Update from the Institute of Race Relations.
Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence
Nuke Mecca? Nope
Robert Spencer reassures us that he doesn’t support nuclear attacks on Islam’s holy sites. Aside from anything else, “it contravenes Western principles of justice which, if discarded willy-nilly, would remove a key reason why we fight at all: to preserve Western ideas of justice and human rights that are denied by the Islamic Sharia law so beloved of jihad terrorists”.
Front Page Magazine, 28 July 2005
Well, we certainly look forward to Spencer explaining how the proposal made by his colleague Rebecca Bynum yesterday – that terrorist outrages should be met with reciprocal attacks on Muslim civilians – can be implemented while remaining true to those well-established Western principles of justice and human rights.
And it’s worth noting that Spencer’s supporters are quite taken aback by his refusal to support what they regard as Tancredo’s perfectly reasonable call for nuclear retaliation. See Jihad Watch, 28 July 2005
Take off hijab to avoid harm: UK Muslim scholar
A leading British Muslim scholar has said that Muslim women living in the European country, where Muslims have been suffering mounting abuse and harassment since the July 7 London attacks, can take off their hijab.
“I have issued a fatwa that Muslim women in Britain have an Islamic right to take off their hijab at this point of time if attacked or fearing to be attacked,” Dr. Zaki Badawi, the Dean of the Muslim College in London, told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the British capital.
Badawi said they have registered more than 1500 assaults against hijab-clad women during the past three days only, in addition to a flood of threat letters.
He asserted that in Islam hijab is originally meant to identify Muslim women, so that they might not be attacked or harassed. The scholar cited the Qur’anic verse which reads: “O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.” (Al-Ahzab: 59)
“If hijab becomes a reason of harm for Muslim women in Britain at this time, then I tell them to take it off so that they would not be recognized and consequently attacked,” said Egyptian-born Badawi. “Muslims (in Britain) are scared and each feels he/she is a suspect. The picture is, indeed, gloomy and we are trying all we can to address it.”
Hate crimes ‘rise after UK bombs’
The number of attacks on Asians has risen significantly since the London bombings, police and Muslim groups say. The number reported to the Islamic Human Rights Commission – not including those reported to police – has risen more than 13-fold, its chairman said. The total number of “faith-related” attacks reported across London rose 500% compared with the same period last year, the Muslim Safety Forum says.
This “backlash” is “exactly what those who promote terrorism want” police say. Association of Chief Police Officers community and counter-terrorism head Assistant Chief Constable Rob Beckley told BBC News the police would protect Asians and Muslims. “We have to, and we will, sustain a response to this.”
The police have gone to great lengths to stress those suspected of involvement in the bombings are not from any single ethnic group.
But the Muslim Safety Forum, which works closely with the police monitoring the total number of incidents reported, blames “prominent people within our society” and the media for saying all British Muslims share something in common with the bombers. A spokesman told BBC News “bigots” now felt they had the “right to commit these atrocities”. The 7 July bombings were “a single criminal act” and all British Muslims could not be held responsible, he added.
British Muslims would not continue to allow themselves to be victimised and criminalised without a further “backlash” from them, the spokesman told BBC News.
Nuke Mecca? Don’t rule it out, says Jihad Watch
Rebecca Bynum proposes the killing of Muslim civilians in retaliation for terrorist bombings:
To fight a terrorist war waged by Muslim civilians, we have no choice but to impose retaliatory measures on Muslim civilians, thereby impeding the advance of Islam, for that is the only thing the Islamic terrorists value, and this is by the standards of Islam they follow. Human life is, for true believing Muslims, famously Hobbesian – ‘nasty, brutish and short’ affair. Human life is not something cherished by Muslims; to be nurtured and preserved above all things, the way it is in our own Judeo-Christian tradition. The ideal Muslim life is one that is sacrificed for Islam. Therefore, we must make certain kinds of Muslim sacrifice, namely suicide bombings designed to kill infidels, totally untenable, and so damaging to the umma, the Community of Believers, and so damaging to the other instruments of Jihad, that the terrorism will cease, or be severely limited in scope.
Are these people seriously loopy, or what? We look forward to Melanie Phillips (who appears to have developed a mutual admiration for Jihad Watch) taking up this suggestion in her next Daily Mail column.
Two-thirds of Muslims consider leaving UK
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have thought about leaving Britain after the London bombings, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll. The figure illustrates how widespread fears are of an anti-Muslim backlash following the July 7 bombings which were carried out by British born suicide bombers.
The poll also shows that tens of thousands of Muslims have suffered from increased Islamophobia, with one in five saying they or a family member have faced abuse or hostility since the attacks.
Police have recorded more than 1,200 suspected Islamophobic incidents across the country ranging from verbal abuse to one murder in the past three weeks. The poll suggests the headline figure is a large underestimate.
Religious hate crimes rise fivefold
The number of faith-hate crimes, predominantly directed at British Muslims, has passed the 200 mark. In the same fortnight last year, 30 faith-hate incidents were reported by the Met. Nationally, the figure for hate incidents directed at Muslims has passed 1,200 as a backlash continues. The figures are almost certainly lower than the actual level, with studies showing hate crimes are under reported by a factor of four.
See also “The main thing we feel is fear, 24/7”, Guardian 23 July 2005
The anti-Muslim backlash continues
The Institute of Race Relations provides a further compilation of press reports about the post-7/7 backlash against British Muslims.
IRR news summary, 21 July 2005
Increases in hate crimes against Muslims are also reported in the South West and Wales.
For BBC reports see here, here and here.
The statement by one of the interviewees that the London atrocities were “nothing to do with Islam” reduces Robert Spencer to apoplexy:
“How long will Muslims and multiculturalists keep saying this? How long will a gullible public keep buying it? When will the denial end about exactly why these bombers are killing themselves and others, and how such bombers are recruited? Is Britain and the West going to play the dhimmi intellectually and morally all the way up to the time that it becomes necessary to assume the dhimmi role not just in metaphor but in reality?”
Enormous upsurge in anti-Muslim backlash
The Islamic Human Rights Commission is sad to announce that there has been a huge upsurge in the number of Islamophobic incidents reported to it in the two weeks following the London bombings.
Media blamed for Islam’s image
The misperception of Islam that led to the attacks on six Auckland mosques two weeks ago was fuelled by negative media portrayal of the faith, Auckland’s Muslim community says.
Last night at Ponsonby Mosque, Government and police officials re-iterated their support for New Zealand’s Muslim community in the wake of the mosque attacks on on July 10. The acts were an apparent backlash for the bombings in London three days earlier.
Ethnic Affairs Minister Chris Carter, Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary and Police Commissioner Rob Robinson joined other officials to hear the concerns of about 50 leaders and members of Auckland’s Muslim community.
The Muslim community was united in thanking the Government for its support and the police for their swift arrest following the attacks. But the loudest applause followed their own comments condemning the mainstream media’s portrayal of Islam.