Tash Shifrin reports that the English Defence League’s former financial backer Alan Lake has been suspended from his job, following revelations about his role in the EDL, as has another prominent figure in the international “counterjihadist” movement, Chris Knowles.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
EDL given go-ahead to march in Leicester
The English Defence League will be allowed to march through Leicester on Saturday – as long as it agrees to a route and conditions laid down by police.
Senior police officers have advised the city council that a march would be easier to contain than a “static protest,” which they cannot prevent from taking place even if a march was banned.
The city council will therefore not approach the Home Secretary for a ban on the planned march, unless the EDL refuses to agree with the proposed route and conditions.
A counter demonstration is also planned by opposition group Leicester Unite Against Fascism (LUAF). It too has been offered a set route for a march and its response is also awaited.
LSE students condemn Islamophobia as racism
This week, the London School of Economics (LSE) Students’ Union held an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) in response to the increasing tension on campus among society groups. After weeks of low attendances, the EGM successfully brought a substantial amount of students to the Old Theatre during the Union General Meeting’s (UGM) constant Thursday allotment. The meeting, chaired by Jack Tindale, presented three motions to be debated.
Asian football chief calls for lifting of hijab ban
Asia’s football chief on Monday urged the game’s top law-making body to lift a controversial ban on headscarves, saying new designs can prevent neck injuries to Muslim women players.
“Many women footballers in Asia wear headscarves,” Asian Football Confederation acting president Zhang Jilong said ahead of a March 3 meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to review the ruling.
“I would like to request the IFAB to favourably consider FIFA’s proposal and review the rule and allow women players to play wearing a safe headscarf that covers the neck,” Zhang said in a statement. “My colleagues in the AFC Executive Committee strongly support the idea of reviewing the rule and I think it is in the interests of women’s football worldwide.”
The NYPD’s ugly history of racial profiling
New Yorkers have long put up with discriminatory ‘stop-and-frisk’ searches. Now, the NYPD is demonising us as fanatical jihadists, argues Debbie Almontaser.
Comment is Free, 30 January 2012
Update: See also Fahd Ahmed, “Truth behind NYPD anti-Muslim film makes clear Kelly must resign”, Huffington Post, 31 January 2012
Army must reject anti-Islam hate speaker
Jon Soltz and Richard Allen Smith of VoteVets.org call on the West Point military academy to withdraw its invitation to the rabid anti-Muslim bigot, retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin, to speak at a prayer breakfast there next month.
Islamophobia and the press
Following on from his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry last week on behalf of ENGAGE, Inayat Bunglawala has a piece on the New Statesman‘s blog The Staggers calling for more effective regulation of the press, in light of its continual and intentional misrepresentation of the Muslim community. He concludes:
Muslim pilot fired on the basis of ‘guilt by association’
A Muslim airline pilot who claims his religion cost him his job has told an employment tribunal that his bosses feared he might copy the September 11 attacks.
The Heathrow-based pilot, who cannot be named for legal reasons, worked for a well-known British carrier but was judged a security risk after he was arrested over an alleged terror plot. According to the airline, he was “in a position to divert or sabotage an aircraft”.
Asked by his barrister what he thought this meant, the pilot, who is British, replied tearfully: “I felt they believed I was going to fly planes into buildings. I believe the basis they had for that was my race and religion, because of the actions of other people of a similar race and religion.”
Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor
Sheldon Adelson’s Super Pac funding has heavily backed Gingrich – and found him a firm pro-Israel and anti-Muslim ally, argues Arun Kundnani.
Comment is Free, 28 January 2012
See also Sarah Posner, “The Third Jihad, Adelson, and Gingrich”, Religion Dispatches, 27 January 2012
Police will be obliged to enforce veil ban, says Dutch minister
Once the burqa ban passed by the Dutch conservative coalition on Friday is approved by parliament, police will be obliged to enforce it, Security and Justice Minister Yvo Opstelten stresses.
“The minister expects police to enforce the ban in accordance with the law”, Mr Opstelten’s spokesperson emphasised. The statement comes in response to criticism voiced by the National Police Union and the central works council of the national police force that is currently being set up.
The chair of the police works council, Frank Giltay, had said there is no need for a burqa ban, which, he added, is unlikely to have any practical benefits. Burqas, he underlined, do not pose a threat to public security. He criticised the ban as a “symbolic policy”.
Green Left leader Jolande Sap also denounced the intended ban as a symbolic policy. Speaking on radio on Saturday morning, Ms Sap argued that women’s emancipation required different measures, such as education and language courses.
She also slammed the cabinet for going to such lengths to make the burqa ban acceptable by allowing a raft of exceptions, such as wearing balaclavas in winter or donning masks and veils during carnival. “Maybe I’ll wear a burqa for carnival,” the MP joked.
The coalition of the conservative VVD and Christian Democrats had previously agreed with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom Party, which backs the minority cabinet on an agreed package of policies, to institute the burqa ban this term.
The cabinet adopted the ban on Friday despite grave reservations expressed by the Council of State, the government’s top advisory body and the country’s highest court, regarding its legality and feasibility.