The article by Martin Bright in last week’s Jewish Chronicle denouncing prominent figures in the Jewish community for failing to boycott London Citizens over its links with the East London Mosque has provoked a welcome backlash from the paper’s readers.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Henry Jackson Society opposes ‘hate speakers’ – except when they’re leading members of the Henry Jackson Society, of course
Students’ unions should introduce tougher rules to keep “hate speakers” off campuses and stop the spread of Islamist extremism, MPs have heard.
Hannah Stuart, co-author of Islam on Campus: A Survey of UK Student Opinions and Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections, made the suggestion in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the roots of violent radicalisation.
The committee held a day-long session at De Montfort University last week, including a workshop titled “How can we best counter radicalisation in universities?”
Nabil Ahmed, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, rejected many of Ms Stuart’s arguments, countering from the audience that it was “upsetting and hurtful for Muslim students to be caricatured as potential extremists, potential radicals, when none of this is applicable to 99.9 per cent of not just Muslim students, but all students”.
CAIR: new Army policy will allow JROTC hijabs, turbans
In October, the Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta after a 14-year-old Muslim student at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, Tenn., was forced to transfer out of a JROTC class when her commanding officers told her she could not wear hijab while marching in the September homecoming parade.
Hate mail sent to Detroit mosques
Dearborn — The local office of a national Muslim civil rights group says they have met with postal investigators about several anti-Muslim hate mailings that were sent recently to area mosques, Islamic centers and Muslim organizations.
Officials for the Michigan office of Council on American-Islamic Relations, located in Southfield, say they were investigating mail received by a local mosque that contained pornographic references to Islam.
Lena Masri, the staff attorney for CAIR-MI, said the organization has turned over several pieces of obscene mailings. Masri said the correspondence they received from a local mosque was pornographic material making reference to Islamic religious symbols.
“Unfortunately, given the rise in Islamaphobia, we’ve seen a rise in hate mail mailed to mosques as well as to our offices,” said Masri on Monday.
Masri said she was informed by local officials with the U.S. Postal Inspector’s Office that a Dearborn mosque was mailed a letter containing a page from the Quran that was smeared with feces.
Masri said CAIR has issued an advisory for local mosques and Islamic organizations and others to be cautious when opening their mail. She urged people not to open mail without a return address and to report suspicious letters and packages to the U.S. postal inspector or to CAIR’s office.
Islamic Center gains annexation into Naperville
Whether the Islamic Center of Naperville‘s next mosque is built five years from now or 20, it will be built according to the same rules and conditions as each of the city’s other religious institutions.
City council members Monday unanimously approved the residential zoning and annexation of the center’s 14-acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Ave. on the city’s far southwest side in Will County. In doing so, they also rejected demands of neighboring homeowners to insert conditional restrictions on lighting, traffic and parking and the installation of berming and landscaping.
Imams from Memphis who were kicked off flight sue Delta Air Lines
Standing near the Delta Air Lines ticket counter Monday, Muslim cleric Masudur Rahman described what it felt like to be kicked off a flight in Memphis earlier this year while traveling to a religious conference.
“It was really a humiliation,” said Rahman, an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis.
On May 6, Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul, who were both dressed in traditional Muslim attire, were on their way to a conference in Charlotte, N.C., hosted by the North American Imams Federation. The topic of the conference was “Islamaphobia.”
At Memphis International Airport, the two clerics were cleared to fly during an initial TSA checkpoint and again after a random, secondary check and search at the gate. They boarded the plane, but were soon booted off.
Detroit protest against Lowe’s
ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe’s store in one of the country’s largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan.
About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where “All-American Muslim” is filmed. Lowe’s said this week that the TLC show had become a “lightning rod” for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group.
Protesters including Christian clergy and lawmakers called for unity and held signs that read “Boycott Bigotry” and chanted “God Bless America, shame on Lowe’s” during the rally, which was organized by a coalition of Christian, Muslim and civil rights groups.
ConservativeHome withdraws Paul Goodman article, apologises to Sir Iqbal Sacranie
ConservativeHome has published the following apology:
Sir Iqbal Sacranie
In a Diary post by Paul Goodman (“Pickles and Warsi wrestle for control of Government strategy on anti-Muslim hatred”, 19 November) we repeated in good faith a statement wrongly reported elsewhere that Sir Iqbal Sacranie is a trustee of Union of Good, an organisation which has been listed by the US Treasury as a Special Designated Global Terrorist group. We also suggested (wrongly) that it was possible that, as a result of this association, the UK government had rejected Sir Iqbal as a possible candidate for membership of the Muslim Leadership Council (MLC).
We now understand that in fact Sir Iqbal is not, and never has been, a trustee of Union of Good. We also accept Sir Iqbal’s assurance that while he was approached with a view to participating in the MLC initiative, he declined to do so. He was not on the list of individuals that was put forward and was not rejected by the government as we had suggested.
We are sorry for any embarrassment caused to Sir Iqbal by our Diary post.
To be fair to Paul Goodman, he probably didn’t set out intentionally to libel Sir Iqbal. It’s just that when it comes to the Muslim community Goodman doesn’t know what he’s talking about and uncritically recycles second-hand right-wing smears.
Via Inayat’s Corner
Arab-Israelis protest ‘mosque bill’
Hundreds of Arabs across Israel took to the streets Saturday to rally against attacks on mosques and the so-called ‘mosque bill,’ which aims to prohibit mosques from sounding public calls for prayer.
The protesters carried signs reading: “We won’t agree to silence the Muezzin”, “A democratic state doesn’t attack freedom of religion” and “Transfer state.” Demonstrators also chanted against the torching of mosques in Jerusalem and in the West Bank.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered in the Arab-Israeli towns of Umm al-Fahm and Shfaram, with more protestors joining in various other communities, including Baka al-Garbiyeh, Tira, Taiba, Sakhnin, Tarshiha, Nazareth, Rahat, Jaffa, Kabul and Jisr az-Zarqa.
Cambridge Muslims refute mosque claims
Critics of the planned Cambridge mosque had plenty of opportunities to raise objections before plans were submitted, the Cambridge Muslim Council (CMC) has pointed out.
Leaflets posted through doors in Mill Road claim the new mosque’s dome dominates the skyline. It also states the ‘megamosque’ will cause traffic chaos.