Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Harry’s Place and the smearing of Mehdi Hasan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harry’s Place continues its witch-hunt of Mehdi Hasan, senior editor (politics) at the New Statesman, in what is clearly a campaign aimed at getting him dismissed from his job. In the comments section fellow NS journalist James Macintyre has posted a defence of his colleague which we reproduce here:

Harry’s Place – I have just seen this unspeakable smear campaign – “part 1” – against my colleague Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman. You have just lowered yourself to the rankest form of fact-free, context-free, bent hatchet-job “blogging”. I am one of many outsiders who is repulsed. You pose as a quasi-intellectual blog-site, and yet you operate with no rules of journalism. Let me, therefore, offer you some facts.I have known Mehdi Hasan for seven years. In that time I have been honoured to know an actively moderate Muslim; easily the most moderate Muslim I have met and among the most religious people I know, and that catagory includes senior members of the Anglican communion to which I belong.

Mehdi Hasan does indeed have a double life: and it is the exact opposite to what your libelous bile presents. At the same time as being dismissed on neo-con sites like this as an “extremist” or fan of bin Laden, he in fact lectures his own community of London Shias of the need to integrate and be fully British. He does this on a weekly or monthly basis.

Only a few months ago Tony McNulty MP – not known for his pro-extremist stances – praised Mehdi Hasan at a public meeting in the House of Commons. He said he was previously unaware that this kind of speaking – in which Muslims were told by a Muslim to inegrate and be British – took place within the community.

This clip which you have seedily honed in on merely shows him sticking up for religion in the way that your heroes Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins denounce it and passionately defend atheism. As a Christian believer myself, I agree with Mehdi Hasan in his comments you seek to sensationalize – tell me then Harry’s Place, does that make me one of your targets, or are your dangerous smears purely based on race?

You have disgraced yourself, and it would be amusing were it not a calculated attempt to damage a man’s reputation. I have never known a more open-minded person who speaks publicly on religion. Many a time have I heard Mehdi Hasan angrily denounce anti-semitism, racism, prejudice of any kind.

If you seriously intend to run this series, by a doubtless fake “Channel 4 insider” – what have you got to hide, C4 Insider? Surely this is a great story if you are on safe ground? – then you had better be prepared for the consequences. Legalities aside, you threaten to shame your web site once and for all.

I feel like I am posting on the BNP site, and it is on that level that you will place yourselves with this pathetic smear, based purely on the fact that Mehdi got the better of your contributors last week. If you are going to go after him, go after me too – as I agree with almost everything he says about the world’s religions.

Mehdi Hasan is a friend, a colleague, and someone who deserves the utmost praise for his amazing role as an educator and moderator of those in his own faith.

It’s time for you to decide: are you going to be a serious blogsite, or are you going to place yourselves in the same catagory as bnp.org.uk?

Think about it.

Judge clears way for lawsuit by 6 imams arrested at Minneapolis airport

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In a strongly worded ruling, a federal judge on Friday cleared the way for a lawsuit by six Muslim men who claim they were falsely arrested on a US Airways jet in Minneapolis three years ago to move forward.

“The right not to be arrested in the absence of probable cause is clearly established and, based on the allegations … no reasonable officer could have believed that the arrest of the Plaintiffs was proper,” U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery ruled Friday.

The case of “the flying imams” has sparked ongoing debate about the power of law enforcement to override personal rights in the name of security.

The imams were arrested in November 2006 as they were returning home from the North American Conference of Imams. A passenger had passed a note to a flight attendant noting what he considered suspicious activity.

FBI Special Agent Michael Cannizzaro and airport police officers had argued that the arrest and removal of the imams was valid because there were reasons to be suspicious of a crime. They argued that a law passed by Congress to protect people who report suspicious activity from being sued also extends to them.

But Montgomery’s opinion and order stated that they were bound by longstanding rules requiring probable cause before arresting someone.

Being of Middle Eastern descent, praying aloud before their flight and asking for seat belt extenders did not constitute reasonable suspicion to arrest the Muslim spiritual leaders, Montgomery ruled. The officers are not immune to being held accountable for their actions, she said. She did dismiss a false arrest claim against Cannizzaro.

Continue reading →

Georgia courts to allow religious head coverings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lisa_ValentineGeorgia courtrooms will allow religious headgear after last year’s arrest of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her headscarf in a west Georgia courthouse.

The Judicial Council of Georgia voted unanimously this week to allow religious and medical headgear into Georgia courtrooms. It also allows a person to request a private inspection if a security officer wants to conduct a search.

“If this had been a nun, no one would have required her to remove her habit,” said Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, who heads the Judicial Council. “I think this is a good rule, and I think it’s clear.”

The policy shift stems from the December 2008 arrest of Lisa Valentine, who was ordered to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court after she refused to remove her hijab at a courtroom in Douglasville, a town of about 20,000 people west of Atlanta.

Associated Press, 24 July 2009

See also CAIR press release, 24 July 2009

Muslim woman ‘told to take off veil’ by bus driver in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing a pink, floral niqab, which covers her hair and lower face, when she tried to board a bus in Greystanes, an outer suburb of the Astralian city.

“As I was stepping onto the bus the driver said ‘You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask’,” she told the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper. When she explained it was religious dress, the woman said the driver responded: “Sorry, it’s the law.”

“I told him it wasn’t the law and he said ‘You have to show me your face,'” she said. “I said to him, ‘There’s no difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I’m wearing’.”

The bus company, Hillsbus, said the driver was being questioned over the claims.

Daily Telegraph, 24 July 2009

Anti-Muslim bias in the media? Not according to Harry’s Place

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harry's Place banner

“There’s a funny little spat going on. So last week Mehdi Hasan from the New Statesman wrote an article highlighting the different way the media treats a Muslim terrorist and a non-Muslim (far-right in this case) terrorist. Pretty obvious I thought. But Brett at Harry’s Place took umbrage on behalf of all people who feel white people are being victimised equally and there’s no bias obviously.

“I mean it’s not like there’s a media panic about Muslims is there? It’s not like there’s been stories of Muslim bus drivers chucking people off the bus so he could pray. Obviously there’s not been any on Muslims drawing up a hit-list of prominent Jews to get them back over Gaza. No one could ever imagine a story of Muslim youths attacking a soldier’s house after Afghanistan.

“You certainly would not believe that these stories would make the front page AND they turned out to be lies. That would never happen because our media is so balanced. Neither would you see prominent right-wing columnists writing about Eurabia and the ‘coming Muslim threat and all that’. Our press is the paragon of equal treatment to all nasty people. In group bias? That would never happen!”

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics, 22 July 2009

MCB libel win threatens ‘free speech’ claims Martin Bright

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ENGAGE replies to Bright, who writes: “There is a growing recognition that the libel laws are becoming an embarrassment to Britain. With large organisations consistently folding to the merest whiff of a threat from Carter Ruck, free speech (and the scientific principle) is seriously under threat. The latest to pay up is the BBC, which has just settled with the MCB’s ‘Secretary General’ Muhammad Abdul Bari.”

Defend multicultural Britain against the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma Yaqoob Respect“Today, it is anti-Muslim racism that is at the cutting edge of the fascist strategy. It is effective because it feeds on the suspicion and prejudice that is the theme of so much mainstream discussion of our lives as British Muslims.

“Its consequences are real. Already, there are signs that attacks on mosques and individual Muslims may be rising. The police are warning of the danger of far-right terrorism. And, earlier this month, we saw an openly racist provocation in Birmingham city centre, under the guise of a protest against ‘Islamic extremism’ – a label that the organiser made clear applied to all Muslims.

“We, as British Muslims, have a direct and immediate interest in defeating this fascist threat. The anti-fascist movement must reach out to Muslim communities who are at the sharp end of BNP attacks. But the rise in racism is not only a threat to Muslims. The BNP may be playing down their anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism in order to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. But to the BNP we are all ‘racial foreigners’. Our very existence as British people is denied.

“Our task is not only to unite all those targeted by the BNP, with every possible ally who rejects racism and fascism. We have to also positively assert our multicultural and pluralist society. It is a message of hope that is in tune in an increasingly interconnected world. It is a source of strength and vibrancy. We are one society and many cultures. And we will only remain so if we are prepared to stand up and be counted.”

Salma Yaqoob in the Morning Star, 20 July 2009