spokesman claimed that Hicheur had been ill for most of the year and had rarely been at work.

Hicheur's career has been impressive: he gained a PhD at Stanford University in California, and in 2005 he was a research fellow at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Chilton, Oxfordshire. He had also been employed in university cities in Britain - London, Manchester, Durham in England and Edinburgh and St Andrews in Scotland.

French judicial sources have revealed that Hicheur has already confessed to being connected to Al Qaeda, and had been plotting a terror attack. On Friday October 9 France's Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, said that magistrates would "doubtless establish what the targets were in France or elsewhere, and perhaps indicate that we have avoided the worst"

Over the past 18 months, French intelligence agents have been monitoring Hicheur's online communications. Immediately prior to the arrests, they believed that Hicheur was ready to prepare for mounting a terrorist attack. A French security source has claimed that Hicheur's plans were already advanced. Money transactions had already taken place, and the scientist apparently planned to stage an attack against a giant oil refinery owned by the company Total. The exact refinery is not mentioned, but an explosion at a massive refinery could have "caused an explosion which would have destroyed a city the size of London." Additionally, Hicheur is thought to have placed French President Nicolas Sarkozy and others on a hit-list for assassination.

Hortefeux and also the anti-terrorist judge Christophe Teissier (who ordered the arrest) have both been criticized. Brice Hortefeux has been condemned for publicly announcing the arrest of the two brothers, as this action could send terror contacts underground. Teissier has been criticized for making the arrest as soon as he appeared to have evidence that Hicheur was plotting an attack: if he had waited a bit longer, it was argued, then more details about the contacts would have emerged.

The group with whom Hicheur has been linked is now known as "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" (the Maghreb is the region of North Africa including Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria). This group was formerly known as GSPC ( Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat or Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat). GSPC had been active in France for some time, and also in Spain, Belgium, and Italy. GSPC, in turn had been an offshoot of the radical group known as GIA (Group Islamique Armé or Armed Islamic Group).

The GIA

The birth of the GIA took place in 1992. In June 1991 in Algeria, an Islamist political party known as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) had called for then President Benjedid to resign. Elections were due to have taken place, but FIS agitation caused these to be delayed. On June 18, an interim government with no party affiliations, led by Sid-Ahmed Ghozali, had taken charge of the country. In December elections took place but the Islamist FIS party won the majority of the vote.

As FIS campaigned on a ticket that promised to destroy democracy, the military took action. In January 1992, they staged a coup. This led to a civil war which lasted until around 1999. Between 70,000 and 200,000 people, mostly civilians, died in clashes between an alliance of secularist parties against the Islamist groups. Against this background, the GIA was born. Its Arabic name was al-Jama'ah al-Islamiyah al-Musallaha.

The GIA came into being in July 1992, but was not officially allied to the FIS or FIS'armed wing AIS (Islamic Salvation Army) which came into being in 1993. GIA's first public declaration was a threat. It warned that all foreigners should leave Algeria by December 1, 1993, or they would become targets.

Many of GIA's fighters had come from the battlefields of Afghanistan, where they had been Muhajideen against the Soviets. The first leader - Mourad Sid Ahmed, alias Djafaar al-Afghani - had fought in Afghanistan. He was killed in a gun battle in Algiers on Feb. 26, 1994. His successor was Djamel (Jamal) Zitouni (pictured) who led the GIA until he was killed on July 16, 1996.

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One of the first major terrorist attacks carried out by the GIA took place at a busy terminal in Houari Boumediene Airport in Algiers on August 26, 1992. 11 people were killed and more than 100 injured. Two other bombs were placed at Air France's Algiers office, and at the office of Swissair. The Air France bomb went off, but an evacuation had taken place, and the Swissair bomb had been defused.

One individual - , a member of FIS, was executed the following year for the airport bombing. Other people were tried in absentia. One of these was Abdelghani Ait Haddad who had fled to France where he stayed for nine years. He arrived in Britain and was jailed in December 2001, but he was finally released by Britain's Home Secretary on February 15, 2002 due to lack of credible evidence.

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Another individual who was tried in Algeria in absentia for the airport attack was Mourad Ikhlef (pictured), who fled to Canada in 1993. Ikhlef had been found guilty of the attack and was sentenced to death. He was granted refugee status in 1994, but on February 28, 2003 he was deported to Algeria. He was arrested and jailed for "membership of a terrorist group operating abroad aiming to harm the interests of Algeria." He was freed on March 26, 2006 with other charges against him dropped. On April 3, 2006 he was re-arrested and appears to still be in an Algerian jail.

The atrocities carried out by GIA were many. These included targeted assassinations. Respected academic Djillali Lyabes was killed on March 16, 1993. Laadi Flici, an Algerian member of parliament, was killed on March 17, 1993. Anti-Islamist writer Tahar Djaout was attacked on May 26, 1993 and died on June 2, 1993. Psychologist Mahfoud Boucebsi was stabbed and killed on June 15, 1993, and then sociologist Mohammed Boukhobza had his throat cut in Algiers on June 22, 1993. Boukhobza's children, who were tied up, were forced to watch. TV journalist Rabah Zenati was killed on August 3, and on August 21 Kasdi Merbah, a former prime minister who had fought in the war for independence from France, was assassinated. With him were killed his brother and his son.

March 10, 1994 - playwright Abdelkader Alloula was killed. On May 8, 1994 French Catholics Henri Verges and Sister Paul-Hélène Saint-Raymond were murdered in the library of the Casbah. On October 23, 1994, two Spanish-born nuns, Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso and Sister Caridad Alvarez Martin were killed on their way to Mass. On December 27, 1994, four priests, all belonging to the White Fathers order were murdered in Tizi-Ouzou in the Kabilye region. Jean Chevillard, Alain Dieulangard and Christian Chessel came from Frnace, while their colleague Charles Deckers was Belgian-born. They were killed in the courtyard of their mission.

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In 1995, GIA launched attacks upon the Paris subway system. Metro stations were subjected to bombing campaigns between August and November. St Michel Metro was bombed on 25 July, 1995. This incident killed eight people and seriously injured 87. The bomb had comprised explosives and nails packed into a glass vessel, causing laceration injuries to its victims. The financier of the bombings, and the man responsible for the St Michel subway station attack was Rachid Ramda. He had fled to Britain in November 1995 and had been detained in prison, fighting extradition to France.

Ramda was finally extradited on December 1, 2005. Ramda was sentenced to ten years' jail on March 29, 2006. Two other individuals, Boualem Bensaid and Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, had been sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the Paris subway attacks on October 30, 2002. Bensaid had already been serving a 30-year sentence for a failed plan to attack a high speed train travelling from Lyon to Paris on August 26, 1995. Another member of the cell, Khaled Kelkal, was shot by police on September 29, 1995. His notebooks had led to the arrest of Bensaid.

The presence of GIA in Europe was not only to carry out terror attacks upon their tradition enemies. Through its contacts in Europe, the GIA was able to raise funds through drug-running, and also trafficking of weaponry.

An affiliated group existed in Montreal called Fateh Kamel, named after its founder, a naturalised Canadian from Algeria. Arrested in 1999 for supporting a terror plot against targets in France, Kamel was freed in January 2005. According to the Jamestown Foundation, the Fateh Kamel cell and a linked cell in Istanbul (led by Mokhtar Kaddi) gained finances from credit card fraud and theft, including vehicle theft. One of the members of the Montreal cell was Ahmed Ressam, the "Millennium Bomber".

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In Algeria, GIA continued to mount terror attacks against their own people, and against heir sworn enemies - Christians, Jews and foreigners. On March 27, 1996, seven Trappist (Cistercian) monks who lived at the Notre Dame de l'Atlas monastery at Tibhirine were kidnapped. Armed GIA members came to the monastery claiming they needed a doctor. The monastery's ailing 82-year old medic was among the seven individuals taken hostage. The heads of the monks were discovered lying by a roadside on May 30, 1996. Their bodies were never recovered. Djabel Zitouni would later announce that the monks had been killed on May 21, 1996. The announcement ran: "We have slit the throats of the seven monks, in accordance with our promise."

In 2002, an Algerian security officer, Abdelkadr Tigha, claimed that the monks had been initially kidnapped by a small Islamist group supported by the Algerian army, and then handed over to the GIA. The monks were decapitated by the GIA when the governments of Algeria and France refused to negotiate their release. In July 2009, a French general, Francois Buchwalter, asserted that the Algerian army had been responsible for the monks' deaths. French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to release classified documents related to the case.

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After Djamel Zitouni was killed in a battle for power on July 16, 1996, Anton Zouabri became the leader of GIA. He announced that "in our war, there is no neutrality. Except for those who are with us, all others are renegades." Zouabri's war against anyone not considered an ally was ferocious and lacking in conscience. The elderly, women children and and even babies had their throats slit. Throughout 1997, atrocities against civilians proliferated. Entire villages, and all members of families would be targets for Zouabri's army. As well as slitting throats, they also burned some victims alive. Many bodies were mutilated.

Some GIA and GSPC operatives had previously found a spiritual home in Britain at Finsbury Park Mosque when it had been taken over by hook-handed preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri. In September 1997, Zouabri admitted responsibility for atrocities against civilians, declaring all Algerians to be infidels in the journal Al-Ansar. Abu Hamza responded by withdrawing his support. On the night of February 8, 2002, Zouabri and two associates were killed in a gunfight in Boufarik, his hometown.

The successor to Antar Zouabri was Rachid Oukali, also known as Abou Tourab. The death of Zouabri marked the end of GIA's period of "power" in Algeria. Many of its operatives had fled abroad, and these would later rejoin the group when it had rebranded itself as GSPC.

GIA carried on for a couple of years but by 1998 it had already become a weakened force, riven into factions that had descended into banditry. In August 2002 in the Chlef region, members of the GIA killed 21 members of an extended family. Even a three month old baby was shot.

The Algerian government had announced a truce with AIS on October 1, 1997 and at the start of 2000, the AIS disbanded.

GSPC

The September 1997 declaration that all Algerians were deserving of death for not supporting GIA apparently offended Al Qaeda's leadership, to a point that they wanted a new group to replace it. In May 1998, the GSPC was formed, under the leadership of Hassan Hattab, who had been a GIA district leader in Kabiliye. Even though he had been involved in some of the massacres of civilians, Hattab preferred the group to attack soldiers and representatives of Algerian authority rather than ordinary people.

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Hattab was assisted in forming the GSPC by a GIA leader for the Sahara and Sahel regions called Molhtar Belmokhtar. This individual, born on June 1, 1972, had been to Afghanistan at the age of 19 and had there met other luminaries in the mujahideen. Belmokhtar returned to Algeria around the time the civil war began.

In 2003, Hassan Hattab was ousted from his role as leader, apparently because he was seen to be too moderate. Belmokhtar then went into a semi-independent position, consolidating his relations with the factions in the south, rather than being allied too strongly with the GSPC leadership. At the time of writing, Belmokhtar s emerging as a force in his own right. Hassan Hattab would surrender to the Algerian authorities on September 29, 2007.

Hassan Hattab was succeeded by Nabil Sahrawi. In September 2003, Sahrawi announced that GSPC had allegiance to Al Qaeda. Back in September 12, 2002, a Yemeni senior figure within Al Qaeda had been killed by Algerian security forces near Algiers. Apparently, Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan had been in the region since June 2001.

In March 2003, 32 foreign tourists were kidnapped from southern Algeria by GSPC activists. Michaela Spitzer, one of the abductees, died of exhaustion in the desert. Some were released. The group wanted $5 million ransom money for each hostage, to gain income with which to purchase weaponry. Finally, on August 18, 2003 the remaining hostages, who had been transported to Mali, were freed.

In Algeria in 2005, most of the 409 fatalities that took place as a result of terrorist conflict were caused by battles between the GSPC and the army and security forces. On Thursday September 29, 2005, the Algerian government let its civilians decide in a referendum whether or not to give an amnesty to Islamist fighters and outlaws (including the GSPC, which at this time was the only group with influence). The citizenry decided to grant an amnesty to the Islamists, if they lay promised to down their weaponry.

On October 1, 2005, almost as soon as the results of the referendum had been announced, GSPC's leader Abu Musab Abdelwadud made an announcement on one of its websites. His message read: "The Jihad will go on ... we have promised God to continue the Jihad and the combat." On the same day, three Algerian civilians were killed in terrorist actions, almost certainly carried out by GSPC. Two people died when their vehicle ran over a land-mine in Medea province, and a 62-year old breeder of animals was decapitated in M'Sila province.

Abu Musab Abdelwadud - whose real name is Abdelmalek Droukdel - had taken over the running of GSPC after Nabil Sahrawi was killed in a gun battle with Algerian security forces on June 18, 2004. The battle had taken place in the Kabilya mountains, 150 miles east of Algiers, the capital. Sahrawi's deputy, widely tipped to replace him, was killed in the same fight.

GSPC in Europe and beyond

Abu Doha was a leader of a GPSC cell, who had earlier trained at Al Qaeda's Khalden training camp in Afghanistan. On July 2, 2001 an indictment was made against him, registered at the Southern District of New York. The indictment claims that around spring 1998, Doha planned with others to use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States.

Doha went to London in May 1999 and here, using contacts based at Finsbury Park Mosque, he apparently coordinated the activities of extremists. According to Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, the authors of The Suicide Factory (p 117), Doha operated in the mosque with the knowledge of hook-hande Abu Hamza, and "exerted a major influence over the conduct of affairs at the mosque."

A British judge, Mr Justice Ouseley, noted of Abu Doha: "In Afghanistan he had held a senior position in the training camps organizing the passage of mujahideen volunteers to and from those camps. He had a wide range of extremist Islamic contacts inside and outside the United Kingdom including links to individuals involved in terrorist operations. He was involved in a number of extremist agendas. By being in the United Kingdom he had brought cohesion to Algerian extremists based here and he had strengthened the existing links with individuals associated with the terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Abu Doha went under many aliases: Amar Makhlulif, Didier Ajuelos, Dr Haider, The Doctor, Rachid Boukhalfa and Rachid Kefflous. He was arrested in February 2001 as he tried to leave to go to Saudi Arabia. He was carrying a false passport.

Doha was held in Belmarsh Jail, while he fought extradition to the United States.

As listed in his US indictment, Doha is generally assumed to have been behind the plot to bomb Los Angeles airport, the "Millennium Bomb Plot". Ahmed Ressam (aka Benni Antoine Norris) was the individual who was scheduled to attack LAX airport on December 31, 1999. Ressam had links to the Fatah Kemal cell in Montreal. Ressam was staying illegally in Canada, adopting an assumed name. He was arrested at Port Angeles, Washington State, as he tried to enter the USA from Canada on board a ferry. He was driving a rented car. Inside this vehicle were four bombs. Initially it was thought that Ressam had intended to blow up Seattle's Space Needle, as he had pre-booked a room in a motel nearby.

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Ressam was convicted at a court in Los Angeles on April 6, 2001. On the same day, he received a five year jail sentence from a French court. Tried in absentia, he had been convicted of belonging to a network of Islamist groups. In the USA, Ressam had been convicted on nine counts, including attempting to blow up LAX airport. However, it was not until Wednesday July 27, 2005 that he was finally sentenced. He received 22 years' jail, 13 years less than the amount sought by prosecutors..

Ressam's co-conspirators who were sought by America were Samir Ait Mohamed and Abu Doha. Samir Ait Mohamed, a former law student, had lived in Montreal at the time of Ressam's arrest. Ressam had intended to give evidence against him, but in 2003, he had stopped cooperating with investigators. Ressam had originally been assisting United States officials by describing how Afghanistan training camps were set up. His decision to stop talking caused the plans for a trial of his accomplice to be abandoned. Samir Ait Mohamed remained in Canadian custody until Wednesday January 11, 2006, when he was quietly deported back to Algeria.

One of Ressam's former room-mates was Mourad Ikhef, who had apparently given him advice on the plan to blow up LAX airport. As a result of his alleged involvement with this plot, Ikhef was deported back to Algeria in 2003.

Additionally, Ahmad Ressam's testimony against Abu Doha was vital to the United States being able to pursue a legal case. The decision by Ressam to no longer cooperate led to the United States to withdraw their indictment against Abu Doha in August 2005. In Britain, the authorities had been holding Doha in Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire. They were aware of bugged phone conversations from 2001, involving Algerian extremists based in Italy, which referred to planned attacks by their British brothers".

Doha was being held in custody with a view to deporting him back to Algeria. Doha went to an appeals court to challenge deportation and won. In April 2008, fitted with an electronic tagging device, he was released under strict curfew conditions.

Abu Doha, described by the Foreign Office as having "direct links to Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda figures", was also thought by some investigators to be the man "controlling" Kamel Bourgass who also worshipped at Finsbury Park Mosque. Bourgass often slept at the mosque.

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Bourgass gained notoriety for his plans to create ricin poison, extracted from the beans of the Castor Oil Plant (Ricinus communis) and also for his murder of a serving British police officer. Bourgass had employed four aliases since 2000 when he arrived in Britain from Algeria.

On April 13, 2005 Bourgass was given a 17-year jail term for plotting to spread ricin toxin and other poisons on the streets of Britain. He was officially convicted of "conspiracy to cause a public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury". Four other individuals, Samir Asli, Khalid Alwerfeli, Mouloud Bouhrama and Kamel Merzoug, had similar charges against them dropped. On April 8, 2005, a jury found that three associates of Bourgass, Mouloud Sihali, David Khalef, Sidali Feddag and Mustapha Taleb, were not guilty of "conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance."

Bourgass at this time was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake. This had been handed to him in June 2004. The British authorities had become vaguely aware of a plot to leave poisons on a tube (subway) train in London. This information had come from Algeria, and the authorities quickly reacted to it, in a measure dubbed "Operation Springbourne". On January 3, 2003, anti-terrorist police raided an apartment above a drug store at 352, High Road in Wood Green, North London. In the apartment they found castor beans, chemical processing material, and photocopied recipes for ricin. Additionally, £4,000 had been found in an envelop hidden inside a cupboard. Bourgass was nowhere to be found. He was sleeping at Finsbury Park Mosque.

A few days later, Bourgass fled north on a bus, hoping to leave the country. He went to an apartment in Crumpsall Lane, Manchester. When this apartment was raided by police, Bourgass stabbed D.C. Oake eight times.

On February 12, 2003, Colin Powell spoke of the ricin found in Europe claiming it had originated in Iraq. The ricin allegedly found in Bourgass' Wood Green "factory" was not imported, and neither was it in the concentrated strength that had been widely reported then and subsequently. In fact, even though chemical tests had initially registered the presence of ricin, there was no ricin. The recipe was nowhere near complete. Even if the recipe had been completed according to the exact instructions, the poison would not have been toxic through contact. The photocopied material was not from an Al Qaeda manual, as suggested at the time, but from a translation of a passage from "The Poisoners' Handbook".

Despite this, a year after Bourgass was arrested, a GSPC group based in Vénissieux, Lyon, were found with ricin. Additionally, there were several plots in France and elsewhere in Europe in which the GSPC certainly intended to cause widespread death and destruction. Individuals involved in some of these plots were associates of Abu Doha.

In Part Two, I will describe how GSPC officially became part of the Al Qaeda command structure. I will document the various European plots that were attemted by the group, and also what is known about their current activities in Algeria and elsewhere.

Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws: A Timeline

2009-10-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws: A Timeline

Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws derive from the Penal Code written originally in 1860 but had only a few clauses against hurting the sensibilities of religious people. The blasphemy laws as they are now known were brought in incrementally via amendments. The first registered blasphemy case took place in 1927. From 1927 to 1984 there had only ever been nine registered cases of blasphemy. From 1984 to 2004, about 5,000 cases of blasphemy were registered.

Data from the NCJP (National Commission for Justice and Peace) reveals that from 1986 until August 2009, a total of 964 people had been charged under blasphemy statutes. These comprised 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 others. 32 people charged with blasphemy have been extra-judicially killed by vigilantes.

So far, even though numerous individuals have received death sentences for blasphemy, no-one has yet been hanged. Higher court appeals judges generally throw out cases where this sentence has been imposed by lower courts. From the moment of accusation until final acquittal, the person must remain in jail. A person given the death penalty usually spends around seven years before being freed through appeal.

The timeline below is by no means a complete account, but it does present a selection of important events related to Pakistan's blasphemy legislation. I suggest that readers also consult the timelines here and here.

The timeline is a supplement to the article presented on Family Security Matters this week on the oppression of religious minorities in Pakistan (Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

1860 the original Penal Code is written, intended by the British Raj to govern West Pakistan.

1927
Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, XXV of 1927. This adds two new additions to Section 295 of the Penal Code. Section 295-A prohibits "Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting Its religion or religious beliefs," and Section 295-B outlaws "Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur'an."

August 11, 1947
Pakistan becomes independent from Britain. The 1860 penal code is carried over into the legislation of Pakistan.

1982
P.P.C. (Amendment) Ordinance, I, further amends Section 295-B extends penalty options to include life imprisonment. This ordinance also introduces another article: Section 295-C, which outlaws "Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet."

1986
Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, III of 1986, Schedule 2, makes further additions, adding the option of "death penalty" to Section 295-C, and made a minor amendment to Section 296 (Disturbing religious assembly).

July 21, 1992
Tahir Iqbal, a convert to Christianity from Islam, was said to have insulted Mohammed. In July 1991, a judge said that being a convert to Christianity (and an apostate from Islam) was an offense. While in custody, Tahir Iqbal would be poisoned on July 21, 1992.

1992 - exact date unverified:
Nawaz Sharif's government, under pressure from Islamic organizations, removes from Section 295-C ("derogatory terms against Prophet Mohammed") the option of imposing a life sentence. As a result, convicted "blasphemers" are given a mandatory death sentence.

January 6, 1992
Blasphemy accused individual Niamat Ahmer, described as a teacher, poet and writer was killed. Niamat Amer was murdered in Faisalabad, but no charges had been officially made against him. His killer, Farooq Ahmad, said that Amer had verbally insulted Mohammed and Islam.

January 6, 1992
, Accused of blasphemy, 80-year old Bantu Masih. Bantu was stabbed in front of police officers.

July 1995
Catherine Shaheen, a teacher from Lahore in Punjab province was denied her salary because of accusations of blasphemy. She went into hiding, following threats of death from fundamentalists.

October 14, 1996
Ayub Masih is arrested. He is accused of blaspheming Mohammed by suggesting that someone should read Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses". The charges are false, but it takes six years for the case to be thrown out.

April 27, 1998
Ayub Masih, a Christian, is sentenced to death for blaspheming against Mohammed (Section 295-C). On November 6, 1997, he had been shot at in Sahiwal court house.

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May 6, 1998
Bishop John Joseph commits suicide. He shoots himself with a pistol at the Sahiwal court house. He has planned his death as a protest against the blasphemy laws, which were widely used to oppress the Christian community. He dies at the spot where Ayub Masih had been shot at earlier.

May 10, 1998
Bishop John Joseph, human rights activist, is buried in Faisalabad, seat of his diocese.

May 13, 1998:
Roman Catholic Church makes urgent calls for lawyers to represent the appeal of Christian bricklayer Ayub Mashih against his death sentence for blasphemy.

April 20, 2000
General Musharraf, prior to calling a general election, promises to ensure that a senior civil servant examines cases of blasphemy before charges are made.

May 17, 2000
General Musharraf, following pressure from Islamic groups, announces that he has abandoned his proposed change to blasphemy case procedure, and the law is to remain unchanged.

August 18, 2001:
Younus Shaikh, rights activist and lecturer on homeopathic medicine, given death sentence under Section 295-C at Islamabad additional sessions court.

March 24, 2003
Two men, Mohammed Shahzad and Mohammed Yousaf are arrested after allegedly burning two copies of the Koran on a stove. These were recovered by police. (see Jan 31, 2004)

August 8, 2003
A man said by his relatives to be mentally unstable was given a death sentence at Bahawalnagar Additional Sessions Court. The man, Bashir Ahmed, apparently claimed he was sent by God to be a reformer, and allegedly claimed to be a prophet. It was said he paid people to come to his sermons.

November 12, 2003
Niaz Ahmed, a 55-year old Muslim, receives death sentence for allegedly insulting Mohammed (Section 295-C). Ahmed's relatives claim that the case against him was fabricated, and stemmed from the enmity of a man named Muhammad Baqir.

November 21, 2003:
Younus Shaikh is acquitted and freed from jail (see above), after appeal and retrial. The news is initially suppressed to ensure his physical safety.

November 28, 2003
Anwar Masih, a Christian laborer is arrested for blasphemy after a religious discussion with an acquaintance who had converted to Islam 3 months' earlier. The convert gathered two others to pelt Masih's house with stones. Police take note of the "blasphemy" accusation, but ignore the violence carried out by the accuser and his accomplices.

January 31, 2004
Muhammad Yousaf and Muhammad Shahzad (see Mar 24, 2003) are given life sentences.

April 10, 2004
Younus Shaikh (see above) addresses the annual conference of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and states: "I feel I have been a victim of Islamic Mullah terrorism through he abuse of the state apparatus and the civil law. My first trial was a show trial almost reminiscent of the trials and tortures of the infamous Spanish inquisition, and the trials and burning of European women as witches.... The blasphemy law has brought shame on Pakistan. The law itself is unjust and inequitable, the offence it treats is poorly defined and open to abuse, and its operation has been widely misused and abused."

May 26, 2004
27-year old Samuel Masih is charged under blasphemy laws, Section 295 (Injuring or defiling place of worship, with Intent to insult the religion of any class). This older section of the religious laws can only gain a two-year jail sentence at maximum. He had been accused of leaving litter on the wall of a mosque on August 23, 2003. The charges are brought against Samuel as he lies in a critical condition. A policeman, Constable Faryad Ali, hit him on the head with a brick-cutter on May 22, allegedly saying: "I wanted to earn a place in heaven by killing him."

May 28, 2004
Samuel Masih (previous entry) dies from his injuries.

July 28, 2004
Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat comes back from UK to tell reporters that misuse of the blasphemy laws would not be tolerated and his "government would amend any law which discriminates against Pakistani citizens because the Constitution guarantees equality to everyone irrespective to the sect, or religion they belong to."

July 30, 2004
Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Ijaz ul-Haq (son of General Zia ul-Haq) tells reporters that blasphemy cases would need to be investigated by a police superintendent before charges can be laid. This is a variant of a 2002 pledge by General Musharraf (abandoned a month later) which would have involved a civil servant (rather than a police superintendent) to investigate blasphemy-related cases before charges are filed.

October 18, 2004
A Christian family forced to flee their home in Wah Cantt in Punjab province after their 11-year old daughter accidentally put a copy of the Koran in garbage, two months earlier. A neighbor saw the Koran in the garbage and the family were threatened with violence. The family left with the help of the authorities after warnings that their home would be burned. No charges were brought.

November 2, 2004
NCJP announced that the government had ignored recommendations made in 1996 by the UN Special Rapporteur that the blasphemy laws be made compatible with human rights.

November 12, 2004
A journalist is acquitted and freed after four years in jail. On January 29, 2001, Munawar Mohsin Ali was arrested for allowing a "blasphemous" letter to be printed in the "Frontier Post" newspaper. On July 8, 2003, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, even though a doctor ruled he was mentally unwell. AT the appeal, the bench said that the prosecution "failed to prove that the appellant had intentionally published the letter".

November 30, 2004
Iqbal Ahmad is sentenced to life imprisonment under the blasphemy laws. He was also fined 10,000 rupees.

February 23, 2005
A 30-year old Christian, described as a magician/exorcist, is given a 7-year jail term under Section 295-B, for allegedly desecrating the Koran. Bashir Masih allegedly confessed to tearing up a Koran, claiming it was part of his magic.

June 28, 2005
A 60-year old illiterate Christian street sweeper, Yousaf Masih in Naushera, Punjab province, is spotted by a child burning pages of the Koran. The boy reported Yousaf and on the same night a Hindu temple was burned. Masih claimed to only follow orders from his employer to dispose of garbage. Yousaf was charged under Section 295-B (desecration of the Koran) and Section 295-A (Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting Its religion or religious beliefs).

August 12, 2005
Younis Sheikh (no relation to Younus Shaikh) is given a life sentence for publishing a book in which he described early imams who guided the first Islamic community as "Jews". He also claimed that the penalty for adultery of stoning to death was "not mentioned in the Koran" - a statement considered blasphemous.

September 19, 2005
An alliance of 22 Sunni religious organizations gathered together to demand that Younis Masih, a Christian from Amer Sidhu, be hanged immediately. Masih had been charged on September 10, 2005, under Section 295-C after he made insulting remarks about Mohammed at a wedding party. Masih was beaten up by Christians and Muslims and Christians had to flee the area. Punjab's minority affairs minister, Joyce Rufin, had no sympathy. She said: "Any person who intentionally disrupts the atmosphere of peace and harmony between Muslims and Christians, needs to be punished by the law." A mob of 200 Muslims had attacked the neighborhood where Younis Masih lived, causing 50 Christian families to flee.

November 12, 2005
Yousaf Masih was accused of desecrating a Koran by burning its pages and is place ini jail too await trial under Section 295-B. A mob of Muslims, spurred on by calls from a local mosque's loudspeakers, attack Christian community in Sangla Hill, Punjab province. Churches, a school and other buildings are destroyed.

November 25, 2005
An Islamic cleric registers blasphemy charges against two named individuals and several others (unnamed) in Baghbanpura, Punjab province. The accused are said to have published literature denigrating the Deobandi sect (which shares the same ideology as the Taliban). Charges registered under Sections 295-A and 298-A of the penal code.

December 8, 2005
Rowan WIlliams, Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in the Times about Sangla Hill and maintains that he "sees signs of hope." The hope that he claims to see lies in inter-faith dialoque, failing to appreciate that when one group is small and oppressed, there is no true "dialogue", only the monologue of the group with power.

January 5, 2006
An Ahmadiyya (Ahmadi) imam and four other people were charged under Section 298-C of the PPC. Because the Ahmadis had referred to Allah, they had called Prophet Mohammed their "beloved master" they had - by law - suggested they were Muslims and therefore had broken the terms of Section 298-C which deliberately discriminates against Ahmadis who declare themselves to be Muslims.

January 25, 2006
Zebunissa, a woman who was accused in 1996 of desecrating verses from the Koran (Section 295-B) is transferred from Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore to a mental hospital, where she is declared to be mentally retarded. At no stage since her arrest and imprisonment has she been before a court. As of writing (October 8) she is still not free.

February 13, 2006
An alliance of traders of all political parties (APOSTCI) announces a strike to be held on March 13 to complain about Danish cartoon images, considered "blasphemous".

February 18, 2006
64 men who had been charged in connection with attacks against the Christian community in Sangla Hill on November 12, 2005, were ordered by a court in Lahore to be released on bail bonds.

February 23, 2006
Yousaf Masih, who was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran, was acquitted by Lahore Anti Terrorist Court. The accusation against Masih had led to a Muslim riot against Christians at Sangla Hill on November 12, 2005.

March 6, 2006
An imam in Ganj Mandi, Rawalpindi was charged under Section 295-B for desecrating a Koran. Maulvi Arif confessed that he had only tried to burn an extinct copy of the Koran "in accordance with Shariat."

December 12, 2006
Man arrested in Gojra for using offensive language against Allah in a conversation with others. Ghulam Mustafa attacked a cigarette shop owner who had asked him to stop.

May 9, 2007
A brother's attempt to have Abdul Hameed released from jail is rejected by Lahore High Court. The brother maintains that Hameed, who is accused under Section 295-C is faring badly in jail and that five doctors had judged Abdul Hameed to be mentally ill.

May 9, 2007
79-year old Walter Fazal Khan was taking a bath. A man called Riaz, who lived in the house, knocked on the door and said something was burning in the house. A burnt Koran was found in one of the rooms, and Riaz brought Islamic clerics to the house, who tried to beat Walter. The 79-year old was then charged under Section 295-B (desecrating a Koran).

May 19, 2007
100 Muslims petition Samanabad Police Station demanding a proper investigation into the truth behind the suspicious circumstances of the arrest and charge of Walter Fazal Khan under Section 295-B

May 29, 2007
79-year old Walter Fazal Khan is granted bail by an additional sessions judge at Lahore.

June 1, 2007
On this date, a FIR report is lodged against Christian nurses at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). These and their supervisor Stella Nazir were suspended. Accusations had been made that - on May 17, 2007 - these had desecrated the Koran. The actions were brought by students connected to the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, part of the Red Mosque complex. The "Koran" referred to was a water cooler that bore some verses of the Koran. These had been defaced.

June 1, 2007
The Director of PIMS, Dr Amjad, registers a complaint under Section 295B. Stella Nazir, the Staff Nursing College Principal and four others are suspended. Students from the Jamia Hafsa and the Red Mosque, wielding batons, tried to forcibly gain control of the nurses' hostel, but were prevented from entering.

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June 6, 2007
84-year old Gladys Walter, the wife of Walter Fazal Khan, died in hospital. On May 9, 2007, her 79 year old husband had been accused of blasphemy, and on the same day Gladys had converted to Islam. Her husband said his wife was in a coma when she had allegedly converted and could not speak.

June 9, 2007
Quote: "Shahdra Town police station registered a case against a mentally-challenged man, Nadir Ali, under blasphemy laws on the complaint of Shahid Maqbool, a relative of the accused who lived in the upper portion of Nadir's house on rent. Later the police confessed that it lodged the FIR against Nadir due to pressure exerted by people of the community. They also confirmed that Shahid wanted to grab Nadir's property."

June 19, 2007
Ijaz ul-Haq officially withdrew his statement made on June 18, 2007 that if Britain failed to withdraw the knighthood given to Salman Rushdie, suicide bombers against Britain would be "justified".

January 27, 2007:
Jamaat-i-Islami party warns that it will challenge any amendment or abolition of blasphemy statutes by staging nationwide protests.

April 21, 2009: :
Supreme Court rejects an appeal against a Federal Sharia Court ruling that had declared that death is the only punishment for blasphemy allowed by Islamic law.

May 31, 2007:
First use of video evidence in a blasphemy trial. For reasons of security, Younis Masih gives evidence from jail. He is sentenced to death for breaching Section 295-C.

December 11, 2007:
Lahore High Court acquitted a man previously convicted under blasphemy legislation. On June 23, Muhammad Sharif had been given life imprisonment and a 50,000 rupee fine. The High Court said that police should firstly check the truth of blasphemy claims before bringing charges.

April 8, 2008
A 25-year old Hindu, Jagdish Kumar, was tortured and beaten to death after he allegedly blasphemed against Prophet Mohammed. Kumar worked in a factory, and was murdered by his co-workers who tried to burn his body. He was killed for comments he had made in a discussion about religion.

June 18, 2008:
In Sialkot, Punjab province, Shafeeq Lateef gets death sentence for blasphemy. He had been charged under Section 295-C for making derogatory remarks about Mohammed, and additionally he was fined 500,000 rupees for desecrating a Koran, breaching Section 295-B. Lateef had originally been charged on March 17, 2006.

January 28, 2009:
Four Ahmadi boys from Layyah, Punjab province, aged 14 to 16, were arrested in Layah disrict, accused of writing blasphemous graffiti in a mosque. The boys had been invited earlier to visit the mosque, weeks before the accusations were made. The Human Richts Commission of Pakistan claimed that the only reason the boys were accused is that they were not "Muslims" and had been to the mosque - there was no evidence. A fifth individual, a man is his 40s was subsequently arrested. The youths were charged under Section 295-C.

February 4, 2009:
A newspaper report claims that after the arrest of four Amadi boys, the Ahmadi community suffers ostracism. 10 students have been expelled from a private tuition center because of their religion, and shopkeepers refuse to serve Ahmadis.

July 26, 2008
In a suburb of Karachi, Munawar Babar was severely beaten by a lynch mob but was rescued by police and charged. Some police were also injured by the mob. Babar claimed to be a faith healer and had allegedly performed "blasphemous acts" which provoked the crowd to want to kill him.

June 30, 2009:
110 Christian families are forced to flee from their homes in Bahmniwala, Kasur district in Punjab province, accusing them of blasphemy. The unrest stems from an argument between a Christian and a Muslim which ended with the Christian charged under blasphemy legislation.

July 30, 2009:
About 40 Christian's houses in the village of Korian, near Gojra, are burned down after accusations that Christians had desecrated the Koran at a local Christian wedding. CHarges under Section 295-B had been made.

August 1, 2009:
Seven Christians, including two children, are burned alive in Gojra. Pope Benedict XVI subsequently condemns the attack. Sipah-i-Sahaba activists are later blamed for the attack.

August 4, 2009:
A factory owner is killed by a mob, and two others killed, after the proprietor removed an old Islamic calendar from the wall and put it on a table. The calendar bore words from the Koran, so he was accused of desecrating a Koran.

August 11, 2009:
Interior Minister Rehman Malik tells National Assembly that provincial authorities had been asked to be vigilant towards activities of banned Islamist group Sipah-i-Sahaba

September 1, 2009
The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Human Rights urges government to re-examine blasphemy laws and procedures of enforcement. Faisalabad Regional Police Officer (RPO) Ahmed Raza blamed Punjab constabulary for disobeying orders during the Gojra attack.

September 15, 2009:
19-year old Christian from a village near Sialkot was found dead in jail. "Robert" Fanish Masih had been in jail since September 11, accused under Section 295-B. Though police claimed he strangled himself, his death is regarded by many as a result of violence. He had head wounds.

September 17, 2009
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minority affairs, is in Washington DC. A Christian, he promises the US Commission on International Religious Freedom that "the Pakistani government is to review, revisit and amend blasphemy laws so it will not remain a tool in the hands of extremists."

September 19, 2009
Chaudry Shujaat Hussain, president of the PML-Q party (the party Musharraf belongs to) pledged his party to protesting any change to the existing blasphemy laws. He claimed that it was the duty of every Muslim to defend the blasphemy laws.

October 6, 2009
Former information minister Sherry Rehman and Jamila Gilani (a member of the National Assembly) called in the National Assembly for the blasphemy laws to be repealed. Sahibzada Fazal Karim, Central President of the JUP, responded: "We will not allow it." The JUP is the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (Assembly of Pakistani Clergy), an Islamist party.

Pakistan: Abuse of Christian and other Religious Minorities

2009-10-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

Pakistan: Abuse of Christian and other Religious Minorities

Part Three of Three

Bishop John Joseph

Manzur Masih, a 37-year old Christian laborer, was shot outside the Lahore courthouse on April 5, 1994. Acquitted of blasphemy, gunmen connected to the fanatical Sunni terror group Siah-i-Sahaba had issued their own version of "summary justice".

A year previously, Masih had been put on trial with two others from his village, Rehmat Masih and 12-year old Salamat Masih. Initially accused by a cleric allied to Sipah-i-Sahaba, they had been charged, found guilty and sentenced to death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code . They were accused of writing derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed. Since the early 1990s (states the National Commission for Justice and Peace) the death penalty has been a mandatory sentence for those found guilty of breaching Section 295-C. The flaw in the charge against the three villagers was that they were all illiterate and could not have written the insulting slogans for which they were convicted. All three had been shot outside the court, with Manzur dying on the spot. Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih received serious injuries.

Justice Arif Iqbal Husain Bhatti, one of the two Lahore High Court judges who had set the Christians free, was not to escape the "justice" of fanatics. He would receive death threats from fanatics. Finally, in October 1997, the extremists' threats were fulfilled and the judge was shot near the Lahore courthouse where he worked. A laborer was arrested for the judge's murder in 1998.

The suspect, Ahmad Sher, allegedly told interrogators that: "....I went to his Turner Road office at around 9 am but he had not arrived. I went out and returned after about 30 minutes but he was still not present. When I went into the office for the third time, the office boy went in to inform him and entered the room from the other door. He was engrossed in some document when I fired three shots targeting the head and face. After firing the shots I rushed out."

Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph kissed the feet of Manzur Masih's corpse at his funeral, and is said to have declared: "Manzur, the next blood to be shed for these laws will be mine." The bishop would lead protests of Christians against the murder of Manzur Masih.

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John Joseph, a native of Khushpur, was born on November 15, 1932. He had been ordained as a priest on January 18, 1960, and consecrated as a bishop in January 1981. He served as an auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Faisalabad for four years before becoming ordained as the Bishop of Faisalabad on January 9, 1984.

Bishop Joseph's pastoral work brought him into contact with Christians with little education and no political power, who were being exploited by Islamic fundamentalists. He would become deeply involved in the plight of Christians who were accused by fanatics of "blasphemy" against Islam.

He would become intimately linked with the National Commission for Justice and Peace, NCJP, a group which had been formed in 1985 by the Pakistan Catholic Bishop's Conference. In 1987, NCJP provided advocacy for bonded labor in brick factories, leading to the abolition of bonded labor in 1992.

One of the campaigns against discrimination that Bishop John Joseph and the NCJP worked on was mounting an opposition to a decision by the government to have a section on identity cards listing a person's religion. With Catholic and Protestant bishops staging sit-down protests on streets, the government relented at Christmas 1992 and withdrew its plans for the legislation.

On March 20, 1998, the bishop had convened a rally for Christian unity in Vienna, Austria. Accompanied by Catholics and Protestants, he spoke of the problems of minorities in Pakistan and condemned the blasphemy laws. He said of them that "we object to these laws because they are the main hindrance to Christian-Muslim relations. We shall fight till the dawn comes, (and) the forms (of this fight) may be diverse."

Though long, in an address dated April 30, 1998, John Joseph gave a succinct account of fundamentalism. Called "The Challenges of Religious Fundamentalism and Violence to Social Harmony," this is a segment: "The first victims of the fundamentalist parties are the religious minorities. They direct their full wrath on these minorities and depict them as dangerous to society and country. For example, Christians and Ahmadis in Pakistan. In Iran, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Bahais were brutally persecuted and excluded from all government jobs. In Egypt, the Coptics are the victims. The second victims are women. They believe women are inferior to men, root of evil, weak and stupid, and without any understanding of worldly affairs. The third victims are those people who have secular, liberal, and enlightened outlook, especially the intellectuals and the human rights' activists."

"They are against the West and watch carefully their progress and activities. Whenever possible they will do acts of terrorism to get attention from the world media For them every one in the Western countries is an enemy of Islam so they support all sorts of violent or non-violent activities to fight against their enemies who are non-Muslims and westernized Muslims, as well."

"To popularize their policies they use the method of Tabligh, that is preaching. Their second method is violence. It is their belief that those who oppose them are the enemies of God. First they terrorize them to silence them; in the second stage they eliminate them which also serve as warnings to others."

"Those individuals who adopt secular ideas are regarded by them as Murtad/apostate and thus punishable by death. To legitimize it, the Fatwa (i.e. religious judgment) is issued in this regard which makes it obligatory on every Muslim to kill the said person. In Iran, during the Shah regime, a liberal advocate Khusrau was killed when the religious leaders sanctioned his murder. Similarly, Imam Khomeini issued the Fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie."

"In Pakistan very often fatwas are issued against Christians. This happened in the case of Salamat Masih, a teenager, Manzoor Masih and Rehmat Masih, farmers in Gujranwala, Gul Masih, a small business owner in Sargodha, and Nemat Ahmer, a school teacher in Faisalabad. Nemat Ahmer was killed and so was Manzoor Masih. Salamat Masih, Gul Masih and Rehmat Masih were given death sentence by the Sessions Courts but later freed by the High Court of Lahore. Very often Islamic laws, particularly Blasphemy Laws are used against others in particular against Christians to settle personal scores and prejudices. This creates a sense of fear among the Christians."

"Under the fundamentalist influence, publication of religious books increase and secular literature rapidly decreases. It also greatly affects the music, painting, sculpture, and dancing, and, also as a whole, the society loses its glamour, and violence and dullness reign supreme. This is what has happened for example in Pakistan."

"For South African Archbishop Tutu, 'the real issue at hand is taking Islamic fundamentalism as a challenge and the most effective way to counter it is by deepening people's faith.' (art. Islam is Africa, in World Mission, January, 1993, PP 28-29.)"

The Case of Ayub Masih

Less than a week after he made his address on the victimization of minorities, Bishop John Joseph would be dead. There were intimations in the words he reputedly spoke to the body of Mannzur Masih that he considered martyrdom. In the address he made six days before he died, he had mentioned: "I shall count myself extremely fortunate, if in this mission of breaking the barriers, Our Lord accepts the sacrifice of my blood for the benefit of His people. As St. Paul wrote, "It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of His body, the Church" (Col. 1: 24)."

Aged 66, Bishop Joseph killed himself. He had traveled to a court in Sahiwal in Punjab province on May 6, 1998. The bishop had asked Father Yaqoob Farooq to accompany him. At around 9.30 pm, after asking Fr. Farooq to stay back, the bishop took out a pistol shot himself in the neck. He died on the same spot where a member of his diocese had been shot at, on November 6, 1977. This individual was called Ayub Masih. On April 27, 1998, two days before Bishop John Joseph made his address against victimization of minorities, Ayub Masih had been sentenced to death.

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On October 14, 1996 Ayub Masih had been arrested, accused of breaching Section 295-C, (making "derogatory comments about Prophet Mohammed"). Unusually, the indictment claimed that Ayub had suggested someone read the "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. The authorities had taken an alleged suggestion to read a book to be the same as insulting a prophet, a bizarre precedent in law.

Ayub's personal account of his case includes the following: "In truth, I never said anything against Islam or its Prophet. I worked as a brick layer in Karachi and I was attending a Bible College because I wanted to become a minister. In August 1996, I returned to my home village of Arifabad to visit my family. My family was facing trouble with a Muslim landlord who wanted to take all of the land away from the Christians in our village. My father and brothers resisted the landlord’s demand to give up the land rights to our property. At my family’s house, my brother and I were beaten by a mob of several dozen men. The mob then dragged my brother and me to the local police station."

"I was formally arrested, on 14th October 1996, following a complaint filed by Muhammed Akam, who alleged that he heard me saying, "If you want to know the truth about Islam, then read Salman Rushdie." The case was registered with the police without proper investigation and based merely on the statement by the complainant. Meanwhile, my whole family, along with the other 14 Christian families, fled our village under threats to their lives. Pakistani police did nothing to protect them or to stop the terror. I was imprisoned for the next 5 years and 10 months, most of that time, in Multan jail. After one year in prison, I was tried for blasphemy."

The original trial had been held in Arifwala, but there was a fear that extremists would disrupt proceedings. Ayub was moved to Sahiwal, and there he had been shot. The gunman was not arrested. Ayub stated "Police refused to arrest the man".

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The death of Bishop John Joseph seemed designed to highlight the injustice of the case of Ayub Masih, a case that was a pars pro toto for all the other injustices endured by Christian and other minorities in Pakistan. Inside Pakistan, Christians went on protests and the world's media may have taken more of an interest in the plight of Pakistan's minorities. On May 28, 1998, three weeks after Bishop Jon Joseph shot himself, Pakistan announced to the world that it had conducted its first successful tests of nuclear weapons. The international media was diverted away from the plight of oppressed minorities in Pakistan.

Ayub Masih endured abuse in prison. He would be stabbed in prison in early 1999. Though he attack was witnessed by jail staff, the four Muslims who carried out the assault were never punished. The prison staff even refused to allow him a doctor. Ayub had an appeal in July 2001, but the courthouse was filled with Islamists who were shouting death threats. The appeal fell through. On October 8, 2001, a petition on Ayub's behalf was made to the United Nations, to its Commission on Human Rights' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention A second appeal was made to the Supreme Court i Pakistan. On August 16, 2002, the Supreme Court threw out the case. While fundamentalists offered a 100,000 rupee bounty on his head, Ayub Masih slipped out of the country and found sanctuary in the United States of America.

Why The Law Never Changes

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Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) was prime minister at the time of Bishop John Joseph's death. Sharif's government defended the blasphemy laws. A spokesman from the foreign ministry declared that "complete freedom of speech" existed in Pakistan, but argued that "denigration of any religion is not permissable." The Religious and Minorities Minister in Nawaz's cabinet was Raja Zafarul Haq, who had previously defended the blasphemy laws. and had been active in persuading General Zia ul-Haq in his campaigns against the Ahmadis. Immediately after Bishop Joseph's death, Zafarul Haq claimed that minorities in Pakistan had full security "according to Islamic teachings. He asserted that the blasphemy laws had never been implemented in the country "without substantial evidence."

On Friday May 8, 1998, thousands of Christians in Faisalabad publicly mourned the bishop. When some allegedly began to throw stones at shops, the crowds were tear-gassed by police. Joseph's body lay in a coffin in Faisalabad Cathedral before burial. Nawaz Sharif commiserated with the mourners, saying the bishop's death was tragic. He urged Pakistani nationals to be tolerant of each others' religions and beliefs, but made no plans to change the law.

Soon Nawaz Sharif would be deposed in a coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. In April 2000, before he had restored a semblance of democracy to the nation, Musharraf promised to act against the human rights abuses proliferating in the country. He told a human rights conference in Islamabad that he would act to protect women and minorities. He vowed to put an end to "honor killings" and claimed that he would attempt to end the abuse connected with the blasphemy laws.

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In May 2000 Musharraf admitted that he had given up his plans to amend the manner in which the blasphemy laws were to be applied. His plan had been to replace the immediate incarceration of someone accused of blasphemy with the intervention of a senior public official, who would investigate cases before arrests could be made. Musharraf backed down in the face of opposition and threats of protest from "a number of Islamic organizations".

Musharraf had the confidence of the army, but even though he did manage in 2006 to have the Hudood laws repealed (these laws ensured that a raped woman who went to law was jailed for adultery unless she could produce four male Muslim witnesses) he did not attempt to remove the blasphemy legislation. The Minister for religion in the last government was Ameer Liaquat Hussein,who supports strong punishments for "blasphemy". One Senator in In 2007 spoke of reforming the law, but nothing happened.

The blasphemy laws have been condemned by governments, human rights organizations, and political and religious figures since they became implemented. Yet no action has been taken. Recently, editorials in the comparatively liberal English language press in Pakistan have called for the blasphemy laws to be abolished. Such calls have happened frequently before but have never brought change.

In August 2009, Pakistan's current State Minister for Interior, Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi, spoke of the violence in Gojra, promising an inquiry. He announced that "the government will take appropriate measures to prevent future flare-ups of communal carnage," and mentioned plans by prime minister Gilani to introduce more reserved seats in the National Assembly for representatives of minority groups. He mentioned that the government may review the blasphemy laws to prevent their abuse. This is not what minorities need. They need the laws to be rewritten or abolished.

Shahbaz Bhatti is the Minorities Minister. He has suggested that the blasphemy laws need to be reviewed. When he was in the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance he campaigned for the laws to be abolished, not reviewed.

For too long, Islamists who desire to see democracy overthrown have interfered with the democratic process. In the last government, about one sixth of the seats in the National Assembly were comprised of members of the MMA, an alliance of hardline Islamist parties. In May 2007 the MMA managed to introduce a draft bill against apostasy. This was never ratified, but it ordered that anyone who left Islam was liable to the death penalty.

While governments have come and gone, Pakistan's paramilitary intelligence services - ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence - have used Islamism to expand their powers, training up and funding terrorist groups to fight India, in Kashmir and in an aborted attempt to introduce a Sikh state in India. Some of the most fierce terror groups were set during the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq. The ISI were instrumental in setting up the Afghanistan Taliban. The network of jihadists established by ISI, and even the powerful ISI itself, would never allow any government to remove Islamist laws without a fight.

The original laws on religion in the 1860 Penal Code were not designed to favor one religion above another. I spoke to a Pakistani commentator, who told me: "Amendments of laws relating to religious offences in the Pakistan Penal Code brought about under President Zia differ significantly from earlier laws in at least four ways. They do not specifically mention malicious intent to wound religious sensitivities as a condition of criminal offence and they provide significantly increased penalties. Moreover they make specific reference to Islam while the earlier laws were intended to protect the religious sentiments of 'any class of persons'. Besides, there is a distinct shift in emphasis: the newly introduced sections of the PPC do not make it a criminal offence to injure the religious feelings of Muslims, but rather define the offence in terms of insult or affront to Islam itself. The offences consist in defiling or insulting the prophet of Islam, his companions and family members and desecrating the Koran."

In a Muslim country, any attempt to remove an Islamic law can be seen as an attack upon Islam, even if the law is being abused and is causing harm to Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Some Cases

One bizarre case of blasphemy involved Muhammad Yousaf Ali, who had once been a favorite of General Zia ul-Haq. Formerly an adviser to the Saudi government, a senior figure in the army, Yousaf Ali became a religious figure. Soon he became carried away with his religious ideas. He was alleged to have declared himself a prophet, though he denied it. A cult had grown around Yousaf Ali and some of his followers did think of him as a prophet. He soon gained the name "Yousaf Kazab" (Yousaf Liar). On August 5, 2000, he was sentenced to death for contravening Section 295-C of the penal code (derogatory language about Mohammed).

On June 11, 2002, Yousaf Ali was shot dead in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail in Lahore, Punjab province. He was being moved from one cell to another when another prisoner, Tariq Mota, drew a gun and shot Yousaf Ali four times in the chest. When the jail superintendent arrivied, Mota said to him: "It was your duty, but I have done it." The killer said he had been in possession of the pistol for four months.

Tariq Mota, the Sipah-i-Sahaba terrorist who killed Yousaf Ali, also said after the murder: "I now feel spiritually satisfied. It is the responsibility of every Muslim to kill these infidels."

Amnesty International complained and asked for the blasphemy laws to be amended or abolished. The governor of Punjab province blamed the jail staff for the death.

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Another notable case concerned human rights activist Younus Sheikh. Though accused of blasphemy, Younus Sheikh had said at a convention on October 1, 2000 that the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India should become the international border. This incensed a Pakistani officer. Sheikh lost his college teaching job, and then was accused under Section 295-C of the PPC, blaspheming against Mohammed. He was found guilty. On August 18, 2001, Younus Sheikh was sentenced to death. His appeal was successful and he was secretly released from jail on November 21, 2003. He remained incognito in Pakistan before fleeing to Europe.

People from all backgrounds and creeds have been accused of blasphemy. But when people genuinely believe they are prophets, there must be doubts about their sanity. On August 7, 2003, a court in Bahawalnagar, Punjab province, sentenced Bashir Ahmed to death for blasphemy against Mohammed, and also for claiming to be a prophet. Ahmed believed he was sent by God to reform society. Ahmed had a group of followers, and medical reports declared him to be mentally sound. His family had argued that he was psychiatrically unbalanced.

In Sindh province one faith healer was taken into custody on Christmas Day, 2008. Allegedly Abdul Jabbar he had been found burning pages from the Koran. A crowd of thousands had gathered and decided to wreak vengeance upon Jabbar and his assistant, a man called Naimatullah. The two men were tortured and their den set alight. The crowd were going to burn the pair alive when police arrived. The faith healer and his accomplice were charged under Section 295-B.

In July 2003 a sub-editor with mental illness was sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy in NorthWest Frontier Province. The sub-editor allowed a letter in English to be published, not understanding its contents. The office of the "Frontier Post" was torched, and even though the sub-editor was declared by a doctor to be mentally ill, the doctor's assessment was over-ruled by the judge.

One disturbing case of mental illness has recently been discussed. Back in 1996, a woman called Zebunnisa was accused under Section 295-B of desecrating the Koran. She has been in prison ever since that date, and has never been brought before a court. Imprisonment without trial for 13 years is an abuse of her rights, but in January 25, 2006 she was taken to a mental hospital where she was declared to be "mentally retarded". Instead of being released on the basis of a request made in September, the woman must wait. Lahore High Court ruled on October 1, 2009 that Zebunissa's counsel must submit another application for her release.

It is generally accepted that personal arguments or religious differences are the source of blasphemy accusations. In June 2006 an imam from a mosque was killed, and another was severely injured in a row over "blasphemy" that involved two competing sects of Sunni Islam. The incident took place in Hasilpur, Bahawalpur district in Punjab. The imam, Qamar Javed, preached at an Ahl-e-Hadith mosque. When he burned some trash, the imam was accused by members of another sect that he was burning Koran pages. A mob situation developed, and the imam was killed and his assistant beaten. Posthumous blasphemy cases were registered against the two victims of the mob, while the killers received no charges.

On June 27, 2008 Lahore High Court quashed a death sentence which had been given in 2003 to Tahir Asim, an imam. The cleric claimed that his accusers had religious differences with him. The court agreed, and Asim was released on the same day.

The Sipah-i-Sahaba and Lashkar-i-Jhvangi have been involved with provoking blasphemy issues, and they have also been implicated in cases of sectarian violence (including bombings) against Shia Muslims. It is therefore unsurprising that in May 2005, when fourteen Shias were officially accused of blasphemy, the Sipah-i-Sahaba were involved.

The Shias were accused under Section 298-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages). The Shia group included five children. On a Shia holy day, the kids had allegedly made an effigy of a companion of the Prophet, placed it on a donkey, uttered insulting comments, and taken it to a market. They repeated the remarks and ran off when reprimanded. Originally nine children had been listed in the FIR charge.

A jirga (tribal council) intervened and suggested the children should have their faces blackened (a shameful experience) and then made to ride on donkeys. This did not happen, and the case was brought to the police instead. The Shias lived in a village (in Haveli Koranga, Khanewal district) where the Sipah-i-Sahaba had been founded in 1986, and were effectively surrounded by members of the Deobandi fundamentalist group. (The Taliban of Afghanistan follow this ideology, as do the Tablighi Jamaat, a group which has several ISI members).

In April 2008 in Karachi, Sindh province, a Hindu factory worker was tortured and murdered by his coworkers, who accused him of blasphemy. 27-year old Jagdish Kumar had allegedly doubted the sanctity of Prophet Mohammed. When police arrived, the workers were trying to burn Mr Kumar's body.

There are many more stories of how the issue of blasphemy and the unfair implementation of the blasphemy laws has turned Pakistan into a nation where its minorities live a precarious existence, where at any time they could become made a victim. The blasphemy laws also are abused against individual Muslims.

When there is a constant fear, the fear causes some people to sometimes turn against each their erstwhile friends. Rather than becoming victims, some people join with the oppressors. At the end of March 2009, several Christian families were forced to flee their homes in the village of Sahiwal, Punjab province. The refugees were accused of throwing ink on the Koran. Their accusers were not only Muslims, but other Christians.

A copy of the Koran had allegedly been found on the floor in a girls' school in the village after an overnight break-in. The pages of the holy book were smeared in ink and gum. On a blackboard was a statement which appeared to implicate a particular Christian male. A mob tried to set fire to his house and the houses of his associates. More arson attempts followed. The factions appear to have divided along political lines, but it seems that some Christians preferred to side with those who wanted mob justice, to save themselves from being the victims of such "justice".

There is no room to insert a timeline of blasphemy events, as I had originally intended. I must offer that as a supplement at a later date. A brief timeline can be found here, and a listing of Ahmadi cases where the death sentence was imposed can be found here.

The President of Pakistan, Ali Asif Zardari, recently made promises in the Vatican and in London to ensure that minorities are not subjected to further assaults like that in Gojra on August 1, 1999. On September 18, 2009, Zardari spoke to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

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The notice on the Archbishop's website reads: "The President expressed awareness of the perception about Blasphemy law being exploited. The Government was conscious of the need to urgently address the issue in consultation with other political parties, civil society and religious communities in Pakistan with a view to preventing the misuse of the Blasphemy law in future. He confirmed that the Government was endeavouring to seek a broad political consensus on the issue through consultation."

"The President highlighted that the Government has allocated a quota for the minorities in the Government service, Senate, National and Provincial Assembly and appointed a Christian as Minister for Minorities to ensure appropriate representative of minorities.
Bishop Michael Nazir Ali commended these measures and also the unprecedented recent appointment of a Minority Member as High Court Judge."

Since 1986 there have been numerous cases of communities being attacked, and no government has ever been able to legislate against fanaticism. There are many things that could be done to encourage peace and harmony between all groups. Separating Mosque and state would be one. Abolishing discriminatory laws would be another. Revising the constitution to protect all religions could be an option. These are only pipe dreams.

In practice, look out for politicians mouthing platitudes, feigning concern and receiving more cash handouts from foreign governments, while allowing the same violence, discrimination, injustice and bigotry to continue unabated.

Pakistan: Abuse of Christian and other Religious Minorities

2009-10-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Part Two of Three

Methodology of Oppression

Christians are not the only group to have been affected by Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws. These statutes have been used against against Hindus, Muslims, and members of the Ahmadiyya (or Ahmadi, Qadiani) sect, who consider themselves "Islamic" yet are shunned as heretics. The laws are also used to "punish" people as a result of feuds, arguments over land, and other reasons. In these cases, innocent Muslims are often the victims of the Blasphemy Statutes. But there are other ways of oppressing minorities in Pakistan.

Forcibly converting people is one means of oppression that has been used against minority groups. On May 26, 2006, a conference was held in a Lahore hotel, sponsored by the Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan (MRC). It was claimed at this meeting that although only 100 cases of forced conversions were reported in the Pakistan media, the true annual figure ranged between 500 and 600 a year.

I.A. Rehman, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told the conference: "In Pakistan we do not have any law against forced conversion and converting from Islam to any other religion means death. To change this state of affairs, we must consider the issue as a struggle for democracy and invite Muslims as well to these meetings, so they can help us to better understand all points of view of the argument."

The practice of forcing Hindu girls to convert has been documented in Pakistan. In November, 2005, there had been 19 such cases reported in Karachi, the main city in Sindh province. Hindus are generally in low numbers in Pakistan, but in Sindh, there are two districts (Jacobad and Larkana) where (according to the 1998 census) they comprise about 40 per cent of the local population. Hindu girls were abducted, converted to Islam and hastily married to young Muslims before their families could trace them.

The most offensive method of forcible conversion is gang-rape. In the fall of 2005 a young Christian girl was allegedly gang-raped to force her to convert to Islam. The 12-year old girl was abducted from her home and forced to have sex with numerous men. The case was presented by the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA). One former influential member of APMA, Shahbaz Batti, is now the Minorities Minister in the current government.

Christian news sites have several details of such cases of forcible conversions through rape that have taken place in Pakistan. A report by the Asian Human Right Commission from March 2007 describes how a 15-year old Shia Muslim girl was gang-raped in Layyah in Punjab province, as a means to force her to convert to Islam.

Ahmadis

Ahmadis are said to comprise less than one per cent of Pakistan's population. They are treated by the majority population and by the establishment in a manner that should invoke the outrage of "rights groups" like CAIR, but strangely, few groups are prepared to defend the rights of the Ahmadis. The group has as its slogan: "Love for All, Hatred for No-One ," yet the group has received vilification from conventional Muslims. In Pakistan in 2005, more than 1,300 reports containing hate material against Ahmadis were published in the Urdu press. The group has also been subjected to violent attacks in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The persecutions of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan are similar to those endured by Christians. Occasionally villages are attacked, or individuals are accused of blasphemy, often in an attempt to invoke sectarian violence against the "blasphemer's" community. Such an instance happened on June 24, 2006, when a village was attacked after allegations were made that two Ahmadi youths had burned a copy of the Koran. Seven Ahadis had been arrested under Section 295-B of the Oenal Code (desecration of Koran), but a mob nonetheless rampaged through the village of Jhando Shai in Punjab province. 13 Ahmadi families lived in the village. 12 were forced to flee, while their homes (and some shops) were burned down. The Ahmadi families who fled could not return to register complaints against those who had vandalized their abodes - the police had banned them from coming back.

Between 1986 and 1999, a total of 189 Ahmadis were imprisoned for contravening Section 295-C of the Penal Code. This outlaws blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, and is the most serious of the religious statutes, potentially meriting the death penalty.

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In 2002 Ahmadi political candidates in the general election were forced to sign a pledge confirming that Mohammed was the final prophet (khatm-e-nabbuwat), essentially forcing them to deny the prophethood of their founder Ghulam Ahmad. The Ahmadis do, however, state that Muhammad was the last law-giving prophet.

The discriminatory oath seemed designed to oust Ahmadis from the political process. Not only are Ahmadi candidates placed in the uncomfortable position of either denying the tenets of their faith or sacrificing their rights to stand for election, the same oath must be signed by voters. As a result, Ahmadis are denied the right to partake in the political process.

The Ahmadiyya were officially declared to be non-Muslims on September 21, 1974. This declaration was made by the National Assembly, and became the second amendment to the constitution. The government then was under the leadership of Fazal Elahi Chaudry, of the PPP party.

The official demonization of the Ahmadis obviously contradicts Jinnah's original vision of Pakistan as a nation where people of all faiths should be equal. The machinations of anti-democratic fanatics and dictators have betrayed not only Jinnah, but the first government after independence. The first foreign minister of Pakistan was Sir Zafrullah Khan (1893 - 1985), who was an Ahmadi. A figure of international politics, and champion of the Third World, Zafrullah Khan's religion seems to be the reason why he is not remembered in Pakistan.

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Political discrimination continues. The leaders of Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party (JUI) follow strict Deobandi beliefs. Sami ul-Haq, who leads the "S" wing of the party, heads the Haqqania madrassa which educated most of Afghanistan's Taliban, including Mullah Omar (even though the latter did not finish his course). The "F" wing of JUI is led by Fazlur Rehman. Both have argued for Sharia law to replace Pakistan's democracy. On September 29, 2009, Senator Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) publicly condemned the exiled leader of the MQM party for supporting the Ahmadi. Soomro also condemned the governor of Punjab for supporting the Ahmadis, and vowed that JUI activists would ensure people knew about khatm-e-nabbuwat.

In December 2004, the Pakistani authorities removed the necessity of a column in a person's passport that declared one's religion. Briefly, it seemed that Ahmadis would be able to join the Hajj to Mecca. However, in March 2005 government ministers restored the religious identification section on all Pakistani passports. They had apparently been pressured by fundamentalist groups.

Scattered as they are across Pakistan, the cohesion of Ahmadis as a group would be maintained through publications. Now, the internet is used to keep Ahmadis aware of what is happening to their communities both nationally and globally. On September 9, 2006, the offices of an Ahmadi newspaper in Rabwah, Punjab, were raided by police. The Blasphemy laws (298-B and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code), introduced in 1980 by dictator Zia ul-Haq to deny Ahmadis the right to present themselves as "Muslims", were invoked to justify the raid. Additionally, the newspaper was said to have publiched "hate-literature". Arrests were made, some staff escaped. The Daily Alfazl newspaper, which was founded in 1911, was forced to stop printing. It apparently continues, and has an online edition.

The Ahmadis face discrimination even after death. When an Ahmadi is buried in a Muslim graveyard, there are often protests, leading to exhumations and reburials, as happened to a 60-year old woman in June 2007 and a 17-year old Ahmadi girl in March 2006. This girl, Nadia Hanif, was reburied because local clerics, supported by extremists, had campaigned against her body lying amongst "true" Muslims. A family spokesman said: "How can peace and harmony be built in society?"

Between 1988 and 2006, there were a total of 28 Ahmadi exhumations from Muslim cemeteries. Attempts by Ahmadis to expand or alter their own cemeteries are limited by the actions of fanatical Muslims.

In April 2007 when Ahmadis wished to place a fence around a graveyard at Wagah Town near Lahore, a radical cleric declared this unacceptable. The cleric, Dr Sarfaraz Ahmed Naeemi, promised retaliations if the government allowed it. He said that as the cemetery was near the Indian border, having it enclosed appeared to suggest they wanted a headquarters. Naeemi added: "The government should remember that according to our belief, apostates should be killed within three days. It is only the difference of opinion on this decree within Muslims that has stopped us from doing so."

Ahmadis - like Christians - are killed for the sake of their faith. Between 1984 and 2004, at least 79 Ahmadis had been killled. On March 1, 2007 a senior police officer shot dead Muhammad Ashraf, an Ahmadi man who was eating his breakfast in a hotel in a village near Lahore, Punjab province. Before shooting him, the policeman shouted: "You are an infidel, and are preaching an infidel creed in the area."

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Early on Friday October 7, two gunmen burst into an Ahmadi mosque in Mong, Mandi Bahuddin town, 60 miles south of Islamabad, the capital. The assailants fired Kalashnikovs at Ahmadis who were offering morning prayers. Eight people were killed and fourteen more were injured. The gunmen fled on a motorcycle of a third man, who waited outside. A witness said: "The floor of the one-room place of worship was littered with blood."

On Monday January 19, 2009 a 55-year old Ahmadi shopkeeper was shot dead in Kotri district, Sindh province. Saeed Ahmed had been returning home from work when he was shot in front of his house. The only reason for his killing, claimed an Ahmadi spokesman, was his faith. The spokesman blamed a media fatwa for allowing such killings to happen (see below).

Killings are horrific but when children are criminalized under the law on account of their faith, there can be no moral justification. In February 2007, it was revealed that police in Khushab district in Punjab province had registered a case against five young Ahmadis. Their "crime" had been to subscribe to an Ahmadi children's magazine called Tasheezul Azhan. The police officer who made the case claimed the magazine was "banned" and contained "hate material", even though it had been printed since 1906. Two of the accused were pre-teen. One was an eleven-year old girl, Nusrat Jahan, and one was an eight year old boy called Umair Ahmed.

In Layyah district in Punjab province, another incident involved children becoming criminalized. Four Ahmadi boys from the district were arrested on January 28 this year. The boys, named Muhammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mahmood and Naseeb Ahmad, were said in the FIR (First Information Report) to have written "blasphemous material" in the latrines of the Gulzar-e-Madina mosque in Kot Sultan. They were all charged under Section 295-C of the Blasphemy Laws. This statute, which outlaws the use of "derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet", is the most serious, as it can lead to the death penalty.

Following a well-established pattern, the accusations of blasphemy were followed by mob violence. On January 29, 2009, a day after the arrests, a mob tried to burn Ahmadi houses in Layyah district. The protagonists of the violence were said to be banned Islamist extremist groups.

The case is serious. It is the first time since 1986, when Section 295-C of the PPC was introduced, that it has been used against children. The "banned groups" who led the agitation against the Layyah Ahmadiyya community, were the Sipah-i-Sahaba. Apparently a retired schoolteacher called Noor Elahi Kulachi, who is a member of the Sipah-i-Sahaba, led the campaign to have the children arrested. Kulachi approached a relative of a member of the National Assembly, who then convened a meeting. This had the boys branded as "guilty".

On Friday January 30 a 45-year old man called Mubaser Ahmed was also arrested. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) released a statement. This asserted that the boys had not been part of the mosque where the graffiti was found, nor were they from the area.

The AHRC statement also read: "After contacting Dr Muhammad Azam, the district police officer (DPO) of Layyah, family members were told that the police were under pressure from fundamentalists to act against the children. If he did not arrest them, Azam said, the group had threatened to close down the whole city and attack the houses of Ahmedi sect members. Worried about civilian deaths, the officer arrested the children."

On February 7, 2009, it was revealed that the four accused children had been sent to Dera Ghazi Khan Central Jail. A local community leader sent them books in jail, so they could revise for their examinations. Members of the banned Islamist groups that were said to be responsible for attacking Ahmadiyya homes in Layyah were not charged or arrested.

I contacted a British Ahmadiyya mosque and was told that the four Ahmadi boys have since been bailed. Even though they are no longer in prison, they are still awaiting their trial for blasphemy.

In a country that receives so much money from Western nations, particularly from the United States, it is shocking that some officials and politicians flout the rule of law and show no respect for the human rights of others. On September 7, 2008, a former government minister repeatedly declared that as Ahmadis did not believe Mohammed to be the last prophet, it was necessary under Islamic teachings to kill them. He also persuaded his two guests to agree with the statement. Within 48 hours, two Ahmadis had been murdered.

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Dr Amir Liaquat Hussain had formerly been the religious affairs minister for Pakistan, and used to be with the MQM party. On July 4, 2007, he was forced to resign from his post as religious affairs minister, on the orders of the MQM party. The party was unhappy with Liaquat's comments that Salman Rushdie should be killed for blasphemy.
Liaquat Hussein made his comments on the popular religious show that he had fronted as anchorman, called "Aalim Online". This show is on Geo TV. Shortly after his calls for Ahmadis to be killed, the MQM party also dropped Liaquat Hussein from their main committee.

18 hours after Liaquat Hussein called for Ahmadis to be killed as a "religious duty" (Wajib ul Qatal), six people walked into a clinic in Mirpur Khas, Sindh province. Here Dr Abdul Manan Siddiqui had a medical practice. They called for the doctor, an Ahmadi, to come to assist a patient. When the doctor came down to see them, he was shot eleven times and died. A woman and a guard were injured by gunfire. On September 9, 2008, a 75 year old man was killed in Nawab Shah, Sindh province. Mr Yousaf was a rice trader and head of his local Ahmadi group. He was shot at by men on motorbikes, hit three times, and died in an ambulance before it reached hospital.

On May 29, 2009 the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat issued a press relealse. This stated that a 54-year old Ahmadi man from Faisalabad in Pakistan had been killed in what appeared to be a targeted assassination. Mian Liaq Ahmad was driving home when he found a car blocking access to the road where he lived. Men jumped from a car and shot Mr Ahmad in the head. The press release stated: "He becomes the 5th Ahmadi to be martyred in 2009 and the 101st to be killed in Pakistan since anti-Ahmadiyya laws were introduced by the Government of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1984."
Christians

In Part One I mentioned the case of Fanish "Robert" Masih, who was apparently murdered in his jail cell. His extra-judicial killing is not without precedent. On May 28, 2004 a Christian called Samuel Masih died from injuries. Samuel had been a suspect in a blasphemy case, and while incarcerated, he had developed tuberculosis. On May 22, 2004, he had been escorted to hospital by police guards. One of these police officers, Faryad Ali, hit Samuel on the head with a brick-cutter. Apparently, the police constable claimed that he wanted to gain a place in heaven by killing Samuel.

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Christians are most frequently murdered in connection with blasphemy cases, but occasionally acts of naked sectarian violence are used against them. On Christmas Day 2002 2002, three girls were killed in a grenade attack at a church. The incident happened in Chianwala, north of Lahore in Punjab province. The assailants who threw the grenade wore burkas. Two girls died instantly, and another died later. They victims were aged 6, 10 and 15.

The grenade attack happened after a local Muslim cleric told his congregation: "It is the duty of every good Muslim to kill Christians. You should attack Christians and not even have food until you have seen their dead bodies." The cleric, Nazir Yaqub, was a supporter of banned group Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group linked with Al-Qaeda.

On September 25, 2002, seven Christians were killed in Karachi, Sindh province. On March 17, 2002 another church was attacked with grenades in Islamabad. Five people were killed and 45 were injured.

On Monday August 5, 2002, six people were killed at the Murree Christian School near Islamabad. On August 9, 2002 grenades were thrown into a Christian hospital in Taxila, 25 miles from Islamabad. Three nurses died.

The worst sectarian attack against Christians happened on October 28, 2001 when 18 people died after gunmen attacked a church service in St Dominic's church in Bhawalpur, eastern Pakistan. In July 2002, four people were arrested in connection with the incident. Two of these belonged to the banned group Lashkar-i-Jhvangi.

Challenging the Blasphemy Laws

In May 2007 Christians in Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province, close to the Afghan border, were threatened by Islamists. A letter telling them to convert or die was circulated in the town. The threats came after a legal attempt to change the blasphemy laws had failed.

Attempting to challenge the blasphemy laws has always invoked the ire of Islamic fanatics. These are highly organized. Lashkar-Jhvangi comprises former fighters who were in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets. Other groups, such as Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat have been instrumental in oppressing the "heretical" Ahmadiyya, and also challenging any proposed changes to the blasphemy legislation. The Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat reappeared in the news in May last year demanding that Pakistan cut ties with the Netherlands and Denmark.

The aggression of this group was expressed by its leader, Hanif Tayyab, who said: "We put the government on one-month notice to expel these envoys and recall our ambassadors from the two countries, otherwise we will ask our followers to march on Islamabad."

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba appear to have been instrumental in many notorious instances of communal violence against Pakistani Christian communities (as well as Ahmadi and Shia Muslim communities). Often they invoke "blasphemy" accusations against individuals to better mobilize groups to violence against whole communities. This appeared to have happened at Sangla Hill in Punjab province in 2005, and also at Gojra in August this year.

The first major case of such communal violence happened against the Christian village of Shanti Nagar near Karachi, Sindh province. On February 6, 1997, thousands of Islamic protesters descended on the village with placards stating: "Kill the Christians because they are Blasphemers towards the Holy Quran and Holy Prophet." In the village of Shanti Nagar 785 houses were destroyed, four churches were burned, and 2,500 people forced to flee. Two days before, Muslims had run riot in the town of Khanegal. In all, thirteen churches were destroyed and 2,000 Bibles were destroyed. The mob violence, in which incendiary devices were used, had stemmed from the discovery of a ripped Koran, which had Christians' names written on the pages.

The problems with attempting to challenge the Blasphemy Laws are plain - anyone who attempts to alter the laws is seen as an "enemy of Islam", and the Islamist groups can mobilize support with little resistance from the authorities.

Lawyers who have acted to defend those accused of blasphemy have been threatened. Aslam Pervaiz is one individual who had received death threats and had been assaulted for defending those accused of blasphemy. Sheikh Anis A Saadi is the Chairman of a free advocacy service and said in November 2008 that he has been subject to social stigma from defending alleged "blasphemers". His office had been set on fire, he had been assaulted, and his family had received written threats from a "jihadi" group.

The Asian Human Rights Commission reports a lawyer has been mentioned in a printed Urdu advertisement, placed in several newspapers. The lawyer in question is called Rao Zafar Iqbal, and he is head of the National Council for Human Rights. Before he became involved in Robert's case, he received threatening letters in July 2009. These demanded that he stop defending religious minorities. They came from Jan Nisaran-e-Nabuwat and Aqeeda-e-Tahafuz-e-Kathme Nabuwat. When he went to Faisalabad police to request protection, they refused. He was then shot at.

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On August 4, 2009, an advertisement appeared in the Daily Pavel newspaper. It is reproduced above. This advertisement declared that Rao Zafar Iqbal is deserving of death, because he defended a man called Mohammed Ayube who claims to be Prophet Mohammed. Even though Ayube appepars to be mentally ill, fatwas appeared against him in the Daily Pavel and Daily Express newspapers. The advertisement mentioning Rao Zafar Iqbal stated that murdering the lawyer would be doing a service to Islam.

The police appear to have taken no action against the newspapers, and in so many cases of alleged "blasphemy", as well as when sectarian riots occur, the police are said to have stood back and done nothing.

When lawyers have been successful, and their clients are freed, the acquitted individuals have to flee for their lives. Several have been killed after gaining freedom. For example, Manzur Masih, Rahmat Masih and Salamat Masih had been arrested in May 1993, accused of blasphemy, under Section 295-C of the PPC.

The Christians were said to have passed pieces of paper into a mosque in Punjab province. The slips of paper allegedly bore insulting comments about Mohammed. The three had been accused by a cleric, Maulvi Fazl-e-Haq, who was a leader of the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba, which at that time was not banned. Fazl-e-Haq claimed the three had also scribbled graffiti on the mosque wall.

At Lahore High Court, the three were acquitted, and set free, accompanied by another young man who had been falsely accused. Standing on the steps of the courthouse, the four were shot at by gunmen. Manzur Masih was killed. The judge who had acquitted him would also later be killed by extremists for freeing the Christians.

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Bishop John Joseph, the first ethnic Pakistani to become Bishop of Faisalabad, attended the funeral of Manzur Masih, and even kissed the feet of the dead man. He vowed that he would be the next person to die under the blasphemy laws. Later, in his frustration, Bishop Joseph would give his own life. But even his own sacrifice brought no change to the laws.

In Part Three, I will discuss the events of Bishop Joseph's mission to stop the persecution of Christians and to repeal the blasphemy statutes. I will also present a timeline of some of the most interesting Pakistani legal cases of blasphemy.

Pakistan: Abuse of Christian and other Religious Minorities

2009-10-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

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This year, Christians in Pakistan have suffered their worst persecutions for a decade. As a percentage of the population in the predominantly Muslim country, Christians number less than five per cent. This year seven Christians were burned alive in mob violence at Gojra in Punjab province. Four of these were women and one was a four-year old child. In other parts, homes and churches have been destroyed and hundreds of Christians have been forced to flee their homes.

Pakistan's discriminatory blasphemy laws have continued to be used to oppress minorities. As soon as a police complaint (FIR or First Information Report) is made about blasphemy the accused is compulsorily remanded in custody until trial. One Christian individual who was detained in this manner died violently on September 15, even though the police who incarcerated him attempted to pass off his death as a suicide. In almost all the cases of legislative oppression and mob violence against Christians, blasphemy has been invoked as justification.

Recently Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari was on an international diplomatic tour, in which he visited Rome for three days. On Wednesday September 30, he met with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and signed an agreement on intelligence-sharing and military cooperation. The persecution of Christians in Pakistan was briefly mentioned.

Zardari said: "We are confronting the problem of religious minorities in Pakistan. We support all religious minorities in our country. They have the same rights, whether it is their religious practices or political rights." Berlusconi confirmed this, noting that he "found president Zardari to be very attentive."

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The following day (October 1) Zardari visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo. The Vatican Press Office stated: "The cordial discussions provided an opportunity to examine the current situation in Pakistan, with particular reference to the fight against terrorism and the commitment to create a society more tolerant and harmonious in all its aspects."

The Blasphemy Laws.

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The blasphemy laws as they are now employed derive from amendments made in the 1980s to Pakistan's Penal Code (PPC). This legislation derives from 1860, as a set of statutes introduced by the British Raj for the governance of West Pakistan, then a predominantly Urdu-speaking region of India. The controversial amendments were introduced by the Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq. This individual deposed Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and imposed martial law.

In 1980, ul-Haq introduced a Majlis-e-Shura (a council) of unelected advisers - many from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party - to replace parliament. Later, he enacted sham elections. Zia ul-Haq retained connections with religious extremists, such as Maulana Muhammad Abdullah Shaheed who was imam at the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad. Ul-Haq gave himself the role of President, with power above prime minister, and ruled Pakistan until his death in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. The main blasphemy amendments were introduced while Pakistan was under a military dictatorship, and not under a civil democracy.

Part XV of the PPC lists offenses involving religion. Originally, there were only 4 laws of this nature, numbered from 295 to 298, but these have been expanded to number 10. The laws generally invoked to oppress Christians (and also Hindus and the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic sect deemed by some to be heretical) are all the results of amendments. These are Sections 295-B, 295-C and less frequently Section 298-A.

Section 295-B which outlaws "Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur'an"originally arose as an amendment introduced in 1927 and revised in 1982. This states: "Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur'an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.
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Section 295-C prohibits "Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet" and was introduced with the approval of General Zia ul-Haq and the Islamist Jammat-e-Islami party in 1982 and revised in 1986. This statute reads: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."

The death penalty option to Section 295-C was added in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, III of 1986, S. 2

Section 298-A deals with "Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages". This amendment was introduced in 1980, and states: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of any wife (Ummul Mumineen), or members of the family (Ahle-bait), of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), or any of the righteous Caliphs (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) or companions (Sahaaba) of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

Other sections of the PPC - 298-B and 298-C specifically target the Ahmadiyya. The first of these, introduced in 1980 prevents the Ahmadiyya from using devotional names to anyone other than Prophet Mohammed and his companions, and from calling any place of worship associated with anyone other than Mohammed as a "masjid" (mosque).

Section 298-C was also introduced in 1980, with a further amendment made in 1984. This forbids any Ahmadiyya from calling him- or herself a "Muslim" and forbids any proselytizing of their religion. Sections 298-B and C both carry penalties of up to three years' imprisonment and/or a fine.

Events Leading up to the Gojra Violence

The violence in Gojra, in which Christians were burned to death, stemmed from a dispute that involved accusations of blasphemy. A month before the atrocities, on Tuesday June 30, more than 110 Christian families were forced to flee their homes in the village of Bahminwala (Bahmina Wala) in Kasur district in Punjab province. The Christians were forced to hide in the fields around the village. They were driven out because Muslim mobs, encouraged by the local mosque, accused them all of blasphemy after one of their number had been listed in an FIR report.

The rampaging began after an incident that had occurred on the previous day. An argument broke out between a Christian farm laborer, 38-year old Sardar Masih (Arif Mashi), who was driving a tractor. A Muslim riding a bicycle came by and demanded that he should be allowed to pass. When this did not happen, the Muslim (Muhammad Riaz) apparently accused the Christian of being lower caste and a fight broke out.

According to Pakistan Christian Post, a mosque imam called Qari Lateef (Qari Latif) was consulted, and charges were filed against Sardar Masih at the local police station. These charges did not - it seems - include blasphemy, but the imam used his mosque loudspeaker system to make such accusations. In the ensuing unrest, electricity meters on Christian houses were smashed, Christian villagers were beaten, and houses were looted and burned.

The Daily Times newspaper sent journalists to the region. They met Shaan Ali and his brother Imran, who had both led the mob that attacked the Christians. Shaan Ali claimed, "The Christians had committed blasphemy". He could not specify who had committed this blasphemy. Ahmed Ali Dhillon of the provincial assembly confirmed that Qari Latif, imam at the village mosque, had instigated the violence against the Christians.

A few days later after the violence, while Christians made public protest at their treatment, Pakistan's minority minister Shahbaz Bhatti visited the village. Bhatti promised compensation to victims of the violence. Chief Justice Khawaja Mohammed Sharif at the Lahore High Court demanded that the local police chief for Kasur district appear to give their account of the events.

The events at Gojra followed - like so many similar cases of mob violence - the same trajectory as at Kasur, but the outcome was more horrific. Gojra is situated 99 miles west of Lahore in Punjab province. The spark that triggered the rampage began with an accusation that blasphemy had occurred. It was alleged that three Christians, Mukhtar Masih, Talib Masih and Talib's son Imran had desecrated pages of the Koran at a wedding ceremony in Korrian, outside Gojra town.

A case was registered against the three men under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, but they were not immediately arrested. It is traditional for money to be presented at a wedding, and for those who are poor, "pretend money" is displayed. The Christians had allegedly cut up pieces of paper to look like money. There was no evidence from any sources that a Koran had actually been desecrated.

On Thursday July 30, fearing reprisals for the alleged desecration, residents had fled from Korrian, leaving many houses empty. A mob gathered, and set fire to about 50 houses, and also burning cattle. A kangaroo court was held in which Talib Masih was asked to apologize for desecrating Islam's holy book. He denied having desecrated pages from the Koran and refused to apologize. Two churches were also set ablaze. The mob blocked the main road to the village, to prevent fire engines from putting out the fires.

Imran Masih was officially charged under Section 295-B of the Penal Code. Pages of the Koran had allegedly been found among garbage outside the scene of the wedding on July 26.

A second incident followed, on Saturday August 1, which filled international newswires for the scale of its ferocity. The police did nothing as a mob of fanatical Muslims entered the town of Gojra and started to shoot. They threw molotov cocktails at houses, burning down forty domiciles. The assailants were said to be from Lashkar-e-Jhvangi or its associated group Sipah-e-Saba. These have been involved in previous instances of sectarian violence against any minority that is not Sunni Muslim, including attacks upon Shia civilians.

Six of the individuals who died came from one family, that of Almass Hameed. A week after the event, Almass Hameed spoke from his hospital bed: "I think there were thousands. My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house."

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Mr Hameed described how he and nine members fo his extended family hid in an upstairs bedroom, and heard members of the mob breaking in, smashing items and dividing valuables betwen them. Some intruders beat on the bedroom door where Almass and others were hiding. The intruders threatened to burn them alive, and soon he could smell smoke as flames spread. He recalled: "We just couldn't breathe. I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them."

Those who remained in the bedroom were Almass' four-year old son Mousa, his 11-year old daughter, his wife, her sister and her mother. Unable to escape, they were burned to death.

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A Muslim youth blamed the event upon the Christians. He said: "We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots. Of course it is bad that Christians died. But they provoked the Muslims here. I don't understand why everyone is on their side."

In the aftermath of the atrocity at Gojra, missionary schools were closed on Monday August 3.

A total of 800 individuals were charged with murder, including the local chief of police and the District Coordination Officer. Only 17 of these were actually named and placed in custody, with the remainder listed as "unknown" individuals. The charges had been brought by a local bishop. Shahbaz Sharif announced that 500,000 Rupees ($6,002) would be awarded for each family member that had died in the August 1 rioting.

The events in Gojra were to precipitate further attacks in a wave of "blasphemy hysteria". At Mudrike in Lahore, immediately after the Gojra arson deaths, a Muslim factory owner would become falsely accused of blasphemy. The incident took place on Tuesday August 4. It involved Mian Najib who was the owner of East Leather, a leather-processing factory at Khatiala Virkan near Muridke. Najib removed an out-of-date Islamic calendar from the wall of the factory and, it is alleged, burned it. Calendars of this nature often have verses or quotations from the Koran upon them, and as such, any destrucion of these quotations is seen as destruction of the Koran.

A worker at the factory called Moulvi Shabber claimed to have seen this act, and incited revenge for this act. A crowd of hundreds attacked the East Leather factory. In the ensuing violence, a security guard was killed, along with a security guard. Others were injured.

On Wednesday, August 5 at Sanghur in Sindh province, a 60-year old Muslim woman was accused of blasphemy, and her home became surrounded by a mob, led by a local shopkeeper who accused her of blasphemy. The shop owner had said that Akhtari Begum had thrown aroound some pages of the Koran inside his store. She, for her part, claimed that she had thrown the book in which her credit entries had been kept by the shopkeeper, onto the ground. Police took the woman into custody, apparently sparing her life.

Other Incidents

The fact that Muslims too can become innocent victims of mob violence may perhaps be the key to having the Blasphemy Laws revoked. Traditionally, extremist Islamic groups, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which had a part in writing the laws, have campaigned successfully for blasphemy laws to remain. In March 2008, for example, the Jamaat-e-Islami party (which seeks sharia law and wants apostates from Islam to be executed under law) condemned political parties for ignoring its rallies in favor of enforcing the Blasphemy statutes.

The mention of agitation by the groups Lashkar-i-Zhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba in some of the recent attacks against the Christian minority suggests that the extremes of violence have been deliberately manipulated.

While the victims of the Gojra violence were buried, police took action against suspects and arrested 65 people, including Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leading figure in Sipah-i-Sahaba. The residence of Abid Farooqi, another member of the banned terror group, was raided, but Farooqi had fled. His father and two brothers were apprehended and taken into custody.

On November 12, 2005, a similar incident had taken place in Sangla Hill in Punjab province, where a false allegation of blasphemy had been made. Yousaf Masseh was accused of desecrating pages from the Koran, though it was claimed that he had been accused by two men who owed him money from gambling debts, and did not wish to pay. Masseh had been imprisoned, while a mob of about 1,500 Muslims, encouraged by loudspeaker announcements from a mosque, descended upon the Christian homes in Sangla HIll. Three churches, including a Catholic and a Protestant house of worship, a school, a youth hostel, a nunnery and two homes belonging to Protestant priests were destroyed.

Shortly after the orgy of destruction, Christian community leaders in Sangla Hill had been threatened over the phone by a man who identified himself as a member of Lashkar-i-Jhvangi. He warned them to accept his "deal" within two days or to "get ready to die". Eventually

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi was the group believed responsible for the kidnap and decapitation of US journalist Daniel Pearl. An offshoot of Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhvangi came into existence in 1996. It was designated by the US as a terrorist organization on January 30, 2003. Both Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba had been banned by President Musharraf in Pakistan on August 14, 2001. Sipah-i-Sahaba had been formed in Punjab province in the 1980s. Both groups have a Deobandi philosophy (the ideology which governs the actions of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan) aimed for a Sunni state in Pakistan under sharia law.

In April 2009, Christians came under threat from Taliban-supporting militants in a community near Sarjani Town in a suburb of Karachi, in SIndh province. Buildings, including two houses and about six shops, were set on fire. Roadside traders' stalls and carts were destroyed by fire. Gunfire broke out between groups and four people were injured. The violence broke out after graffiti on the walls of a church had been found on Wednesday April 22. The graffiti comprised of pro-Taliban slogans.

Christians had responded by burning tires and throwing stones at passing vehicles. The two groups - Pakhtoons (Pashtun migrants from the Afghan borderlands) and Christians, faced each other down, and then gunfire broke out. Four people were injured, including an eleven year old boy. One of the individuals who had been shot, a man called Irfan Masih, died later in hospital.

The graffiti which had been chalked onto the wall of the Roman Catholic church in Sarjani town included: Taliban are coming", "Long live Taliban" and "Be prepared to pay Jizya or embrace Islam".

Jizya is a tax, listed in the Koran and the Hadiths, which non-Muslims were traditionally obliged to pay to Muslim overlords when a community was fully controlled by Islam and governed by the precepts of sharia. In the Koran, Sura 9, verse 29, it is written (Yusufali's translation): "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

During the incident in the Christian settlement (called Khuda ki Basti) near Sarjani Town, police had been present but had done nothing to stop the incident. When the shooting began, only Christians were injured.

On August 28 in the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, southwestern Pakistan, six Christians were shot dead and seven more were injured. For months before the atrocity, Christians in the region had been receiving letters from Islamic fundamentalists which ordered them to convert to Islam or to die.

The most recent incident of prejudice against the Christian community involved the Blasphemy Laws. A 25-year old Christian man from Sialkot in northeastern Punjab province, close to the Indian border, was arrested on Friday September 11, accused of desecrating the Koran. A mob of about 100 people, most of them young men, had made the accusations against Fanish Masih, who sometimes went under the name of Robert. The mob went on the rampage through Sambrial district and attacked a Roman Catholic church, setting it alight.

The alleged incident that had provoked the violence was a claim that a Christian had snatched a Koran from a 10-year old girl and had then desecrated it. No authentication of the incident has appeared from other sources, and it seems that - like almost all alleged cases of Koran desecration - it could be a baseless myth.

On Tuesday September 15, police announced that Fanish Masih had committed suicide in his cell. The young man had been kept in a separate cell, and police maintained that he had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself with a narrow cord. This version was immediately contested. Asma Jahangir, the head of HRCP, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, claimed that "This is death in custody and the police authorities are responsible."

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Kamran Michael, the Punjabi provincial Minister for Minority Affairs said: "I have seen the body and there were torture marks on it." It is obvious that there is a deep gash on Robert's forehead, which appears to have been caused by impact from a sharp-edged object. The body was taken away by local Christians who demanded a private autopsy.

At the funeral of Fanish Masih on Wednesday September 16, there was discontent. The body could not be buried in Fanish's native village of Jaithikey-Sambrial for fear of inflaming tensions again. Instead, a memorial service was held in the grounds of a Christian school in the inductrial city of Sialkot. There was ill feeling on the night before the funeral, and some Christians blocked roads, threw stones at vehicles and trashed 13 shops. On the day that Fanish was interred, there were clashes with police, and nine Christians were arrested.

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The day of the funeral, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Minorities demanded an official inquiry into the circumstances of Robert Fanish Masih's death in police custody.

While Pakistani newspaper editorials carried sincere expressions of regret about the treatment of Christian and other minorities in Pakistan, a bizarre turn of events took place in Toba Tek Singh, the district that included Gojra. On September 26, it was announced that an individual called Ghulam Murtaza had filed a case against 129 Christians from Gojra.

Murtaza claimed that he had been among 12 Muslims who had been injured on August 1, the day that seven Christians had been injured in Gojra. In this counter-claim, it was stated that one of the Muslims who had been injured on the day of the rioting, Muhammad Asif, had later died from injuries. The legal charges invoked the Anti-Terror Act as well as Sections from the Penal Code, including Section 295-C (insulting Prophet Mohammed), 280 (theft from a house), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc.), 324 (Qatl-i-amd or attempting to cause death of another), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (being part of an unlawful assembly and guilty of committing a crime) and Section 342 (wrongful confinement).

The individuals listed in Murtaza's charge sheet included John Samuel, the Bishop of Gojra, and also Samuel's two sons, and a local administrator.

Six days before Ghulam Murtaza brought his extraordinary set of charges against members of Gojra's Christian community, 18 people who had been held in custody for the violence of August 1 were released. A joint committee of Muslims and Christians, set up to enact reconciliation, had decided to declare the 18 individuals innocent. A similar committee had brought the same results - and consequence lack of punishment for offenders - in the aftermath of the Sangla Hill riots of 2005.

The Death of a Dream

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When Pakistan broke free from British rule, it was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is hard to imagine that originally, the state of Pakistan was officially secular. Nowadays, Section 2 of the constitution maintains that "Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan." Jinnah was only in power for 13 months before he died. With him died the dream of a secular nation.

The current Constitution maintains in Section 20 A that, "subject to law, public order and morality, every citizen shall have the right to profess and propagate his religion". Section 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code deliberately suppresses this basic right in relation to the Ahmadiyya. These believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their faith on March 23, 1889, is a prophet. In every other way they follow the tenets of the Koran, though they are banned by Saudi Arabia from performing one of the five pillars of Islam, making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.

One of the few heartening things to have emerged as a consequence of the recent attacks against Christians is a willingness on the part of respected Muslim commentators within Pakistan to voice their shock and shame at the events that have been allowed to take place on account of the Blasphemy Laws. For the first time in three decades, there appears to be a determination on the part of Pakistan's elite to discuss the removal of the contentious and divisive laws.

Several writers have gone back to the historic speech made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947, the day of Pakistan's Independence. As president of the new republic, Jinnah addressed the Constituent Assembly.

He included the following words: "You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State."

He added: "Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State."

The evidence is now incontrovertible, that Pakistan is now a nation where Hindus, Christians and the "heretical" Ahmadiyya are minorites who have none of the freedoms that were described by Jinnah in his first speech as elected president. Jinnah was speaking of the need to frame a Constitution and what it should encompass. He railed against the corruption that had been endemic at the time of Independence. Acknowledging that Paksiatn would have non-Muslims in its population, he urged that the state should work for the wellbeing of everyone. He said: "If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make."

Pakistan has long abandoned the principles that brought it into being. The rule of Zia ul-Haq was the third military dictatorship since independence. Since 1947, only one government, the one that preceded this current one, has completed a full term of office, and that was blighted by emergency powers introduced by Musharraf at the end. The Blasphemy Laws, approved by Zia ul-Haq with the support of Islamic fundamentalists, have been a source of strife, a means by which personal scores can be settled, a pretext for communal violence. At a speech delivered after the funeral of Fanish Masih, Father Emanuel Yousaf Mani called on the current government to review the Blasphemy statutes. He told a press conference that since their introduction, 947 people, all of them non-Muslims, had been killed.

In Part Two, I will describe how previous attempts to amend the Blasphemy Laws have foundered in the face of fundamentalist opposition, and show how they have been used to settle scores and to turn minority groups into convenient scapegoats.

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 4 of 4

2009-09-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 4 of 4

PART FOUR (OF FOUR)

The Oldham Riots of 2001

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The current problems of groups fighting on Britain's streets has been likened to earlier events. Gerry Gable, the former editor of Searchlight said: "We're faced with an upsurge in fascist groups, and it's a real problem. This could do more damage to community relations than anything since the Oldham and Bradford riots of 2001 and 2002."

Gable's definition of "fascist groups" is debatable, but his invocation of the 2001 riots in relation to the events of today is sound. Worryingly, it has been announced that the EDL is planning two demonstrations in Oldham and Stoke. The Oldham Chronicle of September 22 announced that a new EDL group had been formed in Oldham and had already gained 50 members.

Nick Lowles of Searchlight is worried that the planned EDL event could bring back the violence that triggered the original Oldham riots of 2001. Lowles is right to be worried, but he should also be concerned that the UAF will almost certainly be agitating to create, as it has done at previous EDL events, a hostile and violent response to these demonstrations. Tariq Rafique, from Oldham Race Equality Partnership, said: "Their main priority is to undermine the good work done in places like Oldham. They are trying to move us back into the dark days that no one wanted to ever see."

The leader of the Oldham EDL is a 25-year old man called Michael, and for a decade he has been the leader of a soccer supporting brigade or "firm" which is called Fine Young Casuals. This group was cited as being instrumental in the events that triggered the Oldham riots. When asked by the Oldham Chronicle about his role in the 2001 riots he replied: "We were standing up for something we believed in at the time. But it’s a long time ago and I was young then."

The events leading up to the Oldham riots appear to be these. On Saturday May 26, 2001, two South Asian youths aged 11 and 14 were attacked on the edge of Glodwick. A brick was thrown at them by a 16-year old white youth, and one of the boys was struck on the leg. The youth who was hit by the brick went with his elder brother to a house which the attacker had entered. A woman inside the house (Sharon Hoy) became abusive, and claimed in a phone call to her brother that "Some Pakis have kicked the door in." The woman's brother (Darren Hoy) was drinking with members of the neo-Nazi Combat 18 group, visiting from London, along with BNP members and members of the Fine Young Cannibals.

The woman's brother and his "associates" descended on the street and began to physically attack and vandalize cars, residences and a hair-dressing business before being arrested. While they had rampaged, wielding an iron bar, sticks and wooden pallets, they also threatened South Asian residents, including a very pregnant 34-year old woman who needed to be treated for shock. Meanwhile, South Asians started to gather in Glodwick, reaching about 500 by 10 pm. Rioting continued until 5 am. Further rioting continued on the two subsequent days. On the Monday, the offices of the Oldham Evening News were attacked with petrol bombs, and windows were smashed.

On April 3, 2003 Hoy, his sister Sharon and eight other adults, along with two minors, went to trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester. On June 13, 2003 all of the adults were jailed, receiving sentences of one year. The Telegraph noted that South Asians who had been convicted of the rioting that had been set off by Hoy and his associates had received greater sentences. At that time, 22 Asians had been sentenced to a total of 75 years (averaging 3.4 years each).

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There is nothing to excuse the violence which took place, but tensions between communities were already high. A month before the rioting in Oldham, a 76-year old man, a veteran of Word War II, was savagely attacked by Asian youths. Walter Chamberlain's face (pictured) became a sad icon of the unsettled period.

Additionally, statistics of racist incidents from 1999 to 2000, had been gathered by Greater Manchester Police. These had shown that of 646 racial incidents in the Oldham region (Division Q) white people comprised 52 per cent of victims. Of all white victims of racial incidents in the Greater Manchester area, 38 per cent came from Oldham.

The BBC reported that: "More than 180 of the racial incidents were violent and the vast majority of those were attacks by Asian youths - usually in gangs of anything from six to 20 - on lone white males."

For the South Asian resident's part, it had been announced that Nick Griffin of the BNP would be standing in the June 7 election as a candidate for Oldham West. This news, combined with reports of the police statistics, may have added to pressures they may have felt.

Days after the Oldham riots ended, another outbreak of rioting took place in Leeds where brcks were thrown at police by Bangladeshi youths. This incident had erupted after police had used rough tactics to arrest Hassan Mir, a local man of Bangladeshi origin.

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There were subsequent riots in the north. The first of these took place at Burnley on the nights of June 23 and June 24, 2001. It was later claimed that the Burnley riots had been fuelled by white racists who spread rumors that funding was going disproportionately to different communities. The incident that triggered the Burnley rioting was triggered by an incident in which a South Asian taxi driver was attackd by a group of white men. In the ensuing rioting the Duke of York pub was gutted by fire.

On July 7, 2001, rioting broke out in Bradford, another northern town. The BBC states that violence broke out in the city "after crowds at an Anti-Nazi League rally discovered that National Front sympathizers were gathering in a nearby pub." The Anti-Nazi League gathering had been legally allowed, at the Centenary Square, before it descended into violence. Police were subsequently attacked with bricks, molotov cocktails and broken bottles when they tried to intervene. Two people were stabbed in the Bradford unrest on that day, and the following day, up to 1,000 youths continued to riot. Three people were seriously injured.

One of the stabbing victims was white, and was surrounded by a dozen young Asians. A witness recalled that: "They corralled him in a corner and started hitting him. He tried to fight his way out but was knocked to the ground and he was punched and kicked. One of the youths then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the back. Blood was pouring out and I thought he was going to die. It was terrifying."

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120 police officers were injured in the Bradford outbreak. 297 people were arrested, and 187 were charged. A South Asian businessman was subsequently jailed for an arson attack upon Manningham Labour Club. This had happened while people were inside. Mohammed Ilyas received a 12 year sentence.

Community Cohesion

After the rioting, the Home Office commissioned an inter-departmental report into the unrest that had led to the rioting of 2001. John Denham, as Home Office Minister of State, was the author of the report, which was entitled: "Building Cohesive Communities: A Report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion" (available as a pdf file here). The report drew attention to the agitation by far right groups in the region as a factor in exacerbating the tensions.

Other problems were identified, including:

the lack of a strong civic identity or shared social values to unite diverse communities

the fragmentation and polarisation of communities – on economic, geographical, racial and cultural lines – on a scale which amounts to segregation, albeit to an extent by choice

disengagement of young people from the local decision making process, inter-generational tensions, and an increasingly territorial mentality in asserting different racial, cultural and religious identities in response to real or perceived attacks;

The rioting in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley showed that cultures of "parallel lives" were not creating harmony, and there is nothing in Denham's report that supports the notion of "multiculturalism" being successful in the divided communities of the former mill towns. The word "multiculturalism" exists nowhere in the document.

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A more extensive report was made by Ted Cantle, which involved three months' worth of research into community relations in Bradford, Burnley, Oldham, Birmingham, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Southall, west London. Prior to the release of his report, Cantle said: "I was surprised by the depth of feeling and the divisions in some of the areas and the failure of communication."

The full Cantle report, which was released on December 11, 2001, can be found in pdf format here, entitled: "Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team. The introduction to the report was written by John Denham, who came a little closer to championing "multiculturalism" when he wrote: " The Home Secretary’s response was to set up a Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion to examine and consider how national policies might be used to promote better community cohesion, based upon shared values and a celebration of diversity."

The main points of Cantle's report suggested that people were living parallel lives, and that as communities lived in ignorance of each other, their fears could be exploited by extremists. Cantle recommended improvements in housing, education (where schools appeared highly racially segregated) and also developing a "meaningful concept of citizenship." Cantle suggested too that there should be some concept of citizenship

On Burnley, Cantle wrote: "There is not just simply residential segregation, but there is separation in education, in social, cultural, faith, in virtually every aspect of their daily lives, employment too."

Five years on, a second Cantle report was made. Unlike the 2001 report, which had visited various communities, the 2006 report focused specifically on Oldham. It is available (in pdf format) hereThough it praised the strides that had been made in Oldham towards improving community cohesion, it also pointed out the need for people across different generations and different ethnic groups and different parts of the borough of Oldham to work together. This suggested that the "parallel lives" which Ted Cantle had highlighted in 2001 remained as an issue.

Sleepwalking to Segregation

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On September 22, 2005, Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) suggested that for some communities in Britain, segregated ghettoes were emerging. He sugggested that 13 per cent of citizens of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin in the towns of Leicester and Bradford were living in ghettos. He also said that schools also becoming more segregated, reflecting the recommendations made in the 2001 Cantle report (p 33, 5.8.6).

Phillips blamed multiculturalism as one of the factors that was allowing britain to be "sleepwalking to segregation". He told his audience at Manchester Town Hall, Mr Phillips said: "The fragmentation of our society by race and ethnicity is a catastrophe for all of us. We all have a part to play. Integration has to be a two-way street, in which the settled communities accept that new people will bring change with them and newcomers realise that they too will have to change if we are to move closer to an integrated society.

We already know a lot about what an integrated society looks like. It has three essential features: equality, where everyone is treated equally, has a right to fair outcomes, and no one should expect privileges because of what they are; participation: all groups in society should expect to share in how we make decisions, but also expect to carry the responsibilities of making the society work; and interaction: no-one should be trapped within their own community, and in the truly integrated society, who people work with, or the friendships they make, should not be constrained by race or ethnicity.

There is no doubt that Britain is facing a clear demand to make the process of integration real, active and urgent."

The Commission for Racial Equality, the body then headed by Trevor Philips, had been founded in 1976. Two years after his speech in Manchester, it was disbanded in September 2007. It was replaced by a new body called "The Equalities Commission," which would broaden the scope of interest to include issues of disability and sexual orientation.

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On Sunday September 27, 2009, John Denham spoke to Roger Bolton about the Labour government's approach to issues of faith and social cohesion. The discussion was aired on the "Sunday" show on Radio 4. This is my transcript:
RB: "Hardly had he denounced Iran for developing a secret nuclear site and had shaken hands with President Obama after the G20 Summit, than Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on the plane from Pittsburgh to Brighton, where members of the Labour Party are gathering for their last ever annual conference before the general election. Like all the major parties, Labour is keen to ensure that their policies appeal to the increasingly-important faith communities, whose votes could be vital in some marginal seats. The government has recently widened its Prevent Agenda, dealing with violent extremism to include the extreme right and to work more closely at the local level with community groups. I asked John Denham, the secretary of state for communities and local government, whether that meant that its earlier policy, developed in the wake of the July 7 attacks, was flawed."

JD: "It was inevitable that in the rush to tackle this problem which had taken many people by surprise and which many people didn't believe could have happened, Whitehall had to act, and government had to move at the center but - over time - we've learned more about what works, we've seen more of the most innovative and effective work at cutting away the roots of the ideas that could promote violent extremism - a move to local level - and the government strategy increasingly reflects that. So I think it's more an inevitable fact that we had to start in one place and move to another. And each year goes by, the strategy develops as we learn more about what works and more about what doesn't work."

RB: "At the moment, the government won't formally talk to the Muslim Council of Britain, and it's suggested you've lobbied hard for a restoration of relations. Is that true?"

JD: "We work with many Muslim groups and it's certainly the case that there are voices within the Muslim Council of Britain which is an affiliate organization that any government would sensibly want to work with and engage with. But I think as everyone knows, there's been an issue for some months now, about a statement signed by a prominent member of the Muslim Council of Britain which the government felt was beyond the pale and made it difficult for us to engage with the Muslim Council, so our position at the moment is that relations are suspended, but we've made it clear there are people within the MCB that we want and should be working with and we're still exploring how to move forward."

RB: "We've talked about Muslim groups but you've also had meetings with Hindu and Sikh groups. What have they been saying?"

JD: "Well I've had discussion of course with the Christian churches, along with having met with Sikhs and Hindus and Jains and Buddhists, and people accept that most of the funding which is in the system at the moment has been going to deal with the problems of extremism and the dangers of terrorism, but nonetheless,some groups feel that we could do more to facilitate their engagement with government. I think that's something we need to look at."

RB: "Now the government Prevent Agenda has been widened to include the threat of Far Right extremism. How are you going to be dealing with that?"

JD: "What we've done is say that we are going to do in order to undercut Far Right extremism - similar sorts of things that we have done with the Prevent program, recognizing that where people feel alienated, they don't feel engaged, perhaps feel under threat because their community is being changing recently, they don't feel their views are being articulated - that people can be prone to exploitation by extremists, particularly by those who want to reduce every issue to an issue of race, and racism. So we will, over the next few weeks, be engaging in a very determined way in communities where we think that risk is there, and actually challenging the myths that exist - say about the allocation of social housing. But also enabling people to express their concerns and to make sure that we respond to them."

RB: "Some people think you shouldn't talk to the BNP. But it's been suggested that you may appear on the Question Time program with the BNP. Is that the case?"

JD: "The Labour Party has had a long policy of not sharing platforms with the BNP, and that's for the very simple reason that - alone of the political parties of this country, the BNP is founded on the issue of race, defines everything in terms of race, even its own membership. But a situation has arisen. Two members of the BNP have been elected to the European Parliament. It may be that they will be invited onto programs like Question Time. It may be then that the Labour Party has to look at its policy and decide whether it wants to be represented."

RB: "And if asked, would you be prepared to go on Question Time with the BNP?"

JD: "If the view was that it would be better to be there, to make the arguments rather than to have an empty chair, then I personally would be prepared to do that, much as I loathe everything they stand for, recognizing that these arguments are out there and you have to take them on."

RB: "And that to some extent the BNP are reflecting you could say, exploiting, an alienation and disaffection in white working class communities."

JD: "I think they do exploit concerns that people have got, whether it's about migration, whether it's about the returns people get from work, whether it's about access to social housing, or just about the rate at which communities are changing. And you should be allowed to express those concerns, and you should expect politicians to be willing to respond and to deal with them, and if we do do that, then I think we cut away from the BNP their desire to say that every issue must be reduced to racism, and race."

RB: "Still on the subject of cohesion, I want to move onto the issue of "faith schools". Many people support them, of course, but others see them as socially divisive, Does the government believe there is scope to increase the number of faith schools in this country?"

JD: "As I understand it, the number of faith schools is increasing over the years as new faith schools are proposed. I don't think we have either a strategy of deliberately proposing or reducing the number. We reflect the changes that take place in our society. You know, when we've looked at this in the past, we've always been able to say to people opposed to faith schools, there's not much evidence that faith schools are particular problems, or propagators of divisiveness or exclusion or of rejection of shared values."

RB: "And about those communities that want not only faith schools, but would like to see extended their ability to have what you might call faith courts? Is there room for an expansion of such courts?"

JD: "I think the crucial issue here is that everybody in this country, whatever their faith, is equal in front of the law of the land. The law does not stop people going to alternative forms of resolution of disputes. But the law will never say to anybody - 'You have lost your rights under the law of this country because you are a particular faith and your faith asks you to deal with this issue in a different way'. So I think there is always the possibility of people having alternative ways of resolving differences. But I don't think that ever means that you have two classes of citizens, one of which enjoys the full rights of the laws of this country, and others who don't."

RB: "The communities secretary John Denham."

Let's Talk...

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The individual at the Muslim Council of Britain whom Denham mentioned is Daud Abdullah, who is the deputy General Secretary of the organization. He created a stir this year after it was revealed that he signed a controversial document at the Global Anti-Aggression conference in Istanbul This urged the attacking of Britain's Royal Navy, should it attempt to impede the import of weaponry being smuggled into Gaza for Hamas. Ed Husain of the Quilliam foundation said that Daud Abdullah was "a fanatic".

Hazel Blears, who was Communities Minister before John Denham, condemned Daud Abdullah, and demanded he be sacked from his position in the MCB. He, for his part, has denied that the controversial clauses in the document advocated attacks upon the navy, or attacks upon Jews, anywhere in the world. The government officially shunned the MCB over this issue in March 2009.

There is a touch of hypocrisy about the Labour government and its dealings with "extremists". In the same month that it labeled Daud Abdullah as a pariah, the government intended to have discussions with Dr Ibrahim Moussawi at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas). Moussawi is a spokesman for Hizbollah, the Iranian-funded terrorist group. The Centre for Social Cohesion challenged this decision, threatening to obtain an arrest warrant for Moussawi if he stepped foot in the country. They succeeded and Moussawi was banned from entering Britain.

The government is prepared to sacrifice talks with the MCB, most powerful Muslim representative group in Britain, the sole body that may be able to stop young Muslims from becoming engaged in violent conflicts stirred up by UAF (United Against Fascism). All I can say is that I recently met with Daud Abdullah, and we briefly spoke together about the current situation with anti-Islamic protests and violent counter-protests. He seemed a charming and thoughtful man, despite his support for Hamas. After our conversation, I found myself perfectly able to "share a platform" with him on a show for Iranian-funded Press TV.

Maybe government ministers should grow up and stop being so sensitive as to avoid speaking to people who have views they do not agree with. The Labour Party is, after all, meant to be a government in office and not an exclusive club. At this moment in time, there are threats of more protests, and even though talking may not bring solutions, it may serve to show people that their opponents are not two-dimensional demons, but real people, with real opinions.

There are more EDL protests planned and a planned SIOE protest at Harrow. Much as I wish these events would take place in a low-key manner, without the UAF interfering and turning them into near-riots, the protesters are legitimately exercising their democratic rights for freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Maybe the UAF could also "grow up" and sit down with EDL and SIOE members and discuss their differences. Hurling eggs, insults, and inciting young Muslims into violent rage seems a petty - and potentially dangerous - means of dealing with people one does not agree with.

It takes two parties to make a fight. The policies of UAF appear to be aimed at creating violent confrontation, and instead of protecting the Muslim community, the UAF appears to encourage violence of a sort that can easily escalate into a situation that can cost lives. As it is, many young Muslims now are facing criminal charges as a result of UAF's incitements

Even if the UAF is not being deliberately cavalier with the value of people's lives, the fact that it engages in violent confrontation and has published no exhortations on its website for the violence to be "toned down" should be a warning to all. Any of the politicians who have been foolish enough to endorse this group should withdraw their support now or demand that it abandons physical confrontation. By publicly affiliating themselves with UAF, they are publicly defending its tactics of hostile confrontation. David Cameron - the head of the Conservative Party - should be shamed by his party members for supporting street warfare.

Other politicians listed as supporters of UAF are: from the Conservative Party: Peter Bottomley MP for Worthing West C), Edward Garnier MP for Harborough (C), Anthony Steen MP for Totnes (C) and Sir Teddy Taylor, former MP for Rochford and Southend East (C).

For the Liberal Democrats, Alistair Carmichael MP for Orkney and Shetland (LibDem), Paul Tyler former MP for North Cornwall (now in the House of Lords, LibDem) and Mike Hancock MP for Portsmouth South (LibDem). The only non-maintream party members are Adam Price MP for Carmarthen East (Plaid Cymru) and Rev W Martin Smyth former MP for Belfast South (Ulster Unionist).

All the other MPs listed on the UAF website as "supporters" are Labour members. These include some who are now retired. They are: Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London (L), Tony Benn former MP (L) President of the "Stop the War Coalition", Peter Hain MP for Neath (L), David Hanson MP for Delyn (L), Barbara Follett MP for Stevenage (L), Diane Abbott MP for Hackney (L), John Cryer former MP for Hornchurch (L), John Trickett MP for Hemsworth (L), Keith Vaz MP for Leicester East (L), Alice Mahon former MP for Halifax (L now resigned), Alan Meale MP for Mansfield (L), Ian Gibson former MP for Norwich North (L), Harry Cohen MP for Leyton & Wanstead (L), Betty Williams MP for Conway (L), Ken Purchase MP for Wolverhampton Northeast (L), Laura Moffatt MP for Crawley (L), Peter Bradley former MP for Wrekin (L), Vera Baird MP for Redcar (L), Bill Etherington MP for Sunderland North (L), Roger Berry MP for Kingswood (L), Angela Smith MP (L), Brian Iddon MP for Bolton South East (L), Colin Pickthall, former MP for West Lancashire (L retired), Clive Betts MP for Sheffield Attercliffe (L), Janet Anderson MP for Rossendale & Darwen (L), Neil Gerrard MP for Walthamstow (L), Jane Griffiths former MP for Reading East (L, deselected), Brian Donohue MP for Central Ayrshire (L), Helen Clark former MP for Peterborough (L), Terry Davis former MP for Birmingham, ,Hodge Hill (L, resigned), Janet Dean MP for Burton (L), Adrian Bailey MP for West Bromwich West (L), Louise Ellman MP for Liverpool Riverside (L), Eric Illsley MP for Barnsley Central (L), Kelvin Hopkins MP for Luton North (L), Ernie Ross former MP for Dundee West (L), Rob Marris MP for Wolverhampton South West (L), Martin Caton MP for Gower (L), Jim Sheridan MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (L), Martin Jones MP for Clwyd South (L), Colin Challen MP for Morley and Rothwell (L), David Wright MP for Telford (L), Rudi Vis MP for Finchley & Golders Green (L), Tony Worthington former MP for Clydebank & Milngavie (L), Julie Morgan MP for Cardiff North (L), Diana Organ former MP for Forest of Dean (L), Doug Henderson MP for Newcastle Upon Tyne North (L) and Barry Gardiner MP for Brent North (L).

One listed MP who is said to support the UAF - Derek Watts - does not even exist. He could either be Derek Wyatt MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Labour) or Dave Watts, MP for St Helens North (Labour).

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 3 of 4

2009-09-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 3 of 4

PART THREE (OF FOUR)

Who is Who?

The identification of players on the far left is complex enough, as I have shown. The unsubstantiated claims that the EDL and any other group is a "front" for the BNP appear to be misleading. For the UAF and the far left, anyone who has concerns about the spread of Islam is de facto a racist or fascist, a person whose fears possibly mask notions of genocidal intent.

In some cases the supporters of some of these groups are extremist in nature. The English Defence League has claimed that it is not connected to the BNP. However, research by Searchlight demonstrates that some BNP members have been active at EDL events.

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On their Hope not Hate website, a former BNP member from Milton Keynes called Barry Taylor is quoted. He wrote that: "A lot of the activism and support in Luton was due to the group of friends known as the MIGs. When Nick Griffin made a visit to our area in February 2007 the MIGs were not invited. Subsequently they discovered that they had been excluded from the guest list and were very disappointed. This was a very disrespectful way to treat our allies. The ‘loss of face’ that this caused for their leaders caused them to stop attending meetings and also prevented their campaigning on our behalf in Luton. These men had previously represented about 50 per cent of the available workforce for Luton."

The acronym "MIG" stands for "Men in Gear". They are known to have links to the Luton Football Club, as a band or "firm" of soccer supporters/hooligans. One of these Luton MIGS is, according to Tom Woodson of Searchlight, a man named Davy Cooling who is a BNP member. There are a few other individuals who are claimed by Searchlight to be both EDL and BNP members, but though this is intriguing and enough to raise concerns, there is not enough evidence to conclusively prove that the BNP has an active part in the EDL or vice versa. A few individuals who share the same fear/distrust/contempt for Islam/Islamism are bound to be attracted to similar ventures.

However, it should be enough that the BNP is trying to establish itself as a parliamentary party, and does not need to have street-fighting ascribed to it. The EDL still mystifies me. It claims to not be a racist group, and it claims not to want violence. The EDL is nonetheless linked with UK Casuals, a group of soccer hooligans, reputedly led by an individual called Jeff Marsh who wrote a book called Soul Crew Seasiders, an autobiographical account of soccer hooliganism and violence. If the EDL genuinely does not want to have a reputation for violence and intimidation, possible reasons for having soccer "fighters" on its team would stem from either using them as protective bodyguards or as foot-soldiers.

On the front page of the UK Casuals website, among an assortment of videos of Islamic "hate-figures", is the following mission statement:

"I once read a book "The prophesies of Nostradamus" and it said "Islamic hordes will invade europe but a British counter attack will drive them back". Be a part of it or hang your head in shame.

What are we all about? As we are getting so many media queries its hard to answer them all, we'll try and explain it here.

Casuals United was the name used by the lads from around the UK who took to the streets,(after the Luton protests) and endured serious physical attacks by Anjem Choudreys henchmen, to show the rest of the online "patriot" movement the way forward.

If these 30 - 40 had not embarked on the initial anti Choudrey protests, then the EDL and other Defence Leagues would not be where they are now.
The Birmingham protests were a major success, the first one was unnanounced, the second was a major cock up as small groups of whites were chased away by a large mob of Muslim youths who were wound up by the UAF, a Government funded outfit of anarchists/communists who scream at and attack anyone who dares defend the destruction of our country. The third one was organised off facebook and succeeded in getting most lads to the meeting point without being arrested or picked off by muslim/left wing morons.

Casuals United now exists simply as a recruiter for the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Defence Leagues. We do not organise demos, we simply use online and otherwise communication networks of lads to drum up support.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the UAF for pissing the British public off so much with your scummy antics, you are the reason we get 150 new email enquiries every day, and are constantly in the news, thank you "comrades". Youve truly opened the eyes of the public to who the real thugs and nazis are.

You deluded Communist fools are defending the Jihadists, whos intention is to impose Sharia law and an Islamic state upon us, and the irony is, if they achieved that aim, youd be the first victims of that regime...

...The Government and Police need to decide whether they want to carry on turning a blind eye to killers in our midst, a small minority, or whether they want to listen to the concerns of the ignored MAJORITY, and deal with the Jihadists before widespread disorder breaks out, as this movement continues to grow."

I have been in contact with the the stated representative of UK Casuals, an individual named as "Mickey Smith" or Mike Smith, the official spokesperson for his group. Smith (who could be Jeff Marsh) agreed to answer the same questionnaire that I sent to Paul Ray, and also to Stephen Gash of SIOE.

It is obvious to anyone who has had the stamina to read so far, that there are varying players in the drama unfolding right now. Unless one understands the historical roles of certain participants, there will be no real understanding of the situation. Sadly, the UAF is so ready to attack anyone as "racists" or "fascists" that is is in danger of stifling any legitimate debate on what is driving working class people to want to vote for a reactionary party such as the BNP.

The UAF seems unconcerned that some people feel threatened that their society is changing in ways they never imagined. The UAF has also used some dishonesty to claim that anyone protesting against Islamism or Islamization is a BNP supporter. On September 11, 2009, the UAF had alarmed enough Muslims in Harrow to believe the Station Road mosque which is currently under construction was being threatened by BNP fascists. The BNP had nothing to do with the protest.

The Iranian-owned Press TV blatantly misreported the events, claiming that the SIOE (Stop Islamization of Europe) group was "The BNP". Weyman Barrett, interviewed by Press TV said: "What we've got to be absolutely clear of, it's a successful demonstration as we kept the BNP - EDL out. I think frustrations run high because the insults of trying to attack a mosque is unacceptable for the majority of people."

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Bennett's latter comment is correct - for Muslims in the area, a demonstration complaining at their mosque's extensions is perceived as an affront. However, the demonstration had nothing to do with the BNP, as suggested by the UAF joint coordinator. Some EDL members appear to have been present, but SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe) who had gained police permission to stage a small protest were not mentioned.

Young Muslims arrived in force, between 1,000 to 2,000 in number, and severely outnumbered the SIOE protesters. Only about 20 to 30 of these managed to get to the point that the police had agreed could be used to stage their demonstration. On the day the numbers of counter-demonstrators were so high that the event was called off. Stephen Gash was briefly arrested "to prevent a breach of the peace". Eight protesters including Muslims, were arrested. Four of these were accused of carrying hammers and bleach, another was charged with possessing a six-inch knife, another reputedly had a knuckle duster, another had a chisel, and another had a spanner.

The Questionnaire

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Originally I intended to send a set of six questions to Luton EDL members involved with organizing protests, and to then expand these. The questions related to comments made about the nature of certain associations. Paul Ray's group of EDL-related associates were interviewed by Martin Mawyer and Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network, back in late August of this year. That incident led to a British blogger fulminating about Martin Mawyer being an "anti-gay bigot", a comment which then traveled the globe and was used as a weapon by Californian musician blogger Charles Johnson to personally attack Robert Spencer who also features in Mr Mawyer's documentary (Spencer had no dealings with the EDL, despite Johnson's claims).

As a heated political issue had been made out of EDL associating with people accused of "anti-gay bigotry", and as the BNP has a policy of excluding openly gay individuals from its core membership, I added a question about homophobia. The other questions were more or less straightforward. The questionnaire was sent by email, and I promised the respondents that I would make no alterations to anything they said. I keep to that promise, apart from correcting typographic and spelling errors.

Paul Ray had suggested in an email exchange that he would pass on my questions to Tommy Robinson (the purported leader of EDL) but there was a long silence and I assume Robinson was not willing to deal with me. The three recipients were Mickey Smith of Casuals United, Paul Ray of his Luton St George group, and Stephen Gash, the head of SIOE. Having dealt with the methodology, this is the questionnaire. This example given below is the question list intended for EDL. The other two groups were asked to substitute the references to EDL with their own group and answer accordingly. At the time I sent off the questionnaire, I was not aware that Paul Ray had been excluded from the main EDL group.

1) Why was EDL founded? Did any specific event trigger this?

2) Who started EDL with you, and when?

3) Is EDL against Muslims, Islamists, or immigrants?

4) People have accused EDL of racism and - because of an interview with a right-wing Christian group - have implied that EDL is homophobic. Are these accusations true?

5) With views that can be seen by some as "far right", how can you stop people who are genuinely "fascistic" in nature (racist, xenophobic etc) attending such events?

6) EDL and SIOE demonstrations have received physical hostility from counter-demonstrators who simultaneously staged protests. These participants were from the "United Against Fascism" group, as well as angry young Muslims. One commenter on a SIOE blog suggested on Saturday that the level of hostility expressed by counter-protesters at the Harrow SIOE demonstration could have caused the death of the SIOE organiser.

What if such violence as we have already seen on Britain's streets at these EDL and SIOE events does get out of hand and someone - from either side - gets killed? Will this cause EDL to rethink its tactics?

THE RESPONSES

The answers from Paul Ray

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1) The EDL was founded as a direct result of the present British government’s total failure to act to prevent British society from being a safe and secure place for us and our children, now and in the future, from Islam and Moslems whose aim is one of converting the country into an Islamic State by all means necessary. Those aims take on all approaches through Jihad, whether peacefully through politics or through the bomb conducted by terrorists.

2) The original EDL was instigated by myself coming together with members of UPL (United People of Luton) and other anti-Jihad activists around the country who had finally had enough of the danger posed to our local communities and the country as a whole. The name was taken, as an English equivalent of the Welsh Defence League that was already in place after someone came to me, knowing my intentions, and posed the question 'what about setting up an English Defence League?'

I agreed and things went from there and the group was formed.  The original English Defence League was born in Luton by the people of Luton.  It was initially formed in direct response to the Moslem anti-war protest by Al Majoroun in Luton due to the fact that a section of the local community had finally had enough of the militancy within their town and wanted action taken by the police and local government.

3) The current EDL now has different people doing different things separate from myself, each with their own views and opinions. My personal view and opinion is, is that anyone trying to convert great Britain into an Islamic State whether peacefully or militantly is an enemy of the British people, so those are who I am against.

If a Moslem is not actively engaged in trying to convert their host Nation into an Islamic State then they are not Moslem. Islamists are just the military wing of the religion and take all of the flack.

Take a read of Robert Spencer’s Stealth Jihad which talks about the silent subversive war to take our countries over.

My view is that if there are reformers within the Islamic community in Britain seeking to remove the concept of Jihad and converting nations from the Dar al-Harb into the Dar al-Islam, then they are obviously not who the protests are against and have the support of the EDL.

Those who have a proper understanding of the aims and intent of Islam and how they are seeking to fulfil their religion will know though, that deception is a key tactic to achieve their goals, so it is very hard to differentiate between who is and who isn't an enemy of the British people, especially when the government and media tell the uneducated public that 'Islam is a religion of peace' and that Islamic terrorism is 'anti-Islamic activity'.

The question of immigrants is a political question and bears no relevance to the EDL protests because immigrants come in many Nationalities and creeds, with members of the EDL descendents of immigrants themselves. Obviously there are many Islamic militants who are arriving and have arrived in Britain through the immigrant route and have claimed and are claiming asylum in the country which then brings the immigrant question into the equation but immigration per say is not what the EDL is about.

4) The leadership of the EDL was interviewed with a highly respected black member amongst their ranks by the said Christian group, so how on earth can anyone brand them racist?   That is a tactic used by enemies of the EDL to try and discredit them in the publics eyes.  The same well worn tactic of the left, which is the beating of those who oppose their left wing view with the big bad racist beating stick.  The EDL is in no way homophobic and will defend the rights of homosexuals to live in peace and security as much as they are defending their own rights to live in peace and security, through peaceful protest. 
Islam as a religion is a direct threat to everyone’s peace and security now, and not just here in Britain but also in America. This statement is based upon the teachings of the Koran itself, and what life would be like for non-Moslems living under sharia law, whether straight or gay.  The people of England would not stand back idle whilst Moslems are seeking to stone homosexuals to death or string them from lampposts which is what the likes of Anjem Choudary are saying them will do to them. So the EDL protest group stands in defence of homosexuals within Britain.   Most people have homosexual friends or know of people who have family members who are homosexual, the same as with people of different skin colour to their own. This is what a civilized society in the 21st Century is all about.  Everyone has their own personal opinions and views on all subjects pertaining to life and just because someone who is classed as ‘homophobic’ due to their own opinions does not mean that because they did an interview with someone then they too must be homophobic. Anyone who says and believes such things is clearly ‘stupid’ and has a clear agenda so is using this stupidity to try and discredit the EDL.  Those who believe these lies logically must be stupid themselves.

5) I am no longer an active participant of the current movement on the streets, but support the leadership of ‘Tommy Robinson’ 100 per cent. I have now set up my own branch of the EDL that comes under its own leadership structure called the St George division.  St George was not English, and he is the Patron Saint of many Nations so anyone standing under that banner can in no way be racist.  In life though we all have our own opinions and views but as long as you hold up the ideals of St George within your life then your view has to be the same as his but just living in the 21st Century. Holding up those ideals brings change in mind and attitude because at the core of it is the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith.  No racists are welcome, and before anyone says it, Islam is not a race it is an ideology that drives people through teaching them what they should think, feel and how they should act towards others.  Skin colour bears no relevance to this debate.

6) Moslems will eventually kill someone that is a fact. I presently have several threats against my life, one being from members of Anjem Choudry’s extremist Islam4uk group, that has just reverted back to being the banned militant group Al Mujajiroun that was set up by Omar Bakri. The same person has also made direct threats to kill EDL members.  We are now just waiting to see whether or not the police are going to uphold British law and arrest this person for his threats to kill and other laws he has broken.

You ask yourself the question whether or not these people are willing to carry out the threats, and when you do remember that they believe within their religion that Allah will reward them for killing enemies of Islam  This person who has threatened me has told his Moslem audience to draw parallels with my hopeful murder with the slaying of Theo Van Goth in Amsterdam, so this should help answer that question for your readers.

From my position, the English Defence League was only ever set up to be a peaceful protest group on the streets of Britain, exercising our democratic right to demonstrate peacefully against the issues we currently have grievance to demonstrate about. That view for the EDL street protest movement from my vantage point and with any of my active participation will never change no matter what happens.   The question then will be whether or not different factions will break away with their own agendas using the EDL name.  If someone is killed then the whole dynamics of the current street protest movement will change and then maybe we could do another interview at that point to discuss the new reality we all face within Britain and the future of the EDL street protest movement.  Thank you for this interview and giving me the opportunity to answer your questions for your readers.  God bless you

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Casuals United spokesperson Mickey Smith's answers

1) It was when the extremist muslims disrupted the anglian regiments homecoming in luton, people tried to attck the protesters and two white people were arrested while the muslims were alowed to continue, this is like our grandfathers returning from ww2 to be insulted on our streets by nazis

2) The EDL was started as an alliance of the United people of Luton, and football supporters from around the UK using facebook

3) It is against Islamic Extremist, not Muslim people per se, those whose declared aim is to make Britain an Islamic state, and who laugh at our soldiers dying on their websites

4) We are not racist and have many Sikh and Black supporters, we are not homophobic, and point out the anti gay views of Muslim extremists in our attacks on them (see site link below)

5) We are finding it hard, and two idiots were caught seig heiling at our birmingham demo, they have now been banned, as hooligans some of our members may be, but we are not nazis

6) If someone was killed we wouldnt be happy, but its more likely to be one of us, as our members only fight in self defence and the most violence has come from left wing rodents and the Muslims they wind up.

*********************

The answers from Stephen Gash, founder and leader of SIOE England, and also Anders Gravers, original founder of SIOE:

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1) There were plenty of blogs describing what and how Islam was creeping towards controling the West and the rest of the world, but nobody seemed to be doing much. SIOE was started to have a simple message and to be a direct action group.

2) SIOE started in March 2007. Anders Gravers was already doing protests and other direct action events in Denmark with SIAD. Nobody else seemed to be doing much, so I phoned him and we decided to do a Stop Islamisation Of Europe demo in Brussels on 11th September 2007.

3) We do not believe in moderate Muslims. We believe there are Muslims and those who want to leave Islam. Some Muslims are more active than others, but all Muslims want sharia law and Islam to rule the world. Moderate Muslims are those who watch non-Muslims being killed, but still say Allah u Akbar when the killing is happening.

Therefore, we obviously oppose Islamists because Islamists are merely Muslims, and Muslims are Islamists.

We oppose immigration from Muslim countries.

4) SIOE's motto is "Racism is the lowest form of stupidity! Islamophobia is the height of common sense!" We were the only group to protest against the Muslim ethnic cleansing of Greenlander Inuits from their homes in Gellerup in northern Denmark. We encourage support, and have support, from, persecuted minority groups in Islamic countries, such as Hindus, Christians in Indonesia, Copts in Egypt etc. Muslims persecute non-Muslims regardless of race, and Muslims of different races carry out the persecution. Muslims are the problem and it is Islam that inspires them. Race has nothing to do with it. However, we oppose racism and exclude racist elements from our organisation.

However, the media are obssessed with race.

SIOE has tried to persuade gays and lesbians to attend their events and to explain how they are persecuted and executed, merely for being homosexual, in Islamic countries such as Iran.

SIOE has significant support from gays and lesbians in Denmark. SIOE wrote an article for the gay and lesbian foundation in the UK, which was partly published (edited as an editorial) about the Harrow 11th September demonstration.

6) SIOE does not accept the terms "right wing" and "left wing". The table of political oppression is a round one at which the left and the right would sit shoulder to shoulder, if it were not for Islam sitting between them.

Is stoning a woman to death for being raped, left wing or right wing? Women are just dying to know.

6) Anders Gravers and four other SIOE/SIAD supporters, including two women, one in her 70s, were beaten with iron bars by so-called anti-fascists. Anders and another male supporter were stabbed at the same time, only saved by security vests.

SIOE is entirely peaceful in its protests, but refuses to be intimidated by self-styled anti-fascists who are, in fact, the most violent fascist thugs in Europe. We will continue to oppose Islam and sharia by stealth. This means demonstrating and protesting when we can.

Muslims are violent anyway, especially when they are offended. It is impossible for a non-Muslim not to offend a Muslim. Giving in to Muslims just provokes more violence by them. Appeasement of Muslims provokes even more stringent demands.

SIOE does not appease and faces down confrontation.

Regards
Stephen Gash
Anders Gravers

******************************

I was a little surprised at the responses. Though the spokesman of Casuals United called the Far Left "rodents", his comments were far more "tolerant" than I had been led to believe, after reading press commentary. The comments from SIOE seemed more forceful and uncompromising than I expected. However, I am of the opinion that these answers are honest opinions. The answers from all three respondents may seem reactionary, reflecting a sense of deep frustration with the current situation in Britain, but I cannot see these answers as reflecting genuine "racism" or "fascism". Paul Ray's comments must be viewed as his own - as he no longer represents the current strategies of the national and regional EDL groups,

I wonder at the Far Left - who condemn the open fear of Islam that is expressed by SIOE and others, and openly accuse "Islamophobes" of being sowers of hate. Yet when one sees the number of mosques being erected in Britain, often with money from Saudi Arabia, I wonder why no Far Left individual raises the question of hypocrisy. Saudi Arabia funds the export of Islam around the world (even to Nepal), yet prevents any Bibles from being brought into their kingdom. No churches are allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia, and migrant workers who hold unofficial Christian services have been jailed.

Similarly in Pakistan, Christians are a minority group, yet they are persecuted mercilessly. In Malaysia, no-one is allowed to leave Islam and Buddhists, Hindus and Christians are legally defined as second-class citizens, and yet Malaysia regards itself as upholding a "civilizational" form of Islam. The Far Left hob-nobs with Islamists who openly support such policies of discrimination in Muslim countries and who often express extreme anti-Semitism.

If anyone expresses a fear that the culture and values they thought represented Britain are being undermined or changed undemocratically, by the influence of Islam (through Islamic political pressure groups or by irrational legislation) then they are portrayed by the Far Left as "racists" or fascists. Fear of being verbally attacked in this manner leads some to stay silent, and freedom of speech, essential for a democracy, is compromised. When the fountain of discourse is blocked, the intellectual landscape stagnates and becomes ultimately arid. Monolithic political ideologies, such as Communism and Islamism, have brought no freedom of thought to Muslim countries, yet the Far Left seems to wish to impose the same limitations upon Britain's democracy.

I have tried, not always successfully, to make a distinction between Islamists and Muslims. I believe that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful citizens, and not out to "see the black flag of Islam fluttering above Downing Street", a boast made by Al-Muhajiroun and related individuals. To hear people declaring that no Muslim can escape being an Islamist is the most worrying revelation from the questionnaire. The role of "secular" Muslims, "cultural" Muslims, apostates, all need to be acknowledged. Muslims must be treated as individuals, and be allowed to flourish as individual citizens, with a right to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

To suggest that all Muslims are the same in their attitudes robs Muslim citizens of their individuality, including their individual rights to choose to follow communal, rather than individualistic, precepts. What worries me most in the current agitations from those who are openly challenging Islam's influence upon British society and politics, and by the groups who wish to silence them, is "Where will this end?"

Most groups that agitate for change have an end-goal. I should have asked this question to the three respondents, as this question is the most important of all. It is fine to say that one is worried or opposed to an ideology, but when people who follow that ideology are legally living here, what should happen in the end for those people? One cannot legislate against an ideology and remain a free democratic society. Nor can one remove citizenship from people. I worry that without a hope for a solution that politically protects all people, increasing the strength of the debate between Islam and anti-Jihadism could only lead to violence.

I personally want to see people integrate into one multiracial British society, and to regard their religion as one aspect of their identity and not the only feature by which they should be defined. If there are islands and bridges of tolerance that can be made at the present time between the polar extremes of Islamism and Islamophobia, then I wish to see them develop.

However, Britain has lived for 12 years under a dogmatic party that has introduced rafts of new laws, while simultaneously subsuming British legal autonomy under the courts of the European Union. Individuals in Britain, no matter their background, have become less and less able to know where they stand, or to alter their fortunes. In a climate of uncertainty, forceful and extremist solutions will become more attractive to those who have no power.

The Influence of Politics

The scale of the current problems that appear to be developing cannot be appreciated without acknowledging the part that the British government has played in ratcheting up tensions. In earlier times, influential movements helped to inform the construction of Britain's political life. Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) introduced the ideology of "Utilitarianism" where social and political reform should be designed to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. His protegé John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) took Utilitarianism to mean more rights for the individual, in a progressive but ordered society. Labour has enacted policies that corrupt the Utilitarian ethos and also the Socialist nostrums that gave birth to the party.

The current government has socialist roots but claims to support individual liberties. The inherent contradictions of these impulses have led to chaotic legislation. The law is no longer seen as a vehicle to protect a citizen, but a means to tyrannize - from fining people for not closing their garbage cans properly to allowing local mayoral councils to enact surveillance against citizens (under the Ripa Act). Rights of privacy are meaningless when a person's individual information can be shared with more than 792 mostly unelected public bodies.

The current Labour government has tampered with the minutiae of the political landscape, to a point that it is unrecognizable. With no clear constitution, and no clearly defined charter of citizens' rights, the government has created an environment where communities are forced to compete for patronage. When communities are made to compete, they do not celebrate each other's diversity. Resentments have festered quietly for years. The current situation is perhaps also symptomatic of general frustration with a government that treats its citizens as passive subjects, mere cogs in the machinery of politicized social engineering.

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Because of the actions of the Far Right, the Union Jack became a symbol of racist nationalism. Under Labour's socialist government that divided the political "Union" of Britain Scotland and Wales by introducing "regional assemblies", the Union Jack has become a dated irrelevance. When even its national flag has been robbed of meaning, Britain is in a crisis of identity and ideology that it has never encountered before.

I remember the riots of the 1980s all too clearly and though they made - to use the Chinese expression - "interesting times" to live through, they caused widespread destruction. Social unrest of such a scale now would not die out easily and could lead to community violence and ultimately a Balkanization of many parts of Britain. If inter-community violence erupts, then some inner city neighborhoods could see virtual civil war.

Britain's institutions are clearly a lot less overtly racist than they were in the 1980s, and worlds away from how they were in my childhood. In 1964, when I was six years old, an election was being fought in Smethwick in inner city Birmingham. The Labour candidate, Patrick Gordon, was expected to win. He lost, however, to a Tory called Peter Griffith, whose campaign slogan was: "If you want a nigger for a neighbor, vote Liberal or Labor." When the election results were announced, Griffiths taunted his opponent with comments that included "Where are your niggers now, Walker?"

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In Birmingham on April 20, 1968, Tory grandee Enoch Powell (1912 - 1998)made a notorious speech that is still discussed, 40 years on. The "Rivers of Blood" speech was delivered to a Conservative Association. The full text is here. Powell was immediately sacked by Edward Heath, then head of the Conservative party. Certain of Powell's comments, such as referring to "piccaninnies", were knowingly racist. He quoted a disgruntled constituent who had claimed that "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man."

Stripped of its racist terms and extrapolated statistics, the reason why the speech is still discussed is that it provided a dire warning of Britain's society transforming at a rate that could not be managed, a country allowing uncontrolled immigration happening faster than any integration could ever be achieved. Powell said: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."

In some aspects, such as the predicted transformation of Britain's racial and ethnic demography, Powell's speech was almost accurate. However, there were enough emotive "sound-bites" to provide fuel to the resentments of many white working-class people. Mosley's Blackshirts had been disbanded, but Powell's comments - aimed as they were against an upcoming "Race Relations Bill" would become influential in the development of the National Front and related groups. Powell, publicly spurned as a pariah of politics, would be seen as a "martyr hero" for the emerging new wave of racist "politics".

Political movements, just like religious movements, need martyrs to give impetus to their cause. The Tolpuddle Martyrs (transported from Dorset to Australia in 1834 for holding a trade union meeting) have inspired British Trade Unionism. Powell's political "martyrdom" made him a greater force in the emerging racist nationalist movements than if he was allowed to remain in his party and be challenged. In the mid 1970s, the National Front used to demand "repatriation" of non-indigenous people. With the rise of numbers of citizens who were born to immigrants, the repatriation argument became increasingly illogical. As its notions of becoming a political "party" became increasingly remote, the NF became increasingly violent until - by the mid 1980s it was a virtually spent force.

The Labour Party came to power on May 27, 1997. In a dozen years, it has allowed uncontrolled immigration. The current population sits at just over 60 million. The current Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, famously said in July this year that "I do not lie awake at night worrying about a population of 70 million. I'm happy to live in a multicultural society."

In a time when economic recession is forcing people out of jobs, with an annual migration rate of one quarter of a million people every year, many working class people feel that their security is threatened, and that they will have to compete against newly arrived migrants to gain work.

Labour has forced multiculturalism upon Britain, rather than encouraging migrant communities to integrate and assimilate. The cavalier and condescending attitudes of Labour ideologues are forcing communities to compete for an ever-diminishing slice of the cake. This apparent lack of concern for the worries of its main support base - the working classes - is also driving more people to seek extremist solutions for the extreme conditions they find themselves in. It is almost recreating the same conditions that gave birth to the National Front.

In 2001, Labour had already been in power for four years when riots involving young Muslims took place in northern cities of Britain. The riots of 2001 in northern England showed how "multiculturalism" had failed, and only created ghettoes. However, with rising social tensions and still little integration taking place, the Labour government maintains that multiculturalism is acceptable. Multiculturalism makes Alan Johnson "happy". But in 2001 even John Denham, the current communities secretary, who is now expected to resolve the current tensions in Britain, did not believe that multiculturalism was working.

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2009-09-29T04:18:00.001-07:00

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 3 of 4

PART THREE (OF FOUR)

Who is Who?

The identification of players on the far left is complex enough, as I have shown. The unsubstantiated claims that the EDL and any other group is a "front" for the BNP appear to be misleading. For the UAF and the far left, anyone who has concerns about the spread of Islam is de facto a racist or fascist, a person whose fears possibly mask notions of genocidal intent.

Unfortunately, in some cases the supporters of some of these groups are extremist in nature. The English Defence League has claimed that it is not connected to the BNP. However, research by Searchlight demonstrates that some BNP members have been active at EDL events.

On their Hope not Hate website, a former BNP member from Milton Keynes called Barry Taylor is quoted. He wrote that: "A lot of the activism and support in Luton was due to the group of friends known as the MIGs. When Nick Griffin made a visit to our area in February 2007 the MIGs were not invited. Subsequently they discovered that they had been excluded from the guest list and were very disappointed. This was a very disrespectful way to treat our allies. The ‘loss of face’ that this caused for their leaders caused them to stop attending meetings and also prevented their campaigning on our behalf in Luton. These men had previously represented about 50 per cent of the available workforce for Luton."

The acronym "MIG" stands for "Men in Gear". They are known to have links to the Luton Football Club, as a band or "firm" of soccer supporters/hooligans. One of these Luton MIGS is, according to Tom Woodson of Searchlight, a man named Davy Cooling who is a BNP member. There are a few other individuals who are claimed by Searchlight to be both EDL and BNP members, but though this is intriguing and enough to raise concerns, there is not enough evidence to conclusively prove that the BNP has an active part in the EDL or vice versa. A few individuals who share the same fear/distrust/contempt for Islam/Islamism are bound to be attracted to similar ventures.

However, it should be enough that the BNP is trying to establish itself as a parliamentary party, and does not need to have street-fighting ascribed to it. The EDL still mystifies me. It claims to not be a racist group, and it claims not to want violence. The EDL is nonetheless linked with UK Casuals, a group of soccer hooligans, reputedly led by an individual called Jeff Marsh who wrote a book called Soul Crew Seasiders, an autobiographical account of soccer hooliganism and violence. If the EDL genuinely does not want to have a reputation for violence and intimidation, possible reasons for having soccer "fighters" on its team would stem from either using them as protective bodyguards or as foot-soldiers.

On the front page of the UK Casuals website, among an assortment of videos of Islamic "hate-figures", is the following mission statement:

"I once read a book "The prophesies of Nostradamus" and it said "Islamic hordes will invade europe but a British counter attack will drive them back". Be a part of it or hang your head in shame.

What are we all about? As we are getting so many media queries its hard to answer them all, we'll try and explain it here.

Casuals United was the name used by the lads from around the UK who took to the streets,(after the Luton protests) and endured serious physical attacks by Anjem Choudreys henchmen, to show the rest of the online "patriot" movement the way forward.

If these 30 - 40 had not embarked on the initial anti Choudrey protests, then the EDL and other Defence Leagues would not be where they are now.
The Birmingham protests were a major success, the first one was unnanounced, the second was a major cock up as small groups of whites were chased away by a large mob of Muslim youths who were wound up by the UAF, a Government funded outfit of anarchists/communists who scream at and attack anyone who dares defend the destruction of our country. The third one was organised off facebook and succeeded in getting most lads to the meeting point without being arrested or picked off by muslim/left wing morons.

Casuals United now exists simply as a recruiter for the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Defence Leagues. We do not organise demos, we simply use online and otherwise communication networks of lads to drum up support.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the UAF for pissing the British public off so much with your scummy antics, you are the reason we get 150 new email enquiries every day, and are constantly in the news, thank you "comrades". Youve truly opened the eyes of the public to who the real thugs and nazis are.

You deluded Communist fools are defending the Jihadists, whos intention is to impose Sharia law and an Islamic state upon us, and the irony is, if they achieved that aim, youd be the first victims of that regime....

....The Government and Police need to decide whether they want to carry on turning a blind eye to killers in our midst, a small minority, or whether they want to listen to the concerns of the ignored MAJORITY, and deal with the Jihadists before widespread disorder breaks out, as this movement continues to grow."

I have been in contact with the the stated representative of UK Casuals, an individual named as "Mickey Smith" or Mike Smith, the official spokesperson for his group. Smith (who could be Jeff Marsh) agreed to answer the same questionnaire that I sent to Paul Ray, and also to Stephen Gash of SIOE.

It is obvious to anyone who has had the stamina to read so far, that there are varying players in the drama unfolding right now. Unless one understands the historical roles of certain participants, there will be no real understanding of the situation. Sadly, the UAF is so ready to attack anyone as "racists" or "fascists" that is is in danger of stifling any legitimate debate on what is driving working class people to want to vote for a reactionary party such as the BNP.

The UAF seems unconcerned that some people feel threatened that their society is changing in ways they never imagined. The UAF has also used some dishonesty to claim that anyone protesting against Islamism or Islamization is a BNP supporter. On September 11, 2009, the UAF had alarmed enough Muslims in Harrow to believe the Station Road mosque which is currently under construction was being threatened by BNP fascists. The BNP had nothing to do with the protest.

The Iranian-owned Press TV blatantly misreported the events, claiming that the SIOE (Stop Islamization of Europe) group was "The BNP". Weyman Barrett, interviewed by PressTV said: "What we've got to be absolutely clear of, it's a successful demonstration as we kept the BNP - EDL out. I think frustrations run high because the insults of trying to attack a mosque is unacceptable for the majority of people."

Bennett's latter comment is correct - for Muslims in the area, a demonstration complaining at their mosque's extensions is perceived as an affront. However, the demonstration had nothing to do with the BNP, as suggested by the UAF joint coordinator. Some EDL members appear to have been present, but SIOE (Stop the Islamisation of Europe) who had gained police permission to stage a small protest were not mentioned.

Young Muslims arrived in force, between 1,000 to 2,000 in number, and severely outnumbered the SIOE protesters. Only about 20 to 30 of these managed to get to the point that the police had agreed could be used to stage their demonstration. On the day the numbers of counter-demonstrators were so high that the event was called off. Stephen Gash was briefly arrested "to prevent a breach of the peace". Eight protesters including Muslims, were arrested. Four of these were accused of carrying hammers and bleach, another was charged with possessing a six-inch knife, another reputedly had a knuckle duster, another had a chisel, and another had a spanner.

The Questionnaire

Originally I intended to send a set of six questions to Luton EDL members involved with organizing protests, and to then expand these. The questions related to comments made about the nature of certain associations. Paul Ray's group of EDL-related associates were interviewed by Martin Mawyer and Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network, back in late August of this year. That incident led to a British blogger fulminating about Martin Mawyer being an "anti-gay bigot", a comment which then traveled the globe and was used as a weapon by Californian musician blogger Charles Johnson to personally attack Robert Spencer who also features in Mr Mawyer's documentary (Spencer had no dealings with the EDL, despite Johnson's claims).

As a heated issue had been made out of alleged "anti-gay bigotry", and as the BNP has a policy of excluding openly gay individuals from its core membership, I added a question about homophobia. The other questions were more or less straightforward. The questionnaire was sent by email, and I promised the respondents that I would make no alterations to anything they said. I keep to that promise.

Paul Ray had suggested in an email exchange that he would pass on my questions to Tommy Robinson (the purported leader of EDL) but there was a long silence and I assume Robinson was not willing to deal with me. The three recipients were Mickey Smith of Casuals United, Paul Ray of his Luton St George group, and Stephen Gash, the head of SIOE. Having dealt with the methodology, this is the questionnaire. This example given below is the question list intended for EDL. The other two groups were asked to substitute the references to EDL with their own group and answer accordingly. At the time I sent off the questionnaire, I was not aware that Paul Ray had been excluded from the main EDL group.

1) Why was EDL founded? Did any specific event trigger this?

2) Who started EDL with you, and when?

3) Is EDL against Muslims, Islamists, or immigrants?

4) People have accused EDL of racism and - because of an interview with a right-wing Christian group - have implied that EDL is homophobic. Are these accusations true?

5) With views that can be seen by some as "far right", how can you stop people who are genuinely "fascistic" in nature (racist, xenophobic etc) attending such events?

6) EDL and SIOE demonstrations have received physical hostility from counter-demonstrators who simultaneously staged protests. These participants were from the "United Against Fascism" group, as well as angry young Muslims. One commenter on a SIOE blog suggested on Saturday that the level of hostility expressed by counter-protesters at the Harrow SIOE demonstration could have caused the death of the SIOE organiser.

What if such violence as we have already seen on Britain's streets at these EDL and SIOE events does get out of hand and someone - from either side - gets killed? Will this cause EDL to rethink its tactics?

THE ANSWERS

The answers from Paul Ray

1) The EDL was founded as a direct result of the present British government’s total failure to act to prevent British society from being a safe and secure place for us and our children, now and in the future, from Islam and Moslems whose aim is one of converting the country into an Islamic State by all means necessary. Those aims take on all approaches through Jihad, whether peacefully through politics or through the bomb conducted by terrorists.

2)The original EDL was instigated by myself coming together with members of UPL (United People of Luton) and other anti-Jihad activists around the country who had finally had enough of the danger posed to our local communities and the country as a whole. The name was taken, as an English equivalent of the Welsh Defence League that was already in place after someone came to me, knowing my intentions, and posed the question ‘what about setting up an English Defence League.'

I agreed and things went from there and the group was formed.  The original English Defence League was born in Luton by the people of Luton.  It was initially formed in direct response to the Moslem anti-war protest by Al Majoroun in Luton due to the fact that a section of the local community had finally had enough of the militancy within their town and wanted action taken by the police and local government.

3) The current EDL now has different people doing different things separate from myself, each with their own views and opinions. My personal view and opinion is, is that anyone trying to convert great Britain into an Islamic State whether peacefully or militantly is an enemy of the British people, so those are who I am against.  If a Moslem is not actively engaged in trying to convert their host Nation into an Islamic State then they are not Moslem. Islamists are just the military wing of the religion and take all of the flack.  Take a read of Robert Spencer’s Stealth Jihad which talks about the silent subversive war to take our countries over.  My view is that if there are reformers within the Islamic community in Britain seeking to remove the concept of Jihad and converting nations from the Dar al-Harb into the Dar al-Islam, then they are obviously not who the protests are against and have the support of the EDL.  Those who have a proper understanding of the aims and intent of Islam and how they are seeking to fulfil their religion will know though, that deception is a key tactic to achieve their goals, so it is very hard to differentiate between who is and who isn't an enemy of the British people, especially when the government and media tell the uneducated public that 'Islam is a religion of peace' and that Islamic terrorism is 'anti-Islamic activity'..  The question of immigrants is a political question and bears no relevance to the EDL protests because immigrants come in many Nationalities and creeds, with members of the EDL descendents of immigrants themselves. Obviously there are many Islamic militants who are arriving and have arrived in Britain through the immigrant route and have claimed and are claiming asylum in the country which then brings the immigrant question into the equation but immigration per say is not what the EDL is about.

4) The leadership of the EDL was interviewed with a highly respected black member amongst their ranks by the said Christian group, so how on earth can anyone brand them racist?   That is a tactic used by enemies of the EDL to try and discredit them in the publics eyes.  The same well worn tactic of the left, which is the beating of those who oppose their left wing view with the big bad racist beating stick.  The EDL is in no way homophobic and will defend the rights of homosexuals to live in peace and security as much as they are defending their own rights to live in peace and security, through peaceful protest. 
Islam as a religion is a direct threat to everyone’s peace and security now, and not just here in Britain but also in America. This statement is based upon the teachings of the Koran itself, and what life would be like for non-Moslems living under sharia law, whether straight or gay.  The people of England would not stand back idle whilst Moslems are seeking to stone homosexuals to death or string them from lampposts which is what the likes of anjem Choudry are saying them will do to them. So the EDL protest group stands in defence of homosexuals within Britain.   Most people have homosexual friends or know of people who have family members who are homosexual, the same as with people of different skin colour to their own. This is what a civilised society in the 21st Century is all about.  Everyone has their own personal opinions and views on all subjects pertaining to life and just because someone who is classed as ‘homophobic’ due to their own opinions does not mean that because they did an interview with someone then they too must be homophobic. Anyone who says and believes such things is clearly ‘stupid’ and has a clear agenda so is using this stupidity to try and discredit the EDL.  Those who believe these lies logically must be stupid themselves.

5) I am no longer an active participant of the current movement on the streets, but support the leadership of ‘Tommy Robinson’ 100 per cent. I have now set up my own branch of the EDL that comes under its own leadership structure called the St George division.  St George was not English, and he is the Patron Saint of many Nations so anyone standing under that banner can in no way be racist.  In life though we all have our own opinions and views but as long as you hold up the ideals of St George within your life then your view has to be the same as his but just living in the 21st Century. Holding up those ideals brings change in mind and attitude because at the core of it is the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith.  No racists are welcome, and before anyone says it, Islam is not a race it is an ideology that drives people through teaching them what they should think, feel and how they should act towards others.  Skin colour bears no relevance to this debate.

6) Moslems will eventually kill someone that is a fact. I presently have several threats against my life, one being from members of Anjem Choudry’s extremist Islam4uk group, that has just reverted back to being the banned militant group Al Majoroun that was set up by Omar Bakri. The same person has also made direct threats to kill EDL members.  We are now just waiting to see whether or not the police are going to uphold British law and arrest this person for his threats to kill and other laws he has broken.

You ask yourself the question whether or not these people are willing to carry out the threats, and when you do remember that they believe within their religion that Allah will reward them for killing enemies of Islam  This person who has threatened me has told his Moslem audience to draw parallels with my hopeful murder with the slaying of Theo Van Goth in Amsterdam, so this should help answer that question for your readers.

From my position, the English Defence League was only ever set up to be a peaceful protest group on the streets of Britain, exercising our democratic right to demonstrate peacefully against the issues we currently have grievance to demonstrate about. That view for the EDL street protest movement from my vantage point and with any of my active participation will never change no matter what happens.   The question then will be whether or not different factions will break away with their own agendas using the EDL name.  If someone is killed then the whole dynamics of the current street protest movement will change and then maybe we could do another interview at that point to discuss the new reality we all face within Britain and the future of the EDL street protest movement.  Thank you for this interview and giving me the opportunity to answer your questions for your readers.  God bless you

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Casuals United spokesperson Mickey Smith's answers

1) It was when the extremist muslims disrupted the anglian regiments homecoming in luton, people tried to attck the protesters and two white people were arrested while the muslims were alowed to continue, this is like our grandfathers returning from ww2 to be insulted on our streets by nazis

2) The EDL was started as an alliance of the United people of Luton, and football supporters from around the UK using facebook

3) It is against Islamic Extremist, not Muslim people per se, those whose declared aim is to make Britain an Islamic state, and who laugh at our soldiers dying on their websites

4) We are not racist and have many Sikh and Black supporters, we are not homophobic, and point out the anti gay views of Muslim extremists in our attacks on them (see site link below)

5) We are finding it hard, and two idiots were caught seig heiling at our birmingham demo, they have now been banned, as hooligans some of our members may be, but we are not nazis

6) If someone was killed we wouldnt be happy, but its more likely to be one of us, as our members only fight in self defence and the most violence has come from left wing rodents and the muslims they wind up.

*********************

The answers from Stephen Gash, founder and leader of SIOE England, and also Anders Gravers, original founder of SIOE:

1) There were plenty of blogs describing what and how Islam was creeping towards controling the West and the rest of the world, but nobody seemed to be doing much. SIOE was started to have a simple message and to be a direct action group.

2) SIOE started in March 2007. Anders Gravers was already doing protests and other direct action events in Denmark with SIAD. Nobody else seemed to be doing much, so I phoned him and we decided to do a Stop Islamisation Of Europe demo in Brussels on 11th September 2007.

3) We do not believe in moderate Muslims. We believe there are Muslims and those who want to leave Islam. Some Muslims are more active than others, but all Muslims want sharia law and Islam to rule the world. Moderate Muslims are those who watch non-Muslims being killed, but still say Allah u Akbar when the killing is happening.

Therefore, we obviously oppose Islamists because Islamists are merely Muslims, and Muslims are Islamists.

We oppose immigration from Muslim countries.

4) SIOE's motto is "Racism is the lowest form of stupidity! Islamophobia is the height of common sense!" We were the only group to protest against the Muslim ethnic cleansing of Greenlander Inuits from their homes in Gellerup in northern Denmark. We encourage support, and have support, from, persecuted minority groups in Islamic countries, such as Hindus, Christians in Indonesia, Copts in Egypt etc. Muslims persecute non-Muslims regardless of race, and Muslims of different races carry out the persecution. Muslims are the problem and it is Islam that inspires them. Race has nothing to do with it. However, we oppose racism and exclude racist elements from our organisation.

However, the media are obssessed with race.

SIOE has tried to persuade gays and lesbians to attend their events and to explain how they are persecuted and executed, merely for being homosexual, in Islamic countries such as Iran.

SIOE has significant support from gays and lesbians in Denmark. SIOE wrote an article for the gay and lesbian foundation in the UK, which was partly published (edited as an editorial) about the Harrow 11th September demonstration.

6) SIOE does not accept the terms "right wing" and "left wing". The table of political oppression is a round one at which the left and the right would sit shoulder to shoulder, if it were not for Islam sitting between them.

Is stoning a woman to death for being raped, left wing or right wing? Women are just dying to know.

6) Anders Gravers and four other SIOE/SIAD supporters, including two women, one in her 70s, were beaten with iron bars by so-called anti-fascists. Anders and another male supporter were stabbed at the same time, only saved by security vests.

SIOE is entirely peaceful in its protests, but refuses to be intimidated by self-styled fascists who are, in fact, the most violent fascist thugs in Europe. We will continue to oppose Islam and sharia by stealth. This means demonstrating and protesting when we can.

Muslims are violent anyway, especially when they are offended. It is impossible for a non-Muslim not to offend a Muslim. Giving in to Muslims just provokes more violence by them. Appeasement of Muslims provokes even more stringent demands.

SIOE does not appease and faces down confrontation.

Regards
Stephen Gash
Anders Gravers

******************************

I was a little surprised at the responses. Though the spokesman of Casuals United called the Far Left "rodents", his comments were far more "tolerant" than I had been led to believe, after reading press commentary. The comments from SIOE seemed more forceful and uncompromising than I expected. However, I am of the opinion that these answers are honest opinions. The answers from all three respondents may seem reactionary, reflecting a sense of deep frustration with the current situation in Britain, but I cannot see these answers as reflecting genuine "racism" or "fascism". Paul Ray's comments must be viewed as his own - as he does not represent the current strategies of the national and regional EDL groups,

I wonder at the Far Left - who condemn the open fear of Islam that is expressed by SIOE and others, openly accusing "Islamophobes" of being sowers of hate. Yet when one sees the number of mosques being erected in Britain, often with money from Saudi Arabia, I wonder why no Far Left individual raises the question of hypocrisy. Saudi Arabia funds the export of Islam around the world (even to Nepal), yet prevents any Bibles from being brought into their kingdom. No churches are allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia, and migrant workers who hold unofficial Christian services have been jailed.

Similarly in Pakistan, Christians are a minority group, yet they are persecuted mercilessly. In Malaysia, no-one is allowed to leave Islam and Buddhists, Hindus and Christians are legally defined as second-class citizens, and yet it regards itself as upholding a "civilizational" form of Islam. The Far Left hob-nobs with Islamists who openly support such policies of discrimination in Muslim countries and who often express extreme anti-Semitism.

If anyone expresses a fear that the culture and values they thought represented Britain are being undermined or changed undemocratically, by the influence of Islam (through Islamic political pressure groups) then they are portrayed by the Far Left as "racists" or fascists. Fear of being verbally attacked in this manner leads some to stay silent, and freedom of speech, essential for a democracy, is compromised. When the fountain of discourse is blocked, the intellectual landscape stagnates and becomes ultimately arid. Monolithic political ideologies, such as Communism and Islamism have brought no freedom of thought to Muslim countries, yet the Far Left seems to wish to impose the same limitations upon Britain's democracy.

I have tried, not always successfully, to make a distinction between Islamists and Muslims. I still wish to believe that the vast majority of Muslims are not out to "see the black flag of Islam fluttering above Downing Street", a boast made by Al-Muhajiroun and related individuals. To hear people declaring that no Muslim can escape being an Islamist is the most worrying revelation from the questionnaire. The role of "secular" Muslims, "cultural" Muslims, apostates, all need to be acknowledged. Muslims must be treated as individuals, and be allowed to flourish as individual citizens, with a right to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

To suggest that all Muslims are the same in their attitudes robs Muslim citizens of their individuality, including their individual rights to choose to follow communal, rather than individualistic, precepts. What worries me most in the current agitations from those who are openly challenging Islam's influence upon British society and politics, and by the groups who wish to silence them, is "Where will this end?"

Most groups that agitate for change have an end-goal. I should have asked this question to the three respondents, as this question is the most important of all. It is fine to say that one is worried or opposed to an ideology, but when people who follow that ideology are legally living here, what should happen in the end for those people? One cannot legislate against ideology and remain a free democratic society. Nor can one remove citizenship from people. I worry that without a hope for a solution that politically protects all people, increasing the strength of the debate between Islam and anti-Jihadism could only lead to violence, and for Muslims to be made into scapegoats for problems that were never created by them.

I know I personally want to see people integrate into one multiracial British society, and to regard their religion as one aspect of their identity and not the only feature by which they should be defined. If there are islands of tolerance that can be made at the present time between the polar extremes of Islamism and Islamophobia, then I wish to see them develop. Already Muslims are becoming victims of "anti-terrorism" legislation and profiling because of the actions of a few radicals. Islamophobia is now leading to discrimination, and injustice, and solutions must be found.

However, Britain has lived for 12 years under a dogmatic party that has introduced rafts of new laws, while simultaneously subsuming British legal autonomy under the courts of the European Union. The law is no longer seen as a vehicle to protect a person, but a means to tyrannise - from fining people for not closing their garbage cans properly to allowing local mayoral councils to enact surveillance against citizens (Under the Ripa Act). Rights of privacy are meaningless when a person's individual information can be shared with more than 790 public bodies.

The current Labour government has tampered with the political landscape to a point that it is unrecognizable. With no clear constitution, and no clearly defined charter of citizens' rights, the government has created an environment where communities are forced to compete for patronage. Resentments have festered quietly for years, and the current situation is perhaps also symptomatic of the frustration with a government that treats its citizens as mere subjects, cogs in the machinery of social engineering.

Because of the actions of the Far Right, the Union Jack became a symbol of racist nationalism. Under Labour's socialist government that divided the political "Union" of Britain Scotland and Wales by introducing "regional assemblies", the Union Jack has become a dated irrelevance. When even its national flag has been robbed of meaning, Britain is in a crisis of identity and ideology that it has never encountered before.

The Influence of Politics

I remember the riots of the 1980s all too clearly and though they made - to use the Chinese expression - "interesting times" to live through, caused widespread destruction. Social unrest of such a scale now would not die out easily and could lead to community violence and ultimately a Balkanization of many parts of Britain. If inter-community violence erupts, then some inner city neighborhoods could see virtual civil war.

Britain's institutions are clearly a lot less overtly racist than they were in the 1980s, and worlds away from how they were in my childhood. In 1964, when I was six years old, an election was being fought in Smethwick in inner city Birmingham. The Labour candidate, Patrick Gordon, was expected to win. He lost, however, to a Tory called Peter Griffith, whose campaign slogan was: "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labor." When the election results were announced, Griffiths taunted his opponent with comments that included "Where are your niggers now, Walker?"

In Birmingham on April 20, 1968, Tory intellect Enoch Powell made a notorious speech that is still discussed, 40 years on. The "Rivers of Blood" speech was delivered to a COnservative Association. The full text is here. Powell was immediately sacked by Edward Heath, then head of the Conservative party. Certain of Powell's comments, such as referring to "piccaninnies", were knowingly racist. He quoted a disgruntled constituent who had claimed that "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man."

Stripped of its racist terms and extrapolated statistics, the reason why the speech is still discussed is that it provided a dire warning of Britain's society transforming at a rate that could not be managed, a country allowing uncontrolled immigration happening faster than any integration could be achieved. Powell said: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."

In some aspects, such as the predicted transformation of Britain's racial and ethnic demography, Powell's speech was almost accurate. However, there were enough emotive "sound-bites" to provide fuel to the resentments of many white working-class people. Mosley's Blackshirts had been disbanded, but Powell's comments - aimed as they were against an upcoming "Race Relations Bill" would become influential in the development of the National Front and related groups. Powell, publicly spurned as a pariah of politics, would be seen as a "martyr hero" for the emerging new wave of racist "politics".

Political movements, just like religious movements, always need martyrs to give impetus to their cause. The Tolpuddle Martyrs (transported for holding a trade union meeting) have inspired British Trade Unionism. Powell's political "martyrdom" made him more of a force in the emerging racist nationalist movements than if he was allowed to remain in his party and be challenged. In the mid 1970s, the National Front used to demand "repatriation" of non-indigenous people. With the rise of numbers of citizens who were born to immigrants, the repatriation argument became

The Labour Party came to power on May 27, 1997. In a dozen years, it has allowed uncontrolled immigration. The current population sits at just over 60 million. The current Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, famously said in July this year that "I do not lie awake at night worrying about a population of 70 million. I'm happy to live in a multicultural society."

In a time when economic recession is forcing people out of jobs, with an annual migration rate of one quarter of a million people every year, many working class people feel that their security is threatened, and that they will have to compete against newly arrived migrants to gain work.

Labour has forced multiculturalism upon Britain, rather than encouraging migrant communities to integrate and assimilate. The cavalier and condescending attitudes of Labour ideologues are forcing communities to compete for an ever-diminishing slice of the cake. This apparent lack of concern for the worries of its main support base - the working classes - is also driving more people to seek extremist solutions for the extreme conditions they find themselves in.

Labour had been in power for four years when riots involving young Muslims took place in northern cities of Britain. The riots of 2001 in northern England showed how "multiculturalism" had failed, and created ghettoes. However, with rising social tensions and still little integration taking place, the Labour government maintains that multiculturalism is acceptable. Multiculturalism makes Alan Johnson happy. But in 2001 even John Denham, the current communities secretary, who is expected to resolve the current tensions in Britain, did not believe multiculturalism was working.

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 2 of 4

2009-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

PART TWO (OF FOUR)

The Blame Game

On Friday September 11, Britain's Communities Secretary John Denham spoke of the recent protests which have been linked to the EDL and other factions. In an article reproduced in the Guardian newspaper, Denham said: "If you look at the types of demonstrations they've organised … it looks pretty clear that it's a tactic designed to provoke and get a response, and hopefully create violence."

When examined, the logic of the argument is bizarre. At face value, it is no different from the self-justifications of the wife-batterer: "See what you have made me do to you?" Such an argument imputes to the march organizers a level of political sophistication that is not supported by (visible) evidence.

The protesters on the ground have an "issue" that they want to angrily project, an "issue" that they seem unable to clearly define. From all that I have observed, the protesters cannot state with clarity whether they are against Muslim people, or Islam as a religion, political Islam (Islamism), Islam as a vector for a societal and political transformation that they resent, or merely against anyone who is not "the same" as them. It is unlikely that those who shout on the streets are thinking so far ahead that they are trying to set up an "over-reaction" against themselves for an ultimate greater purpose.

The people at the very top of the chains of command within EDL, those in the shadows, may be politically sophisticated. The leadership of SIOE England appears to be too politically naive to engage in this level of deep (and ultimately self-destructive) manipulation.

The far Left is a movement with decades of experience fomenting and manipulating social unrest to promote its own agenda for political change - the "perpetual revolution" propounded by Marx and Trotsky. Elements of the left appear now to be wanting to escalate the levels of confrontation, perhaps to have criticism of Islam outlawed altogether, perhaps to discredit the far Right BNP party to damage their chances in the upcoming 2010 general election.

Counter-protesters, left-wing media pundits and the UAF demonize all critics of Islam/Islamism as "BNP" members, despite protestations to the contrary. The BNP tries to disassociate itself from the EDL and vice versa. When "Stop the BNP" placards are carried by UAF counter-protesters, to deliberately misattribute the protesters' political affiliations, the political agenda of the far Left becomes apparent. The Muslims whom the far Left claims to support are just pawns in a larger political chess game. Their hopes, dreams and fears are cravenly manipulated by elements within the far Left.

The BNP

The BNP has officially distanced itself from the EDL protests, claiming, "It is completely malicious and unwarranted to blame the supposed activities of organisations such as the EDL on the BNP, when there is no common ground between the two groups at all." A representative of the BNP added that anyone from his group would be disciplined for partaking in any EDL activities. Despite the EDL and the BNP both denouncing each other's methods, the "anti-fascists" who aim to disrupt EDL protests persist in claiming that the protesters are "Nazis" "BNP" or "NF" (National Front).

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The BNP maintains that it is a political party that "does not march in the streets but rather campaigns in an ordinary democratic fashion." The BNP claims to be patriotic, but its membership policy has excluded non-whites, including non-whites who may be equally patriotic. In the light of the British government's return of Libyan terrorist Megrahi, there are questions that the BNP leader - Nick Griffin - has never properly explained his own dealings with Libya's Islamist dictator. Wikipedia relates that in September 1988, Griffin and two others of the NF visited Libya as guests of the Gaddafi regime.

Griffin's 1988 visit to Gaddafi happened two months before Megrahi blew up Pan AM Flight 103, killing 270 people over Lockerbie. But already Gaddafi was known to be an enemy of Britain - British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher had been shot and killed by a gunman from the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984. Her killer was allowed to return to Libya and was never put on trial. Gaddafi was busy arming international terrorists at that time, including the IRA. In 1985, two years before Griffin's trip to Libya, Gaddafi told the Nation of Islam that he would fund a black army to destroy white America.

Griffin's party established its first headquarters in Welling, south London, in 1989. It grew from the National Front, which in the 1970s had a high membership and engaged in marches through areas inhabited by non-whites, chanting overtly racist slogans. Griffin himself had been in the National Front when it was under the tutelage of Martin Webster and John Tyndall. The National Front still exists, and its current leader is Tom Holmes. There is some crossover of support, but Holmes is critical of the BNP for allowing a Sikh to write a column.

The BNP claims that it is not racist The fact that BNP is only now considering lifting membership restrictions that exclude "non-indigenous" Britons, and then only because of legal pressure, indicates that it has never shed its racist agenda. Nick Griffin presents a public front of condemning racist attacks and being "against" racism. However, when the descendant of a Greek-Armenian immigrant was selected to represent the party in 2006, many party members engaged in a verbal revolt. The BNP attempts now to present itself as a political party - it has two out of the 72 British representatives in the European Parliament. One of these is Griffin.

The ideas of the BNP, making the assumption that is has a political "ideology" other than merely presenting a reactive response to social problems, are not clearly laid out. The party attracted 943,598 votes in the European Parliament elections, representing 6.2 per cent of all ballots cast nationally. The two regions where the BNP won seats were in the north of England. In the North West region, the BNP gained 8 per cent of the votes, and thus gained one of the region's eight seats at the European Parliament. This was won by Nick Griffin. In 2004, the party had received 6.4 per cent of the North West region's total votes. In Yorkshire and Humber, where there were six available seats, the BNP gained 9.8 per cent of the votes*. This compared to 8 per cent in 2004. Former National Front member Andrew Brons gained 120,139 votes for the BNP in this region, and gained a seat as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).
(* source: Telegraph newspaper, June 9, 2009, p. 7)

The BNP's current "popularity" seems attributable to voters' disaffection from mainstream politics, rather than the lure of any rational, coherent policies. Many senior politicians in Britain, such as Alan Johnson, the current Home Secretary, refuse to share a platform with "fascists". Perhaps - if more people had publicly engaged with and ideologically challenged the emerging "politicians" of Germany's National Socialists in the early 1930s, Europe would not have endured the scourge of Nazism.

Some of the senior figures within the BNP are people who seem immune from any attempts to remove the stains of unrestrained bigotry from the party. One of these is a man called Jeff Marshall, who is the BNP's organizer for Central London who in April this year that appeared to favor eugenics. Ivan, the six-year old disabled son of the Tory leader David Cameron, had died. When the news broke, Marshall wrote: "We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it."

Unite Against Fascism (UAF)

The UAF declares that its main aim is to stop the BNP from gaining political seats. The upcoming general election must be held before the end of June 2010. The UAF's own strategy of throwing eggs at Nick Griffin, (creating a fracas that caused two people to be taken to hospital) is hardly a mature and responsible challenge to all that the BNP stands for. Such tactics are no different to those employed by the Nazis themselves at the start of their trajectory to power.

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Weyman Bennett of the UAF said: "Wherever Nick Griffin or the BNP exist we will stand up with other people and say that the politics of fascism and Nazism have no place in the 21st century. These types of politics don’t represent the majority of this country and the majority of people have to speak up for a decent society."

Sarah Kavanagh of PCS Union is a spokesperson for the UAF. She organized the protest outside parliament on June 9, in which Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons were pelted with eggs. Speaking to the BBC attempted to justify the disorder that her group created outside parliament, and refused to condemn the egg throwing.

A group which has a far longer history of not only opposing fascist groups but infiltrating and analyzing their membership is called Searchlight. This group was founded in 1962. It garners respect in circles beyond the far left, due to its methods of gathering accurate information on the "state of play" of fascism and pro-fascist groups in Britain. Sometimes this information is gathered by placing infiltrators within far-right groups. Searchlight's spokesman, Nick Lowles, said: "We need to harness people’s anger in a constructive way, rather than throwing eggs at the BNP."

Searchlight initially joined forces with UAF when the latter body was founded in 2003. However, it decided to part ways with UAF in July 2005, stating that "We have found it impossible to work with UAF in any meaningful sense for some considerable period of time," adding: "And because fascism is about more than racism we simply do not believe that UAF’s concept of black leadership is appropriate for an anti-fascist organisation. Racism is just one part of what fascism is about and it cannot be reduced to it. Also, there was only ever so long that we could participate in an organisation which had leading figures conduct a whispering campaign about Searchlight being 'Zionists'." In an official letter of resignation, Searchlight declared that "We recognise that there are good anti-fascists within UAF, but feel that our own involvement helps neither Searchlight nor the UAF."

The UAF is now manipulating groups of young Muslims to create "counter-protests" at demonstrations that are convened by people who claim to be opposed to the spread of Islam in Britain. The fact that young Muslims may end up with criminal records for being involved in acts of violence does not seem to be an issue of concern for the UAF. The UAF's chairman is Ken Livingstone, and its joint secretaries are Weyman Bennett and Sabby Dhalu. Dhalu is from NAAR, the National Assembly Against Racism, which (according to a Wikipedia stub) has the belief that "the anti-racism movement should be black-led".

It is obvious that Searchlight disagrees with this position, and to any outside observer it smacks of the racial stereotyping of apartheid South Africa. In the 1980s when I was briefly working for a group funded by the Inner London Education Authority, the same ethos was upheld by union members. Their mantra was that racism has a power basis, and therefore "only white people can be racist, because black people have no power". Perhaps, when UAF views the world in terms of cheap racial stereotypes, it becomes easier to understand why it has no appreciation of the actual differences between its perceived opponents. Anyone who opposes the UAF must be "racists" or "fascists". Like a racist, the UAF must dehumanize its opponents into cheap two-dimensional stereotypes to gain the upper hand.

Such methods may work in the short term to demonize one's opponent. The only way to truly defeat a political opponent is to gain entry to the mindset of one's erstwhile foe and change the person's opinion. Even Martin Smith of the Socialist Workers' Party has tried to analyze the demographic and class position of BNP membership as a key to understanding it. The Jesuits studied cultures like the Yucatec Mayans in meticulous detail, in order to more effectively impose Catholicism upon them.

Smith observes: "In part the BNP has been able to grow because of the failure of Labour to address working people’s problems. This is another reason why the slogan 'Vote Labour to keep out the BNP' does not work. For many people the reason they are going to vote BNP is precisely as a protest against the mainstream parties. Sadly there is no short cut for the left; the only answer to that question is the creation of a genuine party to the left of Labour."

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Since 2007, Weyman Bennett of the UAF has also been the national organizer of the Anti-Nazi League, which was revived in 1992 to combat the rise of the BNP. The Anti-Nazi League had been originally founded under the aegis of the Socialist Worker Party, and Weyman Bennett is currently a member of the Socialist Workers' Party's Central Committee. The key to understanding the current confrontational agenda of the UAF is to look at the involvement of the Socialist Worker Party in public rioting that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

SWP and the Anti-Nazi League

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The Socialist Worker Party (SWP) came into being in 1977, evolved from a grouping called International Socialists. IS had been founded half a century ago by Tony Cliff (born as Ygael Gluckstein in 1917 in Palestine). Cliff died in 2000 but had an influence upon the left in Britain's Labour Party, including Michael Foot.

I was living in Hackney, east London, at that time. My first clear impression of SWP, beyond amusement at the strident "class war" language in their newsletters was of a scene I witnessed on a sunny Saturday in Dalston Junction. I was waiting to cross the road. A frumpily dressed woman was standing near the corner, trying to sell SWP leaflets. She thrust a leaflet in front of a black teenager who was at the crossing, urging him to buy it. He tried to ignore her. She even pursued him half-way across the road before giving up. Her sales pitch was memorable: "You must buy it! It's all about racism!". The notion of a white middle-class woman trying to lecture a young black male about racism - and expecting him to pay for information on what he would then have experienced daily - left me amused but aghast.

The SWP would hijack existing social and industrial disputes and turn them into causes to promote their own agenda. One of the first involved a strike at the Grunwick mail order film-processing laboratory in North London. This dispute over working conditions had begun in August 1976 and officially ended in July 1978. The strike was led by a South Asian woman, Jayaben Desai. Through their activities on picket lines outside Grunwicks, the SWP joined forces with militant members of trade unions. Even though the trade union movement is now diminished, SWP affiliations still proliferate among its ranks.

The Socialist Worker Party had about 30,000 members in 1977 when it began. In the same year, the Anti-Nazi Leaque (ANL) was formed by the SWP, with assistance from trade union leaders, including Peter Hain (who had been a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner) and Ernest Roberts (1912-1994). Hain and Roberts would later become Labour Members of Parliament.

In April 1977, a large NF march took place in Wood Green, north London, and was met with opposition. This would lead to the formation of an umbrella group for many smaller anti-racist groups. This body called itself the "All London Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Co-ordinating Committee" (ARAFCC) and was affiliated with the long-established think-tank called the Institute of Race Relations.

The SWP's politics of intimidation became apparent soon after their launch. The first major example of the SWP engaging in acts of street violence came on Saturday August 13, 1977, in an event that is still eulogized by the left as the "Battle of Lewisham" and falsely compared to the Battle of Cable Street. The National Front had planned to stage a march through the southeast London borough, but were greatly outnumbered by ANL and SWP members, who threw missiles. The police were able to separate the NF from the SWP/ANL, and escort them to trains at New Cross to leave. The SWP members then attacked police, and for the first time in the UK, riot shields were employed.

The local campaigners against racism, the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism had wanted a peaceful show of opposition to the NF, with no direct confrontation. Their desires were ignored by the SWP whose desires for confrontation followed its own agenda. A total of 2,500 police officers were employed to deal with the rioting. 270 police were injured, with 57 of these needing to go to hospital. 57 members of the public were injured, and 214 individuals were arrested. 202 of these were charged.

The confrontational tactics of the SWP in their dealings with the National Front led to the raising of questions in Parliament. Alan Clark asked on December 15, 1977: "Leaving aside all the humbug about racialism, will the Home Secretary tell the House how many members of the so-called Socialist, so-called Workers' Party have been charged with violence against the police, and how many members of the National Front have been charged with violence against the police?"

More parliamentary questions about SWP were raised on May 4, 1978, on June 8, 1978 and again on July 6, 1978 and June 28, 1979.. The SWP and NF conflicts were mentioned in the House of Lords (Parliament's Upper House) on February 19, 1979.

An account of some of the developments of that time, from an SWP/ANL perspective, can be found here. The same author (David Renton) was a member of both the SWP and the Anti-Nazi League (ANL). His account of the ANL movement can be found here. The history of SWP and the ANL was not all about violent confrontation. On May 1, 1977, just after the Wood Green NF protest, the first "fanzine" of a movement called "Rock Against Racism" (RAR) was produced.

Many of the bands within the RAR movement were involved with punk and reggae/ska. The punk scene was kicking off at that time and to RAR's credit, its links to the emerging scene may have had some benign social influence. Most participants at their gigs had no interest in the party politics of the SWP and were bored by podium speeches. However, I recall those concerts particularly the one at Victoria Park as enjoyable. They brought diverse people together under a positive common purpose. RAR wound down in 1981, and the ANL Recently, an attempt has been made to revive the RAR ethos, through a movemet called Love Music, Hate Racism (LMHR) whose aim is specifically tied to putting down the BNP.

Southall 1979 and the Riots of 1981

Before the BNP evolved as a grouping, there were several communities who were made to feel vulnerable by the National Front's marches, rallies and leafleting campaigns. In April 1979, the Southall Riots were a turning point for South Asian communities who had frequently been the passive victims on the receiving end of NF and racist predation. In June 1976 Gurdip Singh Chaggar, an 18-year old Sikh, had been stabbed to death by white racists outside a cinema in Southall, west London. Gurdip's killers, who were widely believed to be NF supporters, were never brought to justice.

The 1979 general election brought an end to the failing Labour government, placing Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party in power. In the lead-up to this election, the NF decided to use Southall Town Hall for its political activism. This action was seen as a provocation too far, and led to a massive protest. On April 23, numbers of local South Asians, accompanied by ANL affiliates, had been intending to march to the Town Hall. Access to the civic building was blocked to them by uniformed police officers and a riot ensued. The police response was widely condemned for involving disproportionate violence. One ANL protester, a New Zealand-born teacher called Blair Beach was killed, apparently by blows from a police baton.

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30 years on, and a secret report into the death of Blair Peach still remains unpublished. At the time members of the police Special Patrol Group (SPG), a tactical unit, were assumed to have been responsible for Blair Peach's death. The 1979 Southall riots were seen as a turning point for South Asian communities. When on April 2, 1981, a skinhead band called the 4Skins arrived in Southall with 200 supporters to hold a concert of "Oi!" music at the Hamborough Tavern, the venue was burned down by Asian youths.

Afro-Caribbean communities were frequently a target of police racism. In the lead-up to the riots of 1981, the SPG units were seen to inflame tensions. The so-called "Sus Laws" allowed anyone to be arrested on suspicion of loitering with intent to commit a crime. These laws were often applied by police against black people. Additionally, suspicion of drug possession was a pretext for arrests. On April 2, 1980 arrests at the Afro-Caribbean-owned "Black and White" cafe in St Pauls region of Bristol, southwest England, led to rioting on April 3.

In London, a tragedy sparked resentments in the black community. On January 18, 1981, a fire broke out at a party which was held in New Cross, southeast London. Thirteen young black party-goers, none older than 20, died. Police said it was an arson attack, and many believed it was racially motivated. A popular slogan arose: "13 dead, nothing said." On March 2, black protesters marched from New Cross to Hyde Park. TV footage at the time - on both BBC and independent TV showed disturbing images. As the procession crossed the Thames, police officers were seen to jump on individual marchers. Each time this happened, the cameras turned away.

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Heavy-handed policing took place at Railton Road in Brixton, a street which gained the sobriquet "The Frontline." Police had been mounting an increase of arrests under "Operation Swamp 81", a policy to tackle an increase in burglary and theft. Over six days, 943 individuals had been stopped and questioned, leading to resentments. This area erupted in rioting which began after police were seen tending to an injured black man on April 10, 1981. The man was "rescued" by 50 youths and this led to riots over the next two days. more than 300 people were injured. On the evening of April 11, 279 policemen and 45 civilians were injured. The Brixton riots were the first time that molotov cocktails were used on the mainland.

There followed a succession of disturbances around the country. On July 4, 1981, rioting broke out in Toxteth, Liverpool, lasting four days. On July 7, black and white activists attacked police in Wood Green, North London, riots erupted in Liverpool's Moss Side on July 8. On July 10, 1981 in what what can only have been a planned campaign, there were disturbances in "Southall, Battersea, Dalston, Streatham and Walthamstow in London, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds, Highfields in Leicester, Ellesmere Port, Luton, Leicester, Sheffield, Portsmouth, Preston, Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, Nottingham, High Wycombe, Bedford, Edinburgh, Wolverhampton, Stockport, Blackburn, Huddersfield, Reading, Chester, and Aldershot."

At that time I lived in Stamford HIll, near Dalston. Everyone knew the riots were going to happen on July 10. For weeks before, graffiti had been painted on walls in white letters: "SWP - Black and White Unite and Fight." Immediately before the riots in Dalston, shopkeepers in Kingsland Road had boarded up their premises. I heeded the warnings from friends about the upcoming riot and stayed at home on July 10. The rioting broke out near Ridley Road market, and shoppers had fled for safety to the Rio Cinema. A man who had been running youth musical events at the cinema for more than a decade tried to act as an intermediary with the police. This individual, a reggae musician called Sir Collins, was talking to a senior officer outside the cinema on how the people inside could be taken away from the scene of unrest. Sir Collins was a flamboyant character, who waved his arms about when talking. He was then pounced upon by another group of officers who hit him around the head with truncheons, leaving him bleeding from a head wound in the road. Sir Collins had lost his son Stephen in the New Cross Fire earlier that year, and still tried to help the community, yet was rewarded with violence. The Dalston riot is now only a footnote in social history and mostly forgotten, apart from featuring as a small motif on a street mural.

More riots followed, and also more attempts to stir up riots. The Scarman Report, commissioned after the first 1981 Brixton riot, blamed economics for the outbreak of rioting, rather than "institutional racism" on the part of the police. Police racism was self-evident at that time. From my window in Stamford HIll, I witnessed police assaulting and breaking the arm of a young black man in the road below. This happened in July 1981, days before the national day of rioting. It was not until 1999 and the Macpherson Report that London's Metropolitan Police Force was branded as being "institutionally racist". That report was commissioned to examine the reasons why the April 22, 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, a young black male who wanted to be a graphic designer, had been so badly handled by police. Lawrence's racist killers had been allowed to escape justice.

On the issue of racism, the police forces of Britain are now greatly improved, compared to how they were in 1981. The unrest of 1981 was partly economic, partly a response to police authoritarian tactics, but in some part a result of deliberate political agitation by the far left. It is for this reason that I am so concerned for the current situation. The SWP (Socialist Worker Party) were mentioned in 1981 in the Houses of Parliament as being instigators of some of the 1981 unrest. On October 22, 1981, Lord Gridley brought to the attention of the House of Lords the agitations of SWP in areas that became riot spots.

The UAF that is now attempting to exacerbate tensions at meetings by those it deems "racist" has strong links with the same SWP party. Unless checked, UAF tactics could lead to disaster and create far more racial division and social unrest than if they stopped trying to manipulate social tensions. Condemning the tactics of the UAF does not exonerate the actions of the EDL, Casuals United, March for Luton etc, as some of their number appear to be similarly looking to create violence on Britain's streets.

In Part Three, I will present the unabridged results of my questionnaire, and also examine the role of the Labour government in the current affair. In 2001, after riots took place in Muslim neighborhoods of northern English towns, John Denham, who was then a Home Office minister, wrote a report on the conditions that led to the 2001 unrest. Denham is now Communities Secretary for the government and he is tasked to shepherd the current near crisis to a peaceful resolution. I will be examining his 2001 findings in the light of what has happened in the intervening years, and examining his plans to bring some form of social cohesion to Britain's riven society.

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on? Part 1 of 4

2009-09-27T13:20:00.001-07:00

Britain's Street Protests - What is going on?

PART ONE (OF FOUR)

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At this moment in time, I am deeply worried for the state of Britain. This year, protesters against Islam/Islamism have met with "anti-fascist" protesters on Britain's streets in a succession of events at varying locations. These protests have been accompanied by acts of violence. More such demonstrations are planned to take place, and I fear that - unless some form of sanity prevails - someone is going to get killed. The escalation of such confrontations has not been diminished by a mounting tally of casualties.

The skirmishes at present are not large but they are ugly. They project a dire image of social cohesion unravelling at the seams. Despite the media's attempts to downplay reporting of the events, images of bloodied faces and stories of police officers being pelted with bottles, bricks and even fireworks discredit the reputations of everyone involved - anti-Islamists, Muslims, socialists and anti-fascists.

On Saturday September 12 this year, John Denham, who is the UK minister responsible for "communities", spoke on BBC Radio Four's Today program to interviewer Justin Webb. The following is an accurate transcript:

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JW: (The time is) 18 minutes past 8. Is the ghost of Oswald Mosley stalking our streets? The Communities Secretary, John Denham, has likened the right-wing groups demonstrating in British Muslim comunities to Oswald Mosley's 1930s fascist group, the Blackshirts. He said they are trying to provoke violence with their protests and he's singled out the English Defense League, which is planning to gather in Central London today. Mr Denham is on the line. Good morning.

JD: Good morning.

JW: How dangerous is the situation we are in?

JD: Well, it is nothing like 1930s, er, I was simply asked by the Guardian - put to me by the Guardian - where times in the past where people had tried to provoke an over-reaction by provocative actions. What we're seeing at the moment is small, but I think we do need to take it seriously enough to say that there are obviously people who would be provocative, hope that there's not just a reaction but there's an over-reaction and then people blame the people who over-react and the situation gets out of control. So we've got to move very, very quickly and we are doing with very good cooperation between police local authorities and community leaders just to make sure that does happen.

JW: The risk, though, is that you talk up people who are basically thugs and you make them sound rather more than they really are.

JD: Well, I think that risk is one that we need to take account of and certainly I did not, in any interview yesterday, say we were facing a situation like the 1930s or that it looked like the 1930s so I think we need to make that absolutely clear. But I think we also know, from the more recent past, that, um, provocation can lead to community division, and over-reaction unless we nip it in the bud very quickly. What we've seen I think in the last few weeks, compared with even a few years ago, is fantastically better co-ordination between council leaders, between the police and other people just to make sure that doesn't happen.

JW: Can I just get clear what you did say - the Guardian quotes you as saying "You could go back to the 1930s if you wanted to, Cable Street and all those types of things, the tactics, etc -

JD: The Guardian, The Guardian said to me "Have we ever seen, er, an attempt to provoke an over-reaction like this before?" (JW - Ah yes) "Didn't we see it in the 1970s with the National Front?" and I said, "If you looked at it as a tactic you can go back to the 1930s." That is entirely different - and you would recognise that - from suggesting in anything that what we are seeing has the potency, the organisation, the threat or anything else of the British Union of Fascists.

JW: Of course, if you'd promised some -

JD: At the kernel of this, is something that we've sensibly got to respond to - These are small numbers of people, but if we did allow a cycle of over-reaction, response and so on to take place, then, it could cause wider divisions in the community, and that's why so much effort has gone in the last few weeks - in Harrow and Birmingham and elsewhere - to make sure that doesn't happen.

JW: Is part of this, the phrase "British jobs for British workers" coming back to haunt you, as a government?

JD: No, I don't think it does, but I think what people try to prey on, I think, is the idea that our society is changing in a way which undermines their sense of confidence about their own future.

JW: But have you, have you as a government, been clear about the value of that change?

JD: Pardon?

JW: Have you as a government though, been clear enough all the time about the value of that change to all of us, including these people you want to target now?

JD: I think we have been very consistent, both about the value of change, and also acknowledging the - that there are perfectly legitimate questions to raise about rates of migration, people who come, and whatever. But we haven't finished the job yet, and we know that there are communities that don't feel that their questions are being answered, who may have beliefs, for example, about how the housing allocation system operates which are far from the truth but people will try to exploit, and so, much beyond this small organisation we are talking about, we've got to make a really concerted effort over the next few months to make sure that people are able to express their fears, that people can address them, that we can show that on jobs, on housing, on how housing alocations work and on migration, we are really responding to issues which at the moment they perhaps fear we are not.

JW: John Denham, thank you.

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The mention of "Blackshirts" in the 1930s appears to have been made by the Guardian staff, and at the present time is not wholly appropriate. The struggles against Mosley's fascists were issues of survival for the Jewish communities. Jews were being physically attacked and continuously threatened by the uniformed British Union of Fascists and their supporters. On October 4, 1936, the famous Battle of Cable Street took place in East London (video footage). Socialists fought alongside local Jews to declare "No Pasaran!" (None shall pass!) to the Blackshirts.

In a wider historical context, 1930s fascism was a spreading international menace. World War II (during which Oswald Mosley was interned) showed many Britons what real fascism could mean. After the war, fascist attacks restarted in pockets in East London. Jewish ex-servicemen set up the 43 Group to protect Jewish communities in Stepney, Whitechapel and Hackney. Mosley attempted to stage a revival rally with a core of his Blackshirt protesters on July 31, 1962 at Ridley Road in Hackney (scene of some of the 43 Group's battles) and was met by a hostile crowd. He and his son Max were among the 54 people arrested.

The current demonstrations do not genuinely reflect the 1930s, in terms of either scale or wider historical context. Despite this, provocateurs continue to fan the flames of resentment on both sides of the political and cultural divide. Should the situation escalate, the damage to Britain's patchwork of constituent communities could become irreparable.

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The Guardian newspaper spoke to Sharon Rowe, who is the West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable. Rowe had formerly been Borough Commander at Lambeth in South London until April of this year. Rowe had supervised the policing of two demonstrations in Birmingham which had been initiated by the English Defence League, or EDL. This is the main group named in the protests which have been met with fierce resistance from both Muslims and far-left activists.

The first EDL protest in Birmingham had taken place on July 4 when a small number of the group had set themselves up in the Bullring shopping arena and had, according to the Muslim News "chanted Islamophobic slogans at Asian passers-by."

 A much larger EDL meeting had taken place on August 8 this year. At the same time as the EDL members were holding their demonstration, counter-demonstrators, numbering "anti-fascists" and Muslim youths held their own protest. Both groups had been allowed to protest on the same day, a move criticized by a respected Muslim member of parliament. Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry Barr said: "Certainly if there was going to be rallies by both these groups at the same time it would always lead to confrontation,"

At the August 8 Birmingham demonstration, the number of counter-demonstrators was higher than those of the EDL, whose website claims that it is "Peacefully Protesting Against Militant Islam." In the inevitable confrontation that ensued, most of the photographs show the more numerous South Asians (Muslims) attacking what appear to be EDL members. 35 people were arrested, mostly for public order infractions.

A subsequent Birmingham demonstration was demanded by the EDL, as was a counter-demonstration. Both protests were planned by police to be held at different locations on Saturday September 5. The EDL had arrived in larger numbers than they had in August, as had the counter-demonstrators. For two weeks preceding this demonstration, the police had urged Muslim community leaders to advise young Muslims to stay away from the center of Birmingham on the day of the protest.

Police tried to separate the two groups with some success. Section 14a of the Public Order Act had been invoked by Birmingham City Council to limit the protests. The Home Secretary approved their request to have no protesters allowed within the Bullring shopping arena. Neither group was permitted by the police to have more than 250 protesters and they were ordered to keep to separate locations. Nonetheless, bottles were thrown and violent confrontations did occur. At least 90 arrests were made.

According to city councillor Salma Yaqoob, Sharon Rowe would later concede that "the EDL was completely disingenuous about its stated intentions and not at all interested in peaceful protest." Writing in the New Statesman on September 17, Yaqoob made apparently valid criticisms of the police, City Council and the EDL protesters, even though she made no real distinction between the EDL and the BNP, the far-right political party that has publicly disassociated itself from EDL protests. Yaqoob observed, as did other writers, that some of the protesters were chanting racist slogans. Her article was entitled "Fight the Far Right".

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Yaqoob, who represents the Sparkbrook district of Birmingham, did not criticize the counter-protesters. Strangely, she made no criticism of Muhammad Naseem, the elderly head of Birmingham Central Mosque. Yaqoob was writing more than a week after Naseem had admitted to journalist from the Times newspaper that he had urged young Muslims to attend the rally, clearly contradicting the advice of the police, and moreover Naseem urged Muslims to link up with the anti-fascist protesters.

Naseem also stated: "If it was kept as originally intended, then everybody would have had a chance to give vent to their feelings without coming into contact with each other. And that I will take up with the police." Naseem is cited as the major donor to "Respect - the Unity Coalition". Respect is a coalition of the far-left (the Trotskyite SWP or Socialist Worker Party and others) and political Islamic groups (including Naseem's Islamic Party). Salma Yaqoob is described as the leader of the Respect coalition.

Yaqoob called for the EDL to be banned from further protests in Birmingham. In August, she had released a YouTube video in which she set out a case for the proscription of the English Defence League.

On Thursday September 17, a meeting was held between senior police officers from West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Metropolitan constabularies, assisted by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. According to Sharon Rowe's boss Chris Sims, the aim of the meeting was to "build up a really clear view of what we're dealing with and make sure that the tactics we use are as appropriate as we can make them."

Rowe herself said of the meeting: "It is important that all [police] forces affected by this new kind of protest have an opportunity to discuss the operational implications. We’ll be sharing learning from previous operations and developing best practice, while also exploring whether current strategies used in other fields could be used in policing protest."

The following day, the Birmingham Post reported that the English Defence League would not be returning to Birmingham, as the city was considered by the EDL to be "too violent". The preceding morning, BBC local news had reported that the EDL had vowed to continue with its protests. The reversal of EDL policy was publicly welcomed by Salma Yaqoob who announced: "Everyone is entitled to express their opinion but these people are not interested in peaceful protests, but very interested in provoking an inflammatory response which brings tension and violence onto our streets. I’m very pleased they aren’t coming back."

The EDL had planned a further demonstration to take place in the city of Manchester on October 10. Jim Battle, deputy leader of Manchester Council, applied to Britain's Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, requesting advice on handling the planned protest, apparently seeking a ban. The Home Secretary claimed that responsibility for banning or allowing the EDL protest should lie with Greater Manchester Police. The police force has been equivocal, preferring to assess the situation before making any banning orders.

The EDL is certainly not the only "anti-Islamist" or "anti-Islamic" group that has recently been making headlines. The group works in close association with "Casuals United", an organization of soccer supporters who have previous experience of conflict on the streets outside soccer matches. Another group, which calls itself SIOE or "Stop the Islamization of Europe" has existed for longer than either the EDL, the Casuals or related groups.

SIOE is part of a wider network with divisions in varying European countries and recently a branch was set up in America. Founded originally in Denmark, SIOE has been in existence for at least two years, but claims not to support any forms of violent protest. However, at a public meeting in Denmark two years ago, a seventy-year old woman was attacked with an iron bar, another woman was hit on the head with a bottle and Anders Gravers, the SIOE Denmark co-ordinator, was stabbed. Gravers was wearing a protective vest. The assailants had been apparently not Muslims, but far-left "anti-fascist" activists.

On September 11 this year, the British division of SIOE had been granted police permission to mount a small protest outside Harrow Mosque in northwest London. A group of between 1,000 and 2,000 Muslims surrounded the mosque. Some SIOE members were physically attacked as they arrived in the vicinity. The protest was officially called off.

As there has been bewilderment concerning the politics and positions of these groups, made both by the media and by some of the groups themselves, I placed a series of email questions to representatives of a Luton group affiliated with the EDL, to the head of Casuals United and to the founder and leader of SIOE England. I will present these questions and their responses later in this article. Firstly, I want to discuss the conditions that led to the emergence of the EDL this year.

The Emergence of the EDL

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Most protesting movements start after a specific event, or a sequence of events, that are deemed by some to be "intolerable". In the case of the EDL, the event that triggered the formation of the group was a small gathering of extremist Muslims from Al-Muhajiroun who had assembled in Luton to insult British soldiers on their homecoming parade.

The soldiers belonged to the Second Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, known also as the "Poachers". On March 10 this year, 200 members of the 2nd Battalion staged a parade through Luton. Most residents who lined the streets (including some Muslims) appeared to be supportive of the Poachers, who were returning after a tour of duty in Iraq.

The Al-Muhajiroun members probably numbered no more than 15 men and women, They bore placards accusing the soldiers of conducting an illegal war. As well as being the "Butchers of Basra", the troops were described on the placards as "Cowards, Killers, Extremists." Police contained the small group in an avenue, set back from the road. These few Muslim extremists, themselves an embarrassment to most Muslims in Luton, were photographed. Their images were flashed around in the national press and on TV. Through satellite links and YouTube they reached an international audience.

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Liam Fox, the Conservative politician who is Shadow Defence Secretary, said the behavior of the Islamist protesters was "disgraceful, appalling and offensive," adding: "It is only because of the sacrifices made by our armed forces that these people live in a free society where they are able to make their sordid protests."

Major General Andy Salmon, a senior British army officer who serves in Iraq, said of the Al-Muhajiroun demonstration: "It is always unfortunate to have these kind of protests for soldiers who have just come back from delivering the goods on the ground. So, yes, it's upsetting, and a total misrepresentation of the reality of what's being done, and the gravity of what's been achieved." Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, condemned the group's actions.

The event in Luton, insignificant in respect of the number of people protesting, was the defining catalyst for a backlash. This reaction was against the British society's politically correct tolerance of an intolerant minority of Muslim citizens. Some people have warned against such a backlash, fearful of the consequences of uncontrolled "reaction" and others (including many American bloggers) had positively wished for such a backlash against Islamism. Over the next eight weeks, small protests developed.

The EDL claims on its website that its first march as a distinct group calling itself the "English Defence League" took place on June 27 this year in Whitechapel, East London. Their next "official" demonstraton happened on July 4 in Wood Green, North London to protest an apparent recruitment drive by Al-Muhajiroun. The EDL website does, however, acknowledge that a large demonstration took place on May 24 in Luton.

On this date, a Sunday before a Bank Holiday, a number of protesters assembled in Luton town center. The protesters apparently went under the name "United People of Luton" (UPL). The Telegraph reported that the body of around 500 protesters had been expected to follow a clearly-defined route which had been approved by the police. The initial impression made by some of the protesters was one of intimidation. Some wore balaclavas, completely concealing their identity. Such headgear is irredeemably linked to media images of terrorism - the 1972 Munich Olympic Village killers, the Provisional IRA, Hamas "operatives" and so on.

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Some of the May 24 protesters broke away from the organized route and began to threaten South Asian residents. Some also tried to march in the direction of Bury Park, home of many Muslims and also the site of the local soccer ground. Police officers became engaged in scuffles, and reinforcements were brought in. The protest reached the steps of Luton Town Hall and dispersed around 5pm. An Asian business had its windows destroyed, and vehicles were damaged. Nine people were arrested. A group named "March for England" had earlier applied to Luton Borough Council for legal permission to mount a protest on the same date, but had been refused.

However, "March for England" had been involved in the demonstration on May 24, the Daily Mail reported. One South Asian man was hit with a banner. The website for "March for England" claims: "We are not a racist group nor do we condone any racism, nor are we affiliated with any racist group. We are English and proud - proud not racist." Several of the protesters wore balaclavas. Other protesters wore home-made masks of the face of Sayful Islam (Ishtiaq Alamgir), leader of Luton's Al-Muhajiroun. These cardboard masks also carried red horns.

The EDL is still the main group associated with protests against Islam/Islamism. It has regional chapters across the country. The leader of the EDL is a man called Tommy Robinson (a pseudonym), who is a carpenter. One of the co-founders of the EDL group is a man called Paul Ray, who blogs under the name of Lionheart. Paul Ray is one of three individuals who replied to my questionnaire. Ray's original weblog was highly critical of Muslim taxi-drivers in Luton, whom he accused of open drug-dealing. Ray perceives himself as a modern "Crusader" and maybe for this reason he soon broke ranks, or was pushed, from the main EDL movement. According to the Muslim News, an EDL spokesman told them that "Chris Renton and Paul Ray have been removed from the group due to their religious and political views," Chris Renton, who designed the EDL website, is known to have been on the BNP's membership list which had been leaked.

Paul Ray insists that he was a founder of EDL. He earlier claimed that an extremist clique, including Chris Renton, had taken over the EDL. Ray now leads his "Saint George" group.

Other Incidents

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I can only imagine the horror and fear of Muslim families living in a region where riots take place, with rioters attacking one's religion. Even having racist groups "campaigning" in a neighborhood can be intimidating. It is an indisputable reality, backed up by 30 years of evidence, that when far-right groups such as the National Front or BNP "agitate" in ethnic neighborhoods, physical attacks against those ethnic groups increase.

The attacks this year in Luton against anyone who appeared to be Muslim have been threatening. On May 4, a mosque in Luton was subjected to a midnight arson attack. The "Call To Islam Education Centre" on Bury Park Road was believed to be the mosque used by Sayful Islam (pictured) and his clique of Al-Muhajiroun members. The mosque trustee, Farasat Latif, has emphatically denied that Sayful Islam and his affiliates belong to his mosque community. The cost of repairing his mosque center will come to £50,000 ($81,800).

The protests within Luton were having a destabilizing effect on the community's Muslim and non-Muslim members. As a result Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, announced on August 21 that right-wing groups would be banned from protesting in Luton for three months. Andy Frost of Luton police said: "The risk the proposed marches pose to public safety has left us with no alternative but to apply for a banning order." Four groups were listed in the ban: March for England, UK Casuals United, United People of Luton and English Defence League.

After the official ban, some young Muslims in Luton also staged their own protest. On Sunday August 30 a mob of about 200 Muslims in the Bury Park region of Luton attacked police. Their original targets were a group of Police Community Support Officers who were on patrol in the park. Fireworks were thrown, leading to an influx of police reinforcements, some with dogs. The unrest was kept contained within the park.

Andy Frost said: "I am extremely disappointed that some members of the Asian community have used today as an opportunity to commit disorder and undo much of the excellent work that has been done by both the police, council and community leaders to ensure today passed without incident."

The EDL may claim to not be racist, and even to eschew violence. Once a certain number of angry people gather together, and the hysteria of "rage mentality" sweeps through the crowd, there is no way of appealing to anyone's higher or rational instincts. When riots happen, few rioters are considering the individual humanity of those they have chosen to represent "the enemy".

The same hysterical rage has also affected counter-protesters. There is nothing noble in using violence against one's enemies. It is never a legitimate response when one's opponents are merely carrying flags and shouting, surrounded by police. The United Against Fascism (UAF) organization appears to actively encourage its members to use violence and intimidation to stop the EDL and other groups' rights to express themselves. Its commentary on the Harrow Mosque event of September 11 is triumphalist and hagiographic.

The UAF report states: "The racists were chased off by groups of Muslim youths, leading to occasional clashes with police. UAF believes the blame for these incidents lies firmly with the racists trying to intimidate Muslims, not with the youths trying to protect their community." The community was not being physically threatened. The report downplays "occasional clashes". These, as described by the BBC, involved young Muslims who "turned on police, throwing bricks, bottles and firecrackers."

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Weyman Bennett is joint secretary of the UAF and said: "We have a simple message for these racist and fascist groups. We will not let you turn the clock back to the 1970s when your thugs could attack black and Asian people with impunity. An injury to one is an injury to all – and your attempts to target and scapegoat Muslims will fail."

Such language may be appropriate when referring to people who are violently attacking innocent civilians, but for a group that claims to have some moral high ground it is inflammatory. The rhetoric appears to condone the use of violence against people who - no matter the nature of their views - had gathered in a protest that was arranged legitimately, and was already being supervised by police.

In a democracy, attacking people physically because they are expressing opinions one disagrees with is undemocratic. The UAF's tactics of physical intimidation are reprehensible. It is shocking that the leader of the Conservative party, David Cameron, along with many other leading politicians, has granted official support to the UAF, a group that uses vigilante tactics to achieve its ends. Combating fascism is seen as a noble cause, but engaging in acts of street violence and thuggery to suppress the legitimate rights of others to freedom of association and freedom of assembly, right under the noses of the police who are there to prevent violence, damages democracy.

The UAF has been entirely partisan in its condemnations. I personally find that it is easier and morally fairer to condemn anyone and everyone who employs or supports the use of violence at police-supervised political gatherings.

David Aaronovitch commented in the Times newspaper: "For years now the British far Left, acting under the banner of the fabled 1936 Cable Street riots, when the British Union of Fascists were prevented from marching in the East End, have given themselves an ideological pass to incite interesting mayhem in the name of anti-fascism."

In Part Two, I will explore the dynamics of earlier British street protests and trace the parallel growth of Britain's fascist and anti-fascist movements since the 1970s, to show their relevance to the current situation.

John Denham: Islam, The Far Right and British Society

2009-09-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

On the BBC's "Sunday" show this morning (Radio 4, Sept 27, 2009), Britain's "Communities Secretary", John Denham, spoke to Roger Bolton about the Labour government's approach to issues of faith and social cohesion.

The full show can be listened to here, but this will be removed within a week.

Therefore I am including an MP3 of the relevant segment: