Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

ACLU asks court to allow Muslim women to wear veils

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a group of domestic violence and religious organisations yesterday asked the Michigan supreme court to change a proposed rule that would allow judges to bar Muslim women wearing veils from testifying in court. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for 12 May.

“Judges should not deny anyone access to justice because of his or her religion,” said Michael Steinberg, legal director for the ACLU of Michigan. Steinberg said the ACLU and other groups asked the supreme court to add a sentence to the rule, saying “that no person shall be precluded from testifying on the basis of clothing worn because of a sincerely held belief”.

Steinberg said his request yesterday was signed by religious organisations including the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the American Jewish Congress and Michigan Conference of the United Church of Christ. A group of domestic violence organisations also signed the request in order to allow women who have been sexually assaulted, for instance, to have their day in court without abandoning their beliefs.

Guardian, 1 May 2009

See also Michigan Messenger, 30 April 2009

Scottish government to combat Islamophobia in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobia FilmNo young person in Scotland should be disadvantaged or bullied on the grounds of their faith or race, said Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop as proposals for Islamophobia school workshops are announced.

The Scottish Government is providing £81,700 for the delivery of 152 Islamophobia workshops in secondary schools across Scotland over the next two years.

The workshops will be delivered by Show Racism the Red Card, a charity with a proven track record of working in schools by using football as a starting point to promote racial and religious equality messages.

The programme will look at the causes and consequences of Islamophobia; encourage young people to develop good relationships with people from different backgrounds and cultures to their own; prepare pupils for life in a multifaith, multicultural world; and provide teachers with a valuable teaching resource for ongoing use in the classroom.

Scottish government news release, 1 May 2009

Muslims hit by trebling in stop and search

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stop_and_SearchPolice use of anti-terror stop and search powers trebled last year, prompting fears that the policy is alienating London’s Muslim communities.

Officers in England and Wales used Terrorism Act powers to search 124,687 people in 2007/8, up from 41,924 in 2006/7, figures released yesterday showed. But only around 1 per cent of those searches ended in an arrest. There were 1,271 arrests in total but only 73 of those were for terror offences.

Nearly 90 per cent of the searches were carried out by the Metropolitan Police, the country’s largest force, which recorded a 266 per cent increase in anti-terror stop and search. The Government said the rise in anti-terror stop and search last year was in part linked to the failed bombings in London’s Haymarket district.

Corinna Ferguson, a lawyer for human rights group Liberty, said: “A threefold increase in anti-terror stop and search is the clearest signal that these powers are being misused. Only 6 in 10,000 people stopped were arrested for terrorism, let alone charged or convicted. And the disproportionate impact on ethic minorities is even greater than in previous years.”

Independent, 1 May 2009

Increase in distress calls to Muslim Youth Helpline

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim Youth Helpline

The Muslim Youth Helpline is taking action over the growing distress experienced by young British Muslims, as recent data reveals the proportion of phone calls received from people in anxiety and distress has increased by 57% compared with the same time last year.

Muslim Youth Helpline is the UK’s first and only dedicated helpline for young Muslims. It is operated by volunteers aged 18-28, and has received over 23,000 calls since launching from the bedroom of its founder, then aged 18, in 2001.

The helpline is receiving more calls than can be handled from young British Muslims in distress and to help cope with this demand, Muslim Youth Helpline is working with mainstream support services to help them connect with this hard to reach group and today re-launches its website www.muslimyouth.net as a safe space for young people to help and support each other online 24 hrs a day.

Rukaiya Jeraj, Muslim Youth Helpline spokesperson, said, “We are seeing a worrying increase in the proportion of our callers in serious distress, for example experiencing anxiety or depression, with many talking about self-harm or experiencing suicidal feelings.

“For most young people, finding their place in the world is hard. Young British Muslims not only deal with everyday teenage angst over issues like relationships, but many also contend with a sense of social exclusion, the fear and experience of discrimination, and seeing themselves wrongly portrayed in the public arena as a dangerous presence in society. We believe this is contributing to the problems our callers are experiencing.”

Asian Image, 30 April 2009

The Muslim cleric who blames British mosques for the 7/7 bombings and says multiculturalism is a disaster

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yes, it’s Taj Hargey – just the sort of “Muslim cleric” who finds favour with the Daily Mail, which devotes a major puff-piece to him. Regarding representative Muslim organisations, Hargey assures his interviewer: “These people are religious fascists. The view that Islam is incompatible with British society is something that the Muslim Council of Britain and their hangers-on have promulgated.”

No doubt Hazel Blears will approve of this too. Surely it can only be a matter of time before Hargey finds himself the recipient of the sort of government largesse presently enjoyed by the Quilliam Foundation.

Speaking of whom, the latest witch-hunting “media alert” from Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz is directed against the Islam Channel, which the Quilliam Foundation accuses of promoting extremism. Among the “extremists” Quilliam objects to this popular TV station giving a platform to is Inayat Bunglawala! Perhaps the next Quilliam press release will be headed “Comment is Free and the promotion of extremism”.

It really is a disgrace that this unpleasant sect, headed by a couple of embittered and and malicious ex-HTers, is supplied with large sums of taxpayers’ money – £1 million according to one estimate – to pursue its vindictive, divisive campaign against mainstream Muslim organisations and individuals.

Update:  See also “Quilliam stooges target the Islam Channel” at Engage, 30 April 2009

CAIR denounces Wilders’ hate speech at Florida synagogue

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders at Florida synagogueThe Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today call on members of the Jewish community to condemn the anti-Islam hate of a speaker who was recently given a standing ovation at a Florida synagogue.

CAIR said the speech by Dutch anti-Islam extremist politician Geert Wilders took place at a “large synagogue in Palm Beach.” In the speech, Wilders went through his usual laundry list of hate-filled views, including his claim that “Islam is not a religion” and “the right to religious freedom should not apply to this totalitarian ideology called Islam,” all to the applause of the audience. Wilders also called for stopping immigration from Muslim countries and urged “voluntary repatriation” to those countries.

“A synagogue should be the last place that Geert Wilders’ Nazi-like propaganda would find a warm reception,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Members of the Jewish community know all too well what happens when a religious minority is demonized by demagogues. Wilders uses the same scurrilous attacks on Muslims and Islam that the Nazis used against German Jews and Judaism in the 1930s.”

CAIR press release, 28 April 2009

Update:  See “ADL condemns anti-Islam remarks made by Dutch parliamentarian during appearances in S. Florida”, ADL Florida press release, 28 April 2009

Further update:  See “CAIR Commends Fla. Jewish group for condemning hate speech”, CAIR press release, 30 April 2009

For an alternative view, by the inimitable Pamela Geller, see “ADL stabs Israel’s staunchest ally, Geert Wilders, and Jews along with him again“, Atlas Shrugs, 30 April 2009

Thankfully, the ADL are a lot more representative of the US Jewish community than the lunatic Geller.

‘Islamified Labour Party becomes anti-Jewish’, claim fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Islamification of Britain which is the direct result of mass Third World immigration has now started to directly affect the Labour Party as well, after a Jewish would-be councillor was told by a senior party official that she was ‘too Jewish and too white’ to stand in a Birmingham ward dominated by Afro-Caribbean and Muslim residents.

“Ms Elaina Cohen was told by Labour’s former Lord Mayor councillor Mahmood Hussain that he could not support her application for an inner-city ward because ‘my Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish’….

“The development is the inevitable result of the Islamification of Britain, and the resultant importation of Middle East conflicts to these shores. As increasing numbers of Muslims settle and take over Britain, anti-Jewish events will steadily increase.

“This has been the case in all European countries where Islamic immigration has been high. France in particular has seen dramatically increased anti-Jewish attacks which have all been Islamist in origin.”

BNP news article, 28 April 2009

The article is lifted without acknowledgement from the Daily Mail. The BNP of course omits to quote Mahmood Hussain’s statement: “I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.”

Given its long history of antisemitism, the spectacle of the BNP presenting itself as a friend of the Jewish community may appear bizarre, but its attempt to win Jewish support on an anti-Muslim programme is part of a general development on the European far right. However, while parties like Vlaams Belang in Belgium have met with some success in applying this tactic, the BNP’s efforts have so far attracted almost no support at all within the Jewish community.

While the BNP remains under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a convicted Holocaust denier and author of the Jewish conspiracy booklet Who Are the Mind-Benders?, this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Update:  Over at Harry’s Place the story is reported under the headline “Jews are unwanted here”, and just in case you missed the parallel they’re drawing between Mahmood Hussain and the Nazis, a German sign from the ’30s is reproduced: Juden sind hier unerwünscht. And this despite Hussain’s denial of the accusation against him and before the Labour Party has investigated the matter. Still, he’s a Muslim isn’t he, so why bother with all that innocent-until-proven-guilty nonsense?

Further update:  See also “Selective outrage over bigotry” by Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics, 1 May 2009

Quilliam, New Labour and the witch-hunt of Osama Saeed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Osama and AlexCraig Murray responds to the disgraceful attempt by Ed Husain and his mates to smear Osama Saeed:

“The party political nature of the Quilliam Foundation is shown in their astonishing and completely unbalanced attack on Osama Saeed, a prominent SNP candidate and a friend of mine. They try to portray him as an Islamic extremist. If Osama is an Islamic extremist, then I am a Blairite.

“For New Labour to have even the faintest hope of a respectable performance at the general election, they must protect their Scottish base against the SNP. This pathetic attempt to smear the SNP as connected to Islamic extremism is a blatant abuse of taxpayers’ money….

“The real scandal here is not Osama Saeed, who is a good man dedicated to freedom and to bringing Scotland’s Muslim community into its mainstream politics. The real story is the blatant misuse of taxpayer funds by New Labour.”

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Lichfield Cathedral rejects BNP’s latest attempt to hijack Christianity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP What Would Jesus Do election posterA row has broken out after the British National Party tried to use Lichfield Cathedral as the backdrop for an advertising campaign.

The Archdeacon of Lichfield, the Ven Chris Liley, has hit out at the BNP after an activist turned up in Cathedral Close on Tuesday afternoon with a large advertising van displaying a pro-BNP poster.

The move comes as the debate over plans by the Muslim community to build a mosque in the city rages on with more than 5,000 people voicing objections to the plan on a Facebook site. The BNP activist was challenged by the Archdeacon who “required him” to stop taking photographs and to remove the van from cathedral precincts.

The cathedral authorities have revealed they will now be writing to the BNP to “demand” it does not publish any promotional or marketing material which uses the cathedral as a backdrop or implies any endorsement of the BNP’s views or policies by the cathedral.

The BNP defended its actions claiming it is “voicing the opinion of the people of Lichfield”. BNP spokesman Simon Darby told local website The Lichfield Blog:

“We sent our truth truck along because a lot of people in Lichfield are very upset by the planned mosque. If this was a Labour or Islamic poster would the cathedral have taken the same action? The Archdeacon should spend more time defending the Christian faith because it needs it.”

In recent weeks the BNP has been targeting Christian voters and last month unveiled an advertising poster headed: What would Jesus Do – Vote BNP. Chris Liley added: “The BNP are wrong to suggest Jesus would vote for the BNP. His parable of the Good Samaritan was a clear example about the value we should place on people from other communities.”

Birmingham Mail, 23 April 2009

See also Chris Liley’s post at Comment is Free, 23 April 2009