RACIST vandals have targeted Muslim graves at a south Manchester cemetery for a third time.
Sometime between 4pm on Friday 20 November and 9am on Monday 23 November unknown offenders pushed over 20 headstones at the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road.
The vandalism is being treated as racially motivated as only a Muslim section of graves were targeted.
On 29 September 2009, 26 Muslim headstones were vandalised and on 2 November 2009, 27 were similarly targeted.
Police are now appealing to anyone who has information to come forward.
Detective Chief Inspector Steve Eckersley said: “It is an absolute disgrace that whoever is responsible thinks it acceptable to repeatedly target the graves of loved ones.
“The repeated nature of these attacks and the fact the offenders are only targeting Muslim graves means we are treating this as a hate crime.
“This sort of mindless, racist behaviour must be utterly condemned and I’m sure the whole community will be outraged, that is why I want to reassure them, and in particular the families affected that we are doing all we can to catch the culprits.
“We have increased our patrols in the cemetery and surrounding area and I ask people using the cemetery to be vigilant and report anyone causing damage to the graves or acting suspiciously.
“To those who know who is responsible or have been told who is responsible I would like to ask how you would feel if someone damaged a grave of one of your loved ones and how hurt or upset that would make you.
“Please do the right thing, tell us what you know and help us put a stop to this.”
Anyone with information should call Greater Manchester Police on 0161 856 6151 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
This is what we expected all along, for the ravenous loons to eat each other up. There may still be a salvageable relationship between Debbie Schlussel and Pamela Geller, they might bury the hatchet to continue with the profitable business of Islamophobia but it does not seem likely.
Of course we couldn’t care less if they remain buddies or not, in fact we hope that we can sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the preceding blog brawl escalate. Again the starter of this fire is Debbie Schlussel who writes that she regrettably has to call out Pamela Geller who unlike her is not a true warrior but a “pseudo-warrior.” All we can do is laugh.
Some choice cuts from the most recent oeuvre served by Schlussel (hat tip: enaater):
How do you go from–less than two months ago–rightfully condemning a mother for sending her daughters to what she knew would be their murder by their Muslim father . . . to making her a featured speaker at your anti-honor killing rally?! That’s a question you’ll have to ask Pamela Geller, who–as is her recent SOP with me–ignored my e-mails to her, including two asking her why she invited Patricia Said…
This is all over ignored emails. Ha. Priceless.
It boggles the mind that any sane, principled person truly against honor killings would invite this woman, Patricia Said, to speak at such a rally. If she was Rifqa Bary’s mother, the Bary teen would be dead by now, with her help.
Schlussel, herself an insane loon pretty much calls her old friend Pam insane here as well.
Instead of answering my question, Pamela ignored it and covered her ass–choosing to deceive readers of her Atlas Shrugs website with creative editing and removing Patricia Said’s name and changing it to “honor killing victims’ family members.” (It should have read “co-conspirators in honor killings.) But Said will be there, courtesy of Pamela, who organized the rally and paid for Tissie Said’s travel to and lodging for the event.
Tsk, tsk. Schlussel is really bringing the hammer out now. Shocking revelations: Pam Geller is paying people to come out for the anti-Muslim “rally.”
Pamela preferred symbolism over substance, and this isn’t the first time.
Ouch.
It pains me to write this because I’ve done much to help Pamela–some of it at her request and much of it because it was the right thing to do–over the years.
We hear your anguish Debbie, you helped Pam be a bigot and now she screws it up by not answering her email.
Some people say “not on my watch,” but not only don’t they really mean it, they enable the perpetrators. There are warriors, and then there are pseudo-warriors, who casually throw principle to the wind whenever it’s convenient.
This is the cherry on top, Debbie pretty much calls out Pam’s credentials (if there ever were any) and labels her what we all know her to be: “an opportunist.” Also notice the vanity and self-adulation, Debbie proclaiming herself a “warrior.” If you’re drinking milk, I sure hope it didn’t start gushing from your nose due to an obscene amount of laughter.
All I can imagine now is the precarious position that this puts Robert Spencer in, who dubbed Debbie Schlussel and Pamela Geller “freedom fighters.” He will have to choose sides or attempt to reconcile these “warriors” as he increasingly stands a top a pile of crumbling Islamophobic alliances. An alliance undone by the very hatred that fuels it.
A man accused of killing a pregnant Egyptian woman in court in a frenzied anti-Islamic attack has gone on trial in Germany in a case that inflamed tempers throughout the Muslim world.
Prosecutors say the defendant, identified as Alex W, stabbed Marwa el-Sherbini, who was wearing a hijab, at least 16 times on July 1, in the same courthouse in the eastern city of Dresden where the trial has opened.
A verdict is expected on November 11.
“In this trial we will try to get to the bottom of the circumstances surrounding the death of a young woman who was deeply integrated in her family and society,” Wiegand said.
The unemployed defendant, who arrived in Germany from Perm in the Urals in 2003, reportedly struggled with bouts of depression.
El-Sherbini worked as a pharmacist while her husband is a geneticist working on his doctorate in Dresden.
El-Sherbini bled to death at the scene watched by her three-and-a-half-year-old son, Mustafa.
Prosecutors say the attack was motivated by “a pronounced hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims”.
Elwy Ali Okaz, who was stabbed as he tried to protect el-Sherbini, his wife, was then shot in the leg by police who apparently took him for the attacker.
Egyptian anger
Testifying on Monday, Okaz said: “The perpetrator suddenly attacked my wife, he hit her several times and when I tried to help he hit me too.
In video
The case sparked deep anger across the Muslim world
“It was only then that I noticed he had a knife and that he had stabbed her. Then he began stabbing me too.”Okaz said the alleged attacker continued stabbing his wife even after she was on the ground.
Egyptian media quickly dubbed el-Sherbini a martyr and there were huge protests against the murder in countries including Egypt, Iran and Turkey.
Amr El-Kahky, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo, said: “Since the killing of Marwa el-Sherbini in Dresden, every Egpytian has been angry and they are all asking for justice.
“The picture of Marwa el-Sherbini has been published in most of the papers … everyone is waiting to see what this man will plead in the case.”
‘Hated Muslims’
El-Sherbini and the defendant met in August 2008, when she asked him to clear a playground swing where he sat smoking a cigarette so Mustafa could use it.
He refused, calling el-Sherbini an “Islamist”, a ”terrorist” and a “whore”. She pressed charges for defamation and he was fined $1,170.
An appeal against the conviction brought them together again in July.
The defendant allegedly plunged an 18cm kitchen knife into the chest, back and arm of el-Sherbini, 31, three months pregnant at the time with her second child.
El-Sherbini was three months pregnant
at the time of her murder [EPA]
“He stabbed them out of pure hatred against non-Europeans and Muslims. He wanted to annihilate them,” Frank Heinrich, a prosecution lawyer, told the court on Monday, where many people were wearing badges with el-Sherbini’s face.
About 200 police officers were on hand as the defendant entered the court in a hooded top and sunglasses, which Birgit Wiegand, the judge, asked him to remove.
He lowered the hood but kept the glasses on, prompting Wiegand to give him a $75 fine.
She threatened him with another fine when he refused to confirm his name or place of birth.
Court psychiatric experts who examined the defendant, who is also charged with attempting to kill Okaz, say they found no evidence of diminished responsibility.
Germany criticised
The attack, and a slow reaction by the German media and political class, sparked accusations of neglectful handling of hate crimes against Muslims.
Thousands also rallied in Dresden in el-Sherbini’s memory.
The Egyptian government on Sunday demanded the maximum sentence under German law, life in prison, for the attack.
Asked what ordinary Egyptians hoped would emerge from the trial, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, Egypt’s ambassador to Germany, said: “This was a heinous crime and they are expecting justice to be administered in a swift way.”
El-Sherbini’s family appeared in Dresden as co-plaintiffs, represented by lawyers hired by the Egyptian government, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, adding that it was “confident in the German justice system’s impartiality”.
Representatives from the prosecutor’s office in her hometown of Alexandria were also in the courtroom, as were Egyptian reporters.
Pamela Geller, who is contending for the “most insane blogger in the world award” is cooking up another conspiracy theory (hat tip: Lex, Agent of Chaos). We have reported on her well worn conspiracy theories that include (but are not limited to): Mooslims are taking over and “Islamizing” Europe and America, Obama is a radical Mooslim Jihadist, everyone except her and her small group of friends in the anti-Muslim blogosphere is a dhimmi, Obama is an anti-Semite, Obama is an Indonesian Mooslim and the list goes on and on. Now it seems Pamela has turned her creative, if illiterate conspiratorial mind to Loonwatch.
Pamela posts a picture of a pamphlet Columbia University protesters were handing out that informed people about the fascist nature of Geert Wilders. The pamphlet included a link to Loonwatch.
We appreciate the protesters using and linking to our site, and want to congratulate them on their successful protest. That is what we are here for, to provide information and details on these anti-Muslim wackos.
After posting the picture, Pamela writes,
Muslim propaganda ……check out the source, loon watch, the new smear site. Someone big is financing Loon Watch ……….. it is very Soros. There is a a lot of time, money and resources behind it.
She cannot refute the facts, it is not “Muslim propaganda” to point out the fascist nature of Geert Wilders, that’s called being honest, a concept Pam has been unable to identify for years. Does she dispute that Geert has made public calls to ban the Quran, tax the hijab, and deport Muslim citizens? How does our exposing the simple facts constitute a smear?
Perhaps following the lead of her buddy Robert Spencer, she describes Loonwatch as a sinister left wing plot, headed and funded by “someone big” like none other then the evil emperor, George Soros (aka Darth Vader) himself! This is likely a case of projection as Pamela Geller and her cronies like Spencer are funded to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars by extreme right-wingers like David Horowitz and his ironically named Freedom Center.
The commenters on her site live up to expectations by vying to be dafter than one another. Here is a sampling,
Took a peak at Loonwatch.com. What a bunch of assholes these people are. When all else fails resort to ridicule. The site equates Robert Spencer, Pamela, Geert, and everyone else doing this important work, to the level of UFO conspiracy kooks. They themselves are kooks…
Why, whatever could have given us the impression that Spencer, Pamela and Geert were on the “level of UFO conspiracy kooks?” An apt description if I ever heard one Deus.
Loonwatch- the place to go to see loons in action.
DON’T GO THERE! DON’T GIVE THOSE OBVIOUS LEFTARD/DHIMMI/APOLOGISTS/MUSLIM HATERS the traffic!
The site is SO TYPICAL of leftard “logic”- “you guys are evil christyjudeaofascists for calling others islamofascists”… in other words, they engage in the exact behavior they CLAIM “we” behave in. They find needle-in-haystack incidents around the world where some Jew or some Christian or some other non-muslim has done something wrong, and say “LOOK! LOOK! What if he was muslim!”…
Doda, is pratically screaming with all the caps he/she is flinging about and probably doesn’t see the irony in his/her comments. These are the same people that probably think the Kennedy assasination was an inside job. To Pam, her cronies and readers, let us lay it out to you simply: we are a group of citizens that are just fed up with the vile anti-Muslim hatred you have been getting away with and the harm that it is doing to the world. For that reason, we hope you see the light and hop out of Alice in Wonderland, but until then we will continue to expose your loonieness.
About a month ago the Jerusalem municipality decided to open a parking lot in the city, a normal affair anywhere in the world but tensions arose when they decided to open it on Saturday, the Jewish holy day, and allowed it to be open for business on Saturdays thereafter. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim took offense to this as a desecration to the holy day when observant Jews are not allowed to do any work including such things as turning on and off light switches. Animosity between the city and the Haredim had already been high when the city arrested a Haredi woman who was accused of starving her child, a son of 4 who was only 15 pounds.
The case of the parking lot has gotten much attention in the media, with scenes of wailing, robed men in beards and big Russian hats yelling at Police and throwing stones at cars. Anne Barker of ABC was asked to cover the riots and the demonstrations against the parking lot, but it seems she did not bargain for the kind of abuse and degradation she was about face. In a harrowing account, Barker reports how she was verbally assaulted, showered with spit, and kicked by a mob of Haredi protesters,
As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights.
I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I’ve come up against riot police.
But I have to admit no protest - indeed no story in my career - has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.
This particular protest has been going on for weeks.
Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays - or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.
It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.
So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem’s Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it’s seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.
I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends - Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.
But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.
I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which.
By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.
I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest - in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.
They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour - to me - was far from charitable or benevolent.
As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.
Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.
Spit like rain
I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.
It was like rain, coming at me from all directions - hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.
Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.
Somewhere behind me - I didn’t see him - a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.
I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?
In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.
It was lucky that I don’t speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.
As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.
Reassurance
Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.
I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.
I was allowed through, away from the main protest, although there were still Orthodox Jews on the other side, some of whom also yelled at me, in English, to take my recorder away.
Normally I should have stayed on the sidelines to watch the protest develop.
But when you’ve suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times - and you’re covered in other people’s spit - it’s not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.
I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.
What would be the reaction of the anti-Muslim blogosphere if the rioters in Jerusalem were not Ultra-Orthodox Jews but rather were Muslims? Wouldn’t they be in an uproar or at least gleefully extolling how evil Islam is, how the tenents of Islam and 9th century Muslim Law books sanction such non-sensical violence against innocents? Will they now in the name of consistency to their methodology of guilt by association and selective employment of texts blame Judaism for the behavior of the mob of Haredi protesters against this reporter who was humiliated and degraded? One would hope not as it is clear that the behavior of these protesters has nothing to do with Judaism, but per their track record it seems the loonie haters might be capable of doing anything at this point.
Doda, is pratically screaming with all the caps he/she is flinging about and probably doesn’t see the irony in his/her comments. These are the same people that probably think the Kennedy assasination was an inside job. To Pam, her cronies and readers, let us lay it out to you simply: we are a group of citizens that are just fed up with the vile anti-Muslim hatred you have been getting away with and the harm that it is doing to the world. For that reason, we hope you see the light and hop out of Alice in Wonderland, but until then we will continue to expose your loonieness.