Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

Racial slurs used during assault on Palestinian students in North Carolina

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the FBI to investigate a group assault on three Palestinian students in North Carolina as a possible hate crime.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the students were allegedly assaulted by “at least 15 members” of the Guilford College football team. During the attack, the assailants reportedly called the students “terrorists” and “sand n**gers.” Two of the victims suffered severe injuries. Three Guilford College students were arrested and charged with “ethnic intimidation.”

CAIR news release, 22 January 2007

Anti-Muslim incidents on the rise at Ontario college

Posted on by Bob Pitt

McMaster University’s director of human rights and equity services is worried that racism and Islamophobia are growing on campus. Mark Walma said it is often subtle but it is affecting the environment for the school’s minorities, which include 1,500 students who are Muslim. He organized a seminar on campus yesterday to address the problem. It was attended by about 100 students. “We’ve been tracking an alarming number of racist incidents ranging from derogatory comments and opinions expressed by students and faculty to physical violence against Arab and Muslim students and it’s not a healthy climate for studying or working,” says Walma.

Hamilton Spectator, 19 January 2007

Racist attacker tried to rip veil off Muslim woman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An attacker tried to rip off the veil of a Muslim woman while racially abusing her, police said today. The 37-year-old woman was crossing a busy park near Solent University in Southampton on Thursday when a white man aged in his 20s approached her. He started shouting racial abuse and told her to remove her veil. Police said the attacker then attempted to take the veil off, but failed as the woman managed to push him and walk away.

Pc Leigh Walker said: “This attack was particularly degrading for the victim who has strong religious beliefs that don’t allow her to remove her veil in public with men around. We need to put a stop to this kind of behaviour by someone who is ignorant to the diverse society that we live in. We will not stand for any type of racial or religious abuse and will deal with anyone who does abuse or assault people like this robustly. There were plenty of people in the area as it was daytime and plenty at the nearby bus stops, so lots of people must have seen what happened.”

Daily Echo, 13 January 2007

Boy charged over fire bomb attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Medina DairyA teenager has been charged with arson in connection with a fire bomb attack on a dairy owned by a Muslim family.

The Medina Dairy in Dedworth, Berkshire, was the scene of several nights of violence in October last year. Police arrested at least eight over the disorder and put a dispersal order in place around the dairy.

The 16-year-old boy from Windsor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged over an incident on 4 October. A police spokesman said: “The charge relates to an incident at the dairy in Vale Road on the evening of 4 October 2006, where a bottle containing accelerant was allegedly thrown at the property’s front door.”

The boy has been bailed to attend Maidenhead Youth Court on Tuesday 16 January.

BBC News, 10 January 2007

Swindon mosque bomber is jailed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Swindon mosqueA racist thug who tried to firebomb a mosque and daubed sick graffiti on its walls was jailed yesterday.

Mark Bulman, 22, got five years for the attack in which he wrote “Go to Auschwitz” and “Allah is a pervert” on the building.

He also painted a Nazi swastika on its walls after smashing a window and lobbing in a petrol bomb. But it failed to explode in the empty building.

Daily Mirror, 6 January 2007

See also “Racist jailed for arson attack on mosque”, Swindon Advertiser, 6 January 2007

Another article from the Advertiser sheds a revealing light on the British National Party’s new “respectable” image. A couple of months earlier, when a teenager was convicted of an arson attack on the same mosque, a spokesman for the Swindon branch of the BNP had stated: “We just want to say that justice has been done and he deserves to be locked up for this attack on the Muslim community.” And who was this BNP spokesman? None other than Mark Bulman.

FBI: we saw shock Guantánamo abuse

Posted on by Bob Pitt

guantanamo-bayFBI agents have blown the whistle on sickening abuse of prisoners at the notorious Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.

A dossier compiled by agency bosses on guards’ conduct has been released in full for the first time. It tells how prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda sympathisers and held without charge were subjected to horrifying physical and psychological torture.

Some guards allegedly dressed as priests to “baptise” Muslim prisoners. A detainee was subjected to a degrading lap dance by a topless female guard and others had their prayers interrupted by guards splashing fluid on their faces and telling them it was menstrual blood.

An inmate was badly beaten after revealing he had recently had abdominal surgery. And several were placed in unheated, darkened cells and interrogated for 24 hours non-stop. One FBI witness reported being told that then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved this technique.

Glasgow Daily Record, 4 January 2007

The Pentagon plans no action as a result of a newly released FBI report on detainee abuse at the Guantánamo Bay military prison, a spokesman said Wednesday, asserting there is nothing new in the report.

Associated Press, 3 January 2007

Scarf race rap

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A drunk repeatedly ordered a Muslim woman to remove her hijab headscarf, a court heard yesterday. When frightened Majida Oweti – on a bus with her husband and baby – refused, Gavin Bowers threatened to rip it off. He was thrown off by the driver but made throat-slitting gestures to the woman.

Bowers, 28, earlier admitted religiously aggravated harassment. He got a 28-week suspended sentence and two years supervision at Southampton Crown Court.

The Sun, 19 December 2006

Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EUMC report December 2006Muslims are suffering physical attacks, verbal taunts and widespread discrimination as a climate of Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe.

A new report lists a host of examples of crime and intimidation from arson and suspected racist murder in Germany and Spain to pork fat being smeared on a mosque in Italy.

Thugs in Ireland beat up one man after calling him “bin Laden” while a bogus email in Denmark outlined fake primary school reforms to help migrant children. A maths question read: “Jamal has an AK47 with a 30-shot magazine. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and he wants to hit each cup 13 times, how many cups can he shoot before he needs to reload?”

The report from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia called on leaders to strengthen policies on integration, and on Muslims to “engage more actively in public life.” It also highlights the lack of reliable data, pointing out that only one country – the United Kingdom – publishes criminal justice data which specifically identify Muslims as victims of hate crime incidents.

The Muslim population of the EU is estimated to run to around 13m, around 3.5 per cent of the total. Since September 11 many feel “they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism,” according to Beate Winkler, director of the centre.

The report says that Muslims “experience various levels of discrimination and marginalisation in employment, education and housing” and are “vulnerable to manifestations of prejudice and hatred in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property.”

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‘Convert or die’ game divides US Christians

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Left BehindLiberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, two online political groups, plan to demand today that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a PC game inspired by a series of Christian novels that are hugely popular, especially with teens.

The series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is based on their interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.

In Left Behind, set in perfectly apocalyptic New York City, the Antichrist is personified by fictional Romanian Nicolae Carpathia, secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive.” Players can choose to join the Antichrist’s team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia’s side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics.

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But “Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ” – and thus can’t be on Christ’s side in the game. “That is so obvious,” he said.

San Francisco Chronicle, 12 December 2006