Why Are the EDL Going to Walthamstow Shortly?

by Esmerelda Weatherwax (August 2012)

The EDL are holding their demonstration in Walthamstow, because it would be impossible to march through the whole borough, but the reasons for concern cover that whole.

The beginning is a good place but where and when did it begin? For me it was the summer of 1976 when the National Front held a demonstration against the plans to turn a former carpet and textile factory in Lea Bridge Road into a mosque. My mother joined the counter demonstration, believing that everybody has a right to worship God and that a mosque would be no different to the Catholic churches of the Irish and Italian immigrants, the Gospel churches of the West Indians and the Synagogues of the Jews. I was so proud of her. That became the Jamia Mosque. Little did I know that less than 10 years later that this mosque would hang a banner on its front wall saying ‘God is only one, HE HAS NO SON’ which I found so offensive, and was the beginning of a realisation that Islam was not a religion willing to live and let live. The mosque has not, so far as I know, been the centre of any terrorist plots. It has been the subject of a power struggle in recent years and produced a sadistic Imam and teacher, Gulam Hussein who was jailed two years ago for beating the children sent to him for religious teaching. 

live video links to Omar Bakri.

The first Muslims in the area were among the expelled east African Asians who included Hindus and Sikhs who settled during the 1960s. I can attest that they were good neighbours, and pleasant classmates. But after 1979, and the Iranian revolution may have had something to do with it, the western clothes sprinkled with shalwar kameez and gorgeous saris began to give way to hijabs and abayas for the women, long coats and beards for the men. Then the hijabs became niqabs, and the niqabs became burkas. The mosques grew larger, more elaborate and more numerous.

zzadeen, who was born in Hackney, converted to Islam as a teenager and now lives in Leytonstone was released from prison last year after serving a sentence for funding terrorism.

in action in Leyton explaining what Sharia will do for our traditional way of life.

Last summer the Noor ul Islam mosque held a summer fete on the same cricket ground and imposed their dress code, issuing women wearing sleeveless summer blouses with mosque shirts, high of neck and long of sleeve.

They also hold Muslim only swimming sessions at the Leyton Leisure Lagoon Swimming pool. In common with many pools the Leisure Lagoon has sessions, both pool and gym, especially for women, the over 55s, the under 18s, beginners etc. The difference is that these are Muslim only sessions and run to exact Islamic rules.

Mens rules:

Brothers who are not dressed in accordance with Islamic dress code (covered from navel to knees) will be asked to leave the session.
No girls of any age will be allowed in the brothers’ session.   
Only Male Lifeguards on duty for brothers’ session. 

Sharia Zone march Choudary and Izzadeen organised through Leyton and Walthamstow last year, and another report on the Sharia zone proposal prior to that march.

This is a transcript of the three programmes.

He is also the senior Judge of the nearby Sharia Court. His interview with the Financial Times in 2009 when he praised the virtues of Sharia law over that of the English Common Law is no longer available on the FT website. However I made notes.

The Masjid e Umar Mosque (left) in Queens Road used to be a Synagogue. At first the mild mannered men who were my neighbours worshipped there. By 1989 Omar Bakri was active on site, until Tablighi Jamaat took over and threw him out. More land was purchased and a forbidding new building took its place. A minaret that resembles a scud missile looms over the nearby Victorian cemetery. That building and some of the terraced houses opposite were the centre, although the mosque trustees denied it, of the 2006 plot to bring down aircraft flying from UK to USA using liquid bombs secreted in baby milk and other innocent containers. The Times found out that it had been a recruiting ground for terrorists for 20 years.

The call to reject freedom and democracy and embrace sharia is not recent. This one was spotted outside the Masjid al Tawhid in April 2011.

as long ago as 2007 when my husband and I spotted these (below) on a lamppost just outside the Active Change Foundation on the corner of Lea Bridge Road and Northumberland Road.

quote the prosecution, in this “house of traditional patriarchal values. . . As astonishing as it seems, the first two defendants, both older men, believed that a women was disposable if she became too powerful.”

Rizwan Ahmad and Hassan Siddique both of Walthamstow were convicted of raping a young student in an alley off Lea Bridge Road in 2011. Sentencing, Judge Owen told the two rapists: ‘What you did was despicable. Your story was simply ludicrous'. . . Jailing Ahmad for 10 years, and Siddique for eight-and-a-half years, Judge Owen added: ‘If it is necessary I will recommend most strongly that you are deported at the conclusion of your sentence.’

In 2009 Mehmet Goren was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his daughter 10 years ealrier. His brothers in Walthamstow were suspected but not convicted, of assisting him after a family conference about how to deal with their westernised niece. Her body has never been found.

This is the local paper reporting on the campaign.

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