The English Defence League is set to open a headquarters in Luton, says its leader, who has been released from jail.

Stephen Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, said the HQ would be at his tanning shop premises in Hastings Street.

"It will be like the Discover Islam centre but we will be telling the truth about Islam," he said. "I will be in there every day. It’s going to be a nightmare for the police because it’s going to get attacked."

Lennon said the headquarters would be run as a "charity", as he was unable to run a business because the police had had his bank accounts frozen.

The EDL leader has a tag to ensure he obeys a curfew order after spending 18 weeks in jail for entering the US on a false passport.

Luton Today, 6 March 2013

Here is an example of the sort of education about Islam that visitors to the new EDL HQ can expect to receive from Lennon:

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A former FBI agent and current anti-Islam activist believes that John Brennan, President Obama's pick to head the CIA, is secretly a Muslim and therefore "unfit for duty" in the government.

On Friday, John Guandolo, the vice president of the Virginia-based Strategic Engagement Group (SEG), appeared on the Boca Raton-based radio show of Tom Trento, the president of the anti-"Shariah Islam" group The United West, formerly the Florida Security Council. Guandolo described how Brennan has supposedly "interwoven his life professionally and personally with individuals that we know are terrorists and he has given them access" to top officials in the federal government and "brought known Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood leaders into the government and into advisory positions."

Guandolo continued that what "some would say is most disturbing, Mr. Brennan did convert to Islam when he served in an official capacity on behalf of the United States when he served in Saudi Arabia" and it "was the culmination of a counterintelligence operation against him to recruit him" by foreign operatives.

In an email to supporters, Trento hyped the interview, referencing the "very brave Michele Bachmann" who recently accused Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Trento continued with the caveat that the "organized left" will probably say things like "Trento & Guandolo are Islamophobic haters who have no credibility" and "Show me proof, I mean real proof, not just overwhelming circumstantial evidence" and "Big deal so the head of the CIA is a Muslim, who cares?" Trento offers a response to one of those statements: "We care – because Islam, by DEFINITION, is BOTH a religion and a POLITICAL system. Moreover, by DOCTRINE, full allegiance to the political mandate of Islam (world domination) SUPERCEDES allegiance to anything else, including the United States of America!"

Salon, 10 February 2013

Only a year ago a state panel in Tennessee ignored complaints by CAIR and others to unanimously approve an SEG training course for law enforcement officers on "Understanding the threat to America" with Guandolo as one of the trainers.

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"The streets around Acton, which has been my home since 1996, have taken on a new identity. Most of the shops are now owned by Muslims and even the fish and chip shop and Indian takeaway are Halal. It seems that almost overnight it's changed from Acton Vale into Acton Veil."

Over at the Telegraph, Jane Kelly protests against the Islamification of west London. At least she doesn't bother trotting out the usual excuse that her dislike of Muslims is based solely on cultural differences and has nothing to do with race. She writes that "many white people in London and the Home Counties now move house on the basis of ethnicity" and justifies this on the grounds that "mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all".

Kelly is consulting editor at the Salisbury Review, a publication that achieved notoriety back in 1984 when it published an article by Bradford headteacher Ray Honeyford entitled "Education and Race – an Alternative View" which featured a range of offensive racist stereotypes.

Describing a meeting with Bradford Asian parents to discuss education policy, Honeyford wrote: "The hysterical political temperament of the Indian sub-continent became evident – an extraordinary sight in an English School Hall.... A half-educated and volatile Sikh usurped the privileges of the chair by deciding who was to speak."

Which only goes to show how little things have changed on the Conservative right over the past three decades.

The Telegraph presents Kelly's op ed as "a provocative personal piece". I suppose that's one way of describing an article expressing bigotry towards an entire ethno-religious community. Perhaps the Telegraph might consider following it up with another "provocative personal piece" complaining that Golders Green or Stoke Newington have been taken over by Jews, and see how that goes down.

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The state-sponsored blackmail and harassment of a former Haverstock schoolboy and other Somalis living in Camden by MI5 is a "national disgrace", according to one of the country's leading miscarriage-of-justice campaigners.

Solicitor Gareth Peirce – who has represented the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes and Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg – spoke in support of Mahdi Hashi at a packed public meeting inside the Town Hall on Friday night.

The 23-year-old was stripped of his British citizenship after refusing to spy on young Muslims in Camden, according to his family.

Mr Hashi, who lived in Gilbey's Yard, Chalk Farm, was later arrested in east Africa and taken to New York where he has been charged with being part of an international terrorist network. He has told his legal team how he was threatened with outlawed torture by US officials shortly after his capture in Djibouti last September.

Ms Peirce, whose law firm is based in Camden Town, said:

"Blackmail is unlawful. Threats, harassment and rendition are unlawful. These are crimes. If hundreds of Somalis under suspicion for travelling to east Africa get in touch with us and say they have been blackmailed and harassed, how many thousands of police and security officers are being deployed for this purpose? It's a disgrace, a national disgrace, a badge of shame."

Camden New Journal, 24 January 2013

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The Public Prosecutor's Office has launched an official investigation into a mosque attack at the NATO İncirlik Air Base in the southern province of Adana, following claims that the attack was carried out by U.S. soldiers, Doğan News Agency has reported.

Turkish and U.S. generals, as well as other relevant authorities, will be asked for information about the incident as part of the investigation, reports said.

Local media in Adana had earlier reported that a number of soldiers at the İncirlik base entered the mosque on New Year's Eve, destroying its minbar and windows along with the Quran. Turkey's chief of staff subsequently denied the allegations.

Windows in the prayer room were broken by unknown individuals and there was some additional small-scale damage, the chief of staff said in a written statement issued late Jan. 10.

Hurriyet Daily News, 13 January 2013

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The Wall Street Journal has published a hostile "review" by Jonathan Schanzer of Nathan Lean's The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims.

Schanzer doesn't just trash Lean's book but also attacks the concept of Islamophobia itself, which he describes as "simply a pejorative neologism designed to warn people away from criticizing any aspect of Islam". Those on the receiving end of the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up by the Islamophobes so effectively exposed by Lean would no doubt take a different view.

For a response to Schanzer's article, see "Bush era neo-con schmuck Jonathan Schanzer shills for nasty Islamophobia movement", Loonwatch, 10 January 2013

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The lawyer for a Somerset County Islamic organization believes that the township Planning Board is discriminating against his clients for wanting to build a mosque in the Liberty Corner section of Bernards.

Vincent T. Bisogno, attorney for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, said the board increased the parking requirement to 110 spaces despite a zoning ordinance suggesting a house of worship of this size be required to have 50 spaces. "Is it (the ordinance) only for Christians?" Bisogno asked during a board meeting Tuesday night.

Residents, some of whom have formed a group and hired an attorney to oppose the application, believe the mosque would be out of character for the rural and bucolic neighborhood. Some fear the mosque would invite too much traffic to the area.

Bisogno said that increasing the parking requirement at this stage of the process would be inconvenient. If the board can increase the parking requirements from the standards set in the ordinance, "why would anybody build in Bernards Township? That doesn't make sense."

"How do you determine storm-water management until you determine the parking requirements?" he added. "I'm at a loss as to what the parking requirement is here and what do I do in preparing a site plan.

"We want to be treated like every other house of worship. My clients are very concerned about this matter and I have told them many times that I have appeared here before ... and that this board is always fair and equitable. My clients are not convinced of that."

MyCentralJersey.com, 9 January 2013

See also "Attorney for Bernards Islamic Society is 'shocked' by planning board standards", NJ.com, 9 January 2013

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U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says President Barack Obama's administration has embraced what she calls a bid by Islamic fundamentalists to bring the U.S. government in line with Islamic law.

Bachmann, R-Stillwater, made the comments last weekend in an interview with Jan Markell, a Maple Grove-based Christian minister with Olive Tree Ministries.

Bachmann created national controversy earlier this year by claiming the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist fundamentalist movement that rose to power in Egypt, had penetrated the U.S. government.

In the latest interview, Bachmann warns of a 10-year plan crafted by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which includes 57 nations, most of them in the Middle East. Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, says the OIC plan aims "to criminalize worldwide any speech that is disparaging of Islam" in accordance with Sharia law.

What she describes as a "purge" by FBI and other Obama administration officials of materials deemed offensive to Islam shows the administration is "embracing" the OIC plan, Bachmann said.

"That's what I spent my whole year doing, was talking about this issue of what the OIC was trying to do with their 10-year plan and all of these efforts in the Obama administration," Bachmann said. "The only conclusion you could make is that they are embracing the 10-year plan and are supporting it."

St Cloud Times, 12 December 2012

See also "Bachmann: Obama wants to 'lift up the Islamists' and impose Sharia law", Right Wing Watch, 12 December 2012

The interview was broadcast on Jan Markell's weekly radio show, which has the stated purpose of "discussing current events in the light of biblical end-time prophecy". As Mother Jones has reported, Bachmann's association with Markell and the Christian-Zionist Olive Tree Ministries goes back some years.

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Tory MP Kris Hopkins has sparked a row in the Commons by claiming gangs of Muslim men are raping white "kids".

The Keighley MP claimed police had felt they needed "permission" to go after abusers due to "political correctness". He said MPs should not avoid talking about the issue or the BNP and others will hijack it.

But Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi warned about "playing into the hands" of far right groups with such accusations. The Bolton South East MP said senior police officers and judges involved in cases of abuse had said race did not play a part.

She said the fact that the victims of abuse were white – in the cases Mr Hopkins was referring to – was "coincidental not deliberate". She warned against losing sight of the "bigger picture" – that the common factors in all cases of abuse was the vulnerability of the victims and the fact that the perpetrators were "nearly all men".

"They (the victims) are always young girls, or young boys, or children and ... the victims in these cases are always the vulnerable ones. It's never the child who has got a secure happy family life," she told MPs.

She was speaking in a Commons debate on the sexual exploitation of children.

Mr Hopkins insisted he had been right to raise the issue, telling MPs: "Time and time again it's a white girl being raped by Muslim men and if we deny that fact in this House then the BNP and everybody else climbs on board."

He acknowledged that there were "long lists of notorious abusers" who were not Muslim but he added: "We shouldn't get away from the fact that there are gangs of Muslim men going round and raping white kids".

BBC News, 13 November 2012

Hopkins is a former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia. He resigned when fellow MPs refused to capitulate to a witch-hunt against ENGAGE, the then secretariat of the APPG.

Here, via Hansard, are some excerpts from Hopkins' contribution to the Commons debate on child sexual exploitation:

The demographics say that they [the perpetrators] will be white, but we should not get away from the fact that gangs of Muslim men are going round and raping white kids at this moment in time. That is an horrendous thing to say, but it is the fact of what is happening.... Perhaps some of my friends, both in the House and back home, will not like what I am going to say, but one of the problems is the way that women are treated and valued by Muslim men.... Fundamentally, there is a sexist behaviour by Muslim men towards women. We talk about institutions and commissions and all the rest of it. Fundamentally, as leaders, we need to challenge the behaviour that is going on....

I want to consider the way boys live in those households. I am afraid, as one senior council officer said to me, they are little princes: they can do nothing wrong, their behaviour is not challenged, and eventually that can manifest itself. In one instance outside Bradford university, Muslim men patrolled the streets around the university verbally abusing women and girls all the time. Rather than the community of peers challenging that behaviour, we had to have a specific police intervention to stop that sexual abuse of women. I am sorry, but that is not something that just manifested at 16, 17 or 18; it is a cultural thing about the behaviour towards women that has set in right at the beginning....

Finally, lots of women wear traditional dress, including the veil, but there is an issue with men looking at women in western clothes—there is the idea that they are doing so because they want sex and think that those women are available. That behaviour by some Muslim men towards western women needs to be challenged. I could talk in-depth about this matter, but I am running out of time. It is enough to say that I want people in my town to be successful, but they must understand the values that we live by....

The hon. Lady says that this is not about race or religion, but time and again it is a white girl being raped by Muslim men. If we deny that fact in this House, the BNP and everybody else will climb on board.

Update:  Here are a selection comments in support of Hopkins posted on a popular far-right Facebook page:

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A man launched a drunken attack on a mosque after watching a news report about the desecration of Commonwealth graves in Libya.

Barry Stanbury, 42, was caught on CCTV cameras at shortly before 2.30am on March 5, wandering around the Exeter Mosque before a window was smashed, Exeter magistrates heard.

The court was told Stanbury was wearing "a distinctive hoodie" with a logo of a large cross on it, and a police officer recognised the defendant.

Clifford Howard, prosecuting, said: "The criminal damage occurred at the Exeter Mosque at 2.23am. We have the precise time because it was caught on CCTV."

When interviewed Stanbury said he was "so drunk he did not remember doing it".

Mr Howard said he told police his motive for carrying out the religiously aggravated criminal damage was seeing on the news that Commonwealth graves had been desecrated in Libya.

Stanbury, of Laxton Avenue, Exeter, denied racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage at the mosque but was convicted after a trial. Magistrates sentenced him to 80 hours unpaid work, £100 compensation and pay £150 costs.

Exeter Express and Echo, 1 November 2012

Via ENGAGE

The claim that Stanbury's attack was suddenly triggered by a news report is clearly nonsense. A glance at his Facebook page confirms that he is a member of the English Defence League (its Kingston-upon-Thames division, as he now lives in Reading) and his list of "likes" includes virtually every far-right organisation in existence, from the British National Party to the National Front.

Following the EDL's Luton demonstration in May this year, Stanbury commented that he was "fed up with peaceful protest". As support for the EDL's street protests continues to shrink, it can be anticipated that more disgruntled members like Stanbury will turn to direct acts of violence against the Muslim community.

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Islam is relentlessly evangelical and has insatiable imperial designs. It authorizes and encourages the advancement of its goals by any means available, from deceit to outright murder – as just occurred at our embassy in Libya. Because the political doctrine of Islam has growing adverse impact on "non-believers" worldwide, non-Muslims have every right to comment accordingly.

Islam and Muslims demand religious criticism to be a one-way street. They can criticize others, but others should submit to them and keep silent. No other religion but Islam so vehemently criticizes other metaphysical and theological systems. Hence, Muslims forfeit the right to protest when others criticize Islam.

Quite disgracefully, The Tennessean provides a platform for anti-Muslim extremist Vijay Kumar to promote his hate-filled paranoia about Islam.

Unsurprisingly, Kumar is much admired by Pamela Geller, who in 2010 enthusiastically supported his bid to be adopted as a Republican congressional candidate in Tennessee. Kumar reciprocated by contributing an article to Geller's Atlas Shrugs blog titled "The Muslim mosque: A state within a state".

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Using taxpayers' money to fund projects run by religious or ethnic community groups is turning Britain into a divided society, the author of the report on the Oldham riots has warned.

Prof Ted Cantle said that the idea of multiculturalism in Britain is now "well past its sell-by date" and is often doing more harm than good.

He accused the Government of fuelling separation in communities rather than bringing people together by allowing small groups to claim "special status" – and with it funding – amounting to a form of state-sponsored segregation.

Councils and police are also giving undue legitimacy to "self-appointed leaders" in some areas by inviting them to endless meetings and consulting them on their views and allowing them to become "gatekeepers to their communities", he warned.

Meanwhile grants from government funding pots, councils and charities have allowed thousands of separate community groups to grow up representing their own interests and reinforcing separation, he said.

He accused David Cameron of failing to live up to a pledge to tackle "state multiculturalism".

Prof Cantle, the founder of the Institute of Community Cohesion at Coventry University, wrote a high profile review into he causes of the 2001 Oldham riots warning that some ethnic groups were leading "parallel lives".

But in a highly critical paper to be presented to a conference organised by the National Secular Society next week, he calls for a halt to all state funding for projects and services aimed at or run by religious groups or individual ethnic communities.

Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2012

Appearing along with Cantle at the NSS conference will be Richard ("Islam is the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today") Dawkins, the Islamophobic drunk Nick Cohen, and Maryam ("terrorism is justified and encouraged in Islam") Namazie. So he'll be in good company.

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It looks like the right-wing press is resuming its hysterical campaign against the proposed Tablighi Jamaat markaz at the Riverine Centre in Newham. "Bomb fear at mega mosque" is the shock horror headline to an article in the Daily Star Sunday, which follows the recent scaremongering report in the Evening Standard.

According to the Star: "Security forces feared extremists could use boats to smuggle explosives on to the site of a proposed mega mosque in East London during the Games. Spooks conducted a series of boating missions to test the possibility of terrorists bringing bombs into the Stratford area. Anti-terror chiefs thought they might use the River Thames, River Lea and a tributary known as the Channelsea River, which runs adjacent to the planned 12,000-seater mosque site in West Ham, East London."

For confirmation of this dubious story, for which the Star offers no sources at all, the paper turns to local right-wing Christian bigot Alan Craig, who is quoted as saying: "No doubt the security forces have been watching it. I spoke some time ago to a number of anti-terror officers about it and they were certainly watching the situation with the Olympics coming up. This site is less than half a mile from Olympic stadia. They were quite concerned." Craig adds: "Officers had been out in rubber boats on the river assessing the possibility of getting ordnance in via the river."

It was Craig who issued a disgraceful press release in July 2007 claiming that Tablighi Jamaat had inspired the attempted terrorist attacks in Glasgow and London. I suppose it's possible that anti-terror officers discussed their operational plans with this fundamentalist crank, but it strikes me as highly unlikely.

Having stirred up its readers with unsubstantiated accusations of association with terrorism, the Star concludes its report by quoting the trustees of the Riverine Centre as stating: "There are no such security concerns regarding Tablighi Jamaat. These people are just interested in constructing a building that is suitable for their faith. There is nothing sinister going on."

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Forty-two religious and secular organizations united on Thursday in condemning conservative lawmakers' allegations that Muslim-American individuals connected to the U.S. government may be trying to spread the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.

They directed their criticisms at Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who recently wrote to various government agencies and asked them to investigate the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. In their letters, the lawmakers targeted top State Department official Huma Abedin and several advisers to the Department of Homeland Security.

"[W]e write to raise our voices in protest of your recent letters regarding prominent American Muslim individuals and organizations," the 42 organizations wrote in a letter to the lawmakers on Thursday. "These letters question the loyalty of faithful Americans based on nothing more than their religious affiliations and what is at best tenuous evidence of their associations. As such, your actions have serious implications for religious freedom and the health of our democracy."

The signatories include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which often sides with Republicans on social issues, along with the Interfaith Alliance, American Civil Liberties Union, American Baptist Churches USA, NAACP and United Church of Christ.

Huffington Post, 26 July 2012

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Richard Bartholomew examines the case of Reza Kahlili, who claims he is being persecuted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations because he "renounced Islam and chose Christ".

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, 24 July 2012

See also "CAIR asks Pentagon to drop another anti-Islam trainer", CAIR press release, 23 July 2012

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The Colorado Springs Independent has an interview with US talk show host Bill Maher. He is asked why he featured Geert Wilders in his religion-mocking film Religulous – "wouldn't your hatred for racist xenophobes trump your hatred of religion?" Maher replies that he sees no contradiction:

That's ridiculous. I am certainly not prejudiced against race, religion, whatever. I do think religion is stupid and dangerous, so, yes, I have disdain for religion. But I don't have disdain for people who are religious. Nor are my eyes, you know, looking through rose-colored glasses about people who are influenced by religion to do horrible things. As many people are. And this is the point Geert Wilders is making.

Now, I mean, that was six years ago that we interviewed him. I know a lot has happened in the Netherlands since then. I'm not sure of everything he's said. I don't stand by everything he's said, I'm sure. But he's somebody who is saying: Don't look at religions, and especially the Islamic religion, through rose-colored glasses. And I would totally agree with that.

We interviewed a lot of Muslim people for this movie and, you know, the liberal point of view here in America is, "Yes, all religions are the same. They all try to reach god through the same ..." — Not true! All religions are not the same.

If you ask a lot of Muslim people, and I'm talking about people who are considered moderate Muslims, "Do you think it's OK if violence comes to somebody who insults the prophet?" a lot of them will say: You know what? If you insult the prophet, you get what's coming to you.

OK, that's not how we roll here in the West. And I don't just roll over when I hear that and go, "Well, you know what? That's their religion." Well, maybe that is their religion, but I don't have to agree with it.

But then, what can you expect from a man who fears that Islam will conquer the West, worries that an "alarming" number of "baby Mohammeds" are being born in the UK, and condemns Islam as "a culture that is in its medieval era" and "comes from a hate-filled holy book, the Koran"?

He and Wilders have so much in common. They even offer the same excuse for their bigotry – that their hatred of Islam isn't directed against the individuals and communities who follow that faith.

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A community centre alleged to have links with Islamist extremist groups has been left ruined by the 'false accusations', one of its leaders has claimed.

Rita Gibbins, treasurer of Burton Women's Centre in Dallow Street, Horninglow, spoke out six months after Staffordshire Police, East Staffordshire Borough Council and Staffordshire County Council first made the accusations.

"Since the accusation was made and it went on the front page of the Burton Mail, we have heard nothing," she said. "No-one from the police or councils has visited us since. It has become really difficult to get new members and get funding."

The three organisations cut funding and staff support to the centre, which has a predominantly Asian membership, after it was alleged people associated with it had 'links to groups that promote Islamist extremism'.

Although no offences were committed, the police force and two councils decided it would be wrong to continue supporting the centre, which has 200 members.

Mrs Gibbins said: "No-one has been interviewed or arrested. In my opinion this is a case of people being stigmatised because they wear headscarves. We were dumbstruck when the accusations were made. We could not believe it. No-one here would get involved in anything like that."

The treasurer said attracting funding and new members had become more difficult in the wake of the revelation.

Centre secretary Kosur Parveen added: "This has been made into an Islamic issue. We are just a service for women and children in the area. We are not here on religious grounds and just because we wear headscarves, it doesn't mean we are here on religious grounds. What they said about us was, in my opinion, slander and completely untrue."

A Staffordshire Police spokesman said the force would not be commenting on the two women's claims, other than to say it stood by its statement published in the Mail in January. The spokesman stressed no offences had been committed by the group.

Burton Mail, 14 July 2012

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They settle domestic disputes, rule on financial disagreements and even grant marriages and divorces. But Sharia courts that dish out verdicts based on hardline Islamic law operate outside our justice system. Recent attempts by the Ministry of Justice to investigate the courts were abandoned following a lack of co-operation from Muslim elders.

The Daily Star Sunday gained unprecedented access to this secretive network, accused by Baroness Cox of using "intimidation backed by death threats". Last month the cross-bencher claimed they could eventually lead to the destruction of democracy, with stonings, whippings and amputations becoming common punishments.

Daily Star on Sunday, 6 May 2012

And which "hidden Sharia courts" did the Star get "exclusive access" to? Just the one, in Whitechapel, run by none other than Anjem Choudary, at whose invitation the paper obviously acquired this access. Yet again we have a case of Choudary collaborating with the right-wing press in their campaign to misrepresent and whip up hostility towards the Muslim community.

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Sarkozy told a French TV station this week that Tariq Ramadan, a controversial Muslim intellectual and Swiss national, supported Hollande. "This is a man who solicits votes for Hollande," Sarkozy told the TF1 TV station, before adding, "And I have never heard Hollande say it bothers him".

Not so, replied Hollande. "That is completely false," said the Socialist frontrunner in an interview with the France Info radio station. "Tariq Ramadan, who does not even vote in France, has never mentioned my name."

In a phone interview with FRANCE 24 Thursday, Ramadan denounced Sarkozy's latest allegation, calling it "a mean and unacceptable lie".

"The presidential candidate has been caught flagrantly lying," he said. "I only said that if I was a French citizen ... I would take a look at Sarkozy's track record over the past five years, and I would be very dissatisfied about it. The outgoing president is trying to poach supporters from the National Front. He's beginning to smell defeat and so he's pushing it even further."

Ramadan's comment came as Sarkozy, who has been lagging in the polls, is desperately trying to woo the 18 percent of the French electorate who voted for the far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in the April 22 first round of the presidential poll.

In another interview earlier Thursday, the embattled French president insisted Ramadan had called on French Muslims to vote for Hollande "or a party that serves Islam" at a March 11 public meeting in the southern French city of Lyon.

But in his interview with FRANCE 24, Ramadan categorically denied the allegation. "I remember that meeting well. I never made any such comment, because I never address the community vote," he said. "When I attack Nicolas Sarkozy, I'm taking on the government, the establishment. As for the Socialist Party, I also regret that it has abandoned its ideals. I hold both the mainstream French political parties responsible for the rise of the National Front."

Ramadan is dismissive about the incumbent candidate. "I have no lessons to learn from Nicolas Sarkozy, who sang the praises of a 'moderate and progressive' Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, when he visited the country in 2008," he said. But he insists his criticism does not constitute support for Hollande, a claim Sarkozy finds difficult to swallow.

France 24, 27 April 2012

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The right-wing press has latched on to an interview with Prof Malcolm Gillies of London Metropolitan University in which he reportedly said he wants to create alcohol free areas on campus out of "cultural sensitivity".

The Mail went with: "London university considers stopping sale of 'immoral' alcohol on campus because it offends their Muslim students." The Telegraph reported: "A university Vice-Chancellor is planning to ban the sale of alcohol in parts of the campus because some Muslim students believe it is 'evil' and 'immoral'."

See "Sensationalist reporting on London Metropolitan University 'alcohol-free zones' consideration", ENGAGE, 13 April 2012

Also worth noting is the following statement by the London Met branch of the University and College Union:

1. London Met Uni has some 25,000+ students studying in over a dozen buildings – all of which have alcohol-free coffee bars/student areas, across two distinctly separate campus areas in North and East London, with only a single student bar at each campus (the only places that serve alcohol at the university).

2. There have been no complaints or demands from students directly or via the students union for alcohol to be either banned, or partially-banned, on campus.

3. Gillies is currently selling off large sections of the university estate, including 'The Hub' –the student union facility (inc student bar) at the City Campus. The VC's comments need to be seen in that light – i.e., they are simply a convenient cover for reducing student social facilities.

4. The language adopted by the VC in this regard is extremely divisive and is already stoking tensions where none had previously existed between the multiplicity of London Met's student constituencies. The fact that the EDL (English Defence League) and other extreme Right and fascist groups have latched on to this is a major concern.

5. If Gillies were serious about student welfare and wider social and cultural equality and fairness, why has he personally defended the following university management decisions:

i) direct links with the Uzbekistan regime – noted for the torture of its opponents (primarily Muslim incidentally), and forced sterilisation of woman (see this week's BBC report on the issue – www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fjx63)

ii) cutting of most of the university's student chaplaincy service – including the forced redundancy of the Imam;

iii) the drastic reduction in the opening hours of the Women's Library (down to only 1 day per week), and its eventual closure;

All of this is happening at a time of huge cuts to student courses/modules – including the majority of the 'critical' subjects – such as philosophy and history, and mass redundancies amongst staff – both academic and student service related.

At best, Gillies utterances are a crass example of the disconnect becoming more and more evident at London Met between university management and the staff and students they supposedly represent. At worst, it is a quite cynical attempt to stir-up a divisive atmosphere in order to deflect attention from the far more serious issue of the deliberate destruction of a once proud inner city ethnically mixed and vibrant modern university.

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