Ruqayyah Collector, black students’ officer for the National Union of Students, speaks to Socialist Worker:
“A climate has been created where Muslim students are worried about their safety. I personally know people who are now afraid to travel around, who are only going to their lectures. You hear comments on buses like, ‘You have to speak English here now’, or ‘You’re not allowed to wear those headscarves now’. This is part of a wider shift that has taken place in society.”
“Scripture is not silent about the worship of false gods.” The right-wing fundamentalists of Christian Voice have joined the campaign against the Abbey Mills markaz.
A Hernando County commissioner said Tuesday that he is “in total agreement” with a letter his wife wrote calling Islam a “hateful, frightening religion.”
“Overall, worldwide, it certainly is,” said Commissioner Tom Hogan Sr. “Don’t you read your own paper?” He went on to say, “There’s a saying out there, and there’s some truth to it, that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. It’s their thing.”
The Hogans are widely considered the first couple of Hernando County’s Republican Party, and both have helped lead the party since the 1960s. Their comments earned wide condemnation Tuesday from political colleagues.
Local Muslim leaders reacted with shock and dismay, with one Islamic advocacy group saying it will call for Hogan’s ouster from the County Commission.
“We’re deeply concerned about the hateful and racist nature of these comments,” said Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, promising to call on Gov. Jeb Bush to remove Hogan from office.
“They can call it whatever they want to,” Mary Ann Hogan responded Tuesday. “I’m calling them barbarians.”
St Petersburg Times, 31 October 2006
Update: “CAIR-FL: Gubernatorial candidate asked to remove Muslim-basher”, CAIR press release, 3 November 2006
Update 2: See “FL gubernatorial candidate drops Islamophobe”, CAIR press release, 3 November 2006
Police are calling it a vicious hate crime. The victim is Pakistani and his alleged attackers are a group of Jewish teenagers. The victim is at Bellevue Hospital where he is recovering. He tells us the doctors here have informed him that he will require reconstructive facial surgery.
“They were saying you Muslim terrorist..get out of the country,” Shahid Amber said.
Those are the words that 24-year-old Shahid Amber says preceded a violent attack by a mob of teenagers – an attack prosecutors are now calling a hate crime. “One of them spit in my face and then when I wipe the spit off my face, I opened my eyes and saw brass knuckles,” he said.
The incident happened Sunday night in the Midwood section of Brooklyn right outside a Dunkin’ Doughnuts near the corner of Avenue M and East 15th Street.
Shahid Amber, who is Pakistani, was standing outside eating ice cream when witnesses say he was surrounded by a group of Jewish teenagers who attacked him. This man saw it happen. “He was Pakistani, he came inside with all the blood on his face…” the man said.
An eight-year old-boy was left terrified by racist thugs who punched him in the face and pulled off his mosque cap. Mohammed Tamazul was attacked whilst on his way to his uncle’s home on Stockport Road Levenshulme, Manchester where friends and family gathered for special evening Ramadan prayers. As he made his way Mohammed noticed three teenage boys following him on mountain bikes. One of them got off and asked if he was Muslim. When he didn’t reply the lout pulled his cap and started throwing kicks and punches at him before riding off again.
Mohammed’s dad Tamazul Miah said he believed the attack was a result of the negative media coverage of the Muslim community. Father of four, Mr Miah said: “My son was targeted because he is a Muslim, I can’t see any other reason. This has never happened to him or any of my other children before. My son was left shaking after the incident. He told me that whilst they were attacking him, the other two thugs were laughing and encouraging their friend to carry on. They were also saying to their friend ‘get the Muslim’.
“It was nine at night and very dark so nobody saw the incident. When they left, Mohammed called me on my mobile and I went out to get him. He was left shaken and frightened. The boys were much bigger than he was. My son is only eight-years-old – this was a cowardly attack.” Mohammed was left with bruises around his eyes and is now frightened to go out.
Mr Miah added: “Though my son went through a terrifying ordeal, he realises that not all white people are the same. We have some brilliant non-Muslim neighbours who were shocked when they found out.
Yorkshire anti-fascist activists will gather at Leeds Crown Court this morning when two leading BNP members arrive to face a retrial on race-hate allegations. BNP leader Nick Griffin and party activist Mark Collett have been summoned to reappear at the court, which cleared the pair of two charges back in January but failed to reach a verdict on two other indictments.
The case arose from remarks made by each individual during speeches to supporters back in 2004, which were secretly recorded by a documentary team and broadcast on national television. After describing immigrants to Britain as “cockroaches,” Mr Collett ended his address by appealing to fellow party members to “show the ethnics the door in 2004,” while Mr Griffin was filmed branding Islam a “wicked, vicious faith.”
Anti-fascist campaigners have called on local people to show their opposition to the racist politics of the BNP by rallying outside the court building this morning from 9am. Urging the largest possible turnout, Yorkshire and Humberside UAF chairman John Campbell said: “It is vital that we have a large united presence at this peaceful anti-fascist rally.”
Teaching union NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates added: “These public demonstrations against the BNP and its leaders send a clear message that the pernicious views and activities of such groups will not be tolerated. NASUWT is participating in this demonstration because those who support racist and fascist agendas must be exposed and opposed.”
Morning Star, 1 November 2006
The Wales TUC joined forces with the Muslim Council of Wales (MCW) last night to recruit more Muslims into trade unions and battle racism. In a joint statement pledging to work together to combat the scourge of Islamophobia, they said that “WTUC and the Muslim Council of Wales will work together in support of workplace justice and against Islamophobia.”
The statement notes that, “by combining together, we will be able to achieve more towards those objectives we share in common than we can do by acting alone.” It stresses: “The shared belief of the MCW and Wales TUC in justice, equality and opposition to prejudice is matched by our belief that these objectives can be better achieved in the workplace. We believe it is in the interests of workers to join the appropriate trade union at their workplace and that employers should recognise such unions.”
“… the British government’s fixation with the attire of Muslim women and British Muslims in general has done nothing except to embolden racist and Islamaphobic elements within society.” Ismaeel Nakhuda replies to Jack Straw.
“The terrorist son of hook-handed Abu Hamza has been working on London’s Tube, The Sun can reveal. Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25 – a convicted fanatic who has glorified suicide attacks like the 7/7 slaughter – was rumbled by Underground workmates when they saw his picture in The Sun.
“They went straight to bosses, who told Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25, to sling his hook. But last night fury erupted over the security shambles that led to the convicted terrorist being granted astonishing access to London’s Tube network.”
The “convicted terrorist” label stems from the fact that Mohammed Kamel Mostafa served three years in prison in Yemen from 1999-2002 for a terrorism-associated offence. Regarding this case, the US State Department wrote:
“Eight Britons and two Algerians who were arrested in December 1998 were tried from February to August 1999 in Aden on charges of possessing illegal weapons and explosives and conspiring to commit terrorist acts. The 6-month trial did not meet minimum international standards for due process. Defense lawyers claimed that the prosecution lacked adequate evidence, and that the defendants were tortured, sexually abused, and denied access to their lawyers….”
US State Department reports on human rights practices, 2000: Yemen
“The retrial of the Free Speech Two, Nick Griffin and Mark Collett starts in Leeds tomorrow (November 1st). Both men are facing charges of using words likely to incite racial hatred for daring to criticise the failed experiment of multiculturalism and describe the alien religion of Islam as a ‘wicked faith’. A charge which seems utterly ludicrous in the context of all that has been perpetrated in the name of Allah at home and abroad in recent years, never mind the centuries of conflict and bloodshed in the Middle East, North Africa, Iberia and the Balkans.
“For daring to stand up and tell the truth about the threat in our midst the two accused could face up to seven years in prison in a court in a supposed western democracy where ‘the truth is no defence’; a situation akin to the Inquisition or the witchcraft trials of the 17th century.”