Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Political Islam and the Arab Spring: Human Rights Watch responds to secularist critics

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last month in his introduction to the Human Rights Watch annual report, Kenneth Rothurged western governments to accept that the successes of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt reflected the will of the people and to engage constructively with the elected governments.

This entirely reasonable proposal met with a fierce reaction from an alliance of secularists. The Centre for Secular Space published anopen letter to Roth denouncing his supposed capitulation to Islamist reaction. (UK readers will recognise some of the usual suspects here: One Law For All, Maryam Namazie, Gita Saghal.) Roth’s opponents have even organised an online petition calling on HRW to “support separation between religion and state”.

HRW has now sent a reply to its critics, which we reproduce here along with the original open letter.

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Bloomberg defends intelligence-gathering on Muslim communities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

New York’s mayor served notice Friday that his police department will do everything in its power to root out terrorists in the U.S., even if it means sending officers outside the city limits or placing law-abiding Muslims under scrutiny. “We just cannot let our guard down again,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned.

The mayor laid out his doctrine for keeping the city safe during his weekly radio show following a week of criticism of a secret police department effort to monitor mosques in several cities and keep files on Muslim student groups at colleges in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

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‘200 police officers’ patrol Scottish Defence League rally in Glasgow

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SDL Glasgow February 2012(2)Around “200 officers” were on hand to police an unauthorised demonstration by an extremist group on Saturday, an MSP claimed.

Police and riot vans gathered at Glasgow’s St Enoch Square to meet demonstrators from the Scottish Defence League (SDL), an anti-Islamic organisation which claims to campaign against radical Islam and Sharia.

The SDL had applied to Glasgow City Council to hold a parade through the city, but their application was withdrawn after a civic coalition of political party leaders, trade unions, religious groups and campaigners signed an open letter in protest at the march. The SDL indicated that they intended to hold a “static demonstration” instead.

Some SDL demonstrators are understood to have gathered in St Enoch subway station beneath the square shortly before 12pm. One entrance to the station was sealed off. A counter-demonstration by anti-fascist groups, trade unions and political parties also took place in nearby George Square.

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A global war on Christians in the Muslim world?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John Esposito thinks not. He writes:

In the 21st century, Muslims are strongly challenged to move beyond older notions of “tolerance” or “co-existence” to a higher level of religious pluralism based on mutual understanding and respect. Regrettably, a significant number of Muslims, like many ultra conservative and fundamentalist Christians, Jews and Hindus are not pluralistic but rather strongly exclusivist in their attitudes toward other faiths and even co-believers with whom they disagree.

Reform will not, however, result from exaggerated claims and alarmist and incendiary language such as that of Ayan Hirsi Ali in in a recent Newsweek cover story, reprinted in The Daily Beast.

Huffington Post, 23 February 2012

A group to counter anti-Islam sentiment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As anti-Muslim rhetoric rises locally and nationally – some of it fueled by the presidential campaign – a group of Chicago-area Muslims is battling back, using tactics including a television ad campaign and public forums against bigotry.

Gain Peace, an Islamic outreach organization based in Chicago, spent $40,000 in December to counter negative portrayals and produce two television ads intended to promote Islam as a just faith. The spots, which will run through March in the Chicago area on Fox, CNN and TNT, depict friendly Muslim students and professionals and display a phone number and a Web site for more information.

“This is an election year and in the Republican primaries and elsewhere, generally we have seen more discrimination, hate and misunderstanding about Muslims,” said Sabeel Ahmed, director of Gain Peace. “We wanted to take it up a notch.”

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Michigan Islamic Academy files lawsuit over discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CAIR Michigan press conferenceThe Michigan Islamic Academy has been in Ann Arbor, MI since 1986, but now a move has hit a road block and prompted a lawsuit over discrimination.

The lawsuit announcement came at a press conference inside the Council on American Islamic Relations office. “MIA once had a dream, but the Township has made it a nightmare for our students and their families,” said Tarek Nahlawi of the Michigan Islamic Academy.

According to the Michigan Islamic Academy, the lawsuit is the last resort in their effort to put a new school building on a 26.9 acre property, purchased in Sept. 2010. “This project was not a surprise to the township, as we approached them before purchasing the land our intentions to build a small school and community center,” said Nahlawi.

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OSCE Personal Representative urges participating States to take hate crimes against Muslims seriously

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In view of the Oslo massacre last summer and the spate of neo-Nazi serial killings in Germany, the OSCE Chairperson’s Personal Representative on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims Ambassador Adil Akhmetov expressed concerns over the feeling of insecurity among Muslim communities across the OSCE region.

“Although the efforts of the Norwegian and German authorities to bring to justice those responsible for such heinous crimes are commendable, there remain serious concerns about the effectiveness of measures to combat manifestations of intolerance, in particular hate crimes, and discrimination against Muslims,” Akhmetov said.

Akhmetov warned about the risk of  “falling into the error of categorizing such deplorable crimes as isolated acts of certain marginal personalities”, and urged OSCE participating States to look into the broader context and address the root causes of racism, xenophobia and intolerance.

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Londoners won’t be fooled by the anti-Ken Livingstone spin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The polls are showing the two leading contenders for London mayor – Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson – running neck and neck. Predictably, sections of the rightwing media have started reaching for the proverbial dog whistle; playing politics with race and religion and appealing to a diminishing band of bigoted voters who respond to the politics of fear. They are painting a picture of the East End which doesn’t exist – but which aims to frighten the voters in suburbia down to the polling stations on 3 May.

Tower Hamlets councillor Rabina Khan replies to the Evening Standard‘s witch-hunt of the borough’s mayor Lutfur Rahman as part of a campaign to smear Ken Livingstone.

Comment is Free, 22 February 2012

NYPD built secret files on NJ, Long Island mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Americans living and working in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark.

For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD’s Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or frequented by Muslims.

The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele. Police also photographed and mapped 16 mosques, listing them as “Islamic Religious Institutions.” The report cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior. It was a guide to Newark’s Muslims.

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