Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

California Muslim denied service at bank over hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Amal HersiA woman who wore an Islamic head scarf to a local bank said she was turned away and singled out, and is a victim of discrimination. Amal Hersi and her family moved to the U.S. from Somalia in search of freedom. Hersi said she’s had the freedom she’s wanted, up until last Saturday. “I felt like a criminal. I felt humiliated. I fell ashamed,” said Hersi.

Hersi said she was waiting in line at the Navy Federal Credit Union in Mission Valley when she said she was stopped by an employee. “So she goes, ‘Ma’am, could you follow me?’ And at that point I was like what did I do wrong?” said Hersi. Hersi said the reason was because she wore a traditional Muslim scarf.

Even after telling the employee she wore the scarf for religious reasons, she was asked to remove it. She compares herself to any other person wearing a garment, like a Jewish man wearing a Yarmulke or a Catholic nun wearing a habit.

Many banks have policies like this in order to deter bank robbers, a representative from the Navy Federal Credit Union said. “In the interest of security and safety for our members and employees, hats, hoods and sunglasses must be removed when entering the branch office,” Navy Federal Credit Union said in a statement.

10News.com, 2 February 2009

CAIR asks FBI to probe harassment of Florida Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the FBI to investigate possible civil rights violations by a “biblical group” that allegedly harassed worshipers yesterday at a Florida mosque.

More than 20 people used bullhorns to shout slurs against the faith of Islam and Islam’s Prophet Muhammad at those attending the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area. They also handed out anti-Muslim literature and, according to a mosque official, frightened children attending weekend school at the facility. The group was apparently in Tampa for today’s Super Bowl. Police were called to the scene.

CAIR press release, 2 February 2009

NSS defends Muslim scouts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It’s nice to know that even devout Christians don’t allow facts to alter a good story. The Christian Institute recently got its woggles warped over ‘boy’ Scouts adopting an ‘Islamic’ pledge in Scotland. Clearly outraged, the Institute reported on ‘plans’ to replace the ‘god and queen’ oath made by UK Scouts as a condition of joining the movement, with one made to ‘Allah, the most Beneficent and Merciful’ in which The Queen is omitted.

“Unable to find anyone weighty to support their cause, the Institute wheeled out Richard Cox from the obscure ‘campaign against political correctness’ to rage against the ‘plan’. They also managed to quote a Scout Association official who stated that ‘The Scouts may have been a Christian organisation originally’.

“This (non) story is so old it really ought to be on The Antiques Roadshow. For starters, ‘boy’ Scouts stopped existing in Britain in 1967. In 1992, Scouting was opened up to girls. Today, UK Scouting is fully co-ed.

“Furthermore, the UK Scout Association has always been open to Muslims. They used to take the ‘Outlander’ promise, which according to tradition, was written by Baden Powell for ‘Scouts that had to omit the reference to God or a monarch for reasons of conscience’. This was later replaced by a Promise option that refers to ‘Allah’.

“The UK’s Muslim Scout Fellowship website reports that over a third of the world’s 28 million Scouts are Muslims. This rather flies in the face of the idea that Scouting may have originated as a Christian organisation, particularly as Baden-Powell said ‘Scouting holds no brief for one set of beliefs over another’.”

National Secular Society, 30 January 2009

Now, let’s be frank, we’ve had our differences with Terry Sanderson and his friends in the past. But credit where it’s due, here they’ve got it right.

UKIP activist responsible for anti-Muslim advert

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Trago

ENGAGE has reproduced the above from an advert placed by the shopping and leisure organisation Trago Mills in the Falmouth Packet newspaper. The author, David Challice, is chairman of the Exeter Branch of UKIP.

ENGAGE urges its supporters to write to the Falmouth Packet at packet@packetseries.co.uk and to the Advertising Standards Authority via its online complaint form here.

‘Free speech is never absolute’ – Ian Buruma on the Wilders prosecution

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ian Buruma“If it were not for his hatred of Islam, Geert Wilders would have remained a provincial Dutch parliamentarian of little note. He is now world-famous, mainly for wanting the Koran to be banned in his country, ‘like Mein Kampf is banned’, and for making a crude short film that depicted Islam as a terrorist faith – or, as he puts it, ‘that sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad’.

“Last year the Dutch government decided that such views, though coarse, were an acceptable contribution to political debate. Yet last week an Amsterdam court decided that Wilders should be prosecuted for ‘insulting’ and ‘spreading hatred’ against Muslims. Dutch criminal law can be invoked against anyone who ‘deliberately insults people on the grounds of their race, religion, beliefs or sexual orientation’.

“Whether Wilders has deliberately insulted Muslim people is for the judges to decide. But for a man who calls for a ban on the Koran to act as the champion of free speech is a bit rich.

“When the British Parliament refused to screen Wilders’s film at Westminster this week, he cited this as ‘yet more proof that Europe is losing its freedom’. His defenders, by no means all right-wingers, also claim to be standing up for freedom. A Dutch law professor said he found it ‘strange’ that a man should be prosecuted for ‘criticizing a book’.

“This seems a trifle obtuse. Comparing a book that billions hold sacred to Hitler’s murderous tract is more than an exercise in literary criticism; it suggests that those who believe in the Koran are like Nazis, and an all-out war against them would be justified. This kind of thinking, presumably, is what the Dutch law court is seeking to check.”

New York Times, 29 January 2009

Netherlands: doctor turns away woman wearing veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On Christmas day, a family doctor in Utrecht refused to allow a woman into his surgery because she was wearing a niqab, or burqa. The 23-year-old woman had brought her baby to see the doctor. The three-month-old child had diarrhoea and had not drunk for several hours, a situation which is potentially dangerous in young baby. However, the doctor refused to see the woman because she was wearing Islamic dress, with her face covered.

The Equal Treatment Commission confirmed it has received a complaint from the woman, following a report in the newspaper AD. A spokesperson said the commission would definitely be dealing with the complaint, as a GP provides a service and should not refuse to see a woman on the ground of her religious expression. According to the commission this is the first time such a case has been reported. The woman has also lodged a complaint with the GP’s practice and the medical disciplinary tribunal.

Radio Netherlands, 29 December 2009

Sun front-page story on ‘terror target’ Sir Alan Sugar under investigation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror Target SugarThe Press Complaints Commission is investigating a front-page story in the Sun newspaper that claimed Islamic extremists were targeting The Apprentice star Sir Alan Sugar.

On 7 January the Sun’s front page splash, under the headline “Terror Target Sugar“, quoted claims by “anti-terror expert” Glen Jenvey that online Muslim forum Ummah.com was being used by extremists to target leading British Jews in revenge for Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Sun subsequently removed the story, which carried the bylines of John Coles and Mike Sullivan, from its website.

The Sun story named Sugar, singer Amy Winehouse, producer Mark Ronson and Labour peer Lord Levy as among those allegedly being targeted by Islamic extremists. It quoted a contributor on the forum called “Abuislam” asking: “Have we got a list of top Jews we can target? Can someone post names and addresses?”

However, in another posting on Ummah.com, it was alleged that Abuislam was in fact Jenvey himself and claimed this had been confirmed from his IP and email addresses. The Bloggerheads website also claimed Jenvey had posted the comment himself.

The PCC has launched an investigation and will consider whether Abuislam is Jenvey. The regulator has contacted the Sun and is awaiting the paper’s response.

It is understood that the Sun story originated from a news agency.

The Sun declined to comment on why it had removed the story from its website.

Guardian, 28 January 2009

See also Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 30 January 2009

Sookhdeo reviewed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fulcrum has an interesting review of Patrick Sookhdeo’s book, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam by Ben White. Although some might question the reviewer’s observation that “Sookhdeo is a man who deserves a fair hearing”, anyone familiar with this right-wing evangelical Christian’s bigoted views would readily endorse the conclusion that Global Jihad is “the unsurprising outcome of an approach to Muslims and the ‘war on terror’ guided by a narrow, politically-compromised outlook that favours speculation over facts, and conspiratorial simplification over nuance”.

House of Lords cancels Fitna screening

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FitnaThe British Parliament has cancelled the showing of a controversial film “Fitna” by the right‑wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders following vociferous protest by the Muslim community.

The screening was to take place on January 29 at the House of Lords.The decision to cancel the showing was taken on Friday when Lord Nazir Ahmed had a meeting with the Government Chief Whip of the House of Lords and Leader of the House of Lords, together with representatives from the Muslim Council of Britain, British Muslim Forum and other representatives from the British Muslim community.

As a result of the meeting at the House of Lords not going ahead, all protests and demonstrations have now been cancelled Lord Ahmed termed the decision as “a victory for the Muslim community.”

Associated Press of Pakistan, 23 January 2009

Meanwhile, over at the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick joins Mad Mel in defending Wilders against the decision to prosecute him in the Netherlands for inciting hatred:

“The ripple effects of Wilders’ indictment were immediately evident. In England, the British Muslim community mobilized to prevent his film from being screened in public. ‘Fitna’ was scheduled to be shown at the House of Lords on January 29. But last Friday, with the threat of mass Muslim riots hanging thickly in the air, the House of Lords announced that it was cancelling the event. British Lord Nazir Ahmed called the decision to prevent the thought-provoking, factually accurate film from being shown, ‘a victory for the Muslim community’.”

UK is not sleepwalking to segregation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SleepwalkingThe head of Britain’s equalities watchdog has come under fire for undermining race relations with “bogus and alarmist” claims that Britain is an increasingly segregated society.

The charge against Trevor Phillips, chairman of the equality and human rights commission, is made in a new book that also condemns him for propagating myths that Britain is blighted by race ghettos and threatened by extremism fostered in isolated Muslim communities.

The book, Sleepwalking to Segregation?, by two Manchester University academics, says there is no statistical evidence of “white flight” from inner-city areas with high numbers of minority ethnic residents. Official statistics reviewed by the authors show white people are, in fact, moving into certain inner-city areas with large ethnic minority populations, such as Leicester, Bradford, Lambeth, Wolverhampton, Wycombe, Manchester and Merton.

The book warns that repeated falsehoods about immigration, integration and segregation are promoting racial division.

Ludi Simpson, honorary professor of population studies and co-author of the book, said: “By propagating myths using bogus and alarmist interpretations of population change, individuals such as Trevor Phillips, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Andrew Green, chair of Migration Watch, are inadvertently promoting racial segregation.”

The authors also rejected claims that segregation bred terrorism, as there was no evidence that Muslims from areas with large Muslim populations were more likely to be charged with terrorism than those from others areas.

A spokeswoman for the equality and human rights commission declined to comment.

Guardian, 22 January 2009

Cf. the article “Ghetto Britain” in the Daily Star, which is based on material produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.