Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Green Lane Masjid replies to Quilliam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Green Lane Masjid has issued another press release replying to the attack by the Quilliam Foundation. It states in part:

“Unfortunately, it appears that the Quilliam Foundation has set out with a pre-determined agenda to create mischief and portray us in a negative light, in order to foment divisions amid British Muslims along sectarian lines and generate mistrust amongst the wider public. We believe that the press release issued by the Quilliam Foundation will play into the hands of those who wish to exacerbate tensions within society, and portrays Green Lane Masjid and Community Centre in a defamatory and negative light.”

Quilliam, for its part, has published an open letter to Faisal Al-Jassim attempting to justify their accusation that he is a “fellow traveller” of al-Qaida.

Via ENGAGE

Another Quilliam witch-hunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In recent years, several leading UK Muslim organizations have moved away from hosting extremist foreign clerics and have instead begun promoting UK-born and -educated speakers who can facilitate the growth of a native, harmonious Western Islam.

“Next week, however, a major Birmingham institution, the Green Lane Mosque (headquarters of the national Markaz Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith organization) will host two extreme Wahhabi clerics who bolster al-Qaeda narratives…. The Green Lane Mosque has previously been exposed as a centre of hate-preaching. Muslims need to challenge the hateful and divisive rhetoric of such extremist Saudi clerics and those people who promote them.”

Quilliam Foundation press release, 17 December 2009

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Muslims don’t actually want to live in ghettos, shock survey finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in EuropeMost of Europe’s Muslims want to live in mixed communities, not segregated neighbourhoods, a new report says.

The work by the Open Society Institute (OSI), an independent think-tank, looked at the social integration of Muslims in 11 West European cities. It calls for improved efforts to tackle discrimination.

Europe’s Muslim population is expected to double by 2025 and could reach 40 million. But data on them is very limited, OSI says.

The report says religious discrimination remains a critical barrier to their participation in European society, and the situation has worsened in recent years. The OSI says its aim is to promote tolerance and fairness.

Nazia Hussein, who supervised the work, says many Muslims are still seen as outsiders.

“The majority of Muslims that we’ve spoken to across 11 cities feel very strongly attached to their neighbourhood and city, they feel quite strongly attached to their country,” she told the BBC. “But at the same time they don’t believe that their fellow countrymen or the wider society sees them as either German or French or English.”

The report offers a series of snapshots from: the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Berlin and Hamburg), Denmark (Copenhagen), the UK (Leicester and London), France (Marseille and Paris) and Sweden (Stockholm).

BBC News, 15 December 2009

French debate on national identity turns into culture war

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Comments by a French junior minister about young Muslims in France have provoked a firestorm of criticism and put the spotlight on a controversial debate on national identity that threatens to spin out of control.

In one of the many local debates scheduled to be held as part of the nationwide discussion on what it means to be French, the junior minister for families, Nadine Morano, suggested Tuesday to a young Muslim that he should change his behaviour. “What I want of a young Muslim is that he loves France when he lives here, finds work and does not speak in slang. And that he doesn’t wear his cap back to front.”

“This brings back the ethnic vision of the nation, the one that took place at (the pro-Nazi puppet government of) Vichy,” opposition Socialist law-maker Arnaud Montebourg said. The president of the NGO Movement Against Racism (MRAP), Mouloud Aounit, told the online edition of the daily 20 Minutes that Morano’s words “are especially dangerous and extremely violent … I think today there is a terrible increase in Islamophobic statements.”

Criticism also came from conservatives who are growing increasingly afraid that the debate on national identity is turning into a clash of cultures between mainstream France and the large French Muslim community, which numbers about 5 million.

Monsters and Critics, 16 December 2009

See also Nabila Ramdani’s post at Comment is Free, 16 December 2009

Southern California mosque vandalised

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rahmat P. Phyakul, board chairman and one of the founders of Al-Fatiha Masjid, reported to CAIR-LA that vandals shattered windows and glass doors of the mosque’s office and prayer hall on Monday, December 7. A plaque with Quranic verses was tossed on the floor, the sound system was destroyed and donation boxes were broken into.

The mosque has suffered prior incidents of vandalism. In the past, a passerby shouted anti-Muslim slurs at worshipers. The slurs reportedly included: “You, terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, F… your God, F…. you Allah.” Prayer rugs in the mosque were also covered with urine.

“We urge law enforcement authorities to utilize all their resources to immediately and fully investigate the vandalism at Masjid Al-Fatiha as a possible hate crime, especially because of the nature of the vandalism,” said Affad Shaikh, civil rights manager for CAIR-LA.

Phyakul added: “For those who have committed hate crimes against people of any faith, especially Muslims, they should know that they cannot silence us, shut us down or cause us to go away. This is our country, and we are here to stay and we are willing to stand for the truth and peace under any circumstances.”

CAIR press release, 13 December 2009

German banker rapped over headscarf remark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thilo SarrazinAmid a rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe, a former finance senator in Germany has been strongly criticized for his racist, anti-Islam comments. On Sunday, Thilo Sarrazin, former Berlin finance senator and currently a member of the German Central Bank committee called for a headscarf ban in German schools.

His comments come only four months after the official let loose against “Arabs” and “Turks” living in Germany in an interview with the culture magazine Lettre International. “A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose number has grown through bad policies, have no productive function other than as fruit and vegetable vendors,” he had said.

In his controversial remarks, Sarrazin also alluded to a new plan proposed by the country’s Immigration Commission, which would oblige foreigners seeking to live in Germany to sign “integration contracts” to respect Western values. “I don’t need to respect anyone who lives off the state, denies the state, doesn’t do anything to educate their kids, and just produces more headscarf girls,” Thilo Sarrazin had said.

Following his disparaging remarks, the senior official has faced strong criticism, with many calling on him to quit. On Sunday, Claudia Roth, leader of the German Green Party lambasted the executive board member, demanding his immediate resignation.

Press TV, 14 December 2009

BNP links with Scottish Defence League exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SDL demonstratorsLinks between the BNP and the right-wing Scottish Defence League can today be exposed by the Sunday Herald.

Both groups have publicly tried to distance themselves from each other, with the BNP claiming it would expel members found to be active in the Scottish Defence League (SDL) and its English counterpart, the EDL.

But one long-standing BNP member in Scotland told the Sunday Herald the party and the SDL shared many members and supporters, adding that the threat of expulsion was merely “a publicity thing” designed to placate the media. He said: “I am a member of the BNP and a supporter of the Scottish Defence League. A lot of the supporters are the same.”

On the threat of expulsion, he added: “That is a publicity thing. We both have the same views on radical Islam and we both don’t want Sharia law in Britain. We created our group [the SDL] to support what was happening down south with the English Defence League. I couldn’t say that the SDL was set up by BNP activists, but I was one of the early ones to support it.”

The claim that the expulsion threat was a publicity stunt was dismissed as “preposterous” by the party’s national press spokesman, who questioned the authenticity of the member who made the allegation.

However, information gathered by David Miller, a professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde and a co-founder of the campaigning website Spinwatch, alleges that at least three BNP members are also Defence League supporters.

One is BNP Scotland member John Wilkinson. He leafleted on behalf of the party in the run-up to the European Elections, and is involved with running the SDL website. SDL supporter Iain Brooks, from Glasgow, is also listed on a leaked BNP membership list. And Adam Lloyd, the BNP organiser for Bridgend in Wales, is another listed as an SDL supporter, according to Prof Miller.

Sunday Herald, 13 December 2009

Chimney pot minaret defies Swiss vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chimney pot minaretA Swiss shoe-shop owner has built a mock minaret on the top of his warehouse in defiance of a ban on the Muslim architecture.

Guillaume Morand extended a chimney, gave it the form of a minaret and sprayed it in gold paint to protest against a constitutional amendment approved in a nationwide referendum last month.

“It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban,” said Mr Morand, 46, who owns the Pomp It Up chain of shoe stores. “Now we [the Swiss] have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful.”

The tower, made of plastic and wood above his warehouse near Lausanne, is a “message of peace and tolerance” designed to last for two years before it rots, he said – but there are no plans for it to be used to summon Muslims to prayer. “Our minaret is pretty,” he said. “You could say I’m proud of it and I’m happy that people are talking about it.”

His neighbours are less enthusiastic and have showered him with racist insults since the minaret appeared this week, he said. One telephoned a threat to demolish the structure.

Sunday Times, 13 December 2009

SIOE Harrow protest: fifteen Islamophobes respond to Gash’s call

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SIOE Harrow

An anti-Islamic protest near a north-London mosque has passed peacefully with no arrests.

Fifteen members of Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE) protested near Harrow Central Mosque against plans for a new mosque nearby. About 200 members of Unite Against Fascism also gathered but a large police presence prevented the groups approaching the mosque or each other.

Ahead of Sunday’s demonstration, SIOE said it planned a peaceful protest against the building of a five-storey mosque next to the Station Road mosque. Leader Stephen Gash previously said he would only organise a protest if 2,000 SIOE supporters pledged to turn up.

BBC News, 13 December 2009

Still, Gash can take consolation in the fact that the actual turnout was a mere 1,985 supporters short of that figure.

Update:  See UAF report.