Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

Years after 9-11, American Muslims increasingly targets of hate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Sometimes it takes a real yahoo to wake up a village. So, just wanted to say thanks to the person who sent Altaf Ali, executive director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a death threat last week. It carried the usual ‘Death to Islam’ rantings. But this one also had the chilling message: ‘Altaf Ali is a walking dead man.’

“Good job. We needed the wake-up call. Needed to remember that, six years after 9-11, Muslims in America continue to be the targets of violence and abuse. We especially need it now, with President Bush threatening a veto of legislation that would expand the national hate crime law.”

Ralph de la Cruz in the Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8 May 2007

Preston mosque attacked

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A councillor has condemned vandals who attacked a Preston mosque which has been at the centre of a planning row.

The windows of the Masjid-E-Salaam mosque in Fulwood have been smashed three times in the past six weeks. This follows the approval of controversial plans to demolish the current building in Watling Street Road, to make way for a large, traditional looking mosque and Islamic school in the conservation area.

College ward councillor Bobby Cartwright said: “It’s absolutely appalling. The people who have done this should be found and reprimanded. The people who have done this should be found and reprimanded.”

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Florida mosque burns – arson suspected

Posted on by Bob Pitt

TAMPA – The fire melted the mosque’s photographs, burned the thick, green carpet down to bare concrete. A pile of singed prayer rugs sat on the floor. Bookcases along a wall held dozens of scorched Korans. Outside, investigators discovered a can of gasoline, said Hillsborough Fire Rescue spokesman Ray Yeakley.

Someone deliberately set fire Thursday morning to the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, a mosque tucked into a neighborhood of tidy suburban homes in Town ‘N Country, according to Hillsborough Fire Rescue and the FBI. Whether hate fueled the fire remained under investigation, said FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier.

The arsonist found the building empty when the blaze began about 9:30 a.m. Fire crews say someone poured gasoline in a window and set it ablaze. A neighbor called 911, and fire crews controlled the fire within 20 minutes, Yeakley said.

The fire stunned Hamid Faraji, one of the center’s leaders. He wondered why someone would burn a place of worship. But, he said, the fire won’t disrupt religious services. “Even if we had a tent and had to operate out of a tent, I don’t believe something as materialistic as that should stop education,” said Faraji.

There’s been trouble before at the mosque, a block building on Rockpointe Drive. In July 2005, burglars vandalized the building. They burned two pictures on the wall. No one was arrested. There also have been two minor break-ins – the most recent was nine months ago – where people shifted things around inside the building, said Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for the Tampa office of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

There are those with concerns about the mosque, said Bruce Tokarski, 26, a neighbor. “Some of the neighbors seem kind of freaked out about it,” he said. “I think there’s a racist assumption that just because they’re Muslim they could be involved in, you know, terrorism.”

Tampa Bay Times, 13 April 2007

Asylum seeker and baby sexually attacked in Glasgow

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Algerian woman and her one-year-old baby were sexually assaulted in broad daylight in Glasgow in a racially aggravated attack.

The 33-year-old woman was pushing her son in his pram through the Yoker area of the city when a group of young men threw stones at them and kicked the woman. One man then exposed himself, indecently assaulted the woman and attempted to perform an indecent act on the one-year-old boy.

The woman, who cannot be identified, had her headscarf torn from her head. She escaped by snatching her son from his pram and running away, leaving behind the pram, headscarf and a baby’s bottle.

She took her son to hospital and he was released later that day. Her son was assaulted but she rescued him before the man could commit any sexual act.

Police are appealing for the young men involved to come forward and identify the man who committed the assault. The suspect is described as a white male, aged 20 to 25, with very short hair, who is tall and thin. He was wearing white and blue track suit trousers.

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Mosque imam fears fire was arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Madni Masjid MosqueA Nottingham mosque has been severely damaged in a fire described by a leading imam as “an act of terrorism against Muslims”.

Police and fire investigators are trying to determine the exact cause of the blaze at the Madni Masjid Mosque on Alberta Terrace in Forest Fields. Imam Raza ul Haq said he believed paint was thrown around the inside of the mosque and then set alight.

The fire, which started on Thursday night, is being treated as suspicious. “It’s not fair. It’s our understanding and belief that this is an act of terrorism against the Muslims,” Imam Haq said. “It’s completely something which people have done deliberately. Someone has entered the building – he has thrown the paint all over the place.”

More than 900 people worship at the converted church which has been used as a mosque for at least 20 years.

BBC News, 6 April 2007

‘Anti-Muslim rhetoric’ cited after vandalism at Arizona mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center TucsonOfficials with the Islamic Center of Tucson say a recent rise in “anti-Muslim rhetoric” may have spurred vandalism at the University of Arizona-area mosque.

Tucson Police Department detectives are investigating a Sunday-night break-in at the mosque during which someone smashed the lock on a side door, broke an office window, ransacked the office and wrote “Bush was here” in magic marker across a computer screen. Nothing was stolen, mosque officials said.

Mosque spokesman Muhammad As’ad said it’s possible Sunday’s break-in was a hate crime. “There’s an increasing obsession with Islam that’s been stirred up by a small cadre of people,” he said. “The obsession is growing because of events overseas. We deplore the hate speech going on. After all, Muslims, like Christians, are encouraged to love their neighbors.”

As’ad said an example of the “anti-Muslim rhetoric” was former CNN reporter Steven Emerson’s December lecture at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Though he denied the accusations, local Muslims accused Emerson of being a disingenuous “fear-monger” who carelessly interchanges the words “Muslim” and “terrorist.”

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No.10 website carries threats of violence against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The extreme right have threatened violence against Muslims on Downing Street’s website in a protest over a proposed Mosque. The British National Party and other neo-Nazi groups are supporting a petition on No.10’s website which warns, ominously, of “terrible violence and suffering” should the so-called mega mosque go ahead. This is certain to be taken as a warning that physical violence could be unleashed against Muslims unless the dissenters get their way and defeat plans to build a mosque on the Olympic site in Stratford, east London.

Blink is encouraging readers to complain to No.10 over the reference to “terrible violence and suffering” if the mosque is built. Please email webmaster@pmo.gov.uk and ask for these words to be removed or failing that, the whole petition taken off line

BLINK, 5 April 2007

Muslim worker threatened in South Carolina

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the FBI to investigate alleged threats against a Muslim worker in South Carolina as a possible hate crime.

The 66-year-old Muslim worker told the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that fellow employees at a BMW Manufacturing Co. plant in Spartanburg, S.C., have repeatedly made Islamophobic comments such as, 1) “Muslims are no good. They should all be killed,” and 2) “We will f**k up your family, we’ll kill you all.” Other comments allegedly disparaged Islamic attire and suggested that Muslim women be raped. According to the Muslim employee, one of the abusive co-workers confronted him in a facility restroom on March 31st and put a box-cutter to his throat, saying: “I’ll slice your throat and kill you.”

The Muslim employee says company officials did not take appropriate action against the assailant when the incident was first reported.

CAIR news release, 2 April 2007