Gardai hunt Irish racists who burned the Koran

A top Muslim has appealed for calm after a vile hate video was posted online by bigots in Galway.

Now gardai are probing the six-minute clip of racists burning the Koran. The “nationalist” nuts are anti-Muslim, anti-Jew, anti-gay and want to end all immigration into Ireland.

The book-burning has so far amassed just a few hundred hits on YouTube. But cops fear it is only a matter of time before the recording goes viral.

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Islamophobia Awareness Month launched in Europe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAAoGLAKshI&feature=share&list=UU5gtqdJOvhGdh-6WRO2CTpw

The Islamophobia Awareness Month will be hosting a series of events aiming to highlight and address issues surrounding anti-Muslim hatred. This event in East London saw the launch of the campaign that included organisations from different religious and political backgrounds.

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When did Islamophobic attacks become the norm for the French media?

Le Point coverWhen last week’s cover of normally stern French magazine Le Point appeared online, the consensus on social networks said it was a hoax. Le Point is no tabloid. It is a serious and well respected conservative magazine.

Running the headline: “Brazen Islam…in school cafeterias, hospitals, and swimming pools” the cover featured a niqab-clad woman arguing with a French policewoman. It had to be a joke, but sadly it wasn’t.

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Calls for English Defence League to be branded ‘extremist’

Labour’s Black and Asian Assembly Members have written to the head of the Metropolitan Police to urge him to revise the Met’s view about the English Defence League (EDL) not being viewed as an extremist group. Last week the Government banned the EDL from marching in Waltham Forest, Islington, Newham and Tower Hamlets for 30 days.

Assembly Members Murad Qureshi, Jennette Arnold OBE, Dr Onkar Sahota and Navin Shah signed a joint letter to Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe asking his to reconsider the EDL’s status.

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Islamophobia Studies Journal launched

Islamophobia Studies JournalThe Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at UC Berkeley announces the launch of Islamophobia Studies Journal, a a bi-annual peer reviewed academic periodical focusing on emerging research on and analysis about the nature of Islamophobia and its impact on culture, politics, media, and the lives and experiences of Muslim people.

You can download the first issue of the journal here.

‘There’s no God and Islam is evil’ speech earns Richard Dawkins standing ovation

Renowned atheist Professor Richard Dawkins received a surprise standing ovation in the traditionally Christian community of Stornoway last night, following a two-hour speech in which he said there was probably no God.

The 71-year-old described Islam as “one of the great evils of the world” in his lecture, The God Delusion, as part of a rare visit to the Western Isles.

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US Muslim placed on no-fly list is unable to see his ailing mother

Saadiq LongIn April of this year, Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old African-American Muslim who now lives in Qatar, purchased a ticket on KLM Airlines to travel to Oklahoma, the state where he grew up. Long, a 10-year veteran of the US Air Force, had learned that the congestive heart failure from which his mother suffers had worsened, and she was eager to see her son. He had last seen his mother and siblings more than a decade ago, when he returned to the US in 2001, and spent months saving the money to purchase the ticket and arranging to be away from work.

The day before he was to travel, a KLM representative called Long and informed him that the airlines could not allow him to board the flight. That, she explained, was because the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had placed Long on its “no-fly list”, which bars him from flying into his own country.

Long has now spent the last six months trying to find out why he was placed on this list and what he can do to get off of it. He has had no success, unable to obtain even the most basic information about what caused his own government to deprive him of this right to travel.

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US Muslim placed on no-fly list is unable to see his ailing mother

Saadiq LongIn April of this year, Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old African-American Muslim who now lives in Qatar, purchased a ticket on KLM Airlines to travel to Oklahoma, the state where he grew up. Long, a 10-year veteran of the US Air Force, had learned that the congestive heart failure from which his mother suffers had worsened, and she was eager to see her son. He had last seen his mother and siblings more than a decade ago, when he returned to the US in 2001, and spent months saving the money to purchase the ticket and arranging to be away from work.

The day before he was to travel, a KLM representative called Long and informed him that the airlines could not allow him to board the flight. That, she explained, was because the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had placed Long on its “no-fly list”, which bars him from flying into his own country.

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