Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

Muslims call for calm after Mosque attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders have called for calm after a series of attacks on mosques in the wake of the London bombings. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a letter to leaders of Muslim communities: “We know that there may be some unscrupulous elements in our society who may look upon Thursday’s carnage as a morbid opportunity to attack and undermine British Muslims, their institutions and mosques.”

There were reports of arson and criminal damage attacks on mosques in east and south London, Bristol, Leeds, Telford and Birkenhead. Police were investigating several other attacks on Asians that may have been linked to the bombings.

Police have increased patrols in Muslim areas of Bristol and were meeting community leaders to reassure them that they were making every effort to protect them from further attacks.

On Friday evening bottles were thrown at the Jamia mosque in the Totterdown district of Bristol. At about the same time a mosque and an Islamic school in Mile End, east London, had their windows smashed.

A similar incident took place on Sunday at the Shajalal mosque in Easton, Bristol, where stones were thrown at its windows in the early hours. No one was hurt in the attacks.

Independent, 11 July 2005

Mosques attacked by arsonists as Asians fear surge of race hate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mosques attacked by arsonists as Asians fear surge of race hate

By Robert Verkaik

Independent, 11 July 2005

The terrorist attacks in London have provoked reprisal attacks on Asians. Police are investigating several incidents, including four arson attacks on mosques, that may have been motivated by revenge.

The arson attacks were carried out in mosques in Leeds, Belvedere, Telford and Birkenhead. Three further attacks were reported on mosques in east London and Bristol. In the attack on the east London mosque, 19 windows were smashed, according to the newspaper The Muslim News.

In Hayes, Middlesex, an Asian woman reported attempted arson after she noticed “liquid dripping down her door and smelt petrol” on the day of the terrorist attacks in London. The same day, five white men were arrested after bottles were thrown at the windows of a Sikh temple in south London. In a separate incident, arson was reported at the home of an Asian family in The Broadway, Southall.

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Muslims see more abuse after London attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims have been subjected to a higher than usual level of abuse since Thursday’s bomb attacks in London, police and Muslim groups said on Sunday.

But they have also received thousands of messages of support from non-Muslims who recognise the vast majority of the country’s 1.6 million Muslims have no sympathy for those who carried out the attacks.

Three Islamist groups have claimed responsibility for the blasts, which government ministers said bore the hallmarks of the Islamic militant al Qaeda network.

Police said one person was assaulted and seriously injured in London in what they described as a hate crime, and Muslims reported attacks on several mosques.

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Muslims fear hate attacks in wake of bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A backlash against British Muslims began almost immediately as news of the bomb explosions spread. The Muslim Council of Britain received more than 1,000 emails containing threats and messages of hate, several reading: “It’s now war on Muslims throughout Britain.”

Government planning for how to cope with a terrorist attack has included how police and the authorities will calm community tensions and crack down on any surge in hate crimes directed at British Muslims.

Last night an emergency meeting was held of the Muslim Safety Forum, where top police officers and representatives of Muslim communities meet to discuss the policing of terrorism and other issues.

Azad Ali, chair of the MSF, said: “This is the biggest test for community relations. The years of planning, of ifs and buts – now the time has come. Our concern is of the potential backlash. We have already received numerous reports of spitting, verbal abuse and attacks.”

Guardian, 8 July 2005

See also ‘Religion has no part in this’, by Sher Khan of the MCB: Guardian, 8 July 2005

And Tariq Ali, who argues that “The principal cause of this violence is the violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world. And unless this is recognised, the horrors will continue.” Also in the Guardian, 8 July 2005

Muslim leaders fear revenge attacks by the extreme Right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders voiced fears yesterday that racist right-wing groups are already seeking to stir up hatred against their community after the bomb attacks.

Talks were being held with police and local authorities to ensure the security of mosques and areas where there are large Islamic populations.

Although the Government emphasised that it would not “jump to conclusions” about responsibility for the attacks, there was a grim acceptance among many community leaders that the perpetrators would turn out to be extremists linked to their religion.

All the large Muslim groups in Britain swiftly condemned the bombings, which they said were contrary to Islam’s highest principles of peace, justice and humanity.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary- general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The evil people who planned and carried out this series of explosions want to demoralise us as a nation and divide us as a people. All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers. We must remember the victims will have been people of all faiths, all races and many nationalities.”

But he later told The Times that his organisation had received thousands of e-mails from right-wing extremists threatening revenge. Sir Iqbal said: “One, which is particularly awful, reads, ‘It’s now war on Muslims throughout Britain’. These messages are all being copied and sent on to the police.

“We are advising our community to remain calm but vigilant. There are elements who will want to exploit this tragedy. In the meantime we will do everything we can to ensure that those responsible for the bombs are brought to justice.”

The British National Party immediately predicted that an Islamic terrorist group would be shown to have been behind the attacks, which would “undoubtedly lead to a fall out” in politics, increasing pressure on Tony Blair’s policy in the Middle East and his stance on immigration or asylum issues.

The party claimed that Nick Griffin, its chairman, who faces trial on criminal charges for inciting racial hatred, could be vindicated by the events of yesterday morning. In a statement it said that Mr Griffin had specifically referred to attacks on soft targets by suicide bombers who were either asylum-seekers or second generation Muslims recruited in places such as Bradford. It added: “If these bomb blasts are indeed the work of Islamic fundamentalists, the prosecution case is likely to collapse. No one is likely to be convinced that crying wolf is unlawful when the wolf has just run riot through the lambs’ pen.”

Times, 8 July 2005

Muslim leaders join condemnation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders have condemned the terror attacks on London and called for full co-operation with police.
Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Inayat Bunglawala called on worshippers to pray for victims at Friday prayers.

And Ahmed Sheikh, president of the Muslim Association of Britain, said he feared a backlash and added that the Muslim community would feel less safe. He warned that Muslims, especially women in headscarves, might fall prey to vigilante attacks..

BBC News, 7 July 2005

See also Islam Online, 7 July 2005

Arizona paper cleared over ‘kill Muslims’ letter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Arizona state Supreme Court ruled on Friday a Tucson newspaper could not be held liable for publishing a letter that urged people to kill Muslims to retaliate for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. Arizona’s highest court found unanimously the Tucson Citizen was protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and could not be sued for printing the letter in December 2003.

The lawsuit, filed by Aly W. Elleithee and Wali Yudeen S. Abdul Rahim, stemmed from a three-paragraph letter in the Citizen that called for quick retaliation for soldiers’ deaths. “Whenever there is an assassination or another atrocity, we should proceed to the closest mosque and execute five of the first Muslims we encounter,” the letter said. “After all, this is a ‘Holy War’ and although such a procedure is not fair or just, it might end the horror.”

Reuters, 1 July 2005

We look forward to articles by Nick Cohen and Melanie Phillips applauding the Arizona Supreme Court for its principled defence of the right to free speech.

Postscript:  Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer’s admirers are already rallying to the defence of democratic values. One comment reads:

“If one has been following the sad situation of the repression of free speech in European countries, the UK, parts of Australia, and even Canada, in which authors of books, pastors, politicians, and citizens are being prosecuted as vilipends for ‘insulting or defaming Islam’, one would note that the loss of ancient rights, such as free speech, began with actions such as the one attempted by Aly W. Elleithee and Wali Yudeen S. Abdul Rahim.”

Dhimmi Watch, 3 July 2005

UN officials seek Guantánamo Bay visit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Manfred NowakGENEVA — U.N. human rights investigators, citing “persistent and credible” reports of torture at the U.S. base in Guantánamo Bay, urged the United States on Thursday to allow them to check conditions there.

The failure of the United States to respond to requests since early 2002 is leading the experts to conclude Washington has something to hide at the Cuban base, said Manfred Nowak, a specialist on torture and a professor of human rights law in Vienna, Austria. “At a certain point, you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government,” Nowak said.

Associated Press, 23 June 2005

We need this law to fight hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We need this law to fight hatred

By Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting

Evening Standard, 21 June 2005

It is, if its critics are to believed, a grievous threat both to our freedom of speech and to the nation’s cherished sense of humour. As such, the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which has its second reading in Parliament today, has been derided as dangerous, politically cynical, and most of all, as unnecessary. So why do so few of my fellow Muslims see it that way?

Debating the Bill, Muslims tend to think not of vicar jokes but of incidents like one in a charity shop in Shepherd’s Bush recently, where a white, British Muslim woman was told by another customer: “You may be English, but you married a f***ing Muslim.”

We think not about alleged political calculations, but about the dangers faced, for example, by one woman recently attacked in the street in north-west London while wearing Muslim dress. She was warned sympathetically by the nurse who treated her injuries: “You have to take off this scarf. Every month we get several cases like you who come for treatment.”

Indeed Muslims might tend to question the extent of freedom of speech when simply going out dressed recognisably as a Muslim can invite assault. Many reported cases involve Muslim women having their headscarves forcibly pulled off and or having alcohol thrown at them. In one incident, a schoolgirl had her headscarf pulled off by a parent of another child at the school gates, to the sound of laughter from those watching.

All these incidents happened because these Londoners were Muslims. It was not about the colour of their skin but the religion they follow.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is not about gagging comedians or curbing criticism of any religion. It is about giving Muslims and other followers of religions the same protection from hate crimes as, for example, black people.

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Rotterdam mosque gutted in latest anti-Muslim arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AMSTERDAM — A mosque was gutted by an arson attack in the west of Rotterdam in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Police have said the inside of the Shaan-e-Islam prayer room in a warehouse on the Aleidisstraat has been destroyed.

The mosque is linked to the Dutch Muslim association NMA and is mainly frequented by members of the Surinamese community.

Several slogans were clearly visible on the outside walls of the building in news footage of the building on Wednesday morning. The message in one of the slogans read: “geen moskee in Zuid” (no mosque in south). Another was the word “Lonsdale” along with a cross in a circle, a far-right symbol.

Some Dutch right-wingers, particularly teenagers with fascist sympathises, have a preference for clothing made by the Lonsdale clothing company in the UK because the middle letters of the brand name — nsda — call to mind Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, NSDAP.

Another slogan “Theo R.I.P.” which was daubed on the wall of the mosque is a reference to filmmaker and Muslim critic Theo van Gogh.

Expatica, 15 June 2005