Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Survey finds support for veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One in three people would support a ban on the Muslim face-covering veil in public places, a survey suggests. Asked if the veils should be prohibited in airports and at passport control, six out of 10 agreed. The survey was carried out for the BBC by ICM. Muslim groups say the figures may reflect public unease because of how the media has presented the veil.

Rajnaara Akhtar, of the Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab, said the findings were “positive” because it showed “the vast majority of people … believe women should be allowed to wear what they like”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that there was a common misconception that Muslim women who wore the face-covering veil had been forced to do so, whereas in reality only a “tiny, tiny minority” were forced. “What we, as Muslims, need to do is to ensure were are educating people on it and making sure that people do understand it is a choice,” she said. “We are living in Britain, which is a democratic society and the vast majority of people in this country promote that and respect that completely.”

BBC News, 29 October 2006

Sharia law is spreading, Telegraph warns

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The full headline in the print edition of the Torygraph reads “Sharia law is spreading as the authority of British justice wanes”. The article, by Joshua Rozenberg (Mr Melanie Phillips), reports on the findings of the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action on the role of unofficial religious courts, which arbitrate over civil issues.

Not that you’d know it from the Torygraph report, but the programme also dealt with the role of Beth Din courts in the Jewish community (see here). Can you imagine what Melanie Phillips’ response would be if the paper ran a story with the headline “Jewish law is spreading as the authority of British justice wanes”?

Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2006

More media scaremongering over the ‘mega-mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abbey Mills Islamic Centre (2)Another day, another scaremongering “mega-mosque” article, this one from the freesheet thelondonpaper.

The latest twist, of course, is to claim that there is mass opposition from Muslims to Tablighi Jamaat building an Islamic centre at Abbey Mills.

Haras Rafiq, who was involved in organising the petition against the proposed Abbey Mills markaz, is quoted as saying: “Muslims in the area are concerned their children will become involved in an extremist ideology. People will come from around the world to try to get more people involved with Tablighi Jamaat. It is ridiculous that that they are looking for Government funding for this – it should be totally out of the question. This organisation is dangerous.”

Yes, that’s undoubtedly the same Haras Rafiq who was responsible for forming the fraudulent, unrepresentative, New-Labour-loving, neocon-promoting, so-called Sufi Muslim Council.

And what is a businessman from Rochdale doing organising a campaign in West Ham, you might ask? Well, bear in mind that Haras Rafiq launched the SMC on the back of an anti-MCB witch-hunting TV documentary by the appalling Martin Bright, and that he echoed the right-wing press by accusing representative Muslim organisations like the MCB of not doing enough to combat terrorism. This is a man whose speciality is to align himself with the worst sections of the Islamophobic media in denouncing his co-religionists.

So at least we now have a clearer picture of the forces behind the “Muslim campaign” against the Abbey Mills Islamic centre. They’re the Sufi Muslim Council, Stephen Schwartz’s Center for Islamic Pluralism (for the origins of which see here) and Minhaj-ul-Quran.

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New research debunks myth of ‘Muslim ghettos’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ludi SimpsonOne of New Labour’s favourite propaganda lines – the idea that there are Muslim “ghettos” that radicalise young Muslims and create terrorists – has been exposed as a myth.

Only this week Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, claimed that there was a “crisis” over areas of Britain “becoming more and more ethnically concentrated and exclusive”. But research produced this month shows that British Muslims in towns and cities with a large Muslim populations are no more likely to be charged under anti-terrorism legislation than those who don’t.

Population expert Dr Ludi Simpson analysed media reports to map the location of suspects charged under Britain’s anti-terror laws. “We looked at 75 cases of Muslims charged under anti-terrorist legislation from 2004 to the present day,” he told Socialist Worker. “Their location is spread pretty evenly across all the places Muslims live. It’s not in any way restricted to areas where there are large Muslim populations. Branding a particular area as a hotbed of terrorism is immensely damaging and it creates prejudice and fear. It’s just a fantasy.”

Simpson also challenges the notion that Britain is “sleepwalking into segregation”. In fact the number of ethnically mixed neighbourhoods is on the rise. “Politicians look at areas where there are visible groups of black or Asian people and interpret that to mean that there are ghettos. In reality it is population growth,” he said.

Socialist Worker, 2 December 2006

Read a summary of Ludi Simpson’s research here.

More anti-Muslim witch-hunting from Michael Gove

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tory MP Michael Gove manages to have a go at the Finsbury Party mosque, the East London mosque, the Dewsbury mosque and the proposed Abbey Mills mosque, all in one short parliamentary speech. He did tell the House of Commons that some mosques are “exemplary houses of instruction that provide spiritual nourishment to our fellow citizens” – though where these mosques are to be found he didn’t say.

Hansard, 27 November 2006

See also ConservativeHome, 28 November 2006

Witch-hunt against HT continues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A crisis meeting between police chiefs and local religious leaders has been held after the discovery of bomb-making equipment in a patch of woodland close to Croydon Synagogue. Police confirmed last week, after a BBC Newsnight report, that they had discovered a number of items which has aroused fears of extremist violence breaking out in Croydon.

On Monday morning at Croydon police station, in a meeting chaired by Chief Superintendent Mark Gore, representatives from Muslim and Jewish communities, Croydon Council and Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre met to discuss the investigation. It follows confirmation from police that items were found in woodland off Shirley Oaks Road on November 4 and November 11. The land is opposite Croydon Synagogue and the items were said to include equipment that could be used to make petrol bombs.

The meeting came after a BBC report claimed the radical Islamic group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, were distributing leaflets outside Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre in an attempt to recruit new members. A source in the group told Newsnight that they had uncovered a plot by Hizb ut-Tahrir’s members to attack the synagogue.

Croydon Guardian, 27 November 2006

Update:  See “BBC Newsnight and File on 4 misled public in their allegations about Hizb ut-Tahrir”, Islamophobia Watch, 1 August 2007

‘Pray-in’ protesters decry imams’ removal from flight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Protesting the removal of six imams from a US Airways flight last week, a group of Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders staged a “pray-in” Monday near the airline’s ticket counter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The six men, who had attended a national conference of Islamic scholars, were detained at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Nov. 20. Those attending Monday’s protest said the incident smacked of racial profiling because three of the men had been observed praying in the departure area.

“We are in a place in our society where xenophobia seems to win out,” said Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, after the protest. “The last time I checked, public prayer was still protected by the U.S. Constitution,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Los Angeles Times, 28 November 2006

Meanwhile, US right-wingers have vociferously defended the decision to eject the imams from the plane. One typical contribution reads: “Anyone who’s made a habit of watching world events the past five years has had good reason to develop a healthy fear of Islam. When Islam makes the news, it’s usually because one of its adherents has blown himself up in a pizzeria, beheaded a newsman or crashed an airliner into a skyscraper.”

Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com, 27 November 2006

Generating more heat than light

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma addressing rally“Unfortunately, despite the intentions of its authors, I fear that their focus on attacking the currently dominant faith organisations will generate more heat than light. In conflating HT with the BNP as if they both pose equal threats to race relations; in echoing in all but name the charge of ‘Islamofascist’ against organisations like MCB; in regurgitating, along with the government and rightwing tabloids, the spectre of sinister self-appointed Muslim community leaders who keep the their foot firmly on the neck of their communities; the manifesto only serves to add more layers of confusion than strip them away.”

Salma Yaqoob responds to the “New Generation Network manifesto”.

Comment is Free, 28 November 2006