Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

UMP councillor sent racist email

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A politician with the centre-right UMP party near Nice found others didn’t get the joke when he sent a ‘humorous’ email mocking the North African accent.

Gilbert Garelli, a local councillor in La Colle-sur-Loup in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, sent the email to a group of 20 friends. The offending missive was sent on August 1st, the first day of Ramadan, and mis-spelled certain words to mimic the accent.

It ended with the line “I wish you a good Ramadan”, with “I wish” written as “ji souhaite” rather than the correct “je souhaite.” He attached a copy of his Socialist party opponents’ programme to the email, in Arabic, adding “remember to read it from right to left!”

A large number of the recipients reacted with horror. A fellow party member, Corinne Guidon, told local newspaper Nice Matin it was not “her kind of humour.”

“It was just a joke,” Garelli initially told the newspaper but, as the scandal grew, he apologized publicly for his poor taste and sent a conciliatory email to the original recipients.

The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, didn’t see the funny side and has instructed his team to take action. “This is no laughing matter,” Pascal Condomiti, an advisor to the mayor, told Le Figaronewspaper. “We will be meeting about this and will probably suspend him from the party.”

The Local, 5 August 2011

Garelli email

N.J. Governor: ‘This Shariah law business is crap’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday slammed the anti-Muslim “crazies” who have raised objections to his nomination of a Muslim lawyer to become a state Superior Court judge.

“Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammad,” Christie said in response to a reporter’s question at a Thursday press conference. “Sohail Mohammad is an extraordinary American who is an outstanding lawyer and played an integral role in the post-September 11th period in building bridges between the Muslim American community in this state and law enforcement.”

Critics have used the very track record Christie cited to depict Mohammad, an Indian-American, as a radical unfit for the bench. Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism in January derided Mohammad as a “longtime mouthpiece for radical Islamists”. Emerson traced Mohammad’s career back to his work as an immigration lawyer on behalf of Arab men who were detained after 9/11.

Christie pointed out that many people were wrongly arrested during that time, and that none of Mohammad’s post-9/11 clients were charged with crimes of terrorism. Christie added that Mohammad set up “dozens of meetings” between government and law enforcement officials and members of the Muslim-American community to build lines of trust.

A reporter asked Christie a question about Shariah law, which only fired up the governor’s frustration. “Shariah law has nothing to do with this at all. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. The guy is an American citizen … and has never been accused of doing anything but honorably and zealously acquitting the oath he took when he became a lawyer…. This Shariah law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. It’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background…. I’m happy that he’s willing to serve after all this baloney.”

Hatewatch, 4 August 2011

American Muslim sues employer for firing over beard

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Seattle-area Muslim man is suing his former employer, claiming he was fired as a security guard for refusing to shave the beard he wears for religious reasons.

Abdulkadir Omar, 22, filed his federal lawsuit July 15 in Seattle against Sacramento-based American Patriot Security, seeking back pay and unspecified damages for emotional pain and loss of enjoyment of life, among other reasons. “Growing up in this country, where the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, I was let down,” Omar said Thursday at a press conference.

According to the lawsuit, Omar was hired by a local manager of the security company in May 2009 and earned $9 an hour guarding a FedEx warehouse in Kent, Wash. He said he started the same day he was hired, and was not told about the clean-shaven policy.

In November 2009, a supervisor from headquarters told him he had to shave his beard because of company policy. Omar responded that his beard is part of his religious beliefs and refused. He was suspended, and then fired the following spring, the lawsuit said.

A representative from American Patriot Security declined to answer questions.

Omar filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which found that he was wrongfully terminated and had the right to sue, according to a press release by the Council for American-Islamic Relations.

“There’s no policy that can go against the law of the land,” said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington state chapter of CAIR. “Civil Rights Act trumps any (company) policy.” Bukhari said companies need to accommodate someone’s religious beliefs unless it’s an “undue burden.”

Associated Press, 4 August 2011

See also Seattle Times, 4 August 2011

EDL march will go ahead in Telford, with restrictions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Strict conditions are set to be imposed by police on a proposed march by the English Defence League which is to take place in Wellington Town Centre on Saturday, 13 August.

The march will take place between 1pm and 3pm and follow a police designated route from Church Street, turning right into Market Street, right into Bridge Road, right again into Queen Street and returning to Church Street.

In a move aimed at minimising the impact of the demonstration on traders and the wider community the police are using powers under the 1986 Public Order Act which will stipulate when and where EDL supporters may gather and the route their march must take.

Shropshire Live, 4 August 2011

Telford & Wrekin Council statement on the march

Telford & Wrekin Council say they disappointed that the EDL march will be going ahead.

Cllr Shaun Davies, cabinet member for Community Cohesion, said: “The overwhelming voice from the community in Telford, and in particular in Wellington, is that people do not want this march in our town.

“The Council would not want the march to go ahead but we understand and appreciate the very difficult position that the Police are in.

“The law and free speech allows for demonstrations and only under very clear criteria can these be stopped. The police have told us that these criteria have not been met and therefore the march goes ahead.

“The Police have the experience, resources and expertise in handling such matters and we continue to work very closely with them to minimise any disruption this march may cause and most importantly protect the safety of the community.

“While Telford is united against this unwelcome march, it is very important the Council, the community and all our partners continue to get behind the police and to make sure it has as little impact as possible on people and daily life in the borough.”

The EDL are complaining that the police will be restricting their march under Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act. However, given that EDL protests regularly result in serious public disorder, there is no obvious reason why the police could not have applied for a total ban on the march under Section 13.

Labour Party surges in Norway polls as terrorist attacks delegitimise anti-Islam rhetoric and boost support for multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Norway BombingAnders Behring Breivik’s efforts to galvanize anti-Islam sentiment in Norway after last month’s hate killings have given the ruling party he sought to destroy its biggest tailwind in more than a decade.

Support for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor Party, targeted by Breivik in the July 22 bombing and shootings that left 77 dead, soared to more than 40 percent, two polls showed this week. If a vote were held today, that would be the best result since the 1985 election. Approval of Stoltenberg’s handling of the crisis is at more than 90 percent, polls show.

Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto, published a few hours before his killing spree, railed against the “Islamization” of Norway and Europe, a trend he said he would try to halt through his terror acts. Yet the anti-immigration Progress Party that Breivik had sought to champion now faces a backlash as a key campaigning point is stigmatized ahead of local elections on Sept. 12. That’s left the group, Parliament’s second-biggest, with an identity crisis.

“They will try to keep a low profile on immigration, immigrants, threats from the Muslims,” Anders Todal Jenssen, a political science professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, said by phone. Without the attacks “they would have focused on immigration as a very important issue,” he said.

Backing for Labor, which was re-elected in 2009 on pledges to improve welfare without raising taxes, surged 11 percentage points in the month through July 30 to 41.7 percent, the highest result since September 1998, according to a Synovate poll. A TNS Gallup poll for TV2 showed a 9.2 point rise in support for Labor to 40.5 percent, a 12-year high. The opposition Conservatives slipped almost five points to 23.7 percent in the Synovate poll, while the Progress Party, of which Breivik was a member from 1999 to 2004, dropped three points to 16.5 percent.

Since the killings, more Norwegians say they now embrace multiculturalism, according to an Aug. 1 InFact AS poll published by Verdens Gang. Twenty-six percent of those questioned said they were more positive toward a multi-ethnic Norway than before the attacks. Nine percent were more negative and 49 percent said they hadn’t changed their opinion.

“The anti-Islam argument has lost its legitimacy,” said Johannes Bergh, a political scientist at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, in a phone interview. “You can’t make the type of arguments that the Progress Party has been making in terms of Islam being a danger to society or a threat to Norwegian culture. You just can’t say that anymore.”

The prime minister’s party is now poised to win next month’s local elections. Polls before July 22 had shown it was set to lose.

Bloomberg, 2 August 2011

Gallup publishes poll of US Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gallup reports: “A decade following September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans still face some public distrust and are more skeptical of law enforcement than are other U.S. faith communities. Despite these challenges, American followers of Islam are optimistic about their future, and they embrace their country’s civic institutions and religious pluralism.”

Download the Gallup survey Muslim Americans: Faith, Freedom, and the Future here.

See also Washington Post, 3 August 2011

And Christian Science Monitor, 2 August 2011

Update:  See “U.S. Muslims most likely to reject violence: poll”,Daily Star, 4 August 2011

PFAW report: The Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

People for the American Way press release

Right-Wing extremists are leading a sustained attack against American Muslims, attempting to prevent them from freely practicing their religion, curtail their political rights, and in some cases, compel their deportation, according to a new report by People For the American Way. The report lays out how the Right Wing is using a set of specific strategies to stir up destructive fears, and as a result are putting our fundamental tradition of equality and justice at risk. The report, The Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism, identifies the scare tactics used by the Right Wing to conjure up anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and outlines some ways that concerned Americans can push back against anti-Muslim extremism.

“Right-wing activists, elected officials and even some presidential candidates have launched an overt assault on American Muslims, using a religious minority as a scapegoat for any number of national fears and frustrations,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “In doing so, they compromise some of our dearest national values. Anti-Muslim extremists and the political leaders who repeat their talking points are spreading baseless and destructive fears and explicitly disregarding the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion and equal treatment under the law.”

The report discusses eight strategies employed by anti-Muslim activists to cast doubt on the validity of Islam as a religion and the integrity of American Muslims in order to justify prejudice and illegal discrimination:

  • Framing American Muslims as dangerous to America
  • Twisting statistics and using fake research to “prove” the Muslim threat
  • Inventing the danger of “creeping Sharia”
  • Justifying taking away freedoms and liberties from Muslims in order to “defend liberty”
  • Denying the validity of Islam as a religion
  • Arguing that Muslims have no First Amendment rights under the Constitution
  • Linking anti-Muslim prejudice to anti-Obama rhetoric
  • Slandering progressives and non-Christians as unholy and anti-American

The report is available here.

How Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion encourage the Cold War on British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spinwatch logo

In a report published today, Spinwatch examines the Centre for Social Cohesion and Policy Exchange: two key right-wing think-tanks involved in the debate on Islam and multiculturalism which are thought to have influenced the Coalition Government’s new Prevent strategy.

The report, which was completed before the recent terrorist attacks in Norway, argues that right-wing think-tanks have understated the rise of Islamophobia on the far-right and in some cases condoned the rise of groups such as the English Defence League because of their own links to the “counterjihad movement”.

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