Fitzgerald: On dogs and statues in Islam

A recent story in the Reading Evening Mail describes a 71-year-old blind Englishman and cancer sufferer who was asked to get off a bus because of the hysterical reaction to his seeing-eye dog by some Muslims on the bus:

A driver told a blind cancer sufferer to get off his bus when a woman and her children became hysterical at the sight of his guide dog. George Herridge, 71, told how the mum flew into a rage and shouted at him in a foreign language. A passenger explained she wanted him to get off the bus during the incident on May 20.

Mr Herridge, from Tern Close, Tilehurst, said: “Her child was kicking and screaming and someone off the bus told me her child was frightened of my dog. The driver said, ‘Look mate, can’t you get off? I stood my ground. I had not done anything, my dog had not done anything and I was getting off the bus for no one.”

And a day after the latest bus incident a lady began screaming “I don’t like dirty dogs” at Mr Herridge at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

A week earlier he faced further animosity from a couple at Asda in The Meadway, he said.
He is unsure what has provoked outbursts but said he thinks some have come from Asian people and that it may be due to religious or cultural differences.

Drivers have been re-instructed to convey the blind and the bus company has sought advice from the Royal National Institute for the Blind and hopes to speak with Muslim leaders. As part of a Muslim Council of Britain project, Mufti Zubair Butt, Shar’ia advisor to Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS, admitted Muslims “require some education” on guide dogs.”

Readers of Jihad Watch are familiar with many similar cases. For example, there are those Somali cab drivers in Minneapolis who refused to pick up blind passengers with seeing-eye dogs.

One needs to know exactly what is going on in all of these cases. Continue reading "Fitzgerald:

On dogs and statues in Islam"