The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) issued a fresh warning about Islamophobic hysteria today after two men “of Middle-Eastern appearance” were forced off a British-bound flight.
Fearful passengers on board flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester demanded that staff remove them from the plane early on Wednesday. The pair were said to be guilty of “suspicious behaviour” – which amounted to being overheard speaking Arabic, wearing leather jackets on a hot day and checking their watches. Six other passengers refused to board the plane and others flounced off when they heard about it.
The two men were eventually kicked off the flight and questioned by police, before being released without charge.
IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh said that the incident was “exactly the type of thing we’ve been so concerned about.” He said:
“There is ever-increasing Islamophobia being implemented in the war on terror. It is counterproductive, not just because it’s going to alienate people who are perceived to be Muslim, but also because terrorists have shown that they will make themselves look completely different to how people perceive them to look. By profiling people on the basis of ethnicity or religion we are actually endangering our lives.”
A spokesman for Monarch Airlines said: “There were two passengers on the flight who came to the attention of the other people because they were apparently acting suspiciously.”
Morning Star, 21 August 2006
“‘A notorious pro-Israeli Islamophobe’, ‘desperate to discredit Muslims’, ‘a track record for displaying unfairness and twisting the truth’. Panorama’s leading reporter, John Ware, is not quite public enemy number one for many British Muslims – that is an accolade no doubt held by Bush or Blair – but postings such as these on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee website show he comes a close second…. He says he is one of five journalists – the others are Martin Bright, the political editor of the New Statesman, Melanie Phillips of the Daily Mail, the Observer’s Nick Cohen and the Times writer-turned-Tory MP, Michael Gove – who have been labelled by the MCB as ‘being in the vanguard of Islamophobia in this country’. ‘We don’t meet up like witches to discuss it’, jokes Ware. ‘We’ve all come to this view independently that – potentially – politics and Islam is an incendiary mix’.”
Jewish groups are concerned over a speaker addressing an Islamic conference in Manchester on Sunday. Dr Azzam Tamimi, who is one of the guest speakers at the ExpoIslamia convention, has said suicide bombings are justified in certain circumstances. Louis Rappaport, president of the Jewish Representative Council of Gtr Manchester, said Dr Tamimi would not help Jewish-Muslim relations.
British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny – refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.
“When Britain was attacked last year on 7/7 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the U.K. Within a short time, however, much of the country decided that it was Britain’s own fault on account of ‘Islamophobia’ and the war in Iraq…. From the evidence of one opinion poll this week, the British public has at least woken up to the fact that we are in the throes of a world war. Not so, however, the British establishment and chattering classes …. The unpalatable fact is that there is actually a continuum of Islamic extremism in Britain. While probably only a small number on this continuum will ever be involved in violence, too many others subscribe to odious beliefs and ideas which maintain the sea of hatred and bigotry in which terrorism swims.”