Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Scottish Islamic Foundation Launch

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Islamophobia Watch was delighted to take up our invitation to attend the launch of the Scottish Islamic Foundation in Edinburgh on Thursday 26th June.

We were in auspicious company; representatives from all 4 of Scotland’s major political parties spoke from the platform, including Alex Salmond, the First Minister.

The event had been the subject of much angst from the Islamophobes, Melanie Philips leading the charge.

Attempts by Tory blog ConservativeHome to smear the SNP Scottish Government backfired spectacularly with the appearance of the Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie at the event and her fulsome praise of the Scottish Islamic Foundation.

The audience also included representatives from Lothian and Borders Police and the Jewish community, further undermining Islamophobic attempts to portray SIF, and Osama Saeed in particular, as secret Islamic fundamentalists, intent on creating a “Caledonian Caliphate”.

From the perspective of this member of the Islamophobia Watch collective, the real story of the launch of SIF is the prominence of social justice and opposition to imperialism in its objectives.

Osama Saeed has repeatedly advocated the need for young, disaffected, Scottish Muslims to be given space to engage in political discourse.

The launch of the Scottish Islamic Foundation is exactly the space that is needed to develop that discourse.

Another baseless, scaremongering article from the Express

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sniffer dogs offend Muslims“Generally, if a story’s on the front page of the Daily Express, you can guarantee that the slant they’ve given it isn’t warranted. Whether it’s blaming Gordon Brown for something he hasn’t done, scaremongering about how we’re not going to be able to afford anything shortly due to run-away inflation, or its favourite subject now that Diana has finally been shuffled off the front page, how terrible Muslims are.

“Today is no exception. Screaming in bold type, the front page informs us that ‘SNIFFER DOGS OFFEND MUSLIMS’.”

Obsolete, 27 June 2008

Having examined the government report on which the article is based, the author concludes that “the whole Express story is bollocks”.

Hassan Butt, liar and fraud

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hassan Butt, ‘al-Qa’ida activist or charlatan’?

By Inayat Bunglawala

The Muslim News, 27 June 2008

We were told by the would-be book publishers that this was a story “that must be told”. Hassan Butt, a Wolverhampton University drop-out and one time ranting al-Muhajiroun activist was – with the help of an ambitious freelancer called Shiv Malik – going to reveal all about his al-Qa’ida associations and how he had finally come to his senses in a forthcoming book called Leaving-Al-Qaeda by Hassan-Butt and Shiv Malik.

The American network CBS had, back in March 2007, broadcast a lengthy interview with Hassan Butt on its flagship 60 Minutes programme in which viewers were told that Butt was revealing “what it was like to be inside that [al-Qa’ida] network for ten years” and told of his meeting with the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings, Mohammed Siddique Khan, but this book promised to be the most detailed account yet by a self-proclaimed al-Qa’ida insider.

In a couple of sceptical Guardian Comment is Free blogs [see here and here – ed.] I noted how at the end of 2001, after Butt first gained notoriety in the UK media with his calls from Pakistan on British Muslims to travel to Afghanistan and fight on behalf of the Taliban, he returned back to the UK and tried – unsuccessfully – to sell his story to the Daily Mirror for a cool £100,000. So, was this guy a real al-Qa’ida activist or merely an opportunist looking to make a quick buck? And if he really was an al-Qa’ida activist then why hadn’t he been prosecuted when other British Muslims have found themselves convicted on far more questionable grounds for having downloaded “al-Qa’ida manuals” which are easily available on the internet?

Later, following the 7/7 bombings, Butt renounced his former extremism and became a vocal critic of al-Qa’ida. Whereas in the past he had criticised mainstream Islamic organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain for being “sell-outs” he turned 180 degrees and declared that he now believed that they were in fact “extremists”. Unsurprisingly, he quickly gained the admiration and support of several prominent pro-Iraq war commentators with his curt dismissal of those who argued that Western warmongering and ongoing backing for Middle Eastern despots had a significant impact on the emerging terror threat.

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Exploiting the Muslim-Jewish divide

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There’s a disturbing trend in this 2008 election. We are witnessing the manipulation and exploitation of Muslim-Jewish differences by political candidates in pursuit of votes. As advocates for our respective communities, we believe it’s in America’s interest that it stop.

“It appears that the political logic of the candidates and their handlers calls for winning Jewish American support at the expense of Muslim American voters. This takes the shape of aggressive outreach to the Jewish community while Muslims go ignored. That strategy may be politically expedient, but it is inherently flawed. Muslims see their exclusion as a betrayal of American values, and many Jews are alarmed by the parallels to their own historical political exclusion.

“American Jews are all too familiar with institutionalized bigotry. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Rep. John Rankin opposed the immigration of Holocaust survivors, and he opposed integration. In that McCarthyite, anti-Communist era, politicians clamped down against those who they thought threatened the changing fabric of America – namely, Jews. Now, Muslims are on the receiving end of similar suspicions, this time in the name of fighting terrorism.”

Salam Al-Marayati and Steven B. Jacobs  in the Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2008

Australian Muslims win fight for mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdul AzizThe small but determined Muslim community in Cairns has finally won the right to build the city’s first mosque after an eight-year battle against an at-times hostile community and claims the religion was trying to “spread its tentacles” to north Queensland.

Work is expected to begin on the mosque within weeks after the Planning and Environment Court dismissed the final group of objections, noting freedom of religion was part of the fabric of the Australian community. “It is in the public interest that persons who choose that faith, just as those who choose any other faith, have access to a safe and reasonably comfortable place of gathering and worship,” judge Keith Dodds said.

Cairns imam Abdul Aziz Mohammed, a former cane farmer and Rotary stalwart whose father moved to the city from India in 1900, yesterday welcomed the decision. He said the ordeal to build the mosque had been the first time he had experienced racism in the 76 years he had lived in the region. “A lot of the objections were just crazy,” he said. “I mean, they wouldn’t know what goes on in a mosque. I was disappointed, but you’ve got to remember the objectors didn’t really number that many.”

Opponents claimed Mr Mohammed was planning to build a “mega-mosque” in the suburban street and that it would become a hotbed of terrorism.

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Muslim physicist says feds retaliated against him

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdel-Moniem El-GanayniPITTSBURGH — An Islamic nuclear physicist on Thursday accused the U.S. Department of Energy of revoking his security clearance in retaliation for his criticism of the government’s treatment of Muslims.

Moniem El-Ganayni had worked at the Bettis Laboratory in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin for 18 years. He was fired in May after the department revoked his security clearance, according to a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Department of Energy denied El-Ganayni the right to appeal the revocation by saying its reasons are classified and could violate national security if made public. El-Ganayni is demanding that he be allowed to contest it before a “nonpolitical, neutral arbiter as mandated by DOE regulations.”

“Everything I strived for all my life came to an end without a chance to defend myself,” said El-Ganayni, 57, an Egyptian who moved to the United States in 1980.

Bettis Laboratory works on the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, a joint Navy-Energy Department program responsible for nearly all aspects of U.S. nuclear-powered warships. El-Ganayni’s security clearance granted him access to classified information needed for his job.

El-Ganayni has been active in Pittsburgh’s Muslim community, helped establish one of the area’s first mosques and is a past president of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. He has given speeches critical of U.S. foreign policy, the war in Iraq and attempts by the FBI to recruit Muslim tipsters inside mosques. El-Ganayni has also ministered to Muslim prison inmates.

El-Ganayni has never received a negative report or evaluation from Bettis Laboratory, and even after the revocation process began, his superiors made it clear they would like to have him back, said Vic Walczak, the ACLU’s Pennsylvania legal director.

“The Energy Department knows it cannot admit that it revoked Dr. El-Ganayni’s clearance because he has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. government’s treatment of Muslims, so it is hiding behind ‘national security’ to avoid having to explain itself,” Walczak said.

El-Ganayni said he was questioned twice since October, when the Energy Department said disclosing the reasons for the revocation would hurt national security.

According to the lawsuit, officials with the Energy Department and FBI asked about El-Ganayni’s speeches, his views on suicide bombings and the Quran, and a conflict he had with the Pennsylvania prison system over a decision to bar him from raising funds for a Muslim religious feast.

Associated Press, 27 June 2008 

See also ACLU press release, 26 June 2008

Update:  See “Muslim physicist leaves U.S. after losing security clearance”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 28 November 2008

Islamophobia in a village

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Derby families say day trip to the picturesque Derbyshire village of Belpar was ruined by an Islamophobic attack.

Mohammed Khalifa, 37, and Nathalie Faustilio, 24, said the trip with their friends on May 18 went horribly wrong when Khalifa and his friend Hassan Sami, 21, left their wives and two young children alone in the River Garden in North Mill Bridgefoot to withdraw money. Faustilio, an Italian Muslim convert, and English convert, Soria Hawata, 21, were subjected to an unprovoked and sustained Islamophobic attack which left Khalifa with broken ribs and both women in constant fear.

Speaking to The Muslim News Faustilio said trouble began when she and her friend were left alone by their husbands in the park. “When they went to get money from the ATM machines a man started screaming really foul things at us.” Faustilio insists the nasty verbal abuse was so motiveless she initially thought he was aiming the expletives at his dog, “He was swearing and saying really bad things. At first I thought he was aiming his abuse at the dog then I found out he was aiming it at me.”

The hijab wearing ladies said they were told to remove their “Pakistani clothes”. “He told me and Soria to get out of the country, his exact words were ‘get the F@#ck out my country go back to Pakistan’. I told him I’m Italian and my friend was English and even if we weren’t it was none of his business.” The man continued to hurl verbal abuse at the two and even spat at Nathalie who said she had “never been subjected to Islamophobia at this level”.

Faustilio said she was left in tears when she noticed no one in the park came to their assistance. Instead, she said, a small crowd had gathered to watch. “A couple of people thought it was amusing and were smiling but they didn’t help us.”

“Only a lady working in the parks café called the police when Nathalie asked her to,” said Hawata.

Khalifa said he returned to see his wife being sworn and spat at, “I shoved him out of the way he pushed me. I pushed him back and we fought.” The police arrived as the fighting ensued. Faustilio said her husband, who had broken his rib and his friend were arrested, whilst the assailant was taken to hospital for his broken nose.

The women asked to go in the police car for protection but were told to walk. “Before my husband came the man called his mobile and said he was calling his mates to come over. The police said we had to walk to the police station in a village we didn’t know with two small children for 15 minutes. We got lost and were worried the man’s mates would come.”

However, later, Faustilio’s husband and his friend were released without charge.

Hawata also criticised Derbyshire police for not keeping them informed on the fate of their harasser, “They haven’t informed either me or Nathalie of what happened to the man. We know he was arrested at the time but we don’t know what else happened.”

“He lives in Derby near us and whenever I take public transport I worry that I might bump into him,” said Hawata.

A spokesperson for Derbshire police told The Muslim News, “A 39 year old man from Derby was taken to hospital where he had surgery on his nose. Once he was released from hospital he was arrested and questioned. He was released on bail and his case has been forwarded to the CPS for review.”

Muslim News, 27 June 2008

McEwan’s attack on Islam reveals only his ignorance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The more that the West demands change from outside, the more it makes such issues as women’s rights the litmus test of reform, the more difficult it makes the task of those pushing for change from within. The more it resorts to terms such as ‘Islamofacism’ and ‘mediaevalism’, the greater its ignorance of the pressures and the possibilities of societies in flux today. There are no generalities, just particulars, specific to place, person and moment.

“You would have thought that the novelist of all artists would understand this. Apparently not. But at least McEwan, Amis and the rest are showing one thing: that the condemnation of that which you have no wish to understand is as much the prerogative of the secularists as it is of the religious.”

Adrian Hamilton in the Independent, 26 June 2008

Hizb ut-Tahrir challenges German ban in European court

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbAn internationalist Islamist organisation is submitting an application to the European court tomorrow in an effort to overturn a ban on its activities in Germany. Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, believes that the five-year-old ban is unlawful and argues it should be free to campaign in the country and have all frozen assets released.

Britain has twice considered proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir, most recently after the July 7 2005 bombings, and decided each time that there were not grounds for doing so. Last week Denmark’s senior state prosecutor also advised that the organisation should not be banned, as it has not breached that country’s constitution.

Prohibited in several Middle Eastern and central Asian countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir operates legally in Israel, and is not banned in any EU country other than Germany. Although membership of the party remains legal in Germany, it has been prohibited from public activity since 2003, on charges of spreading antisemitic propaganda following the publication of a leaflet the previous year.

More recently, Germany has accused the party of breaching the “concept of international understanding” enshrined in the country’s constitution, a charge more usually levelled against parties of the far right.

The party denies it is antisemitic and, says it is against violence and that its aim is to unite Muslim countries into a single state ruled by Islamic law.

Guardian, 24 June 2008