A Muslim student who was reprimanded for criticising the Israeli army in a student union publication has called on the Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to quit. Nasser Amin, a masters student at the University of London, initiated a formal student grievance procedure against the School and Director Colin Bundy for failing to follow their own procedure.
Yearly Archives: 2006
Were we held at airport because we are Muslims?
A Muslim couple are threatening to take action against the police after they were held by Special Branch detectives at Cardiff Airport – missing their flight as their luggage and identities were checked. Aisha Pritchard and her Palestinian husband Sadi Eihaloul claim their detention was racist and are now considering bringing a test case against South Wales Police.
The couple, from Pentwyn, Cardiff, were due to fly to Dubai via Amsterdam for a four-day break on December 14 but they never made the trip after being stopped by security at the boarding gate. Ms Pritchard, 40, said: “We understand that there have to be security measures at all airports. It is the way we were treated we cannot accept. We feel we were deliberately stopped from boarding the plane, that it was racist and because we are Muslims.”
By the time they had been given the all-clear by the detectives, the couple’s flight had already left. And because their tickets were non-transferable, they were faced with having to pay out £1,500 if they wanted the next flight. Instead, they caught a taxi home.
Wales Online, 28 December 2006
See also the Independent, 29 December 2006
Muslims spread disease in hospitals, Sun claims
“Some Muslims are undermining the battle to rid Britain’s hospitals of killer infections by refusing to wash their hands when visiting sick relatives. Dispensers containing anti-bacterial gel have been placed outside wards at hospitals all over Britain in a bid to get rid of superbugs like MRSA and PVL. It prevents people bringing in more infections. But some Muslims refuse to use the hand cleansers on religious grounds because they contain alcohol. Health watchdogs are so concerned they intend to meet with NHS bosses in the New Year to try and hammer out a solution.”
(Note also the accompanying “Outrage at ethnic pool” story.)
For a discussion of the Sun article see Rolled Up Trousers, 29 December 2006
IHRC hijab report published
IHRC’s fourth report in the “British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government” is published 26 January 2006. The report focuses on Hijab – commonly referred to as the Veil.
IHRC press release, 26 January 2006
‘Homophobia isn’t the exclusive preserve of any religion’
Review of the Channel 4 documentary “Gay Muslims” by Marc Vallée, convenor of the Socialist Party’s LGBT group. Some useful points, rather undermined by the bizarre claim that accusations of Islamophobia against Peter Tatchell are “unfounded”.
There’s also an interesting interview with Ubaid of the Muslim LGBT group Imaan in the current issue of Socialist Resistance. The article is on page 8 and the whole issue is available in pdf format here.
Muslim group asks radio host to apologize
A Muslim civil liberties group demanded an apology Thursday from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during an annual pilgrimage. The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked for an apology from KFI-AM 640 host Bill Handel, who allegedly made fun of the deaths the same day they happened during a segment he called the “Annual Stampede Report.”
According to the civil liberties group, Handel imitated the people screaming and then joked that the Muslims at the pilgrimage should use a helicopter to monitor pilgrimage traffic, as is done in Los Angeles with the freeways. The group quoted Handel as saying: “This is Mahmoud Nolan. Hajj in the Sky. There is an accident…. Ali lost his sandal on the on-ramp to the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway.”
In March 2004, KFI issued an on-air apology after the group filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission following a skit that claimed Muslims have sex with animals, don’t bathe and hate Jews.
Associated Press, 27 January 2006
For Little Green Footballs, this is yet another example of “whining” by “thin-skinned Muslim advocacy groups” who are trying to “shut down free speech in the US”.
Muslims on campus in Britain
A briefing from the human rights group Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has challenged the current thinking on extremism on campus. Entitled: ‘You ONLY Have the Right to Silence: Muslims on Campus in Britain’, the report has criticised the stance proposed by Education Ministers and the Glees/Pope report on the connection between extremism and universities.
IHRC has said that proposals such as the interviewing of all foreign students in conjunction with MI5 upon their application to university, banning of all faith societies, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly’s encouragement of fellow students to spy upon each other, the undermining of academic freedom and the implementation of racism as policy would not lead towards the intended enhancement of Britain’s security.
The briefing rebutted the claim of a terrorist threat on campus as “wholly exaggerated” devoid of any substantial evidence or research, and cited the report conducted by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), which found that following the July terrorist bombings, only 4% of Muslim students surveyed did not condemn the atrocity.
It continued by stating that the events of 9-11 and 7-7 were “being exploited and capitalized upon to silence any form of dissent or political activism on campus, specifically when Muslim students are involved and where the issue concerned is Palestine”. It further added that the term ‘political activism’ was being tarnished with the label of “extremism” which it said was a “concerted effort to silence Muslim dissent”.
Latest from BNP trial
The jury at Leeds Crown Court was given copies of extracts from the Koran which BNP leader Nick Griffin discussed in detail. Mr Griffin said he wanted the jury to read sections of the Koran as he claimed Islam was incompatible with British democracy.
After quoting from chapters of the text, Griffin said the verses justified “the epidemic of anti-white racist attacks and also attacks on Sikhs, Hindus and black people in every city in this land where there is a significant Muslim population”. Mr Griffin quoted further sections, claiming the verses justified Islam treating women as “sexual playthings of very little value beyond that” and also violence, including the 9/11 attacks in the US.
He told the jury he had spent a lot of time studying the Koran and believed it was often misquoted by politicians, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, as they tried to claim Islam was a peaceful faith. “Islam and our democracy are totally incompatible,” he said.
AWL explains the veil
Over at the Workers’ Liberty website, Mark Sandell tells us that the veil is just “the public expression of women and girls being oppressed and owned by ‘their’ men”.
Opposition to the headscarf ban in French schools, according to Sandell, was restricted to a “motley crew of cultural relativists, numskull ‘anti-imperialists’, and assorted religious bigots”.
Banning Hizb ut-Tahrir
Osama Saeed and Yusuf Smith comment on leaked official emails from August 2005, relating to the government’s anti-terror measures, that have been published by the New Statesman. The material provides some useful insights into the proposal to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
One of the emails (from Foreign Office official Robert Tinline, head of the multilateral and terrorist financing section of the counter-terrorism department) points out that “there is no apparent case to proscribe HuT” and notes that “much of their literature explicitly rejects the use of violence”.
But home secretary Charles Clarke did not reject a ban. Rather, he is reported as arguing that “he would prefer putting off proscription of HuT until after the proposed amendments to the current legislation: it would, for example, be much easier to argue that HuT met the criteria of ‘justifying and glorifying violence’. Clarke said that his fear was that the Government would lose the case for proscription and so wanted to act cautiously”.
There could hardly be a better illustration of the way the “glorification” clause in the Terrorism Bill (rejected by the Lords) would be used to ban organisations that pose no terrorist threat at all.
The leaked emails can be downloaded (in pdf format) here.