London Islamophobic terrorism, not just one ‘bad apple’

This video from London, England says about itself:

Finsbury Park Attack: 15-Year-Old GCSE Student Expresses Anger Over ‘Media Cover Up’

19 June 2017

A 15yr old student spoke of the fear she has following the attack in Finsbury Park and what it means to her.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Finsbury Park attack has roots in Tory policy

Tuesday 20th JUne 2017

SEARCHING questions must be asked about the latest outburst of violence on our streets.

Nothing can minimise nor justify nor excuse the actions of the hate-filled fanatic who targeted a group of people going about their business near the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London for the reason of their religion.

But personal condemnation of one murderer is not nearly enough.

As this newspaper made clear after the killings in central London two weeks ago, and has always made clear, the deeper causes of such terrorist outrages deserve intense scrutiny and action.

Recently months have seen three dozen people killed on the streets of Manchester and London by Islamist fanatics — acts that were at least in part a predictable and predicted reaction to the foreign policy of this country and its allies.

Now we have a man using a motor vehicle to deliberately target ordinary Muslims going about their daily lives, badly hurting several people, screaming about his murderous quest to “kill Muslims,” later laughing about what he had done.

Yet it would be entirely wrong to argue that this is “just” a hate crime.

As Kevin Ovenden shows clearly in these pages, Islamophobia in this country occupies a sordid special spot.

It is a hatred that has been whipped up by the powerful and become a political tool.

A tool with which to disguise the logical results of imperialist policy abroad, a tool to undermine political opponents at home.

Who can forget the Tories’ campaign last year against now London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and the campaign by Theresa May’s scumbag-in-chief Lynton Crosby to tar him as an extremist on what looked like the sole grounds of his faith.

The Tories’ man in that race, Zac Goldsmith, is now back as one of the party’s MPs after being soundly seen off by Londoners, at least in part for his transparently racist campaign.

Or how about when former Tory chair Sayeeda Warsi spoke of a “simmering underbelly of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.”

Or when Tory Shipley MP Philip Davies — a nasty tyke for all sorts of reasons — refused to apologise after saying that Muslims should “fuck off” following a fake story in hate-mongering rag The Sun.

Or when May refused to criticise US President Donald Trump for his slurs against Khan after the London Bridge attacks.

Or when — despite a pause in campaigning and just hours after people were hacked to death — the former home secretary said there had been “far too much tolerance” of Islamist extremism.

But even these pale in comparison to the government’s Prevent “counter-extremism” strategy — an institutionally Islamophobic programme where 67 per cent of those targeted for extra snooping are Muslims, despite only making up 5 per cent of the population.

This language and these attitudes have consequences. Every day ordinary Muslims in this country face hatred, suspicion and violence.

The Finsbury Park murder took place just days after the first anniversary of Labour MP Jo Cox’s murder by another far-right terrorist, and the events where communities got together to show their unity.

That unity is our strength. We must reject division and unite against hatred, in all its forms. Unite against those in power who would use hatred to divide and weaken us.

Theresa May needs to address Islamophobia in her own party: here.

This video from Britain says about itself:

JK Rowling In Twitter Row Over Finsbury Park Attack

19 June 2017

JK Rowling has called on those spreading hate and division to stop, in the mean time entering into arguments with Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage.

By Julie Hyland in Britain:

Fourth terror attack in UK since March targets Muslims

20 June 2017

One man was killed, and 10 injured after a van mowed down Muslim worshippers leaving prayers at 12.20 a.m. Monday in Finsbury Park, North London.

The driver, 47-year-old Darren Osborne, who was detained at the scene, reportedly yelled, “I’m going to kill all Muslims—I did my bit.”

Osborne, a father of four, had driven the rented van from his home in Cardiff, South Wales to the Muslim Welfare House, near Finsbury Park Mosque, where he waited until late night prayers had finished. On Ramadan holiday the mosque was especially busy and onlookers said many more could have been killed or injured.

Osborne drove onto the pavement, ploughing into a crowd that had gathered to help an elderly man who had become ill due to the heat. The older man died at the scene, eight others were taken to hospital, and two were treated on the street.

Onlookers described injured bodies lying across the street, as the van dragged people beneath it. When Osborne jumped from the cab, shouting his anti-Muslim statements, he was pinned to the ground by several men, while the local imam Mohammed Mahmoud shouted, “Don’t hit him—you do not touch him—hand him to the police.”

Osborne tried to goad the worshippers, saying repeatedly, “Kill me, Kill me.” When he was handed over to police, he taunted the crowd, “I’d do it again, I’d do it again,” as he smiled, waved and blew kisses.

The attack is the fourth terror attack in Britain since March—one in Manchester and three in London—that have claimed 36 lives so far.

On March 22, Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and fatally stabbed a police officer at the entrance to Parliament before being shot dead. Four others died and 49 were injured.

On May 22, suicide attacker Salman Abedi detonated his bomb at an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena, northwest England, killing 22 people and injuring 120.

On June 3, eight people were killed and at least 48 injured after a van was driven at high speed into people on London Bridge. The three occupants—Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane, and Youssef Zaghba—then ran to neighbouring Borough Market, where they stabbed people indiscriminately before being shot dead by armed police.

Appearing at Finsbury Park yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May pompously expressed her sorrow over “evil borne of hatred.” She has come under sustained fire for her indifference to the horrific inferno at Grenfell Tower, west London last Wednesday, where the current death toll is 79 people and rising. Worshippers at the mosque had reportedly being giving prayers to the victims only shortly before they were attacked.

May referenced London Bridge and the “unimaginable tragedy of Grenfell Tower” in her statement following her chairing of a Cobra emergency meeting. She spoke in platitudes about the “unbreakable resolve” and community spirit in this “extraordinary city of extraordinary people.”

This was buttressed with her repeating the need to stamp out “extremist ideology” by denying it “safe spaces.” May has made clear this includes joining the United States in taking military action in Syria and strengthening counterterrorism legislation. She used the Finsbury Park assault to repeat her threat to gain powers for greater censorship of the internet by forcing internet companies to give up individuals’ private messages, such as through WhatsApp, and to force them to censor material or face heavy fines.

Nonetheless, May’s reference to not tolerating “extremism of any kind, including Islamophobia” was welcomed by the Guardian as a “distinct and important change in rhetoric” away from her previous “one-eyed” approach, targetting Islamic extremism.

Such claims disarm workers and youth as to the strengthening of the state apparatus and its implications. It also conceals that this latest attack—clearly motivated by anti-Muslim hostility—has been encouraged by the statements of numerous political leaders, including May, and by the media.

The prime minister seized on the attacks in Manchester and on London Bridge to try and strengthen her position under conditions of a snap general election that she had called two years ahead of schedule. Claiming that the country was at war with the ideology of Islamic extremism, she said it was “time to say enough is enough.”

“There is far too much tolerance” of Islamic extremism in Britain, she claimed.

In one sense this is true—at least as far as the intelligence and security services are concerned! Virtually every single person that has been involved in a terror attack in Britain since 7/7/2005 was known to the state. Many had been reported repeatedly as potential terror threats and were under surveillance. Italian intelligence services had informed their British counterparts, for example, that the London Bridge attacker, Youssef Zaghba, had attempted to travel to Syria and was considered a terror risk.

Butt had appeared on a Channel 4 TV documentary, “The Jihadis Next Door,” in which he threatened police and posed with an ISIS flag. Manchester bomber Abedi came from a well-known family of Libyan Islamic supporters of Al Qaeda, who were part of the western-backed overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.

The authorities allowed all these individuals to move around freely because they were part of a network of operatives protected by the British state, which has been used in the UK and US-backed regime-change operations in the Middle East.

The right-wing media has seized on the latest attack to up its anti-Muslim campaign. Writing in the Sun, Douglas Murray called for an end to “large-scale Islamic immigration,” the “permanent closure” of mosques “caught hosting anti-British views,” “imprisonment of everyone known to have connections with extreme organisations” and the deportation of dual nationals “caught associating with designated groups.”

…

In fascistic tone, the Daily Mail editorialised, “We need action—now. There is a war being fought on our streets and it’s time to deploy all the weapons at our disposal.” Its columnist Katie Hopkins went further. After the Manchester bombing she tweeted, “Western men. These are your wives. Your daughters. Your sons. Stand up. Rise up. Demand action. Do not carry on as normal. Cowed.” She also called for a “final solution” in another anti-Muslim tirade.

After London Bridge she claimed the capital was the victim of its “multiculturalism.” Speaking of London as if it was an enemy city, facilitating and colluding with Muslim extremists through its “endless tolerance to those who harm us,” she wrote that it was now, “The patriots of the rest of England versus the liberals in this city.”

Osborne’s precise affiliations are not yet known,

According to the Guardian, Osborne was an Internet follower of Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, the leaders of the neonazi paramilitary gang Britain First.

but in travelling from Cardiff to London to mount an attack on Muslims leaving prayer he was taking such incitements to their logical, murderous conclusion.

…

The Muslim Welfare Centre, outside which the attack took place, had only at the weekend held a memorial meeting to Jo Cox. The Labour MP was murdered in West Yorkshire by a right-wing terrorist …

Thomas Mair shouted “Britain First” as he shot Cox three times and stabbed her 15 times in broad daylight near the local library in Birstall, near Leeds. Britain First is the name of a UK fascist group. When first arrested, he described himself as a “political activist.” In court he said, “My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”

Although a search of his home had provided extensive evidence of indirect links to fascist and far-right groups, little effort was made to explore his political sympathies during the trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

Police records show an increase in Islamophobic incidents following the London Bridge killings, with 20 recorded on June 6, the highest daily tally for 2017. Commenters on social media were quick to point out that no politicians or columnists were demanding to know how Osborne had been “radicalised” and by whom.