http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2973
Adrian Morgan
Islamism and Gang Culture
In part http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2973 of this article I discussed the south London “Muslim Boys” gang, who used threats of murder to forcibly convert young black males to their skewed form of Islam. Though these individuals have become allied to “genuine” Muslims – mostly convicted of terrorism – inside Belmarsh Prison, for the most part they were not brought up as Muslims.
One of the few individuals allied to the gang who was raised as a Muslim is Zartash Khan. On August 10, 2005, Khan was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the attempted murder of a policeman, PC Liam Morrow. The policeman was shot three times in the legs after he and others had been called to investigate the suspicious behavior of four men in Bromley, South London, on December 20, 2004.
The Muslim Boys do not represent most Muslim http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2957 followers, armed with hammers and knives, attacked and killed Nigerian student Ayotunde Obanubi on the college steps. The gang was led by an older Hizb ut-Tahrir member from outside the college called Saeed Nur. Mr. Obanubi was murdered because he was said to have “insulted” Islam.
In February 1996, Bakri took some of the more thuggish members of Hizb ut-Tahrir to form Al Muhajiroun. Bakri was expelled from Hizb ut-Tahrir, but gang-style activity has continued among the lower ranks of the parent group. In November 2006, Richard Watson reported for BBC’s Newsnight on Muslim extremism. The investigation claimed that Hizb ut-Tahrir encourages new recruits to belong to small cells. To become a member, new recruits must commit crime to prove loyalty. A youth called “Jay” claimed he was told by his cell: “They said Allah says you have to go and intimidate those boys across the street and get money off them.”
Just over a week ago, http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2851, the Pakistan-born Bishop of Rochester, warned that Muslim extremism has led to alienation of Muslim youth, leading to them turning “already separate communities into ‘no-go’ areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability. Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them and even the risk of violence.”
The bishop’s http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2866 were widely reported in the media in Britain and America. They were condemned by Muslim “spokespeople.” His words were seen as “stirring up racism” by Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, which was co-founded by Kemal el-Helbawy, an Islamist of the Muslim Brotherhood. Inayat Bunglawala has previously called Osama bin Laden a “freedom fighter” and claimed that the terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman was “courageous.”
Bunglawala implied that the Bishop of Rochester was either wrong or lying, writing: “But where are these ‘no-go’ areas in our country that non-Muslims are being prevented from entering? Well, unfortunately the good bishop did not think it was necessary to go to the bother of backing up his headline-grabbing assertion with any actual evidence.” Bunglawala, if he was fully honest or aware, could have answered his own question by mentioning Bradford in Northern England, for a start.
In Bradford, and nearby cities of Oldham and Burnley, race riots took place in the summer of 2001, with much of the violence caused by local Muslim gangs. I will discuss those riots later, but one family in Bradford lives in constant fear of attacks by Muslim gangs, attacks that began in 2002. The head of this family, who works as a hospital nurse in Bradford, has spoken of bricks being thrown through the living room window, and of his car window being smashed. His car has been rammed and set alight, garbage was emptied onto his doorstep, and he and his family have been pushed and issued with death threats in the street. At one stage his wife was held hostage in their home for two hours.
The reason for such hostility is that the head of the household, whose parents came from Pakistan, was brought up as a Muslim, but committed the “sin” of apostasy. In the late 1990s, Nissar Hussein converted to Christianity. He said: “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of this home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.” Police have charged no one for the campaigns of harassment, and instead have told him to leave the area. Bradford police thus assist in the creation of one of Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali’s “no-go” areas.
It is certainly the aim of some Muslim extremists to create Muslim-only areas. On September 20, 2006, Britain’s then-Home Secretary visited Leytonstone in northeast London, to address Muslim parents and urge them to report any signs of extremism from their offspring. He was heckled by Abu Izzadeen, who shouted at him: “How dare you come to a Muslim area when you have arrested so many Muslims in this area?” Leytonstone has a Muslim community but is far from being predominantly Muslim.
Izzadeen is a follower of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who used to belong to Al http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2762. After Bakri disbanded Al Muhajiroun in October 2004, Izzadeen helped Bakri to lead two derivative groups. He is currently awaiting trial on terrorism charges. Bakri urged his followers to claim welfare benefits from the government they hated. His followers had no problem beating opponents in the street. Bakri’s followers, such as Abdul Muhid, have engaged in harassment of Sikhs and have fought with police. These followers have used violence and intimidation, the methods of street gangs, to gain “respect.”
Britain’s gang culture is neither as violent nor as organized as American gang culture, but gang violence has been increasing. Britain’s Labour government has long espoused the notion that multiculturalism is a desirable objective. In practice, it sets up communities to compete against each other, and engenders conflict. The worries about “no-go” areas have been voiced by police. Greater Manchester Police reported in 2001 that of 572 racial attacks in Oldham in the previous year, 62 percent were carried out by “Asians.” In Oldham the term “Asians” referred to Pakistanis (6.4 percent of the town’s population) and Bangladeshis (4.1 percent of the town’s demographic). When riots broke out in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in summer 2001, the conflicts were led predominantly by young Muslims operating in gangs.
Chief Superintendent Eric Hewitt said in February 2001 that: “We cannot hide from the fact that the trend of racial crime in Oldham is continuing to rise… Sometimes the motive is robbery, but often it is just violence. The attackers are gangs of Asian youths, aged between eight and 18, who have carried weapons including knives, bricks and sticks.”
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