STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Citing what he sees as “religious bigotry” and “hatred,” Ibrahim Ramey, the human and civil rights director for MAS Freedom National – the advocacy arm of the Muslim American Society – penned an open letter today regarding opposition to a plan to build a mosque at the former St. Margaret Mary’s R.C. Church convent in Midland Beach.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Mother and daughter left ‘heartbroken’ by vicious race assault
Racists launched a vicious attack on a Muslim woman who was struck on the head and almost had her headscarf torn off. They also hurled racial abuse at the mother and her young daughter as they walked through the city.
The shocking assault has been condemned by the city’s Muslim community, along with religious leaders across Exeter. Hayat Kaddouri Roddy, of Polsloe Road, Exeter, has spoken of the frightening attack in which she describes her attackers as “animals”.
The 37-year-old was with her 13-year-old daughter Huda when the assault happened in Edmund Street, in the St David’s area of Exeter, close to the subway, at around 12.30pm on Tuesday. Both were wearing hijab head-dresses, and Hayat also had on a traditional Muslim jilbab – a long dress.
Moroccan-born Hayat, who has lived in the UK for 17 years and in Exeter for several years, and her daughter were stopped by two teenagers, a boy and girl aged around 17 to 18, who refused to let them pass. They racially abused the woman before a man aged around 27 joined in the attack.
Police are investigating the incident and are appealing for witnesses to contact them.
Hayat said: “This couple stopped us and said they weren’t going to let us pass. They said ‘you don’t belong to this country’. I kept really calm and there was a man behind me and I told him the couple wouldn’t let me pass.
“I thought maybe he would be supportive and help but all of a sudden, he stopped next to me and hit me on the head and tried to pull off my headscarf. He didn’t manage to pull it off completely but he really pulled it hard. And he was saying nasty words to me.”
Via London Muslim
Fox News: Sharia law is ‘on its way to American courts’
Oklahoma State Rep. Rex Duncan (R) is worried that “dangerous fools in black robes” are going to impose sharia law on the U.S. court system.
And Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade is right there with him.
Duncan is pushing a ballot measure to prohibit courts from considering international or sharia law when handing down decisions, something he called a “commonsense” proposal on Fox News today.
Fox And Friends host Brian Kilmeade introduced the segment with this explanation of sharia law: “Sharia law is sometimes used to justify cruel punishments like amputations, like stoning, as well as unequal treatment of women. And did you know it’s on its way to American courts?”
Kilmeade also asked Duncan whether he thought the push to impose sharia law is part of “a push by extremists on the west” who want to build a mosque near the World Trade Center, or who were “screaming” at British Soldiers in London when they came home from the war.
“It is a push,” Duncan replied, “and anybody could see it if they would simply open their eyes.”
See also News Hounds, 21 June 2010
London: thousands demonstrate against EDL in East End
Around 5,000 people marched through the East End of London today in a huge show of unity and defiance against racism and fascism.
The demonstration organised by UAF and United East End was orginally called as a counter-protest against the racist English Defence League, which has links with the British National Party and other fascist groups – but the racists abandoned their plans to come to Tower Hamlets as the scale of opposition to them became clear.
There was a great turnout on today’s antiracist demo anyway, with marchers determined to show that racism and fascism are not welcome in the East End. Large numbers of local young people were joined by trade unionists and people from every part of the area’s diverse population in an exuberant demonstration.
See also Socialist Worker, 20 June 2010
Update: Read Dave Hill’s take on the afternoon’s events at Dave Hill’s London Blog, 21 June 2010
Spying on British Muslims
This is an awful example of treating entire Muslim communities as suspicious and their democratic representatives as too unreliable to be trusted.
It stems from the same mentality that saw parts of the “Prevent” anti-extremism programme degenerate into police forces spying on Muslims’ political and religious views.
It is no accident that this has happened in Birmingham. Last year an Institute of Race Relations report revealed that Prevent work in Birmingham was being directly managed by a counterterrorism police officer.
Anwar Akhtar on the installation of spy cameras in Muslim neighbourhoods in Birmingham.
Legal challenge to ban on Zakir Naik
An Indian Muslim preacher banned by the home secretary from entering the UK for his “unacceptable behaviour” is to challenge the ruling in the courts.
Zakir Naik, a 44-year-old television preacher, had been due to give lectures in Sheffield on 25 June and Wembley Arena the following day. Mr Naik is based in Mumbai, where he works for the Peace TV channel. The Islamic Research Foundation said in a statement:
“It is deeply regrettable the British Government has bowed to pressure from sectarian and Islamophobic pressure groups by preventing the entry of Dr Zakir Naik, who has been visiting and delivering talks in the United Kingdom for the past 15 years.
“Dr Zakir Naik is undoubtedly an opponent of terrorism and as such has often spoken out against all acts of violence and violent extremism. He has emphatically and unequivocally condemned the killing of civilians and is one of the world’s regular noted orators on this topic.
“In the wake of the exclusion order and based on legal advice, Dr Zakir Naik intends to bring the matter before the High Court … and request a judicial review to have the exclusion order overturned.”
Meanwhile, the English Defence League are celebrating having secured “another victory by getting hate preacher Zakir Naik banned from entering Britain”. They have announced that they are calling off their Wembley demonstration on 26 June and holding it in Barking instead.
Sectarian idiots attempt to undermine anti-fascist unity in Tower Hamlets
“As we confront the fascist thugs of EDL we in the Bengali and the Muslim community are being asked to stand side by side with Islamic Forum in Europe (IFE). This we refuse to do.”
As Tower Hamlets gears up for a united protest against the English Defence League, a motley collection of malicious, sectarian idiots has chosen this moment to mount a public attack on the IFE and the East London Mosque, bracketing them along with the EDL as fascists.
Note that many of the signatories to this ill-written diatribe aren’t even part of the Bengali and Muslim community anyway. They include the drunken thug Terry Fitzpatrick, currently on bail facing a charge of racially aggravated harassment following a complaint to the police by Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote. Then there is Gita Sahgal, who broke with Amnesty over its links with Cageprisoners, and has headed a right-wing campaign against her former employers while promoting crackpot conspiracy theories to justify her participation in the witch-hunt.
And where would a statement like this be without the support of the contemptible Jim Fitzpatrick MP? This is the man who insulted the couple who invited him to their (gender-segregated) wedding at the London Muslim Centre by denouncing them to the press and whose most recent contribution to community harmony has been to condemn the organisers of Sunday’s protest for “stirring up fear and anger”.
True, this disgraceful statement has been signed by some members of the Bengali community in East London – indeed, it was organised on behalf of the laughably misnamed Unity Platform Against Racism and Fascism from the Bangladesh Welfare Association off Brick Lane.
One such signatory is Ansar Ahmed Ullah, who worked with Andrew Gilligan on “Britain’s Islamic Republic“, the Channel 4 documentary that provoked the EDL’s threat to demonstrate in the East End in the first place. And, after the programme was condemned in a letter to the Guardian by a wide range of progressive figures, Ullah collected signatures for a letter defending Gilligan’s witch-hunt. Last year he collaborated with Observer journalist Nick Cohen in another attack on the East London Mosque, complaining bitterly about the government’s willingness to consult its leading figures. “They never want to talk to people like me,” he whinged. Well, perhaps that’s because the East London Mosque is attended by some 10,000 people a week and represents serious forces within the community – whereas Ullah represents, shall we say, rather less.
Other signatories are associated with the Awami League, currently the governing party in Bangladesh. As the statement makes clear, their primary interest is in settling scores over disputes within Bangladeshi politics, going back to the liberation war nearly four decades ago, without any concern for the impact their actions have on politics in East London today.
This is not only unprincipled but monumentally stupid. By breaking the united front against the far Right, these self-proclaimed “secular” forces within the Bangladeshi community are playing with fire. The Brick Lane Mosque, with which the Bangladesh Welfare Association is connected, has itself been witch-hunted by Islamophobes over its recently-built “minaret”. What will they do if the EDL turns its attention to them? Blinded by their hatred of Jamaat-e-Islami, they fail to see – or do not care – that their sectarian actions will stoke the fires of Islamophobia and that, whatever short-term advantages they may gain over their rivals in the IFE, in the long term all sections of the Bengali Muslim community will pay the price.
The IFE’s response to the Unity Platform Against Racism and Fascism statement can be read here.
Update: Over at The Spittoon, the Unity Platform statement is hailed as “An amazing show of grassroots unity in Tower Hamlets against the forces of fascism that seek to dominate it – be it the EDL, UAF or the IFE.” So, according to Faizal Gazi and his mates, not only IFE but also UAF are among the “forces of fascism”! Attempting to discredit the proponents of this sort of irrational nonsense would be entirely superfluous. They accomplish that task themselves without any help from us.
Theresa May bans Zakir Naik
A radical preacher who claimed that “every Muslim should be a terrorist” has been banned from coming to Britain, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. In her first major test of being tough on extremism, Theresa May, the new Home Secretary, said she was banning Zakir Naik from entering the UK.
Dr Naik, a 44-year-old Indian televangelist, had been due to give a series of lectures at arenas in Wembley and Sheffield.
Last night Patrick Mercer MP, the former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism committee, said: “This is really good news. It shows that firm Government action can be taken against people. This is exactly the sort of man who we want to exclude from this country.”
Dr Naik has been named as the third most popular spiritual guru in India and was judged in 2009 to be 82nd in a list of India’s most powerful people.
Staten Island: Church backpedaling on selling convent for mosque
Bowing to pressure from Staten Island’s xenophobic reactionaries, a local pastor has reversed his decision to sell a convent to an Islamic group that would use it as a community center and mosque.
In the wake of an ugly community meeting last week, Rev. Keith Fennessy, the pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church, sent a letter yesterday to Archbishop Timothy Dolan explaining that upon reflection he had “concluded that the contemplated sale would not serve the needs of the parish.” Fennessy had already signed a contract with the group, the Muslim American Society, to sell the vacant convent for $750,000.
MAS didn’t find out about Fennessy’s reneging until a reporter called to ask them about it – after seeing a press release on the Archbishop’s website.
Update: See “Muslim American Society responds to Staten Island pastor’s bid to cancel sale of convent”, SILive, 18 June 2010
Unity statement against EDL protest in Wembley
Local trade unionists, faith group leaders and councillors in Brent have backed a unity statement against plans by the racist English Defence League to “protest” at an event held by a Muslim charity in Wembley.
The statement says:
The racist, Islamophobic English Defence League is threatening to demonstrate in Wembley on Saturday 26 June against a peace conference, organised by a Muslim charitable foundation and aimed at building understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.
The EDL is an organisation of violent, bigoted thugs with proven links to the Nazi British National Party. They should be condemned everywhere, but will be particularly unwelcome if they come to Wembley, part of this country’s most diverse borough.
We are proud of our diversity. In the London Borough of Brent, people live and work together, children study, play and grow up together in peace and mutual respect, regardless of faith or skin colour.
As residents and workers in this borough, we will not tolerate attempts to divide us or stir up hatred. We stood united to show that there was no place for racism or Islamophobia in the neighbouring borough of Harrow. We stand prepared to do the same in Brent.
Signed by:
Pete Firmin president, Brent Trades Union Council,Benjamin Rickman, secretary Brent TUC and Hendon and Wembley Unite, all 40 councillors in Brent Council’s Labour Group, Pete BroadbentBishop of Willesden, Felicity Scroggie area dean of Brent, Peter Murry Brent Green Party and secretary, Green Party trade union group, Navin Shah London Assembly Member for Brent & Harrow,Fr David Neno rector, Christchurch with St Lawrence, Brondesbury, Harrow College UCU branch, Alf Filer Harrow College UCU, Nick GrantNational Union of Teachers national executive, An-Nisa Society, Nisar & Rashida Dean, Tala and Thomas Birch, Jane Morris St Gabriels Church, Jo Lang president, Harrow Teachers Association (NUT),Jon Gamble secretary, Watford Trades Union Council, Nikita Joshi secretary, LGBT committee and student governor, Harrow College NUS, Joshua McKenzie vice-president, Harrow College NUS and NUS executive, Clive Morton vicar, Holy Innocents Church, Kingsbury
Demonstrate against the EDL
Brent and Harrow UAF have also called a counter-demonstration against the EDL on Saturday 26 June, 1.30pm to 6pm, outside Wembley Arena, Engineers Way, London HA9 0DH (Wembley Park or Wembley Central tube).