#NotYourTerrorist has taken off on Twitter, where netizens are speaking out against stereotypes and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in the media, pop culture and everyday life. Started by writer and activist Steven Salaita on Wednesday, the hashtag has since been tweeted more than 6,000 times.
Yearly Archives: 2014
Muslim prayer room signs vandalised at King’s College London
Muslim prayer room signs have been vandalised at Guy’s campus, with one sign having “Muslim” scratched out and other with a “#jewish” sticker over the same word.
Students, who spotted the signs last night, have expressed fear of “threats and violence” that may be used against them from the blade used to deface the board. The College has been called on to look through CCTV to find those responsible, in what has been described as a “clear violation of safe space policy”.
The Spectator finds a Muslim it likes
The Spectator devotes the cover of this week’s issue to promoting a Muslim. Unlikely, you might think, until you find out that the Muslim in question is Irshad Manji, much admired by Daniel Pipes, Melanie Phillips and Geoffrey Alderman – not least because of her enthusiastic support for the state of Israel.
Inside the magazine, Manji outlines her views in an article entitled “It’s time to reclaim Islam from the fanatics. Here’s how”. Unsurprisingly, this involves reforming Islam along the lines advocated by unrepresentative individuals such as “my friend Maajid Nawaz” of Quilliam – one of the few Muslims who can reasonably claim to be held in even more contempt within the Muslim community than Manji herself is. She also boasts about posting links to the racist Jyllands Posten cartoons on her website – all in the interests of freedom of expression, you understand.
No NSA reform can fix the American Islamophobic surveillance complex
Muslim Americans likely make up the bulk of US domestic spy targets. This is what it’s like for innocent citizens to live in fear, argues Arun Kundnani.
Police ready for mosque protest in Sunderland
Police have promised residents that it will be ‘business as usual’ tomorrow despite plans for a demo by far-right protestors.
Extremist groups are planning a demonstration at the site of a new mosque in St Marks Road in Millfield, with around 100 people expected to attend. It is the latest in a series of protests against the new religious centre, and anti-facist groups are again planning a counter-protest.
A spokesman for Sunderland Unites Against Racism said: “We simply cannot allow fascists to divide the people of Sunderland and bring violence and hatred into the area.”
Allegations of Islamist take over of schools are false and harming children, says governor
Stories about an alleged Islamist takeover of Birmingham schools are creating an atmosphere of mistrust that will harm children and prevent Muslims from becoming teachers, according to a school governor at the centre of the row.
Muhammad Khan (pictured) said that there was no substance to the widely-reported allegations that extremists have taken control at Saltley School, where he has been a governor for more than a decade. But he describes the current media frenzy and “innuendo” as “scary” and believes it will be already having an impact on students.
“There is a de-humanisation going on,” Dr Khan a tutor at Ruskin College, Oxford said. “Forget us [the governors], and forget the teachers – we are all adults. But as a child if you are constantly getting this on the TV and newspaper that this is the sort of school you are going to, then what is happening to you in terms of how you see your school, how you see your community and how you see yourself? Many of these children are Muslim and British and this is the kind of stuff you are hearing about your religion in the country that’s your home.”
The allegations emerged earlier this month in “leaked” documents, purportedly revealing correspondence between Islamic fundamentalists. They discuss a supposedly successful plan – dubbed ‘Operation Trojan Horse’ – to win control of Birmingham schools, including Saltley. Factual inaccuracies quickly led to widespread doubts about the authenticity of the documents. Some suspect they were produced by provocateurs trying to stir up ill feeling towards Muslims.
Woman’s suicide sparks hate fest on official EDL Facebook page
Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the tragic case of Sobia Yousef, who stabbed herself to death in a Shipley supermarket, apparently in a state of depression following the loss of her daughter to a terminal illness. A link to the report was posted on the English Defence League’s Facebook page, where it provoked a series of disgusting comments along the lines of “Got no sympathy for immigrants or muslims. They bring it on themselves” and “at least there’s 1 less to breed”. EDL News has the details.
Clarion Fund’s new Islamophobic film, ‘Honor Diaries’
“The Clarion Fund (now the ‘Clarion Project–#1 news site on the threat of Islamic extremism’) rides again. After producing three classic Islamophobic films, Obsession, Third Jihad and Iranium, T-H-E-Y’R-E B-A-C-K with a new one, Honor Diaries. The new project focuses on honor killings and Islam’s supposed hatred of women. One has to ask why a film about the purported abuse of Muslim women was produced by Jews, and ones with a distinct ideological agenda at that.”
Richard Silverstein reviews the Clarion Fund’s latest exercise in Islam-bashing.
Newsnight’s ‘Muslim discussion’
On Monday evening BBC Newsnight broadcast a piece about the representation of British Muslims.
Bizarrely, the segment featured a 6-minute film by Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz, probably the least representative Muslim in the UK. Among the individuals Nawaz interviewed was the Iranian “ex-Muslim” Maryam Namazie, who is a leading figure in a crazed far-left sect called the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and even less representative of anyone than Nawaz himself is.
In the studio discussion that followed the film Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar took on Nawaz, although Nawaz’s disinclination to allow his critics to speak without trying to talk over them meant that the debate produced more heat than light.
The discussion was originally intended to include Myriam Francois-Cerrah, but for some reason the Newsnight producers decided against this. Over at the Huffington Post, she has outlined the criticisms she would have made of Maajid Nawaz, had she been present.
Piggin ‘idolised’ Israeli terrorist
The Daily Mail has an update on the Michael Piggin trial.
We already knew that Piggin “glorified” former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”), but it turns out he had another source of inspiration.
The Mail reports that the jury was shown “online chats with his friends in which he idolised religious extremist Baruch Goldstein, who went on a killing spree in a mosque”.
The reference is to the Hebron massacre in 1994, when the Kahanist terrorist Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahim Mosque, killing 29 and wounding another 125.