Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Sacked Muslim employees seek damages over alleged racism at Bankers Life office in Missouri

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CLAYTON, Mo. — An office manager at Bankers Life and Casualty subjected two U.S. citizens to racial slurs and fired them because of their Palestinian descent and Muslim religion, the men say.

Ali Badran and Warrad Warrad say their boss, Daniel Colvis, insulted them repeatedly about their race, religion and ethnicity. Colvis is or was the manager of Bankers’ Chesterfield office, according to the complaint in St. Louis County Court. The insults included being called “goat fuckers” and “sand niggers;” being told, “please don’t blow yourselves up;” and being asked, “is Osama Bin Laden your uncle?”, and “did you do a dance on 9-11?” the men say.

Badran and Warrad say Colvis fired them even though they had a better sales history than their Caucasian counterparts. They say Colvis harassed women and African-American employees as well. They seek damages for lost income, suffering and humiliation.

Courthouse News Service, 13 April 2011

Springfield Islamic Center receives threatening letter and finds burned Qur’ans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center of SpringfieldLeaders of the Islamic Center of Springfield say they received a threatening letter targeting Muslims on Sunday and earlier that day found charred remains of three Qurans.

The anonymous letter says that Muslims “stain the earth”, and the author vows “Islam will not survive”. A copy of the letter was provided by the Rev. Mark Struckhoff, executive director for the Council of Churches of the Ozarks. At the end of the five-line typed letter is a drawing of a ram’s head with the slogan “Death to Islam!” printed below it.

“I do not understand. What are they gaining from this?” asked Wafaa Kaf, coordinator of the women’s section at the Islamic Center and one of the center’s leaders who described the charred books. “Have they accomplished anything? Are they happy now?”

This isn’t the first reported crime against the Islamic Center, 2151 E. Division St. On Jan. 8, worshippers were confronted with hate-filled graffiti scrawled across the walls of the building.

“You bash us in Pakistan. We bash you here,” the red spray paint said. Other messages were sexual, including a drawing of a penis near the women’s entrance and a reference to Allah being gay. Two days later, another act of vandalism broke off an exterior water spigot. However, the FBI did not initiate a hate crimes investigation into those incidents.

News-Leader, 14 April 2011

See also CAIR press release, 14 April 2011

Update:  See “Bigotry at Islamic Center is an affront to all”, editorial in News-Leader, 15 April 2011

Islamophobia on the rise

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two letters in today’s Guardian on the French veil ban. One is from Liz Fekete of the Institute of Race Relations who writes:

The observation of French niqab wearer “Anne” (Facing the ban, 12 April) that the debate on the ban on the full-face veil has led to stigmatisation and hate is also true here.

On Monday I attended an anti-racist rally in London outside the French embassy, where peaceful demonstrators protested against the ban on the grounds that Muslim women should not be criminalised for what they choose to wear. We were attacked on two sides by members of the English Defence League.

Over the last few years we have seen how Islamophobia breeds a culture of suspicion. As that morphs into a culture of hate, one must fear for the future.

Islamophobia and the media – a timely book

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pointing the FingerRoy Greenslade reviews a new book Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media, edited by Julian Petley and Robin Richardson. He writes:

“It is a timely and important book, as another author who has written widely on the same subject, Elizabeth Poole, points out. There are terrific contributions from several media academics and a key chapter  ‘Keeping your integrity – and your job: voices from the newsroom’ – was written by The Guardian columnist Hugh Muir and fellow journalist Laura Smith.

“Few topics are as controversial as the media treatment of Muslims, and too few journalists take it seriously. They should, because they are responsible for the stories people retell. It is press-generated myths about Islam that fuel misunderstandings and feed prejudice, and thus bedevil rational discussion.”

Shout down the Sharia myth makers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abe Foxman of the ADL warns against Sharia hysteria in the US:

The threat of the infiltration of Sharia, or Islamic law, into the American court system is one of the more pernicious conspiracy theories to gain traction in our country in recent years. The notion that Islam is insidiously making inroads in the United States through the application of religious law is seeping into the mainstream, with even some presidential candidates voicing fears about the supposed threat of Sharia to our way of life and as many as 13 states considering or having already passed bills that would prohibit the application of Sharia law….

If the hysteria over Sharia law continues to percolate through our political and social discourse, there is bound to be unintended consequences.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in an uncertain economy with millions of Americans still out of work, we also face the prospect of a political season in which more political candidates may be tempted to invoke this mythological threat in an effort to pander to bigotry and fear, and to score political points.

We stand at a crossroads in American society. We have the option of heading down a path toward a greater tolerance of anti-Muslim xenophobia and fear of the “stranger in our midst,” or we can rededicate ourselves to the ideal of an America that is open and welcoming to immigrants as well as minority groups who have been here for decades. Let us hope that the better nature of America will enable us to proceed down the second path and reject those who seek to divide us for political gain, or those who wish to stereotype and scapegoat an entire people because of their religious faith.

JTA, 10 August 2011

Home Office rules out veil ban in UK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The prospect of any attempt to ban the Islamic full veil in public in Britain has been firmly ruled out by Theresa May, the Home Secretary. Ministers believe there is little pressure, either politically or among the public, for the UK to follow the French lead and outlaw the use of face-covering veils such as the niqab or burka.

Although David Cameron has warned of “different cultures” being encouraged by “state multiculturalism” to live separate lives, the Government is adamant that to impose a ban on the veil would run contrary to British instincts.

Calls for a ban have been limited so far to one Tory MP, Philip Hollobone, and the UK Independence Party. Mr Hollobone attempted last year to champion a Commons bill outlawing face coverings, but received no public declarations of support from any other MP.

The Home Office said yesterday: “It is not for government to say what people can and cannot wear. Such a proscriptive approach would be out of keeping with our nation’s longstanding record of tolerance. Accordingly we do not support a ban on wearing the burka.”

Baroness Warsi, the first woman Muslim Cabinet minister, has also defended the right of women to choose to wear a face veil.

Independent, 11 April 2011

This is not to the taste of Leo McKinstry who devotes his Daily Express column to denouncing Britain’s refusal to ban the veil:

Our British political elite constantly boasts of its tolerance and enthusiasm for cultural diversity.

Yet often this supposedly liberal attitude is nothing more than cowardice in the face of militant Islam. Terrified of accusations of racism, paralysed by the fashionable narrative of ethnic minority victimhood, our civic leaders simply do not have the backbone to uphold the values of Western civilisation against the onward march of Muslim fundamentalism.

This institutionalised feebleness, masquerading as enlightenment, is in graphic contrast to the much more robust outlook in France. Today a new French law comes into force banning people from covering their faces in public. In effect both the niqab, which conceals the face below the eyes, and the full burka, covering the body head to toe, will be prohibited outside home or mosque.

Some 2,000 women in France wear the burka and they will be heavily fined if they refuse to comply. The ban on the burka has the support of the French Parliament and people, determined to protect Gallic culture from oppressive alien customs. Many European nations are moving in this direction. Belgium has a ban while it’s under discussion in Spain and Italy.

But in Britain there is no chance our establishment will display such courage. The self-destructive dogma of diversity is too strong in all three major parties. Reflecting the supine outlook of Westminster, dripping wet Immigration Minister Damien Green said recently that a ban on the burka would be “unBritish” because it is “at odds with our tolerant and mutually respectful society”.

See also ENGAGE who pose “a question for the new editor of the Daily Express: why not invite a woman who wears the burqa or niqab to respond to McKinstry’s claims of her, and those like her, being subjected to a ‘barbaric tradition’ with its ‘cruel subjugation of women, literally incarcerating them within mobile prisons’?”

Muslim women arrested in protest against French veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kenza Drider arrest

At least two women have been briefly detained in France while wearing Islamic veils, after a law banning the garment in public came into force. Police said they were held not because of their veils but for joining an unauthorised protest, and they were later released.

France is the first country in Europe to publicly ban a form of dress some Muslims regard as a religious duty. Offenders face a fine of 150 euros (£133; $217) and a citizenship course. People forcing women to wear the veil face a much larger fine and a prison sentence of up to two years.

The two women detained had taken part in a demonstration outside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Police said the protest had not been authorised and so people were asked to move on. When they did not, they were arrested.

One of the women, Kenza Drider, had arrived in Paris from the southern city of Avignon, boarding a train wearing a niqab, and unchallenged by police. “We were held for three and a half hours at the police station while the prosecutors decided what to do,” she told AFP news agency. “Three and a half hours later they told us: ‘It’s fine, you can go’.”

A French Muslim property dealer, Rachid Nekkaz, said he was creating a fund to pay women’s fines, and encouraged “all free women who so wish to wear the veil in the street and engage in civil disobedience”.

Mr Nekkaz said he and “a female friend wearing the niqab” were arrested at a separate demonstration in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Elysee Palace. “We wanted to be fined for wearing the niqab, but the police didn’t want to issue a fine,” he told AFP.

BBC News, 11 April 2011

See also “France arrests Muslim women as full-face veil ban begins”, AFP, 11 April 2011

Lecturer accuses airline of racial harassment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A university lecturer has made a complaint of racial harassment against an airline after being told not to sleep with his hands covered as “a matter of security”. A flight attendant woke him after he had covered his head and hands with his jacket, saying his actions had “disturbed” other passengers.

Malhotra, 32, who was born in the UK but is of Indian descent, believes he would not have been treated the same way if he was white, and has been backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland. The incident, last month, raises fears that passengers of Asian or Muslim appearance are being discriminated against by some airline staff because of heightened tensions over terrorist attacks.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates airlines, says there are no rules disallowing passengers from having their heads or hands covered during a flight.

Scotland on Sunday, 10 April 2011