Pot, meet kettle

Without wishing to belittle the possible political significance (not to mention the human tragedy) of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, I must say that I laughed heartily when I saw that Gordon Brown has accused her killers of being "cowards afraid of democracy".

Because, for the avoidance of doubt, this is the selfsame Gordon Brown who has in the past few months backed down from holding a general election, and reneged on Labour's manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. Yes, it's that Gordon Brown. Not another one.

"Following Islam to the word"

The daughter of a British imam is living under police protection after receiving death threats from her father for converting to Christianity.

The 31-year-old, whose father is the leader of a mosque in Lancashire, has moved house an astonishing 45 times after relatives pledged to hunt her down and kill her.

The British-born university graduate, who uses the pseudonym Hannah for her own safety, said she renounced the Muslim faith to escape being forced into an arranged marriage when she was 16.

She has been in hiding for more than a decade but called in police only a few months ago after receiving a text message from her brother.

In it, he said he would not be held responsible for his actions if she failed to return to Islam.

Officers have agreed to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

[...]

"I know the Koran says anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate, so in some ways my family are following the Koran. They are following Islam to the word."

[...]

Hannah was born in Lancashire to Pakistani parents who raised her and her siblings as strict Sunni Muslims.

She prayed and read the Koran, wore traditional Muslim clothes and was sent to a madrassa, a religious Muslim school.

She ran away from home at 16 after overhearing her father organising her arranged marriage.

Hannah was taken in by a religious education teacher and decided to convert to the Christian faith.

Although unhappy, her parents tolerated their daughter's dismissal-of Islam as a "teenage phase".

But when she opted to get baptised, while studying at Manchester University, her family were incensed and the death threats began.

Her father arrived at her home with 40 men and threatened to kill her for betraying Islam.

"I saw my uncle and around 40 men storming up the street clutching axes, hammers, knives and bits of wood," she said.

"My dad was shouting through the letter box, "I'm going to kill you", while the others smashed on the window and beat the door.

"They were shouting, 'We're going to kill you' and 'Traitor'.

"It was terrifying. I was convinced I was going to either die, but suddenly after about ten minutes the noise stopped and the men suddenly went away."

The immediate response of liberals, when confronted with appalling cases like this, is half-hearted condemnation, combined with the commonly-heard refrain that this is the work of a "tiny minority of extremists". Which is a very reassuring explanation, marred only by the fact that it is patently untrue. Earlier this year a survey carried out on behalf of the think-tank Policy Exchange revealed that 36% of Muslims in Britain between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four supported the death penalty for apostasy. Not a majority, but a very significant minority, akin to the percentage of the general population who voted Labour at the last general election. Among older Muslims, support for the execution of apostates was lower (which is hardly encouraging, since it means that Muslims are becoming more, not less, extreme with each passing generation), but still 19% of Muslims over fifty-five advocated it. To keep up the general election analogy, that's on a par with the Lib Dems.

As regards the specific facts of this case, I would add that the father here is not a marginalised, extreme figure. Rather, he is an imam - a leader of his community. Neither was he lacking for supporters within his community: when he went to his daughter's house and threatened to kill her, he brought forty men with him - a far from negligible number, especially when drawn from only one local community. And those men didn't just support the death penalty for apostates - they were prepared to assist in carrying it out.

Nor is this the first case of its kind in Britain. Back in 2005, The Times published an article by Anthony Browne, which documented several other cases of attacks and threats made against ex-Muslims, by members of their own communities and, in some cases, their own families. It is probable that we will, sooner rather than later, see a resident of this country killed for converting away from Islam. And clearly, the fact that this has not happened already, cannot be attributed to any lack of effort or willingness to do the deed on the part of the far-from-tiny minority of extremists.

Nigel Hastilow and James Watson murder Indian sailors, says Tribune

ON October 20, two Goan sailors, Gregory Fernandes and Finod Appa, were brutally attacked by a drunken gang of racist youths in the Hampshire village of Fawley.
Mr Fernandes, 32, and his friend were returning to their ship Garonne, moored alongside the marine jetty near the Fawley refinery, when they were surrounded and beaten. Mr Appa sustained a broken shoulder while Mr Fernandes, who was more badly beaten by the 20-strong gang, later died from his injuries.

Hampshire police said the unprovoked assault was racially aggravated. Shocked residents, ashamed by the racially-motivated attack, held an emotional candlelit vigil.

“The community is in shock”, said the Reverend Barry James of All Saints Church, who led the service. “People are dismayed and ashamed of what happened here, in what is normally a small, quiet, sleepy village.”

Christine English, who lives in Fawley, said: “We’re stunned that an innocent visitor could be killed in a racist attack, not in one of the tougher areas of the city, but in a quiet New Forest village.”

Well, I think that we can all agree that the people who committed this murder are worthless scum, who ought to be strung up. And if I lived in Fawley, I imagine that I would be quite shocked too, to have this kind of thing happen on my doorstep.

However, one thing I should perhaps have mentioned before, is that this article comes from the far-left magazine, Tribune. As a result, the above, pretty reasonable, reporting, is swiftly followed up with this idiotic statement:

A link is now being made between what is said in public by people such as Nigel Hastilow and James Watson and racially motivated violence such as this on the streets of Britain.

Really? And by whom is this link being drawn? And what evidence have they adduced to establish the existence of such a link? Have the unnamed drawers of the link uncovered evidence that, for example, racist violence by whites against non-whites rose sharply in the aftermath of Prof Watson's comments, or Mr Hastilow's article?

Nigel Hastilow was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in the West Midlands until his racist remarks – that Enoch Powell was right to talk about “rivers of blood” in his infamous speech on black immigration – embarrassed Tory leader David Cameron. James Watson is the controversial scientist who caused a row when he spoke of the “inferiority of black people”.

So, I guess we're not going to get any answers to the questions I raised in my previous paragraph. What we do get is the throwing around of the word 'racist', as if that is actually probative of anything.
We also get a bit of apparently deliberate dishonesty and misrepresentation. First, we are told that Enoch Powell talked "about 'rivers of blood'". Now, while his famous speech from 1968 has been dubbed the "Rivers of Blood Speech", Powell never actually used the phrase himself. He did refer to "the River Tiber foaming with much blood" (a quote from a passage in Virgil's Aeneid) but he never actually said "rivers of blood". And yet the author of this piece, Paul Donovan, appears, from his use of quotation marks, to imply that the words are taken verbatim from Powell's speech. This is patently untrue, although Mr Donovan might perhaps argue that his untruth serves to illustrate a wider truth.
The second, and more egregious, misrepresentation occurs when we are told that Prof Watson "spoke of the 'inferiority of black people'". Again, the use of quotation marks in this context would seem to suggest - and suggest quite strongly - that Watson himself actually used the phrase "inferiority of black people". Well, if he did, then it isn't mentioned in the Sunday Times report of the interview which sparked off the whole witch hunt last month. Furthermore, not only did Watson not use the phrase "the inferiority of black people", but he also did not use any other words or phrases tending to imply that blacks are inferior. On the contrary, he specifically said that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race. As such, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, unless Mr Donovan should happen to be privy to information withheld from the rest of us, then he is deliberately attributing to Prof Watson, not only words which he did not actually speak, but also sentiments which he did not actually express.

Content with this little piece of deception, Donovan continues:

When the Labour Government came to power it set up the MacPherson inquiry to look into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The inquiry’s remit was later extended to examine racism nationwide.

Lord MacPherson’s final report made 75 recommendations, many of which have been implemented. Race crime was upgraded among police priorities and heavier sentences handed down where racial motivation can be proven.

True. I don't personally think that that's a good thing, except insofar as it increases some sentences which might otherwise be woefully inadequate, but it certainly is what's happened.

Despite this, racially motivated violence has continued to increase in Britain.

True. But what Mr Donovan omits to add is that most racist crime is directed against white people. In 2004, white people were the victims in 51% of all racially-motivated crime, in 61% of cases of violent racist crime, and in fully 83% of the most serious instances of racist violence. Once these basic facts are known, then the whole issue of racism appears in a rather different light from that in which Mr Donovan is attempting to cast it.

While violent crimes such as the murder in Liverpool of black teenager Anthony Walker are the most extreme form of race hate, the Institute of Race Relations points out that “every day on the streets of the UK, in playgrounds, classrooms, shops and at work, minority ethnic people are racially harassed.”

And that's wrong, and those who perpetrate such offences should be punished. But still more frequent than a non-white person being racially harassed by a white person, is a non-white person racially harassing a white person.

The contributions to public debate made by people such as Mr Hastilow and Professor Watson and, before them, Enoch Powell create an atmosphere in which it is easier for racists to operate.

Any evidence for that?

Race relations legislation – and changing attitudes – mean that blatant racism of the sort that saw signs reading “No blacks, no Irish” displayed in windows no longer exists, but racism has become more covert.

Any evidence for the existence of this new "covert" racism? No? Well, actually there is, after a fashion:

Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Wales, said that Mr Hastilow’s remarks exposed the racist underbelly of the Conservative Party.

There's your evidence: Peter Hain says so. I suppose that is evidence, of a sort. Whether we should attach any weight to it is, of course, a rather different matter.

And anti-racist campaigners fear that when someone such as Mr Hastilow or Professor Watson expresses their inflammatory racist views in public they give succour to those intent on racial violence on the streets of Britain.

Some questions:

1. Who are these "anti-racist campaigners"? Why doesn't Mr Donovan name them and quote directly from them (or fabricate some quotes, since that seems to be his style)? Or is it in fact the case that Mr Donovan is expressing his personal views, and attributing them to "anti-racist campaigners", in a bid to give them some added moral authority (yes, I know that race hustlers have no moral authority whatsoever, but I doubt that Mr Donovan knows that)?

2. What evidence is there that when Nigel Hastilow or James Watson expresses an "inflammatory racist view" (i.e. a view with which Paul Donovan does not agree), violent thugs "intent on racial violence" derive succour? Do such thugs actually sit around thinking "hmm, James Watson made some remarks about race and IQ, therefore it's okay for me to kill an Indian"? Did racist violence against non-whites increase in the aftermath of the comments of either Mr Hastilow or Prof Watson? Does Paul Donovan's article consist entirely of unverified assertions?

That last one's easy...

“The tragic death of Gregory Fernandes proves how important it is to confront racism in all its pernicious forms,” said the Institute of Race Relations this week.

Well, I'd agree that the murder is tragic. And I'd also agree that racism should be confronted. I imagine, however, that my definition of what racism is would differ substantially from that endorsed by Paul Donovan, or the Institute of Race Relations.

Today's Scum

A retired lecturer who moved to the seaside in search of "the good life" was kicked to death by a thug who started pestering her in the street.

Susan Grundy, 56, was walking home after an evening with friends when Stephen Browning approached her for a cigarette.

When she refused, Browning, a convicted thug who had just been bailed by police after a drunken outburst, unleashed the most sickening attack.

He punched, kicked and stamped on Mrs Grundy more than 20 times, Bradford Crown Court heard.

High on a cocktail of drink and drugs, he then stripped her naked, sexually assaulted her and left her dying on the ground.

Then he went to a nearby nightclub and bought a round of drinks with £50 he had stolen from her purse.

Browning, 31, who admitted murder, was jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 25 years.

So, he'll be 56 when he gets out - the same age Mrs Grundy was when he killed her. Personally, I think that Stephen Browning is an excellent argument for the death penalty. I think that there can be no doubt that such a vile creature deserves nothing less than an appointment with Jack Ketch.

And there's more:

Two weeks earlier, he had been released from a four month jail term for an assault on his girlfriend in November 2006.

After his release on January 9, he went to his sister's home and got drunk, before being arrested for breaching the peace and obstructing a police officer.

He was still on bail at the time of the murder. He was also separated from his wife, whom he had attacked in 2002.

So, if this man, with his clear predilection for violence, particularly, it seems, against women, had not been granted bail, then Mrs Grundy would still be alive today. Another great triumph for British justice!

Getting their priorities straight

We can't deport him, because that would breach his "human rights". Now it transpires that we, the British taxpayer, will also have to pay millions of pounds to help keep Learco Chindamo, the immigrant murderer of Philip Lawrence, safe from those who feel that twelve years' imprisonment is an insufficient sentence for a vile killer, and who may seek to exact the justice that the state shied away from.

Among the measures likely to be taken to protect this worthless piece of rat excrement, when he is released from prison, will be the provision of a new identity, a ban on the media revealing any details of his new life, and the provision of 24 hour police protection, with a panic button being installed in his home so that, day or night, come rain or shine, Plod can hasten to the defence of this poor defenceless murderer whenever he feels threatened.

Leaving aside the vast cost to the taxpayer of all these measures, and the fact that the only occasion on which vermin like Chindamo leave prison at all should be when they're taken to the gallows, it is this last point which particularly annoys me. After all, only a few days ago we had the news that a man whose son had been beaten unconscious by Chindamo-like thugs was told to write to his MP, and stop bothering the police with such trivial matters as GBH against a law-abiding citizen. However, it seems that because he has killed someone, Chindamo is to be rewarded with a level of police protection that those of us who have inexplicably neglected to stab anyone through the heart can only dream of. I guess that in modern Britain, crime really does pay.

Isn't modern Britain great?

Another day, another breathtakingly vile act of senseless violence from lowlife thugs:

A 23-year-old man with learning difficulties has died in hospital after being attacked by a teenage gang on a housing estate.

Doctors had feared Brent Martin might not survive the weekend after suffering a catalogue of injuries in the unprovoked late night attack.

Detectives hunting the youths have now urged parents "to think about what their children were doing" on the night when he was set upon by a gang of at least five youths.

The attack happened on the Town End Farm estate, in Sunderland, around 10pm on Thursday night.

Mr Martin, a local man, died this morning in Sunderland Royal Hospital.

Northumbria Police described the incident as a "prolonged, savage attack" which is believed to have been carried out over a period of time.

His attackers are believed to be between 16 and 17 and at least two were wearing hooded tops pulled up around their heads.

They only needed a hug...

Meanwhile, The Guardian has an interview with a self-proclaimed "Nogzy soldier" - a member of a criminal gang based in the Norris Green area of Liverpool, close to where eleven year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead on Wednesday:

We are good us, we never do robbing. The Crocky [a gang based in the Croxteth area of the city - FR] does robbing. We do grafting. Mostly cars, I suppose I rob about two cars a month and sell them on.

[...]

I've been done for possession of crack cocaine - I was selling it, not doing it - and threats to kill. I've just got out a couple of months ago, I got two years for assault on a police officer and criminal damage for smashing a police van up. I was in the Farms [Lancaster Farm young offenders institution in Lancashire] and [HMP] Altcourse.

I've had charges since I was 10 or 11, all different assaults and that. My mum and dad were not too happy.

No, I would think not.

I wonder whether there is some remote and uninhabited island to which all these bloodthirsty scum can be shipped off en masse, armed with as many guns and knives as they can carry, and left to fight to the death, a la Battle Royale? After all, would it really matter if they all killed each other off? I can't imagine that I would shed many tears were such a scenario to eventuate. Neither, I imagine, would many of those who live in areas infested with these vermin.

Of course, the Battle Royale option will most likely not be put into practice any time soon. Therefore, more prosaic methods will need to be used to stop the gangs. Now, it seems to me that the only thing these gangs will actually respond to is force; specifically, force greater than that which they are capable of exercising. As such, I believe that, in the worst sink estates, where the police have completely failed to tackle the gangs, the army should be sent in to maintain order. Perhaps they might have more success in keeping these scum under control than the police have enjoyed.

Latest ATW Post

Have you seen that James Bulger's killer, Jon Venables, is getting married. And that his fiancee is ignorant of his true identity?

Personally, if I were getting married to a child killer, I'd want to know about it. Wouldn't you?

Anyway, this is all just a roundabout way of saying, that I have written a post on this theme over at ATW.

Blood on their hands?

A young Indian immigrant is stabbed to death at a bus stop in what police describe as a "racial attack". Subsequently, an unemployed 19 year old thug is charged with the murder; he today pleaded not guilty, and will go on trial in November.

So, why haven't we heard more about this? Why hasn't the story of the crime been plastered all over the MSM? Why has the BBC hidden the story away in a remote bit of the 'England' section?

An answer suggests itself when one looks at the defendant's name: Kamuzu Monroe. Now, I can't imagine that there are many white men named Kamuzu. And the few newspaper reports on this racist murder seem unusually coy about mentioning Monroe's own race. Whereas if the defendant in such cases is white, that fact normally seems to get mentioned in every other sentence. Finally, via the Crimes against British Sikhs blog, I find that Monroe is, indeed, black.

This murder would be no more or less vile if it had been carried out by whites. But you can bet whatever you like that it would have got a lot more publicity. Because, in the narrative favoured by the MSM, not only can whites never be victims of racism (hence the suppression of the news of the murders of Kriss Donald, Charlene Downes, et al), but only whites can ever be racist (hence the deafening silence that has greeted this murder, and also, in an example of Pakistani-on-black crime, the murder of Isaiah Young-Sam). Now, to me, this sounds rather like, to use a stock phrase of the liberal-left, "demonising an entire community". Not very responsible of them, is it? Indeed, given that it is apparently the case that most blacks and Asians convicted of racist crime against whites attempt to justify their crimes on the basis that they are getting revenge for all the supposed evils that the racist whites have inflicted upon them, is it unrealistic to suggest that the MSM has blood on its hands?

Abortion ship back on the water

A while back, the group Women on Waves (or, as it should perhaps be renamed, Dykes in Dinghies) caused a bit of a storm when it provided a new means for abortionists to circumvent the law of various nations, and kill a few babies. They did this by launching a ship, registered in the Netherlands, collecting women from those nations lucky enough to still have substantial restrictions on abortion, and then sailing out to international waters, and doing the odious deed.

In 2004, following an eleven day stand-off in which the Portuguese government prevented women seeking abortions from going to the ship, the Dutch government passed a law banning the vessel from travelling more than fifteen miles from Amsterdam, which severely curtailed the ship's capabilities. Now, however, the socialists are back in the Dutch governing coalition, and the ban has been curtailed.

And so the dykes are happily preparing their dinghy, and will soon be sailing out into the big wide world, to provide abortions aplenty. The Portuguese government has since legalised abortion, so Women on Waves are now planning to take their ship as far afield as Argentina in pursuit of their noble cause.

Oh, what one wouldn't give for a good tidal wave...

Update: In more bad news, abortion was legalised in Mexico City yesterday.

Islamic Tolerance Strikes Again!

In the past, I've written about the Islamic persecution of Iraq's Mandaeans, and over at Christianophobia Watch we regularly cover the large-scale persecution of Iraqi Christians. Jews were almost entirely driven out of Iraq, and most of the Arab world, after the establishment of Israel in 1948, although for some reason you don't hear assorted worthies lining up to call for their "right of return" to be recognised.

Really, being a religious minority in Iraq is a lot like being caught up in a giant version of that favourite game of children and drunken teenagers, Spin the Bottle. When the bottle points to you, it's your turn to get lynched!

Now, the Muslims have once again spun that bottle, and this time, it's pointed itself at the Yazidis:

Unidentified gunmen have killed 23 people in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said.

All the victims were said to be members of the Yazidi religious minority which follows a pre-Islamic religion and worships an angel figure.

Police said the victims had been dragged from a bus and shot dead. Followers of other faiths were reportedly left unharmed by the gunmen.

As with the Mandaeans, the Yazidis are another group that I'd never heard of until today. It's interesting how many groups I only find out about when the Muslims start to exterminate them.

(Cross-posted at ATW)

Guns for the people!

What vexes John Markell most about the Virginia Tech massacre is not that he sold the killer one of his guns but that none of the victims was able to shoot back.

"I shoot with those people at the university - the professors, the deans, the grad students - and they shoot good," he said, fiddling with the same model handgun as that used in the killings.

The owner of Roanoke Firearms, a packed armoury of shotguns, assault rifles and handguns a half-hour drive from the university, said that his daughter graduated from Virginia Tech 10 years ago.

"What aggravates me is that my daughter is a heck of a shot and she has a concealed weapon permit but nobody is allowed to carry a gun on campus," he said.

Millions of Americans will accept his implication that the killings happened not because guns were too freely available but because they were not available enough.

And so does this blogger, for one. The phrase "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns" may be so cliched that one blushes to reproduce it, but it holds true nonetheless. Let's face it, most people who go out murdering aren't particularly fussed about the law. If they're prepared to kill people, then gun control laws aren't going to stand in their way.

But the majority will obey the law and go unarmed. In this case the 'law' was a rule imposed by Virginia Tech, banning guns on campus. Nonetheless, good students obeyed this, meaning that the one psychopath among them was able to go on his killing spree without any risk of return fire. Just think how many deaths might have been averted had his first attack been met with a barrage of bullets.

A while back, here in Britain, one of the issues over which liberals liked to attack Tony Martin was that the guns he used on that glorious night back in 1999 were illegally owned. Now, just consider: because Tony Martin had an illegal firearm, a career thug ended up dead. Good riddance! Whereas, had Tony Martin obeyed the letter of the law, he would probably have been the one who ended up getting hurt, perhaps fatally, and Fred Barras would probably have spent another sixty worthless years stealing from decent people.

So, I say, let's have more guns in Britain too. After all, if the public don't fight crime, who else will? The police? Don't make me laugh.

Postscript: Similar sentiments to the above were recently expressed by Patty at A Tangled Web. Thanks to Mr Smith, and David Vance, editor of ATW, I shall soon be posting over there. When news of my imminent arrival was announced on Monday, it sparked off many of the local leftists into a veritable two minutes hate. Readers may be amused by some of the comments: I certainly am, and have added two of the choicest ones to my masthead. In the meantime, I am thinking what to write for my first post there. If I play my cards right, then, judging by the virulence with which they responded to the mere mention of my name, I could succeed in inducing fatal coronaries in some of them.