Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Richard Peppiatt exposes Daily Star’s anti-Muslim agenda at Leveson Inquiry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Airports facing turban warfare Daily StarRichard Peppiatt, the Daily Star reporter who resigned in protest at the paper’s methods, notably its boosting of the English Defence League and its incitement of racism and Islamophobia, gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today.

You can read his witness statement here. It describes a culture at the Star where “a top down pressure to unearth stories which fitted within a certain narrative (immigrants are taking over, Muslims are a threat to security) led to casual and systemic distortions”.

Peppiatt told the inquiry how he made up a story about a non-existent Muslim bomb plot. He said the inspiration for the story was “a line” from a Sunday Telegraph article which suggested that Muslim terrorists might be thinking of disguising themselves as Sikhs and hiding bombs in their turbans. From the Star‘s standpoint, Peppiatt explained, “having a story that lashed out at both Muslims and Sikhs at once was far too good to pass over”.

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CAIR asks FBI to probe threats posted on Bare Naked Islam website

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bare Naked Islam

A Muslim civil rights group on Friday asked the FBI to investigate a series of threatening posts on an anti-Islam website. The threats posted by visitors to the Bare Naked Islam website include a post from one person who urges Christians to “kill every Muslim twice” and mentions that he routinely drives by a specific northern Virginia mosque. Another recommends blowing up mosques.

In making the request, Council for American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the Internet is replete with hateful commentary about Muslims. But he said these comments differ because they routinely contain explicit calls for violence. “The Internet is a cesspool of bigoted speech, but this is something else entirely,” Hooper said.

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Cambridge EDL supporter sacked as pub landlord over racist Facebook comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ben Green

A pub landlord has been sacked after racist and violent comments were posted on his Facebook page.

Ben Green, 23, ran The Salisbury Arms in Tenison Road, Cambridge, after being given the responsibility by his parents David and Angela. Green has now been sacked and barred from the premises by his parents, who are the licensees of the pub.

The comments on his Facebook page have been condemned by both them and the pub’s brewery, Charles Wells, who described them as “disgusting”.

Comments on the page attributed to Green, who is a member of the EDL, included racist chants and descriptions of how he wants to go out and fight with “dirty Muslims”. One status update describes how Green is planning to have sex with a Pakistani woman and then tell her he is an EDL supporter so that “she’ll hate herself”. One comment states: “Hate everything Islam stands for. Hate all these women in Cambridge in burkas as well.”

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CAIR condemns Rick Santorum for promoting religious profiling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rick Santorum2A national Muslim group is calling out Rick Santorum for supporting religious profiling against Muslims, and appealed Wednesday to the Republican Party to rebuke Santorum for his views.

In a national security debate Tuesday, the former Pennsylvania senator and GOP presidential candidate said he would support profiling Muslims at airport checkpoints as a tactic to protect against terrorist attacks.

“Obviously Muslims would be someone you’d look at, absolutely,” Santorum said. “The radical Muslims are the people who are committing these crimes, by and large, as well as younger males – not exclusively, but these are things that you profile to find your best, most likely candidates.”

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Challenging misinformation about Muslims and lazy caricatures of Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There is a lot of misinformation about the British Muslim community. In 2009 the Gallup Coexist Index found that only 36% of the British public thought that British Muslims were ‘loyal to this country’ as opposed to 82% of the British Muslim community. The surprise at the findings of Muslim pride in Britain is rooted in a prejudice that leads people to believe that it is paradoxical for someone to hold both their religious and national identities as important. Lazy caricatures of Islam as contradicting many of the rights and values that are seen as quintessentially British – particularly freedom and democracy – only exacerbate this problem.”

Mark Greer at Comment is Free, 23 November 2011

See also “Media report on Proud British Muslims”, ENGAGE, 22 November 2011

Herman Cain thanked God his doctor wasn’t a Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Herman Cain faced a backlash today over his admission that he was worried about being treated by his cancer doctor because he “sounded too foreign.”

The Republican presidential candidate said he was worried the physician – a Dr. Abdallah – was not Christian after learning he came from Lebanon. After being told his doctor was, indeed, a Christian, Cain said he whooped: “Hallelujah! Thank God!”

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Columbia, Maryland: community group to counter backlash against women-only swimming sessions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

People Acting Together in HowardConcerned about backlash against a women-only swim program initiated by members of the Muslim community, People Acting Together in Howard members plan to take a stand at tonight’s Columbia Association meeting. “We’ll have some people there, so if there are negative comments, we’ll be there to present the other side,” Wendel Thompson, a member of Bethany United Methodist Church, said Monday.

In reading letters to the editor that have appeared in the Baltimore Sun, as well as comments made online at Columbia Patch and the Huffington Post, Thompson said he is concerned that much of the opposition is rooted in anti-Muslim sentiment.

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