Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

The untold cases of Islamophobia in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fourteen year olds resolutely defending hostility towards their Muslim neighbours.

When it was said that nothing justified the abuse of a woman just because she decided to dress differently, the response was that it was because “she probably has a bomb underneath her clothes”.

Muslims were openly derided as terrorists by a significant number of over zealous white students.

Students whom I later realised were themselves victims of a raucous media campaign to give them an enemy and distract them from the disfranchisement and misery faced by many of their families.

Perhaps our words and slides were just too high brow and academic for young minds to relate to.

So when a victim stood to speak honestly and emotionally of her harrowing experiences which included having dogs set upon her and her young children and having an unopened beer can thrown at her whilst she was driving, the unrelenting coldness amongst the audience remained.

Maybe the sight of a young classmate breaking down in tears after relating the incident of seeing his mother racially abused at a local supermarket over the weekend just gone would bring a modicum of sympathy. Again none was forthcoming.

Amongst the young faces and clearly in the minority young Muslim girls wearing hijabs, others without and their male compatriots sat glum faced seemingly unable to speak up or defend their rights to be treated as human beings.

Faisal Hanif recounts his experience of promoting human rights in a Rotherham secondary school.

Asian Image, 15 September 2014

Ayaan Hirsi Ali draws criticism from fellow atheists at Yale

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Fox NewsA campus appearance by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the outspoken Muslim-turned-atheist activist, is being challenged again, this time at Yale University where she is scheduled to speak Monday night (Sept. 15).

While her previous campus critics have included members of religious groups, especially Muslims, this time the critics include Ali’s fellow ex-Muslims and atheists.

“We do not believe Ayaan Hirsi Ali represents the totality of the ex-Muslim experience,” members of Yale Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics posted on Facebook Friday (Sept. 12). “Although we acknowledge the value of her story, we do not endorse her blanket statements on all Muslims and Islam.”

Those statements include calling Islam “the new fascism” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” She has called for the closing of Muslim schools in the West, where she settled after immigrating from her native Somalia, and is a vocal advocate for the rights of women and girls in Islam.

The students’ statement continued: “We believe Ayaan Hirsi Ali represents a sadly common voice in the atheist community that attacks and provokes, rather than contributes to constructive criticism or dialogue.”

Ali will speak at the invitation of the William F. Buckley Jr. Program, a student organization that describes itself as committed to diversity. Thirty-five other Yale groups have expressed concern over the invitation.

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British Muslims fear backlash after David Haines murder

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British Muslims are bracing themselves for a backlash after the beheading of David Haines by Islamic State militants, leading community figures have said.

Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said a backlash was experienced virtually every time violence carried out by extremists who claimed to act in the name of religion received high-profile media coverage.

Anxiety among Muslim communities was already heightened this weekend before news of Haines’s murder, after a mosque in Rotherham was attacked in the wake of a protest by the extremist English Defence League.

Khan said: “Somebody somewhere is going to react, it’s been proven, it’s happened many times: after 9/11, after 7 July [2005 attacks on London] and after [the murder of] Lee Rigby.”

He said the greatest fear was of attacks on Islamic buildings such as mosques, and on vulnerable people, such as women wearing the hijab.

At the East London mosque in Tower Hamlets worshippers said the risk of reprisal attacks in the UK increased with each new report of violence. “Isis and the beheading is not something we recognise at all,” said Amir Younis, 42. “Everyone I’ve spoken to regards those people as complete lunatics. We don’t know who they are, they’ve come from nowhere, and all of a sudden they’re claiming to represent the whole of the Muslim community.

“But in terms of Islamophic reprisals, I don’t think things are going to get any worse than they already are. Islamophobia is something that the Islamic community needs to stop tolerating – we allow people to say the most ridiculous things.”

Two young women visiting the mosque, Aysha Islam and Shakila Hoque, said news of the beheading of Haines would spur on the EDL. “People talk about it a lot,” said Islam. “This area is more safe than places like Luton, but you never know what’s going to happen.”

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Queensland mosque targeted in anti-Muslim hate crimes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Patriots Defence League leafletIslamic leaders in south-east Queensland say they are being targeted by an increase in hate crimes, following an increase in the terror threat level and the arrests of two people allegedly linked with fighting in Syria.

Logan mosque spokesman Ali Kabri said that overnight on Saturday, someone left pamphlets outside the mosque filled with abusive language and photographs, saying Australian Muslims were not welcome in the country.

In the past few days officials also discovered a photo of the Mecca and a photo of a pig’s head close by. It followed an incident two months ago when body parts of a pig were found outside the mosque.

“It’s appalling… there’s an emotional fear. There’s emotion of disgust,” Mr Kabri said. “There’s emotion of threat to the Muslim community. Because we’re afraid that for now there are pamphlets but it could lead to violence. We’re afraid for our families and afraid for our children.”

Mr Kabri said the “silly actions” of a few showed Australia to be an intolerant society to the rest of the world. “But I don’t believe we’re an intolerant society, we’re a tolerant society,” he said.

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Rape, death threats over mosque plan at Currumbin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chris RobbinsA Gold Coast City councillor says she’s been threatened with gang rape and death over a proposed mosque, and Facebook is protecting the identity of her tormentors.

Chris Robbins says she has spent several weeks trying to get the social media site to reveal the identity of the creators of the “Stop the Mosque at Currumbin” page after it used a photo of her as its profile picture, claiming she was receiving money from unspecified Islamic backers, a claim she denies.

Ms Robbins says she had to engage a lawyer to threaten the website with defamation before the picture was removed. The page remains live along with a host of anti-councillor comments from Facebook users.

Facebook has told AAP it has had no contact with any lawyers representing Ms Robbins and says the Gold Coast councillor has not begun its process for requesting data. “We respond to requests for data to police consistent with our law enforcement guidelines,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“These guidelines also outline if and how civil litigants can make data requests.” The spokesperson said Facebook was contacting Queensland police to understand what, if any, requests for data relating to the incident had been made.

Ms Robbins says she was targeted by protesters after announcing the council had received an application to build a mosque at an industrial site in Currumbin on the southern end of the Gold Coast. “Horrific vilification, threatening all kinds of nastiness directed at me because I’d basically gone to the meeting and said council’s got an application for a mosque and we will be assessing it as we’re obliged to by law,” she told AAP.

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GOP congressman: Spy on U.S. mosques to stop ISIS recruitment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Steve KingIowa Republican Rep. Steve King is calling for the U.S. government to begin spying on American mosques to stop ISIS’ recruitment efforts, charging the militant organization is actively operating in mosques across the country.

Although there is no evidence that ISIS is running a nationwide recruitment effort or using mosques as centers to target would be jihadis, King insisted the Obama administration must target mosques for domestic surveillance activities.

“Here’s a thought that occurred to me,” King said speaking to the Deace Show Thursday. “I didn’t look at the population of Germany at the beginning of the Third Reich but it’s probably in the area of 70-80 million is my guess. And out of that Hitler in a few years build something that cost the lives of roughly 60 million people. The radical islamists have 1.3 or more billion muslims to work with. Now they aren’t all supporters. Daniel (inaudible) says 10-15% of them, but that is a huge population to draw from.”

King said ISIS recruiters were “certainly in the United States,” citing mosques in Virginia and Minneapolis to say mosques were the “communications centers” for ISIS.

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Social justice groups join together to condemn Oklahoma lawmaker’s anti-Muslim comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oklahoma press conference condemns John BennettSeveral social justice groups joined together Wednesday to denounce anti-Muslim comments made by a state legislator – and the leader of one advocacy organization called for the lawmaker’s immediate resignation.

However, state Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, said he has no intention of resigning. “I stand behind what I said, and I’m sure not going to resign,” Bennett said Wednesday in a phone interview with The Oklahoman.

Last week, the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized Bennett and asked him to apologize for his Facebook post saying people should be wary of those who say they are “Muslim American.”

“Be especially wary if you’re a Christian,” he said in the post, which links to a story about atrocities committed by the Islamic State group known as ISIS. “The Quran clearly states that non-Muslims should be killed.”

At a news conference hosted Wednesday by CAIR-OK, several representatives of local social justice groups and faith organizations also called for Bennett to apologize for his remarks.

Adam Soltani, executive director of CAIR-OK, also said they are asking the national GOP to repudiate Bennett’s remarks and those of state Republican Party Chairman David Weston, who weighed in on the controversy last week. “His track record is clear – he has an agenda of hate and a fear of Islam in our state,” Soltani said of Bennett.

However, Anthony Douglas, president of the Oklahoma chapter of the NAACP, said an apology from Bennett will not go far enough to rectify the matter. Wednesday, Douglas said Bennett should resign because he can no longer effectively represent all of his constituents because of his bigoted remarks.

“He took an oath of office and based on his oath of office, he is a representative 24 hours a day, not just when we go back into legislative session,” Douglas said. “How are you going to be a representative representing your district and yet you put fear in the hearts of your neighbors that live in the district? He can no longer effectively represent the people of his district, based on his statements against the Muslim community.”

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Fred Nile move to ban burqa ‘anti-Islamic’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CDP ban face-coveringsChristian Democratic Party leader Fred Nile’s latest attempt to ban the burqa across NSW has been branded anti-Islamic and a political stunt.

Mr Nile’s private member’s bill, introduced in state parliament on Thursday, would prohibit the wearing of the burqa and other face coverings in public. It follows similar bans in Belgium and France, and comes after his failed attempt at blacklisting face coverings in 2010.

While Mr Nile stressed that his bill’s text did not include the words “burqa or Muslim”, much of his speech to parliament about the plan focused on the burqa.

He says the measures come at an “opportune” time after Wednesday’s arrest in Queensland of two men allegedly linked to terrorist groups in Syria. “We also face the new Islamic State (IS) terrorist threat, whose black uniforms for both men and women include face coverings to prevent identification,” he told the upper house.

Labor MP Amanda Fazio said the measures were “anti-Islamic” and had more to do with Mr Nile’s bid for re-election in March. “These measures are the opposite of everything we’re trying to achieve in Australia in terms of being inclusive and having a harmonious society where we respect difference,” she told AAP.

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