Reports and comments on Muslims by the media and politicians bear the hallmarks of the portrayal of Jews in Nazi Germany, an MP has said.
Labour’s Yasmin Qureshi said very similar words to those included in information and literature put out by the Nazis were being used against Muslims in Britain at the moment. She added 99.9% of coverage in newspapers and on television is anti-Muslim, with “complete lies” published on front pages and made-up stories giving people the wrong impression of Islam and its followers.
The Bolton South East MP also told a debate that a lot of people in some parts of the country have “never come across a Muslim person or a black person or an Asian person” and so their views about a particular religion, group or culture will “come from what they read in the paper”.
Ms Qureshi, herself a Muslim, spoke out during a debate on the Srebrenica massacre, in which some 8,000 Muslim men were killed in Bosnia in 1995. Addressing what could be done to prevent anything similar happening again, she told the Westminster Hall debate that a recent survey showed 33% of people in the UK think that Muslims are “not really right for this country” and the religion “is not appropriate, they don’t belong here”.
Ms Qureshi said: “Now, I feel very offended. I wasn’t born in England but I was brought up here, this is my country. (There’s) three million Muslims out there and I know (because of) the actions of a few, everyone is getting slated with it.
“And there’s a lot of people in this country, in parts of the country, they’ve never come across a Muslim person or a black person or an Asian person, and any information they have about a particular religion or group or a culture or a community will come from what they read in the paper.”
Ms Qureshi said this led to people forming their view of a person on images and information rather than from people they have met.
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on local law enforcement authorities and public officials to investigate a recent rash of anti-Muslim graffiti in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Kensington.
A Jasper, Ala., nursing home violated federal law when it refused to allow a Muslim employee to wear a hijab (the traditional covering for the hair and neck that is worn by Muslim women) on the job, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a workplace discrimination lawsuit filed June 30. EEOC v. Shadescrest Health Care Center, ND Ala. Case 6:14-cv-01253-SLB (June 30, 2014). The agency also contends that Shadescrest fired the employee in retaliation for filing a complaint with the EEOC.
Police are hunting for two racists thugs who smashed windows and screamed abuse at people in the mosque in Warrington town centre.
Muslim women who wear a full veil say there are no-go areas in Leicester which they feel frightened to visit – even in a car. They claim they are subjected to abuse every day and that it is getting increasingly difficult to avoid such incidents in the city centre.
Around 1000 religious leaders, politicians, academics, journalists, social and political activists, and Muslims from around the country attended events in London, Birmingham and Greater Manchester to welcome the launch of a new British Muslim organisation, MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development) set up to tackle Islamophobia is all its varied forms.