Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

FOIA documents show FBI using ‘Mosque Outreach’ for intelligence gathering

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ACLUFor several years, the FBI’s San Francisco office conducted a “Mosque Outreach” program through which it collected and illegally stored intelligence about American Muslims’ First Amendment-protected beliefs and religious practices, according to government documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

The San Francisco FBI’s own documents show that it recorded Muslim religious leaders’ and congregants’ identities, personal information and religious views and practices. The documents also show that the FBI labeled this information as “positive intelligence” and disseminated it to other government agencies, placing the people and organizations involved at risk of greater law enforcement scrutiny as potential national security threats. None of the documents indicate that the FBI told individuals interviewed that their information and views were being collected as intelligence and would be recorded and disseminated.

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Scholars slam France over Qaradawi ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and Mayor 2France has come under fierce criticism from an international body of Muslim scholars over denying prominent scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi entry into the southern European country to attend a major Islamic conference.

“We are surprised, and we admonish France for refusing to grant Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi a visa,” Sheikh Ali al-Qaradaghi, the secretary general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, March 27. “He is a moderate scholar who contributed to combating extremism in Islamic thoughts.”

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UOIF defends Qaradawi, opposes Sarkozy’s ban, accuses government of capitulation to Front National

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UOIF logoThe Union of French Islamic Organisations is surprised at the current controversy provoked by a statement by the National Front spreading inaccurate information about Sheikh Qaradawi when he has visited France and Europe on several occasions.

The UOIF regrets that the climate of suspicion toward the Muslim community is the source of a controversy over information that has been available for months.

Sheikh Qaradawi is a man of peace and tolerance who has worked for openness and moderation and whose positions are always in favour of justice and peoples’ freedom. He was received by Pope Jean-Paul II and for several years has carried out work on interfaith dialogue with Jewish and Christian communities around the world.

He exercises a positive influence in the Muslim world and is continually attacked by extremist movements because of his modern positions in favour of democracy, women’s rights and dialogue between civilisations.

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Islamophobia: We need to accept the ‘other’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We’re witnessing a surge of virulent Islamophobia in Europe, especially in the Netherlands and some parts of Scandinavia. And sadly, this seems to have crossed the Atlantic.

In 2002, a survey of Canadian Muslims by the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations found that 56 per cent of respondents had experienced at least one anti-Muslim incident in the 12-month period since 9/11. Mosques or mosque construction sites in Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, Waterloo and Vancouver have been targeted by vandals. In January, anti-Islamic graffiti were spray-painted on the walls of the Outaouais Islamic Centre in Gatineau, Que. – the third such attack in four months.

Karen Armstrong writes in the Globe and Mail, 26 March 2012

West Sacramento Islamic Center vandalized again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The West Sacramento Islamic Center was vandalized overnight and leaders there are calling it a hate crime.

The center is under construction, being rebuilt, but leaders fear it won’t ever get done if someone doesn’t stop damaging their sacred place.

Abdul Karim Yusufzai on Saturday showed CBS13 the damage done by vandals, vandals he’s convinced are filled with hate. “It is hate,” he said. “They know this is a community center, a religious building.”

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Catholic group urges TAPPS review

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The organization that represents Texas’ Catholic high schools on Thursday called for a comprehensive review of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, calling TAPPS’ treatment of Jewish and Muslim schools unacceptable.

“Failure to sufficiently improve the structure and management of TAPPS will require a re-examination of our 43 Catholic schools’ continued affiliation with TAPPS,” wrote Margaret McGettrick, education director of the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department.

Houston Chronicle‎, 23 March 2012

Thousands mobilise against planned anti-Islam Denmark demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Several thousand people turned out for an open-air concert in Denmark’s second city of Aarhus on Wednesday to protest against a far-right anti-Islam rally planned for March 31, officials said.

Aarhus city officials said they organised the concert as a way of showing the city’s tolerance and because “Aarhus does not want to be associated with extremist groups” that represent “everything we want to distance ourselves from.” Around 5,000 people attended Wednesday’s concert, a spokesman for the mayor’s office said.

Far-right groups from across Europe are scheduled to meet in Aarhus on March 31 for an anti-Islam rally organised by the Danish Defence League, a sister organisation of the English Defence League.

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More than half of Canadians mistrust Muslims, poll says

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than half of all Canadians believe Muslims can’t be trusted and nearly as many believe discrimination against Muslims is “mainly their fault,” according to the results of a new national survey released ahead of Wednesday’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The online poll of 1,522 Canadians, commissioned by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies and Toronto-based Canadian Race Relations Foundation, also highlights how Canadians see the Internet as by far the leading conduit for racism in the country, and that more than one-third of respondents say they’ve “witnessed a racist incident” in the past year.

ACS executive director Jack Jedwab described the results as a “disturbing” sign that racism not only remains a problem in the country but that many Canadians feel comfortable holding transparently discriminatory views, then saying things like: “If we feel this way about you, it’s your fault.”

Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, said the findings provide more reasons to promote better inter-faith and inter-cultural relations and to “build bridges among different communities” in Canada to combat discrimination. “This is also more evidence that the Internet has become the major vehicle for spreading hatred and prejudice,” he said.

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