Brookfield aldermen approve mosque – construction set for summer

Over objections of some residents who sought to table the project, the Common Council unanimously approved a mosque on Pheasant Drive intended to serve a growing Waukesha County Muslim community.

Brookfield aldermen unanimously approved plans for a nearly 13,000-square-foot mosque, to the joy of Waukesha County Muslims and chagrin of opponents who sought to table the project Tuesday.

The Common Council voted 14-0 Tuesday to grant a conditional use permit, with aldermen assuring residents the city had "thoroughly vetted" traffic and other site issues before green-lighting construction.

"We're elated," said Mushir Hassan, a Brookfield resident, physician and project leader for the mosque. "We live in a very sophisticated, educated community that understands that they've worked with, lived with, and dealt with Muslims and people of all different faiths and cultures on a regular basis," Hassan said after the meeting.

The Islamic Society Milwaukee West has a fundraiser planned for Friday. Construction would begin in July with opening planned for spring 2013, Hassan said.

Mayor Steve Ponto, who voted in favor of the mosque last week as head of the city's Plan Commission, said Tuesday he believed the city had been transparent and open with its mosque review. "I know that it's a sensitive matter for some residents," Ponto told Patch but added: "I really am confident that we will not have any problems."

Ten residents urged rejection or tabling of the mosque plans, citing concerns ranging from traffic and future expansion to terrorism and use of Sharia or Islamic law to subvert U.S. laws.

Charles Cook of Hartland asked aldermen to write conditions into the development agreement barring Muslims from exercising Sharia law over city rules and regulations. Cook turned to face the audience. "I just want to say thank you for you Muslim people, for coming out and trying to build this mosque. This has helped the Christians to get out of the churches and take back America," Cook said.

Five people urged approval, saying Muslims deserve a place to worship closer to home, just like every other religion enjoys. The city has about three dozen religious facilities. "We have all kinds of temples," Brookfield resident Rafat Arian said. "The Sikhs have their temple, everyone has it. So why can't the Muslims have it, too?"

Brookfield resident Beverly Kuntzsch told aldermen she was concerned about public safety. She said the New York Police Department surveyed 100 mosques nationwide in 2007 and found substantial ties to terrorism and "Jihad." "How will you monitor the literature or the preaching / teaching of violence that's going on in the mosques?" Kuntzsch asked.

Brookfield Patch, 15 May 2012

Class materials from military's anti-Islam class repeatedly cite Islamophobic authors

Slide from a presentation titled 'Sharia and the Constitution'A class taught by the military to officers at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, came under fire when a report on Wired's Danger Room blog last week exposed it for teaching soldiers to engage in a "total war" on Islam and taking a war on Islam "to the civilian population wherever necessary."

The full set of course materials, hundreds of documents and slide shows obtained by ThinkProgress, reveal just how deep Islamophobia ran through the military instruction. The material contained dozens of citations to the work of some of America's best known anti-Muslim bigots.

Not all of the material in the course, however, was anti-Muslim. Materials from reputable sources such as the Brookings Institution and RAND corporation also appeared among the readings, and only some of the presenters to the class used blatantly Islamophobic material. (The public affairs officer of the Joint Forces Staff College didn't respond to repeated inquiries by press time.)

But the "Islamophobia network," discussed in the Center for American Progress's report, "Fear, Inc." played a prominent role in many of the 266 documents acquired by ThinkProgress.

ThinkProgress, 15 May 2012

The Islamophobes named are Robert Spencer, David Yerushalmi and Daniel Pipes, along with Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy. Right-wing anti-Muslim publications like the Washington Times and the National Review are also cited numerous times in the documents.

Legislation to ban veil is sweeping Europe like 'political Swine Flu', researchers claim

Banning and criminalising the Muslim face veil tests the very foundations of modern liberal society, warn researchers from Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Sussex.

The paper 'Reasons to Ban? The Anti-Burqa Movement in Western Europe' examines the move to legislate against, and to criminalise face-veiling which has swept across the EU recently.

The European movement against face-veiling is now widespread, with calls to implement a ban, or a ban being in place, in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Germany.

This move from country to country makes it seem like a form of "political Swine Flu", suggests the paper’s authors, Prakash Shah, Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, QM and Ralph Grillo, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Sussex.

Queen Mary, University of London, news release, 10 May 2012

MP urges EDL march ban on Bristol's day of Pride

A Bristol MP has written to police and the council urging them to scrap plans to allow a march by right-wing extremists to go ahead on the same day as the city's Pride march.

The English Defence League (EDL) is allegedly planning on holding a march in Bristol on Saturday, July 14 – the same day as the city's annual Pride celebrations.

Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, has said "many LGBT people will feel intimated by the proposed march and people will inevitably stay away from what is suppose to be a family friendly event".

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Children as young as 10 being groomed in Northern Ireland

This is the headline to an article in the Belfast Telegraph, which reports that girls in the North of Ireland "are being sexually exploited in the same way as the girls in the notorious Rochdale grooming case, a leading charity has said". It quotes Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin of Barnardo's Safe Choices as saying that sexual exploitation is happening in "every town and city across Northern Ireland".

However, given that Muslims number only 1,943 out of a total population of 1,685,267 in the North, 97% of whom are Christians, I rather doubt that the commentators who saw the religious affiliation of the perpetrators as a central factor in Rochdale will be arguing the same in this case.

'The crusade begins': EDL's US chapter launches website

The English Defence League's US franchise is now open for business. Its leader, one Bill Turner (aka "Jihadihunter"), announced the launch of the USADL's new website last week under the headline "The crusade begins". Loonwatch has the details. See also the report by the Anti-Defamation League.

California: EDL-supporting Senate candidate claims to defend 'white Americans' against threat of Islam

San Mateo, CA — In the US Senate primary in California on June 5th, where 23 candidates vie to challenge Senator Dianne Feinstein in November, conservative candidates were recorded on video verbally attacking teachers, Muslims, and minority groups to excite their base at GOP and Tea Party venues.

The video was recorded at a "Get to Know Your Candidates" event hosted by the San Mateo GOP at the American Legion Hall here. Dr. David Levitt, the candidate who recorded the event, reports unmasked homophobia, Islamophobia, and racism in the Republicans' speeches.

In the video Republican candidate Rabbi Shifren cries, "... I AM an Islamophobe, and everything we need to know about Islam, we learned on 9-11! I believe in peace and justice for everybody – but that's not why they're here.... We're getting sucker-punched because we as white – yes I said it! – as white, Christian Americans are being taught that somehow WE are to blame for all the problems."

PRWeb, 14 May 2012

In October 2010 Nachum Shifren visited the UK to express his solidarity with the English Defence League, joining them for a demonstration in support of Israel and against "Islamic fascism" at which he was the main speaker. Fired up by Shifren's Islamophobic rhetoric – he described Muslims as "dogs" who were trying to "take over our countries" – three EDL members attacked an Islamic literature stall and were later convicted of public order offences, with one of them receiving a seven-day prison sentence and a five-year CRASBO.

Shifren with EDL leaders Kevin Carroll and Stephen Lennon during his visit to the UK

Rochdale grooming case: Add a few irrelevant facts, stir and let prejudice do the rest

Spot the odd one out. Jewish politician urged not to insult atheist party leader. Man from all-boys school sends intimate texts to attractive redhead. Straight black man wants same-sex marriage. Pakistani Muslims jailed for sexual assaults on white girls. The first three are ridiculously loaded and leading headlines. The last was a real one.

You may need some assistance here. Labour's leader Ed Miliband has been advised not to burn his bridges with Nick Clegg in case a Lib-Lab pact is needed after the next election. Our old Etonian Prime Minister has been texting "lots of love" to Rupert Murdoch's henchwoman Rebekah Brooks. Barack Obama has come out in support of gay marriage.

Nobody nowadays would dream of calling Miliband a "Jewish politician" in that way. So why are the 11 men convicted of sex offences in Rochdale described as "Pakistani Muslims"?

Paul Vallely in the Independent on Sunday, 13 May 2012

MI5 feared British police attended terrorist camps

Well, that's the headline to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. The article itself centres on the case of Abdul Rahman, who was forced to resign from the Metropolitan Police in 2007 over an alleged visit to a "terrorist camp" in 2001:

Abdul Rahman had been a constable for almost three years when MI5 warned that he might have visited a training camp in Pakistan when he travelled there. He resigned rather than be dismissed from the force and is now suing Scotland Yard for compensation. He says he is entirely innocent and has never been to a terrorist training camp. His lawyers say he has never been questioned, arrested or charged under terrorism legislation.

Whether Mr Rahman can expect a fair hearing in his case against the Met is also doubtful:

Last month, after a five-year legal battle, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that his case could be held in secret although Mr Rahman had wanted a public hearing. Mr Justice Mitting, a High Court judge who also specialises in terror cases in his role as chairman of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, ruled that Mr Rahman and his legal team would be banned from parts of the hearing that concerned issues of national security.... Instead, a security-cleared "special advocate", rather than his own lawyer, will be appointed on Mr Rahman's behalf. However, he will be banned from discussing the case with Mr Rahman and his lawyers. 

See also "The Scotland Yard officer suspected by MI5 of being a 'sleeper' for Al Qaeda who attended terrorist training camp", Mail on Sunday, 13 May 2012

Al Jazeera on the US military's anti-Islam classes

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive material of a course taught on a US military base implying that Hamas has influenced the US government at the highest levels.

The course is called "Understanding the Threat to America." And in it are hundreds of slides that claim to link the Muslim Civil Liberties Advocacy Organisation (CAIR) and other American Muslim groups to the Palestinian group Hamas. It was taught to senior military officers at a base in the state of Virginia.

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