A Ukip MEP called for an end to immigration from Islamic countries during a debate on the crimes of ISIS on January 20.

Gerard Batten, who represents London, argued that ISIS represents “a literalist interpretation” of the Qur’an.

Batten claimed that “ISIS represents a revival of the original ethos of the Mohammedan cult”. He defended these comments and told Religious Reader yesterday that “ISIS represents the worst excesses of the Mohammedan cult”.

When asked for further clarification he insisted that his purpose “was not to upset any individual but to talk about a belief system, an ideology”. Batten maintains that “Islam is of course a cult”. A ‘cult’ that “up until relatively recently was properly referred to as ‘Mohammedanism’ in the West’”.

This religious literalism, for Batten, remains antithetical to ‘western liberal democracy’. And drives his desire to end immigration from Islamic countries. As ‘importing millions’ from Islamic countries may constitute a security risk since “we cannot be sure of just how many of them take their religion literally?”

Batten holds little sympathy for men fleeing ISIS. He told Religious Reader that: “Most of the waves of migrants coming to Europe, and queuing up at Calais are not fleeing ISIS, they are fit young men who are economic migrants.

Most of them are not even from Syria. If they are fleeing ISIS then they have abandoned their own parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends rather than try and defend their own people from this threat.”

This ideological framework forms one part of his solution to defeating ISIS. The other concerns warfare. Batten calls for an alliance between western and Islamic nations who ‘don’t want to live under the barbarism of ISIS’.

Batten used his speech to claim that the Qur’an “speaks of making war on infidels, killing infidels, and striking terror into the hearts of infidels”.

Yet there is no concept of ‘holy war’ in the Qur’an, according to Dr Imam Mamadou Bocoum. Dr Bocoum also warns against divorcing the context of revelation from Quranic verses.

Batten, however, maintains that you cannot take Quranic verses out of context as they are the ‘words of Allah’. He claimed that “Mohammed himself had to later withdraw certain ‘Satanic verses’”.

He also called on Christian leaders to proselytize their faith to Muslims in Europe. As it provides the space for a ‘recruitment opportunity’ and ‘ideological crusade’. Batten insists that Christians are ‘frightened’ to promote their faith, but Muslims are not.

Gerard Batten is not without controversy when it concerns Islam or Muslims. In 2014, he defended the ‘Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding’. The document asks Muslims to sign a pledge of non-violence. Batten had lamented the fact that Europe had allowed “an explosion of mosques across their land“.

He commissioned Sam Solomon to produce the report in 2006. Solomon has shared platforms with the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Geert Wilders in the past.

Batten renewed calls for Muslims to sign this pledge of non-violence a day after the Paris atrocities last January. He justified this position to the Romford Recorder by arguing that the “bulk of terrorists are Muslim”.

In 2011, Batten had also suggested banning halal and kosher slaughter and outlawing Islamic banking.

He spoke at a ‘counter-jihad’ conference in Brussels in 2007. Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Bat Ye’or, Sam Solomon, and Paul Weston, now of Pegida UK, had also spoken at the event. Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller remain banned from entering the UK.

Gerard Batten maintains that he holds no ill-will towards individual Muslims. His interest in the matter remains ‘ideological’.

Batten ends our communication with a quote from Winston Churchill that concerns the ‘regressive’ nature of Islam.

The post Ukip MEP wants to end immigration from Islamic countries appeared first on Religious Reader.

UKIP Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is set to ask a question in the House of Lords on the 27th of January 2016.

The question that has been tabled is the following:

“Whether Christians could be recorded as having committed an anti-Muslim hate crime from April 2016 by preaching the divinity of Christ in public or by reading out loud sections of the Bible in public.”

This question may have been posed in relation to the categorisation of anti-Muslim hate crimes as a specific category in the recorded crime statistics from April 2016. This will take place after April 2016 and was highlighted by a Home Office Minister on the 12th of October 2015. How this will be implemented is the subject of much work at the moment.

Lord Pearson has previously been in the news regarding his invitation to controversial Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, to show the film Fitna in 2009. The film was eventually shown in the House of Lords in 2010.

Whilst the question is directed for a formal response from Her Majesty’s Government, we though we would provide our response to the question that brings into play the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

This is our formal response to Lord Pearson:

Reading sections of the Bible at a street corner will not be regarded as an anti-Muslim hate crime. Anyone suggesting that this may be the case is misinformed.

Muslims are ‘not sensitive’ or taken aback by people reading any holy book, unless they have sympathies for groups like the now banned Al-Muhajiroun. Indeed, we live in a plural society where people my fundamentally disagree and take approaches to their faith which are fundamentally different.

Lord Pearson will also find that Muslims regard Jesus as being revered as a Prophet of God. To suggest that they will report in a reading of the Bible as a Muslim hate crime, will warrant, we believe, one response from Her Majesty’s Government – a simple ‘No’.

The post Lord Pearson of Rannoch’s Question in the House of Lords appeared first on TELL MAMA.

UKIP Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is set to ask a question in the House of Lords on the 27th of January 2016.

The question that has been tabled is the following:

“Whether Christians could be recorded as having committed an anti-Muslim hate crime from April 2016 by preaching the divinity of Christ in public or by reading out loud sections of the Bible in public.”

This question may have been posed in relation to the categorisation of anti-Muslim hate crimes as a specific category in the recorded crime statistics from April 2016. This will take place after April 2016 and was highlighted by a Home Office Minister on the 12th of October 2015. How this will be implemented is the subject of much work at the moment.

Lord Pearson has previously been in the news regarding his invitation to controversial Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, to show the film Fitna in 2009. The film was eventually shown in the House of Lords in 2010.

Whilst the question is directed for a formal response from Her Majesty’s Government, we though we would provide our response to the question that brings into play the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

This is our formal response to Lord Pearson:

Reading sections of the Bible at a street corner will not be regarded as an anti-Muslim hate crime. Anyone suggesting that this may be the case is misinformed.

Muslims are ‘not sensitive’ or taken aback by people reading any holy book, unless they have sympathies for groups like the now banned Al-Muhajiroun. Indeed, we live in a plural society where people my fundamentally disagree and take approaches to their faith which are fundamentally different.

Lord Pearson will also find that Muslims regard Jesus as being revered as a Prophet of God. To suggest that they will report in a reading of the Bible as a Muslim hate crime, will warrant, we believe, one response from Her Majesty’s Government – a simple ‘No’.

The post Lord Pearson of Rannoch’s Question in the House of Lords appeared first on TELL MAMA.

UKIP Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is set to ask a question in the House of Lords on the 27th of January 2016.

The question that has been tabled is the following:

“Whether Christians could be recorded as having committed an anti-Muslim hate crime from April 2016 by preaching the divinity of Christ in public or by reading out loud sections of the Bible in public.”

This question may have been posed in relation to the categorisation of anti-Muslim hate crimes as a specific category in the recorded crime statistics from April 2016. This will take place after April 2016 and was highlighted by a Home Office Minister on the 12th of October 2015. How this will be implemented is the subject of much work at the moment.

Lord Pearson has previously been in the news regarding his invitation to controversial Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, to show the film Fitna in 2009. The film was eventually shown in the House of Lords in 2010.

Whilst the question is directed for a formal response from Her Majesty’s Government, we though we would provide our response to the question that brings into play the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

This is our formal response to Lord Pearson:

Reading sections of the Bible at a street corner will not be regarded as an anti-Muslim hate crime. Anyone suggesting that this may be the case is misinformed.

Muslims are ‘not sensitive’ or taken aback by people reading any holy book, unless they have sympathies for groups like the now banned Al-Muhajiroun. Indeed, we live in a plural society where people my fundamentally disagree and take approaches to their faith which are fundamentally different.

Lord Pearson will also find that Muslims regard Jesus as being revered as a Prophet of God. To suggest that they will report in a reading of the Bible as a Muslim hate crime, will warrant, we believe, one response from Her Majesty’s Government – a simple ‘No’.

The post Lord Pearson of Rannoch’s Question in the House of Lords appeared first on TELL MAMA.

UKIP Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is set to ask a question in the House of Lords on the 27th of January 2016.

The question that has been tabled is the following:

“Whether Christians could be recorded as having committed an anti-Muslim hate crime from April 2016 by preaching the divinity of Christ in public or by reading out loud sections of the Bible in public.”

This question may have been posed in relation to the categorisation of anti-Muslim hate crimes as a specific category in the recorded crime statistics from April 2016. This will take place after April 2016 and was highlighted by a Home Office Minister on the 12th of October 2015. How this will be implemented is the subject of much work at the moment.

Lord Pearson has previously been in the news regarding his invitation to controversial Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, to show the film Fitna in 2009. The film was eventually shown in the House of Lords in 2010.

Whilst the question is directed for a formal response from Her Majesty’s Government, we though we would provide our response to the question that brings into play the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

This is our formal response to Lord Pearson:

Reading sections of the Bible at a street corner will not be regarded as an anti-Muslim hate crime. Anyone suggesting that this may be the case is misinformed.

Muslims are ‘not sensitive’ or taken aback by people reading any holy book, unless they have sympathies for groups like the now banned Al-Muhajiroun. Indeed, we live in a plural society where people my fundamentally disagree and take approaches to their faith which are fundamentally different.

Lord Pearson will also find that Muslims regard Jesus as being revered as a Prophet of God. To suggest that they will report in a reading of the Bible as a Muslim hate crime, will warrant, we believe, one response from Her Majesty’s Government – a simple ‘No’.

The post Lord Pearson of Rannoch’s Question in the House of Lords appeared first on TELL MAMA.

A simple tweet from the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, provides an example of the caustic and bigoted responses that are received in return and perpetuated by people who think that it is reasonable to label a whole section of a population. In this instance, self-styled ‘developer and problem solver’, Dino Fancellu, who has a UKIP 2015 banner emblazoned across his avatar, decided to respond to the tweet.

Simon Danczuk had celebrated the Mawlid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad with local Rochdale residents and had tweeted out pictures with British Muslims. The response back from Dino Fancellu, encapsulates the kind of abuse and bigotry which is perpetuated through social media.

Great march through #Rochdale today to celebrate the prophet’s birthday. pic.twitter.com/jrLEvJb07Z

— Simon Danczuk (@SimonDanczuk) December 24, 2015

In response, Fancellu decides to abuse the memory of Prophet Muhammad by promoting the vile belief that he was a paedophile. The comments below are inflammatory and perpetuate a myth that the far right and others promote.

@SimonDanczuk Is there a day to celebrate when he fucked his child bride in the arse? Just asking.

— Dino Fancellu (@DinoFancellu) December 24, 2015

@GeronimoCash @j0nj86 @SimonDanczuk I assume its just a sad attempt at whataboutery. i.e. avoid fact that Mohamed=Pedo.

— Dino Fancellu (@DinoFancellu) December 24, 2015

UKIP sympathiser Fancellu then moves into the line of bigotry by stating the following. The ‘death/rape cult’ it can only be assumed by the language in the tweets, is linked to followers of Islam – in this case – Muslims, and this is further confirmed by the irrational and illogical belief by Fancellu, that Muslims want to take over the world.  Such ‘domination’ can only take place through physical actions and this implies through the actions of Muslims.

We wanted to higlight this example since it shows the toxic nature of social media and the virtually daily trolling that takes place on this social media platform. Finally, Fancellu makes much of the companies that have used his services and these include Barclays Bank, HSBC and other respected banking institutions. We hope that such companies can do their due diligence in the future when looking to work with outside bodies and organisations.

@offcentrenews Yes, I am. I am phobic of a death/rape cult that seeks world domination. I see you’re just fine with this.

— Dino Fancellu (@DinoFancellu) December 24, 2015

The post Simple Show of Respect Receives Bigoted Comments from UKIP sympathiser appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Are British Muslims, as Nigel Farage argues, “conflicted in their loyalties” to Britain? It is a statement that drew wide political condemnation; but somewhat misses the point. The statement has two clear aims: to suture the wounds of embarrassing financial revelations and reassure supporters that Farage shares their anxieties towards Muslims, their faith, cultural identity and immigration.

In a speech to a eurosceptic rally in Hampshire, Farage again referenced a “fifth column in this country”. In the fallout of the Paris atrocities in January, Farage warned of a “fifth column” operating within Britain. Rhetoric that mirrors the language of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. Farage repeated the “fifth column” claim in March 2015.

That Hampshire speech again reinforced the idea of a “Judeo-Christian” culture – a statement Farage also made after the first Paris atrocities in January. Yet the idea of this shared religious and cultural experience owes more to myth than fact. Farage also wants all faiths institutions to declare their funding in an effort to root out radicalisation.

On November 16, Farage tweeted “It is deeply worrying that after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, 27% of British Muslims in a poll found some sympathy with the killers.” Perhaps, a reflection of the character limit, but in actual fact, the poll found that 27 per cent had some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Yet two-thirds rejected violent reprisals for those who publish cartoons of the Prophet. Is the poll reflective of opinion or an outlier? Without a comparable it becomes harder to determine trends – as a measure of sympathy often did not translate into justifications of violence. A vast majority also declared loyalty (95 per cent) to Britain and its laws (93 per cent).

Nor are anti-Muslim statements a recent phenomenon for Ukip’s hierarchy. In 2010, Nigel Farage called for a burqa ban because it symbolised an “increasingly divided Britain”. That statement then turned into a policy pledge for the election that year. But in 2013, Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall confirmed the party had abandoned that policy.

Despite never forming party policy, one of its most senior MEPs Gerrard Batten, commissioned the ‘Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding’ that asked British Muslims to sign a special code of conduct that rejects violence. Batten also suggested it is a big mistake for Europe to allow “an explosion of mosques across their land”. The author of Batten’s ‘Muslim Charter’ has linked up with the larger Islamophobia network in the United States.

Following the Paris atrocities in January, Batten renewed calls for British Muslims to sign his code of conduct renouncing violence. In the same month

In a discussion with Fox News host Sean Hannity on ‘Radical Islam’ Farage made several inflammatory statements including: “In parts of Northern England, we’ve seen the sexual grooming scandal of underage girls, committed by Muslim men in the majority”.

Accidental or not, Farage recycled a popular Islamophobic trope that equates Muslims with paedophiles and sexual groomers (when there is scant evidence of religious motivation). But Farage later retracted claims about ‘Muslim no-go areas’ in Britain on Radio 4’s Today programme.

In an interview with the Scottish Daily Mail, Ukip MEP David Coburn compared the Muslim SNP minister Humza Yousaf to convicted terrorist Abu Hamza.

When pressed for comment, Farage rejected cross-party calls to remove Coburn from Ukip and claimed the remark was simply ‘a joke made in poor taste’.

Magnus Nielsen, who stood in both the 2010 and 2015 elections, sent a 15,000 word manifesto to local press and supporters that suggested Britain is being ‘dominated’ by Islam with the ‘silent and invisible certainty of carbon monoxide poisoning’. Nielsen was filmed alongside another failed Ukip candidate Anne-Marie Waters at a rally making Islamophobic statements.

During the General Election campaign, Farage made the apocalyptic prediction that “half a million Islamic extremists coming to our countries and posing a direct threat to our civilisation.” This rhetoric continues to appear in more recent statements:

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/666346005475033088

A YouGov poll commissioned shortly after the Paris atrocities in January found that 77 per cent of Ukip supporters (246 out of a sample of 1684) held a ‘wholly’ negative or ‘mainly’ negative view of Islam. Yet, there some important caveats to consider (outside the small sample): that Islam is not beyond scrutiny and anxieties around Muslims do not always lead to Islamophobic statements or actions.

Both data sets offer a window into a discussion on the wider anxieties around Islam, terrorism, and Muslim communities in the age of globalised migration. Previous research from academics noted that a cross section of Ukip and BNP supporters appeared ‘absolutely convinced’ that Islam poses a significant threat to Britain.

Farage knows how to speak to his supporters, reflect their anxieties and offer solutions. Condemnation will not work as the message intends to secure party support and speak to individuals who share similar anxieties.

The post Why Nigel Farage’s anti-Muslim statements are nothing new appeared first on Religious Reader.

David Jones (@DavidJo52951945), has over 23,000 Twitter followers and regards himself as a UKIP supporter. A regular tweeter, he has built up a following on the back of his anti-migration and anti-EU tweets. The description on his avatar on Twitter says:

“UK government have abandoned Brits. We need to exit EU, ECHR, stop all immigration + look after British people. Like UKIP. All my views. I follow back – Southampton/ Isle of Wight.”

Not to be outdone on statements after the fire that overtook the Morden mosque over the weekend, Jones went onto state the following:

What Jones showed was his ignorance about the mosque that had suffered the fire. It was an Ahmaddiya mosque and the community has been vocal in raising funds for charities and also recently ran a ‘Poppy campaign‘ in order to raise money for charity by openly selling poppies. This was also highlighted to him as shown above and his response was even more bizarre and telling of his views.

Not to be outdone on the richter scale of ignorance his further tweet shows a level of disdain for Muslims in the United Kingdom. His response was, “I am talking about Rotherham where 2000 underage girls were abused by muslim (sic), UK is better off without Islam and muslims.”

Finally, we are aware that this individual has previously had Twitter conversations with senior members of UKIP before. We hope that they reconsider conversations with this individual given the comments and postings that we have highlighted.

The post David Jones – UKIP Supporter & Avid Tweeter appeared first on TELL MAMA.