Jennifer Lipman, Jewish Chronical
MPs who have spoken in support of Israel have been forced to limit the information they make available to constituents and take other security precautions after being sent death threats or abusive messages by post, by phone or online, a JC investigation has revealed.
Two years after Labour’s Stephen Timms was stabbed by a radicalised student, security remains a key concern, especially for MPs who are vocal about controversial topics such as Israel – and suffer threats as a consequence. Two weeks ago Conservative MP John Howell was forced to seek police protection after becoming the target of a campaign by pro-Palestinians.
Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, has been dealing with death threats for a decade. The problem has worsened in recent years and she now receives emails as well as letters.
“It’s very unpleasant and I am concerned – so I take advice from the police and the CST,” said Mrs Ellman. “You are vulnerable as an MP, people approach you and you’re in public places.”
Lee Scott, Ilford North MP, said he dealt with death threats and abusive communications “on a fairly regular basis”, including a recent email that said he should be “stoned to death”. “At one stage I would do my surgeries with just one other person present. I don’t do that any more,” he said. He also no longer posts details of his surgeries in the local library and during the last election campaign had to be accompanied by police officers for security reasons.
Their cases are by no means unique. Former Labour MP Andrew Dismore also received death threats.
Mr Dismore, along with Mr Scott, Mike Gapes and Denis MacShane were all targeted at the last election by Muslim group MPAC for their support of Israel. Richard Harrington, now MP for Watford, also faced hostility during his campaign, while in October 2011 members of the now-banned group Muslims Against Crusades stormed Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer’s constituency surgery shouting that he was a “Jewish homosexual pig”.
Several others, including Harlow MP Robert Halfon, reported receiving abusive communications in light of public comments about the Middle East – many of them anonymous and online – and those who regularly defend Israel, including Harrow East MP Bob Blackman, said they could “see it coming”.
“Whenever I say anything about Israel I get some really nasty messages and I’ve had lots of nasty stuff written on blogs,” said Mr Halfon.
Not long ago somebody attempted to pour petrol through the letter box of Mr Blackman’s constituency office and light it. Although police have not yet ascertained the motive, the MP said that it is a reminder that “there are people who will pursue threats”.
He only publicises details of his movements after the event. “You have to be careful, because it only takes one unhinged individual,” he said.
According to the Serjeant at Arms, 80 MPs are currently facing extreme threats on various issues. It is not clear what proportions of those relate to Israel, but Mr Scott said he believed that the number of those who do not report threats or abuse on Israel could be substantial.
Henley MP Mr Howell, who backs the two-state solution, was bombarded with 30 abusive messages and death threats from anti-Israel activists last month, including one saying that he deserved to die, and another saying: “You will suffer the consequences of this corruption.”
He was targeted after an anti-Israel constituent, Harry Fear, contacted him about Israel’s actions in Gaza. The MP responding asking him what his position was on the 100 rockets that had landed in Israel that weekend.
The comment was circulated online by Mr Fear, along with the MP’s contact information and an appeal for people to write to Mr Howell “civilly, expressing discontent”.
Mr Howell, who was offered police protection, has since removed details of his constituency surgeries and contact information from his website. He expressed concern for his wife, son and his staff, saying that although he did not want to appear to be a drama queen, “you have to take seriously a threat when it says, ‘I would like to see you dead”.
Mr Scott suggested that the threats only came to public attention “because John had never ever had anything like this in his life before that this came out”.
CST has tried to encourage MPs to report abusive material, but Mark Gardner said he believed “that this is a problem that largely goes unreported and certainly unprosecuted.
“If an MP is abused in a criminal manner then there is no reason why the perpetrators ought to have some kind of magical immunity,” he said. “It should not matter if the abuse is on Twitter, Facebook, emailing or any other media.”
Danny Stone, secretary to the All-Party Parliamentary Group/(APPG) Against Antisemitism, said that social media companies, where much of this abuse is now concentrated, should take a bigger role in regulation, but also noted the “encouraging legal precedents established” last week, when Liam Stacey was convicted of inciting racial hatred with offensive Twitter posts after Fabrice Muamba’s on-pitch collapse.
Mr Halfon said it was time to “row back” from a culture where people feel that “they can threaten people without any consequences”.
“The Stacey case is a warning to people that abuse just won’t be tolerated any more,” he said.
“People can have a go at me, but if they make threats and go beyond what is fair they should face the full consequences of the law.”
Mr Scott, who has been in office since 2005, said that he was “used” to being targeted by extremists because of his views on Israel. “That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t upset me – it’s just that now I expect it.”
But he and others said that despite the “intimidation”, their commitment to standing up for Israel would remain strong. “These people want to shut out anyone who is sympathetic towards Israel whether through threats, abuse, and making antisemitic comments,” said Mr Halfon. “It makes me even more determined because I must not let them win.”
MP needs police protection after threats from anti-Israel activists
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Germany: A Koran in Every Household
by Soeren Kern
April 11, 2012 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3007/germany-koran
Salafists also believe that democracy, because it is a man-made form of government, must be destroyed. According to Die Welt, the Salafists have launched a "frontal assault" against people of other faiths and "unbelievers". Many Islamists believe Islamic Sharia law is a divine ordinance that is to replace all other legal systems. The number of Islamic radicals in German is surging. Islam is giving them respectability.
Islamic radicals in Germany have launched an unprecedented nationwide campaign to distribute 25 million copies of the Koran, translated into the German language, with the goal of placing one Koran into every household in Germany, free of charge.
The mass proselytization campaign -- called Project "Read!" -- is being organized by dozens of Islamic Salafist groups located in cities and towns throughout Germany, as well as in Austria and in Switzerland.
Salafism is a branch of radical Islam, practiced in Saudi Arabia, that seeks to establish an Islamic empire (Caliphate) across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe -- and eventually the entire world. The Caliphate would be governed exclusively by Islamic Sharia law, which would apply both to Muslims and to non-Muslims.
Salafists also believe, among other anti-Western doctrines, that democracy, because it is a man-made form of government, must be destroyed.
Although Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), regards the Salafist groups as a threat to German security, Salafists have free reign in the country, and Salafist preachers are known regularly to preach hatred against the West in mosques and prayer centers that are proliferating across Germany.
The campaign to place a Koran in every German household is being spearheaded by a Rheinland-based Salafist, Ibrahim Abou-Nagie, a Palestinian preacher of hate, who leads a radical Islamic group called "The True Religion" ("Die Wahre Religion").
In September 2011, German public prosecutors launched an investigation into Abou-Nagie after he called for violence against non-believers in videos posted on the Internet. In his sermons, Abou-Nagie glamorizes Islamic martyrdom and says that Islamic Sharia law is above the German Constitution. He outspokenly believes that music should be prohibited, that homosexuals should be executed, and that adulterers should be stoned.
Abou-Nagie has tens of thousands of followers across Germany. Among them are two German Muslim converts-turned-terror suspects trained by Abou-Nagie and recently arrested in Dover, England, after British border police searched their luggage and found a document entitled "How to Build a Bomb in Your Mom's Kitchen," an article from the English-language online magazine "Inspire" produced by Al-Qaida in Yemen.
In one video, Abou-Nagie tells his audience that "whoever follows the Christian Bible or the Jewish Torah instead of the Islamic Koran will go to Hell for eternity."
Not surprisingly, Abou-Nagie sees it as his calling to save the German people from the wrath of Allah by converting them to Islam. To achieve this aim, Abou-Nagie founded Project "Read!" to distribute tens of millions of copies of the Koran throughout Germany.
The campaign is now well under way. More than 100 Salafist "information booths" have already been set up in dozens of German cities, particularly in the regions of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hessen and Hamburg.
Abou-Nagie's approach is simple and effective: German Muslims are encouraged to purchase a copy of the Koran (red cover) in order to fund the free distribution of additional copies of the Koran (blue cover). In addition to the public distribution of the Koran on the streets and market places, non-Muslims can order a free copy of the Koran on an Internet website called hausdesqurans.de.
According to Abou-Nagie, Salafists have already distributed more than 300,000 German translations of the Koran, and a fifth print run consisting of tens of thousands of additional copies has already been ordered from the printing plant, which is located in Baden-Württemberg.
During the extended Christian Easter weekend from April 5-9, Project "Read!" entered into a new phase. According to the Berlin-based newspaper Die Welt, the Salafists have launched a "frontal assault" against people of other faiths and "unbelievers". On April 7, for instance, Project "Read!" organized a nationwide campaign to distribute the Koran in 35 German cities, including Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Heidelberg, Konstanz, Munich and Osnabrück.
According to Die Welt, German authorities view the Koran project, which fundamentalists are using a recruiting tool, as a "most worrisome" campaign for radical Islam. Security analysts say the campaign is also a public-relations gimmick intended to persuade Germans that the Salafists are transparent and "citizen friendly."
In an effort to improve their image, the Salafists have removed from their "information booths" all literature about the role of women in Islam or the supremacy of Islamic Sharia law over democracy.
Moreover, the German translation of the Koran has edited out many of the verses which call on Muslims to make war on non-believers. According to BfV, the German domestic intelligence agency, the German version of the Koran is "rather non-controversial."
German authorities also say, however, that Project "Read!" is being organized by Islamist networks that hold an extremist world view and a militant ideology.
A spokesperson for the Berlin branch of the BfV told Die Welt that "the objective of this campaign is to help bring those who are interested into contact with the Salafist scene in order to influence them in the context of their extremist political ideologies."
Although not everyone who takes a Koran into their home will convert to Islam, German authorities say Abou-Nagie's Project "Read!" is a establishing a breeding ground for anti-constitutional ideas.
In any case, the number of Islamic radicals in Germany is surging.
According to the BfV, there are an estimated 29 Islamist groups in Germany with 34,720 members or supporters who pose a major threat to homeland security. Many of them want to establish a "Koran-state" in Germany because they believe Islamic Sharia law is a divine ordinance that is to replace all other legal systems.
The head of the German Police Union (DPolG), Rainer Wendt, has told the Hamburg-based Bild newspaper that he is concerned about the presence of clandestine Islamic sleeper cells made up of Muslim immigrants and converts in Germany. He has called for the recruitment of undercover agents to infiltrate the Islamic environment. It is the "only way to monitor the scene," Wendt said.
"Radical Islamists live everywhere and nowhere in Germany. One cannot rule out that that nice young man from next door, who brings grandma her fresh bread every morning, is not in fact an Islamic sleeper and terrorist," Wendt warned.
The BfV is particularly concerned about Muslim youth who are prone to "rapid radicalization patterns," and who possess a "high willingness to use force" and "to attack." Some of them are under surveilance by the security authorities, according to Wendt.
The BfV is also monitoring a surge in online Islamist propaganda, much of which warns Muslims that they are not to integrate into German society. With an estimated 4.3 million Muslims, Germany has Western Europe's second-biggest Islamic population after France.
Some of the Islamists are Germans who recently converted to Islam. This would include former boxer Pierre Vogel, who converted to Islam and studied in Saudi Arabia. He is now an Islamic preacher who rails against Muslim integration into German society.
Many of the German converts to Islam are socially disaffected drop-outs from school and/or ex-convicts, and radical Islam is giving them respectability, according to German security services.
Some of the home-grown Muslim radicals are being alienated from German society by means of Sharia law, which is now competing with the German criminal justice system in all major cities in Germany.
Settlements reached by the Muslim mediators often mean perpetrators are able to avoid long prison sentences, while victims receive large sums in compensation or have their debts cancelled, in line with Sharia law. This is fomenting distrust for the established legal system, analysts say.
According to Kirsten Heisig, the author of the book "The End of Patience": In Germany "the law is slipping out of our hands. It is moving to the streets or into a parallel system where an imam or another representative of the Koran determines what must be done."
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
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