Edinburgh protest to be held against punish a Muslim campaign

April 3rd – hyped as “Punish a Muslim” Day. Cui bono? Who benefits? Well Stand up to Racism get an outing and a chance to raise their profile. 

Stand Up To Racism Edinburgh will hold a Stand Up To Islamophobia Day event in Scotland’s capital city on Tuesday, one of a series of similar events across Britain. Among the speakers at the event on the Mound between 5.30pm and 6.30pm are Scottish Trades Union Congress president Satnam Ner and Leith Labour councillor Gordon Munro. 

The Muslim Women’s Association is encouraging people to get involved with their Love A Muslim Day campaign on the same date.

Muhammad Adrees, convener of the Muslim Council of Scotland, said the letters, which police said have not been sent to anyone in Scotland, have already triggered Islamophobic incidents. ?. . allegations of five serious hate crimes in 10 days, including an allegation that a schoolboy asked a young girl if he could pull her hijab off and film it to earn “points” for the campaign.

Meanwhile in London 

A spokesman for the Met Police told the Standard that there is “no credible information” that any hate crimes will happen on Tuesday, “At this time there is no credible information to suggest there is any criminal activity that will take place. . . We will be encouraging local faith and community networks to take part in a ‘#westandtogether’ campaign to demonstrate once again that London is a tolerant city, proud and protective of all its diverse communities”  A nice virtue signally opportunity there after so many murders in London so far this year (46 – last night a teenage girl was shot in Tottenham in gang crossfire and a 16 year old boy was stabbed in Walthamstow and is fighting for his life – he died overnight. Now 47 murders this year)  that London has overtaken New York for violence (was New York really ever that violent? 

Female Muslims are being warned to hide their hijabs and avoid collecting children from school alone as the sick so-called ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ approaches. How should they hide a hijab? Perhaps tie a headscarf over it? Or maybe a long blonde wig?

One of the WhatsApp messages circulating with advice to Muslims reads: “Sisters please be warned that on 3rd April DO NOT GO OUT they have made a national punish a muslim day! 

Parents are also being advised to walk in open spaces, even if it’s a longer route, and to move in groups on April 3.

“Leaflets promoting this sickness have been posted thru doors in east london and kids have heard about it in various schools sisters who r teachers were telling me last night.”

It is the Easter holiday – all schools (OK, maybe not Islamic schools) are shut this week, and some were also shut last week.  

Another message seen by Mirror Online, which is written in Arabic and has been translated, is titled ‘the day of hatred towards British Muslims’. The lengthy message lists precautionary measures that Muslims – particularly female – are being advised to take to avoid the ‘dangers’.

The first point addresses women who take their children to school on foot. It asks women to avoid shaded areas that don’t have good visibility and asks them to walk in groups of three or four. The second point tells women who drop their kids off to school by car to take a neighbour with them in the car.Or, it says, if their husband takes the children to school then it asks if they can take their neighbours with them.

Strict Islamic culture doesn’t allow women out of the house alone anyway – so something that reinforces that would meet with the approval of the clerics and mullahs, would it not? 

A Muslim cafe owner has organised a day of kindness in response to the vile ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ campaign supposedly planned for April 3. 

Ali, together with Barakah Foods staff, friends, family, and volunteers from his community, are set to give out free tea and cake in Chorlton on April 3.  “We’ll be there all day with tea and biscuits and cake. People are free to come and go and have a chat if they want. We want to spread a message of love…”Manzoor said he and his wife Aiysha started Barakah Foods by ‘selling a few curries’, and now operate a successful takeaway. The couple also run an eponymous food aid initiative delivering groceries and toiletries to those in need. That actually sounds genuine and rather sweet and a bit of neighbourhood goodwill never goes amiss. 

New York might statistically be safer than London but the NYPD are taking no chances. 

…the Pakistani American Youth Society (PAYS), along with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adam, hosted a press conference.Adams described the letter as being despicable and said it has “the energy of someone that wants to do harm.” He also made it clear that the New York Police Department and he himself do not see the letter as a hoax. Adams will be joining NYPD officers and community leaders as they go to mosques and Muslim-populated areas tomorrow to make sure there is not any “passive response to protecting the people of this city.”

The staff at Syracuse University are also busy with reassurance but in California it “has no credible threat for Fresno City College students”. FCC president Carol Goldsmith said there is no credible threat to students on campus is relation to the letters. That is according to the Sacramento Regional Threat Assessment Center. (do US Universities have an Easter break between terms?)

But the outfit that has been most busy is Britain’s Tell MAMA 

Tell Mama said it has received 20 reports of physical letters being received in total, mostly at residential addresses in Leicester, Bradford and east London, bearing the same postmark from Sheffield.  Meanwhile West Yorkshire Police has confirmed it received around six reports of letters advertising “punish a Muslim day” and said counter terrorism police were investigating.

We know the police and the authorities are watching groups like the EDL, the Football lads. We know that left-wing groups have infiltrated them, sufficient to watch their social media and report discussons. The leaders of Britain First are in prison. Tommy Robinson is permanently barred from Twitter as are several other activists known to me. He has been arrested for ‘potential breach of the peace’ more than once. I wonder sometimes how much I am watched and I’m small fry. 

If the Metropolitan Police say they have no credible evidence, they have absolutely nothing, I mean nothing, to justify arrests and questioning to pre-empt anything which might, just might, offend. And the anti-terrorism police are very good at foiling plots. but they have not come up with the perpetrator (How many post-boxes are there in Sheffield? How much CCTV in public space trained on those boxes? How much fingerprint, DNA testing and suchlike could potentially be done on all these letters? Such a furore and no-one arrested yet) 

Any incident today can be chalked up to Punish a Muslim day. Tell MAMA and Fiyaz Mughal will have ‘evidence’ to support his activities. To make his case for government funding to be reinstated.  Not that it was ever effectively cut. As you can see from the document attached to this Freedom of Information request TELL MAMA has received a grant of £182,000 for 2015/16 and and has so far received £90,982. I have no information how much public money has gone their way since. But every little helps.

My sentiments are with the commentor in the Scotsman newspaper . All the comments there this morning are thoughtful. 

“Pretty obviously a fake letter, set up like the so called attacks on various islamic establishments in the US, which turned out to be carried out by muslims themselves in cahoots with an islamic group, trying to blame Americans.
Another huge tell, is that British people would never write “punish a muslim”. That’s the language of religious teaching and definitely not your local neds (that’s a northern/Scottish term for the white working class – cf chavs) . Letter is a set up for a media propaganda Easter exercise … which seems to have worked.”

Like I said, Cui bono?