An anti-racist of Jewish descent asks if the time has not come for Jews to speak out against Islamophobia.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Facing facts about Islamophoba
Excellent programme on Islamophobia in the media by John Waite in Radio 4’s Face The Facts slot. Listen to it here.
Zakir Naik to address Oxford Union by satellite
An Indian Muslim scholar who is banned from entering Britain is to address the Oxford Union via satellite link, in a direct challenge to the home secretary, Theresa May.
Zakir Naik, who was placed under an exclusion order last summer, has been invited by the debating society to take part in a discussion in two weeks’ time on the theme of religious tolerance.
The invitation has angered May and could provide an awkward dilemma for the Conservative party. The former shadow home secretary Chris Grayling promised to ban the use of satellite technology to broadcast the views of excluded Islamist preachers based abroad.
Naik, who founded the global satellite channel Peace TV, was the first Muslim preacher to be banned by the coalition government when he was stopped from entering the country in June.
The Mumbai-based television evangelist was invited weeks ago to take part in the debate with academics and students. Thames Valley police have been advising the union on how to conduct the meeting.
Naik told the Guardian he was delighted by the invitation. “This gives me the perfect opportunity to show the British people my true views rather than the distorted and false grounds cited by the home secretary,” he said.
He has argued that he is a moderate and is currently involved in an appeal court action to have the order lifted.
Peace TV has a huge following in the Muslim districts of Mumbai, Naik’s native city. Naik has been named as the third most popular spiritual guru in India.
In a letter highlighting the reasons for his exclusion, May quoted Naik’s assertion that “all Muslims should be terrorists” as one example of his unreasonable behaviour. He claims the statement was taken out of context and that he was referring about the right to “terrorise” thieves.
Another passage quoted by the home secretary is said to come from a 2006 lecture, in which Naik said of Osama bin Laden: “If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him.” Naik claims the lecture was given in 1998, before the September 11 attacks.
The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism committee, called for the government to halt the broadcast. “The coalition government should pursue this with vigour. Naik is a subversive pest and his words not be allowed to reach the vulnerable and the impressionable,” he said.
Church leader condemns far-right opposition to Shotton Islam centre
A church leader has criticised the British National Party’s leafleting campaign against the proposed Shotton Islamic centre.
St Ethelwold’s Church was pictured in the leaflet co-ordinated by BNP community councillor John Walker without authorisation. And vicar Rev Steven Green wants to make it clear the church does not support the far-right organisation’s opposition to the controversial plans.
Within the leaflet Cllr Walker said: “With declining church attendances and the local clergy falling over themselves to welcome other religions into the area, what future does Christianity have in Deeside?”
Mr Green said: “I would suggest the author of this letter should be better informed, as all the churches on Deeside work well together and are involved in many projects such as Fairtrade, community development and many other initiatives.
“The Christian communities are faithful and confident in their own faith, but that faith reflecting the love of Jesus seeks to welcome and offer hospitality. Church life on Deeside is in good heart, supported by loyal, faithful and generous Christians who stand for peace and tolerance on our streets and respect for all people of peace and goodwill.”
Mr Green also criticised the English Defence League’s town centre protest on Saturday. “I find it difficult to believe such a demonstration has anything to do with the people of Deeside,” he said. “Deeside people are warm, generous and tolerant people who have witnessed and adapted to many changes over the last 30 years.”
New Jersey town requires bigger venue to fit crowd to hear mosque application
BRIDGEWATER — Township officials are looking for a bigger venue to accommodate the anticipated crowd that will attend the next meeting on a proposal to convert the Redwood Inn into a mosque.
Monday’s Planning Board meeting on the Chughtai Foundation’s application to create a mosque had to be postponed when a crowd of more than 400 people filled the two available meeting rooms and spilled out the door of the Municipal Complex, 100 Commons Way.
Newmans Lane resident Susan Haggerty said the proposal for a mosque is “unnerving. This mosque represents more. It represents a coming in and taking over an entire community by the Islamic World.”
Southern Baptist leader resigns from ADL’s interfaith coalition, says co-religionists have condemned his backing for Murfreesboro Islamic Center
A top leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has resigned from a new interfaith coalition, saying some fellow Southern Baptists felt it was inappropriate for him to support the building of mosques.
Richard Land, who heads the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told organizers at the Anti-Defamation League that “many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship.” At the same time, “they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is ‘a bridge too far.”‘
Land told the ADL in a Jan. 14 letter that he had received a “spirited response” to his support of a disputed mosque project in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and some fellow Baptists viewed it as promotion of Islam.
Huffington Post, 26 January 2011
See also Think Progress, 25 January 2011
For the background to the ADL’s campaign, see “ADL changes its tune on mosques”, Salon, 25 January 2011
For Pamela Geller’s rant against the ADL’s Abe Foxman and his “latest dhimmi-jew stunt”, see Atlas Shrugs, 25 January 2011
Sweden Democrats leader says terrorism is ‘a form of Islamic tactic’ and calls for fight against ‘Islamism as a political ideology’
Sweden’s far-right leader on Wednesday called for a fight against Islamic extremism at a parliamentary debate in connection with the December suicide attack in Stockholm.
“Terrorism is not an isolated threat. It is a form of Islamic tactic and it is Islamism as a political ideology that needs to be fought and mapped out,” Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson said.
Åkesson, whose anti-immigration party burst onto the Swedishpolitical scene after the September election, acknowledged that only an extremely small portion of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims committed terrorist acts, but said many more “sympathise with Islamism.”
Åkesson, whose Sweden Democrats’ requested Wednesday’s parliamentary debate following the country’s first-ever suicide attack, insisted an important debate had been stifled in Sweden by “a fear of being branded Islamophobic.”
Green Party parliamentarian Maria Ferm blasted Åkesson for “trying to connect the typical picture of a terrorist to the Muslim man,” insisting that only 0.34 percent of all terror attacks in Europe are committed by Islamic extremists. Most attacks, she said, were carried out by rightwing and leftwing extremists.
Now Wyoming may try to outlaw Sharia too
Last year, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that would prohibit judges from consulting sharia law in their decisions. A federal judge promptly blocked the ban, saying the case goes “to the very foundation of our country.”
But that’s not going to stop one Wyoming lawmaker from trying for a repeat.
State Rep. Gerald Gay (R) is proposing a similar ballot measure that would prevent judges from using sharia, or Islamic, law in their decisions. Like the Oklahoma measure, it would also block “international” law – which could cause unseen effects for Wyoming’s American Indian population.
And, again like in Oklahoma, Gay admits that sharia has not been a problem in his state. Echoing the works of Okla. State Rep. Rex Duncan (R), he calls it a “pre-emptive strike.” He told the Billings Gazette that he doesn’t want judges using Islamic tenets in cases involving honor killings or arranged marriages.
According to one 2000 estimate by Penn State’s Association of Religion Data Archives, there are fewer than 300 Muslims in Wyoming.
For the background on Gerald Gay, see Mother Jones, 26 January 2011
Temecula City Council unanimously approves plan for new mosque
At the end of what city officials referred to as the longest meeting in city history, the City Council early Wednesday morning voted 4-0 to deny an appeal of the Planning Commission’s Dec. 1 approval of the Temecula mosque plans. The 3:34 a.m. vote means the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley can move forward with the first phase of its mosque project absent any legal challenge.
Before casting his vote, Councilman Jeff Comerchero said he received an e-mail recently from someone who asked him what he would tell his children and grandchildren if he voted to deny the appeal. “I’ll tell them I was proud to sit up here and uphold the Constitution,” he said, garnering applause from the folks who made it to the end of the eight-plus-hour hearing.
North Wales Police out in force for tiny EDL protest against Shotton Islamic centre
About 100 members of far-right group the English Defence League descended on Shotton to protest against plans for a new Islamic cultural centre in the town.
Dozens of North Wales Police officers were out in force on Saturday (January 22) to ensure the protest passed peacefully.
EDL campaigners marched through the town centre to the site of the former Shotton Lane Social Club, where the proposed centre would be built if the Flintshire Muslim Cultural Society successfully raises the £150,000 needed to buy the venue.