UKIP candidate Ann Marie Waters at a hustings on Thursday evening. Pic: Tom Harrisson
Members of South London Anti-Fascists gathered to protest the presence of UKIP candidate Anne Marie Waters at a hustings at The Good Shepherd church in Hither Green on Thursday evening.
The protest was peaceful with the anti-fascist activists leafleting attendees of the hustings, but there were brief disputes between members of the two camps outside the venue.
Waters is the prospective UKIP candidate for the constituency of Lewisham East after joining the party in May 2014.
In her opening remarks at the hustings, Waters raised questions on women’s rights including issues of rape, FGM and “religious tribunals which openly state domestic violence is the fault of the victim”.
She claimed that these issues were being ignored and that there were “aggressive attempts” to silence people who spoke out against them.
For speaking out, Waters said: “I will be called an ‘Islamophobe’, as though one shouldn’t have the right to criticise a religion. I will be called a ‘fascist’, ironically by people who use intimidation and threats to silence political opposition. I will be called ‘racist’ because, in this Orwellian world, those of us who call for equal rights and protections under the law, now, are ‘racists’.”
Earlier this month The Mirror filmed Waters with fellow UKIP candidate Magnus Nielsen speaking at an event organised by Mothers Against Radical Islam and Sharia (MARIA), which has close ties with the English Defence League, a far-right movement opposing the perceived spread of “Islamism” in the UK.
According to the Institute of Race Relations, Waters founded the organisation Sharia Watch UK and has appeared alongside “prominent European figures involved in the ‘counterjihad’ movement”.
During a speech in Copenhagen last June, she reportedly linked Islam to child abuse, which she described as a “dangerous ideology being appeased”, adding that “it is exactly the same appeasement that is allowing young girls to be raped in Britain. It’s got nothing to do with race, it’s got to do with the fact that we will not confront the misogyny at the very, very heart of this religion”.
South London Anti-Fascists declined to be named individually but provided Eastlondonlines with this statement: “Lewisham East UKIP candidate Anne Marie Waters has strong links to street fascists, in particular her work with prominent English Defence League figure Tommy Robinson in establishing Islamophobic ‘think tank’ Victims of Islamic Cultural Extremism. For this reason, South London Anti-Fascists called a mobilisation at the hustings in Lee on April 30.”
Why is it “far-right” to be opposed to the spread of Islam in the UK, and further afield in the West? I would consider myself a centrist, slightly conservative but support some of the ideology of the Left, but I have a huge problem with Islam. All of a sudden I’m told I’m far-right?
A large problem we have in the West is the ease at which media and ‘progressives’ use labels, more often than not incorrectly. I’ve met very few racists, bigots or xenophobes in my many years on this earth, not in the UK, Ireland or mainland Europe, yet according to the media and some on the Left I should be surrounded by them. Give it a rest. And good luck to Anne-Marie, it’s great to see a woman stand up for REAL women’s issues.
Is the ECHR ‘Islamophobic’? – “sharia law is incompatible with democracy and human rights”
Source: “Annual Report 2003 of the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe”
Noting that the Welfare Party had pledged to set up a regime based on sharia law, the Court found that sharia was incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy as set forth in the Convention. It considered that “sharia, which faithfully reflects the dogmas and divine rules laid down by religion, is stable and invariable. Principles such as pluralism in the political sphere or the constant evolution of public freedoms have no place in it”. According to the Court, it was difficult to declare one’s respect for democracy and human rights while at the same time supporting a regime based on sharia, which clearly diverged from Convention values, particularly with regard to its criminal law and criminal procedure, its rules on the legal status of women and the way it intervened in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts.
http://www.shariawatch.org.uk/content/echr-judgement-relating-sharia-law-2003