BY CLARION PROJECT
Worshippers outside the Finsbury Park Mosque are allowed to occupy public space to listen to radical preacher Abu Hamza in 2004. The mosque was closed for extremism in 2003 but reopened in 2005. After an eight-year legal battle, Hamza was extradited to the U.S. where he was convicted of terrorism in 2014. (Photo: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)
Are we living in a world gone mad? Here are seven recent stories of how radical Islamists managed not only to make their agenda acceptable, but how the West kowtows and facilitates it:
1.
A photo recently emerged of UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attending a ceremony and laying a wreath at a cemetery of Palestinian “martyrs.” The photo, taken in 2014 in Tunisia, shows Corbyn seen standing in front of a plaque that commemorates (and is located next to the graves of) Black September members, Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists responsible, among other attacks, for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour experienced a large gain in MPs in the last election and now holds 258 seats in the UK House of Commons (compared to 316 for the Conservative party). He is poised to become prime minister of the UK if the trend continues.
2.
A bus driver in the UK was disciplined for asking a Muslim woman wearing a niqab to remove the full-face garment before getting on his bus. When asked by a passenger why he cared, the driver replied, “I care because this world is dangerous. If you don’t see somebody’s face, that’s not good.”
A representative from the bus company later apologized to the woman “for the distress caused when one of our drivers expressed his personal opinions, and behaved in an offensive fashion that in no way reflects our deeply held values as an inclusive company which welcomes all people, irrespective of background, race, nationality or religion, as customers and employees.” The company is also arranging a meeting with the driver and the woman so that the driver can apologize in person. In addition, they referred the matter to the police.
3.
Also in the UK, a gas station in Lancashire demanded a motorcycle instructor wearing an open-faced helmet while filing his tank take off his helmet. Yet a woman wearing a burqa filling her tank next to him was not requested to take off the garment covering her face.
The instructor called the incident “racism at work in Britain.”
“I had an open face helmet so people could see my identity,” he said. “The lady behind the till [cash register] has served me on hundreds of occasions.”
4.
Plans were dropped by UK social workers who petitioned the High Court to take five children away from their parents, both of whom are known Islamist extremists. The father is “a leading figure” in the banned terror organization Al-Muhajiroun, is on a terrorist watch list and has encouraged others to join ISIS. The mother is accused of being an active member of a women’s circle associated with the same terrorist organization and appeared in the television documentary ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled. She also took her children with her to meetings of the circle on a number of occasions. In a previous incident, the woman was officially cautioned by the police for an assault she committed in front of her children.
Yet the court ruled it could not be proven that the children were damaged by their parents’ ideology. The Telegraph reported this case is of one of many where plans to take children away from known extremists were dropped after courts ruled damages could not be proven.
5.
Five Somali pirates found guilty of raiding a German ship are now living on welfare in Germany. The men were released after serving prison sentences in Germany and applied for asylum – a request that was rejected. However, none of the men face deportation for various administrative and political reasons. One now has a wife and a child who was born in Germany, whom the ex-pirate plans to raise in the country.
6.
A mother from the UK and her four-year-old daughter were jailed in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ellen Holman, a dentist and the mother of three children, was detained after admitting to customs officials she drank a complimentary glass of wine on her flight from London on the UAE’s Emirates airline.
According to Radha Stirling, head of the legal aid organization Detained in Dubai, it is “wholly illegal for any tourist to have any level of alcohol in their blood, even if consumed in flight and provided by Dubai’s own airline. It is illegal to consume alcohol at a bar, a hotel and a restaurant, and if breathalyzed, that person will be jailed.”
The story began over a visa dispute, which Holman filmed on her phone (which is also illegal in Dubai). When the scene got nasty, the customs official asked her if she had been drinking and detained her for the glass of wine she drank on the flight.
Holman, who has visited Dubai many times previously, said she and her daughter were held in a “hot and foul-smelling” prison, forced to sleep on a “filthy mattress” and clean toilets, and given food that “smelled like rotten garbage.” Her passport and electronic devices were confiscated and her husband was not allowed to visit. Holman initially faced being detained for a year awaiting a court hearing, but due to direct intervention by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed, the two were released and sent back to the UK. All charges were dropped.
7.
Kuwait Airlines refused to sell a ticket to a woman with an Israeli passport trying to get back to Bangkok from London. The aggrieved passenger, Mandy Blumenthal, sued the airline for racial discrimination and harassment and won. The airline must now pay Blumenthal the cost of the ticket plus damages.
In 2015, Kuwait Airways stopped flying between New York and London after the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered the carrier to stop refusing to sell tickets to Israelis. However, the route was reinstated. It is unclear if Israelis are allowed to buy tickets or not.
A similar story in Germany in 2017 saw a German court rule that Kuwait Airlines was within its rights to refuse to honor a ticket purchased by an Israeli. In 2013, Saudi Arabia defended a similar policy when it was revealed the kingdom’s airlines refused to sell tickets to Israelis flying out of New York.
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