Yearly Archives: 2014

Roger Godsiff MP, Jack Dromey MP, trade unions & Salma Yaqoob sign anti-EDL statement

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Birmingham UAF leaflet October 2014

WE ARE BIRMINGHAM – DON’T LET THE EDL DIVIDE OUR COMMUNITIES

Saturday 11 October 2014, 11am
Victoria Square, Birmingham

Statement
We, the undersigned, condemn the decision by the English Defence League (EDL) to come to Birmingham on Saturday 11th October. We believe it is a cynical attempt by the EDL to use the appalling crime of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham to further its own selfish ends. We support and seek justice for all victims of sexual exploitation regardless of their social or ethnic background. We condemn and seek prosecution of all those responsible for these crimes irrespective of their ethnicity or creed.

We reject the attempt by the EDL to whip up racism and division in our city by trying to turn communities against each other without a care for the damage it leaves in its wake.

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Austria unveils new law on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sebastian KurzAustria called on Thursday for standardized German-language translations of the Koran and moved to prohibit foreign funding of Muslim organizations on its soil in a draft law aimed in part at tackling Islamic extremism.

The bill will overhaul a 1912 law governing the status of Austrian Muslims, prompting concern from a major local Islamic body, which saw it mirroring widespread mistrust of Muslims.

The initiative comes at a time of robust support for the far-right in Austria and also alarm over reports of Muslims from the small, neutral country joining Islamist militant forces fighting in the Middle East.

“The clear message should be that there is no contradiction between being a faithful Muslim and a proud Austrian,” said Foreign Affairs and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz, a member of the conservative People’s Party.

“If you don’t have orderly legal regulation … this can always bring dangers (of extremism). In this sense, if you like this is maybe a part of prevention,” he told reporters.

He added that Sharia, or Islamic law, had “no place here”.

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Supreme court to rule on Abercrombie & Fitch ‘religious bias’ over hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The US supreme court has agreed to hear a case accusing the American clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch of refusing to hire a Muslim woman who wore a headscarf.

The suit, brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleges that Samantha Elauf was not hired because she wore a headscarf that would have required a religious exemption from the company’s “look policy”.

Elauf interviewed at the company’s Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2008 for a position as a “model”, the equivalent of a part-time sales worker, when she was 17. The hiring manager, Heather Cooke, 23, interviewed Elauf and initially gave her a score that recommended hiring her.

Elauf wore a black hijab during her interview. She is a practising Muslim who has worn a hijab since she was 13 years old.

However, after consulting with a district manager, Cooke gave Elauf a low score in the “appearance and sense of style” category, after specifically asking about Elauf’s headscarf. The manager told Cooke that employees were not allowed to wear “hats” at work, and so declined to hire her, even though Cooke told the manager she assumed Elauf wore the scarf for religious reasons. Cooke told the district manager she did not ask about religion during the interview, in accordance with EEOC guidelines.

The EEOC sued on Elauf’s behalf, and a federal judge ruled against the company. The 10th US circuit court of appeals reversed that decision.

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‘Burqa ban’ in Australian parliament

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Parliament House, CanberraAnyone wearing “facial coverings” who wants to enter the galleries of federal parliament will be made to sit in a separate shielded section, according to new rules announced on Thursday.

The new regulations, sent out to MPs, senators and parliamentary staff, do not specifically mention burqas but it follows days of heated debate about allowing women to wear the Islamic garment into public areas of parliament house.

A campaign to ban the burqa at parliament had been led by Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who has been calling for a public ban on the garment for years. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, who has previously called for a ban on the hijab in schools, has asked Asio and the federal police to assess the security risks of people wearing full facial coverings coming into the public area of parliament house.

The Department of Parliamentary Services emailed around the new rules in an “information circular” on Thursday, but the measures were approved by the presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Bronwyn Bishop and Senate president Stephen Parry.

The email said the review was being undertaken, and advice sought from security agencies. In the meantime it announced three additional security measures, including the separating of people who wished to watch the House of Representatives or the Senate from the public galleries.

“Persons with facial coverings entering the galleries of the House of Representatives and Senate will be seated in the enclosed galleries,” read the email. “This will ensure that persons with facial coverings can continue to enter the Chamber galleries, without needing to be identifiable.”

Two other changes to the pass policy in the building were made, including a freeze on renewing or issuing sponsored passes, and the requirement of photo ID for all adult visitors. “Procedures are in place to ensure that DPS Security manage any cultural or religious issues relating to this in a sensitive and appropriate manner,” it said.

Comments by the prime minister on Wednesday that he did not support a ban but wished women did not wear them were slammed as divisive and harmful.

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Mosque leader gives hate crime warning after Archway attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mohammed KozbarA leader of Islington’s Muslim community has voiced his fear that the attempted murder of an Archway shopkeeper may have been fuelled by Islamophobia following the atrocities committed by extremist group Isil.

Mohammed Kozbar, who is the manager of Finsbury Park Mosque in St Thomas’s Road, met police last week after a man was hospitalised by an attack in Holloway Road on Tuesday night of last week.

Describing the incident as “worrying”, Mr Kozbar said there had been a heightening of Islamophobic feeling in response to executions by the extremist group based in Iraq and Syria – while the town hall’s crime chief said there had been an upswing in hate crime in the borough.

Mr Kozbar said: “This was a very serious attack. It shows a similar approach to the kind of thing that Isil and others are trying to do, and it is worrying for the community. The worry is that the attacker might not be acting alone and this needs to be looked at before someone else gets hurt.”

Finsbury Park Mosque has a chequered history with extremism as a former home to radical cleric Abu Hamza, but is now largely considered a hub of the community. The mosque was one of several Muslim organisations to issue a statement condemning Isil in its recent acts of beheading hostages, including British aid worker David Haines last month.

Mr Kozbar said: “We as a mosque completely condemn what Isil are doing, as do 99.9 per cent of Muslims. But you can find the small minority that have been brainwashed or misguided by certain people. After this attack on this shop the community will feel very worried.”

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Muslim school targeted with racist graffiti

Posted on by Bob Pitt

La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin graffitiTrouve Ta Mosquée reports that a Muslim school at La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin in north-central France has been targeted by racists. On Sunday two swastikas and the slogan “sale raton” (“dirty rat”) were found sprayed on the front gate.

The attack immediately followed a decision by the mayor of La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin to order the school’s closure. Trouve Ta Mosquée argues that the mayor’s decision – which would appear to have been unlawful, and motivated by hostility to the Islamic character of the institution – gave the green light to the far right to target the school.

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Melbourne: Police accused of ignoring attack on Muslim women on a train… until witness started Twitter campaign to force them to act

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dana Affleck and tweet

A young woman who witnessed three Muslim women being threatened on a Melbourne train claimed police were reluctant to investigate the incident and only took it seriously when she vented her anger on Twitter.

Law student Dana Affleck, 24, was on a train in Melbourne last Thursday just before 6pm when she witnessed a man screaming, threatening and banging on a window when he saw three elderly Muslim women wearing veils.

“He was standing up and screaming abuse the entire time he was on the train, as soon as he saw the three women in veils,” Ms Affleck told Daily Mail Australia. “He was a big, imposing figure. An Aussie, Anglo guy. He was enraged and seemed unstable. There was spit flying out of his mouth.”

Ms Affleck had boarded the train at the same time as the women, two of whom appeared to be in their seventies and the third in her fifties. They were all wearing veils and long dresses, according to Miss Affleck. “The man was screaming from the second he saw them. We were terrified. He was way past being stood up to,” said Miss Affleck.

Ms Affleck said the three Muslim women and another passenger left the train as soon as it came to the next stop, North Richmond Station. The man continued his raging tirade after the train doors closed. “He came up on the window and started bashing on the glass and screaming abuse at them. We were all scared. I was just waiting for the glass to smash because there was so much force.”

Ms Affleck, who is not Muslim, says that the victims of the abuse did not seem shocked and believed calling police would be futile. “I was apologising profusely, worried if they were okay,” said Miss Affleck. “They didn’t appear shocked, they seemed to take it as a given. The fact they were so accustomed to it really frightened me.”

Ms Affleck called the closest police station, East Melbourne, to report the incident, prompted by Victoria Police Commissioner Ken Lay urging members of the public to report instances of Islamophobic abuse in the wake of last week’s shooting of a known extremist.

“Ken Lay told Australia to come forward and report instances of where Muslims are being abused, but is that message reaching the officers at the local police stations who take the calls?” she said. “The police officer who answered the phone would not transfer me or pass the message on to anyone. He said there’s nothing they can do unless the victims come forward.”

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Anti-Muslim hate crime soars in London, according to new police figures

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim hate crime in London has shot up by almost 65% in twelve months, with spikes in violence linked not to Islamic State beheadings, but to incidents closer to home like the Rotherham grooming scandal.

Metropolitan Police figures show that incidents of hate crime rose from 344 to 570 in the last year, and women are key targets because of their identifiable Islamic dress. Fiyaz Mughal, director of the Islamophobia monitoring group Tell MAMA, said that he had been expecting an increase of between 30-50%, and had not predicted such a dramatic rise.

“It’s certainly linked to current events, but the severity of the reports we get vary, depending on what is happening in the news,” he told HuffPost UK. “When there’s an IS beheading, or there’s a terror threat made against the UK, you’ll find a bombardment of online abuse and threats. And it will be a discernible spike, increasing for a short period and then dying down.”

It was national scandals, like the grooming of young girls in Rotherham by groups of Pakistani men, or the alleged “Trojan horse” plot by hardline Muslims in Birmingham to “take over” some of the city’s state schools, that had the most impact on the figures, Mughal said.

“The most significant rise in numbers came after the killing of Lee Rigby last year, that was extremely prolonged. But it did die down and life became more peaceful. It was just a dull background noise until the ‘Trojan Horse’ coverage. That led to a longer period of threat, and more violence, with direct threats and attacks against mosques. The worst this year has been linked to Rotherham, and mosques in particular have experience many threats.”

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Racist thugs attack Muslim boy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BasildonA 12-year-old Muslim boy was left with cuts and bruises after he was attacked by two racist men outside his home.

Ubaid Khan, was playing football in Somercotes, Laindon, when he was set upon by the two thugs last Monday evening. The assault happened in the same week three Asian men were attacked as they walked to church, in Whitmore Way.

Brother Sarfraz Sarwar of the Basildon Islamic Centre, said members of the Muslim community are now being advised not to go out alone after dark, in the wake of the attacks.

Ubaid’s dad, Khubaid Khan, 40, said: “My son was attacked by two men, who gave him a good smacking. He was playing football when the ball went out of the game and he ran to get it. These two men started shouting abuse at him, then they attacked him, leaving him with a cut lip and swollen face. For two men to do this to a young boy is unthinkable. He has been left very shaken and now he does not want to play out anymore.”

The assault comes after three Asian men were physically attacked in Basildon while on their way to a church celebration late on Saturday night. The men – all Christians – were confronted by a yob asking if they belonged to Isis or a terrorist group, before being slapped and punched.

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Burbank man protests outside Islamic Center in West Richland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Harmon protestsA Burbank man protested Monday evening outside a West Richland mosque, holding a sign that read “death to Islam” on one side and “Islam is evil” on the other.

Michael Harmon, 28, of Burbank, also had a sign reading “Terrorists” on the side of his car, with a blue arrow pointing toward the Islamic Center of Tri-Cities on Bombing Range Road. Harmon said he served as a specialist in the Army and was in Afghanistan.

“You’ve got the Taliban, al-Qaida, ISIS – they all follow the Quran,” Harmon told the Herald, referring to the Islamic State group by one of its acronyms. “The Quran itself is evil. It states there in black and white they want to kill us.”

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Posted in USA