Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Quebec’s culture clash

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Is it likely that Hérouxville, set in Quebec’s overwhelmingly white and francophone heartland, will ever witness the stoning of a Muslim woman? Not really, mused Gérard Bouchard, the co-chair of a provincial commission looking into the reasonable accommodation of minorities at an October 2007 public hearing in Trois-Rivières, 30 minutes from the town. “We’re pretty far from stoning here,” he said.

Bouchard was speaking to Andre Drouin, a member of the Hérouxville town council which, in January 2007, created a national firestorm by adopting a code of conduct that banned the stoning of women and covering of faces, among other practices. Yet Drouin held his ground in the face of Bouchard’s skepticism. “Stoning takes place, and some of those people will want to come here. It’s important to be preventive.”

Exchanges like these have consumed the province since Premier Jean Charest formed the Bouchard-Taylor commission in February 2007, largely in response to the public firestorm over the Hérouxville news.

CBC News, 21 May 2008

Mosque plan gets go-ahead amid ‘racist’ row

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Controversial plans for a new mosque in Fulwood have finally been given the green light. But at a heated planning meeting, some members were accused of being “bigots” and “racists” for opposing the scheme. Work on the new mosque at the Masjid-E-Salaam site on Watling Street Road in Fulwood will now begin within six months, after a planning saga lasting two years.

An angry Coun John Browne, who backed the plans, said: “The thing should have gone ahead last time, but a number of us differed and we are in the same situation. It was to differ for political reasons – it’s a misuse of the planning application process. They’re bigots, racists – that’s a terrible thing.”

Others spoke in favour of the mosque, such as Coun Terry Cartwright, who described the new mosque as a “beautiful building”. And Coun Alan Hackett said: “We want to recognise the patience of a large number of people who have put forward this application.”

Lancashire Evening Post, 20 May 2008

Quebec report upholds right to wear hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim hijab. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s no real threat to Quebec values. And most women here wear it by choice, not because of coercion. That’s what the Bouchard-Taylor commission has concluded after a year of study costing $5 million.

In the final draft of their report – which was submitted to the provincial government yesterday and is to be made public at a press conference Thursday – scholars Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor say Quebec society will have a lot to lose if it restricts the wearing of the Muslim head scarf strictly to the home and outdoors.

Devout Muslim women suffer intimidation and discrimination in the Quebec job market for wearing the hijab the commissioners say, recounting testimony from several Muslims in public hearings last fall. For example: A young hijab-wearing woman studying to be a pharmacist “saw her job applications rejected by 50 pharmacies before she was finally able to land a job with an Arab pharmacist.”

Bouchard and Taylor talk of some Quebecers’ “often irrational” opposition to the hijab. They quote from a brief submitted to them in November by a woman in Longueuil, when their 17-city tour of the province swung through town: “In 2007, in Quebec, when a Muslim women wears the veil, I tremble,” the woman wrote.

It’s wrong to think that all veiled Muslim women are somehow under a man’s thumb, the commissioners also say. “There’s a strong feminist current among Muslim women. It follows an original path and is a model that differs from Quebec feminism. It goes along with the wearing of the head scarf.”

Montreal Gazette, 20 May 2008

Mosque plan gets go-ahead amid ‘racist’ row

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Controversial plans for a new mosque in Fulwood have finally been given the green light. But at a heated planning meeting, some members were accused of being “bigots” and “racists” for opposing the scheme. Work on the new mosque at the Masjid-E-Salaam site on Watling Street Road in Fulwood will now begin within six months, after a planning saga lasting two years.

An angry Coun John Browne, who backed the plans, said: “The thing should have gone ahead last time, but a number of us differed and we are in the same situation. It was to differ for political reasons – it’s a misuse of the planning application process. They’re bigots, racists – that’s a terrible thing.”

Others spoke in favour of the mosque, such as Coun Terry Cartwright, who described the new mosque as a “beautiful building”. And Coun Alan Hackett said: “We want to recognise the patience of a large number of people who have put forward this application.”

Lancashire Evening Post, 20 May 2008

Pat Condell’s fascist friends

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat CondellIslamophobia Watch has regularly covered the obnoxious anti-Muslim videos produced by Pat Condell.

The National Secularist Society’s favourite “comedian”, Condell has also been embraced by racists on the far right, who have enthusiastically promoted his Islamophobic rants.

Even though it clearly provides many of his admirers, Condell has formally dissociated himself from the fascist British National Party. Or has he? It turns out that many of Condell’s YouTube friends are in fact open supporters of the BNP.

See Why Pat Condell Isn’t Funny, 19 May 2008

Danish government introduces headscarf ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DF niqabi judge posterJudges in the nation’s courts will be banned from wearing headscarves and other religious apparel under a proposal put forward by the government on Wednesday.

The bill, which also stated that judges in all courts would be required to wear robes, has the support of a vast majority in parliament, including the Social Democrats, the largest opposition party.

The proposal comes after nearly a month of debate unleashed by a Court Administration decision that it had no legal grounds to exclude Muslim women who wore headscarves from becoming judges.

“Judges that make decisions in court cases, probate courts and county courts need to appear fair and neutral. And we are ready to pass legislation to ensure that,” Lene Espersen, the justice minister, said.

In a commentary in Politiken newspaper on Wednesday, Birthe Rønn Hornbeck, who serves as both immigration minister and minister for ecclesiastical affairs, stated her opposition to a ban, suggesting that doing so would put Denmark on the path towards a “dictatorship”. She also criticised “fanatic anti-Muslims” who had launched a misleading advertising campaign warning against permitting judges to wear headscarves.

Copenhagen Post, 15 May 2008

Via Islam in Europe

See also Associated Press, which reports: “The new legislation … was prompted by discussions over a set of dress code guidelines issued last year by the court administration, which noted that Danish law does not bar judges from wearing head scarves. The guidelines went largely unnoticed until the government’s ally, the nationalist Danish People’s Party, decided to politicize the issue last month. The party, known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric, created a poster showing a woman wearing an all-encompassing burqa and holding a judge’s gavel. The party urged the government to introduce legislation ensuring that courts remain ‘neutral instances in the Danish judiciary’.”

Update:  See also BBC News, 19 May 2008

Nativism vs integration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

IRR report cover“Islamophobia is intrinsically tied up with the loss of civil rights and the erosion of democracy. Hence the fight for civil liberties must incur the fight against Islamophobia. Conversely the fight against Islamophobia must incur the fight for civil liberties and democracy. There are no separate struggles here, but there are on the ground. That is why, whatever the particular struggle we are involved in – whether against war or poverty or Islamophobia or anti-Semitism – we must not lose sight of the larger struggle. And it is only then, in the process of coming together as communities of resistance, that we arrive at community cohesion. Integration and community cohesion cannot be imposed from above. They must grow from below.”

A. Sivanandan contextualises the Institute of Race Relations’ new report, Integration, Islamophobia and civil rights in Europe.

IRR website, 15 May 2008

Muslim group supports student’s right to service dog

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A civil rights group is working again to debunk the myth that Muslims and dogs can’t get along. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today is clarifying Muslim beliefs about dogs and expressing support for a St. Cloud State University student who felt his service dog was threatened. CAIR-MN issued a statement following a May 12 article in the St. Cloud Times, which said that graduate student Tyler Hurd left the university because he feared for the safety of his dog.

Hurd told the St. Cloud Times that while many Muslim students grew to like his dog, the dog was threatened by a student at one of the schools where he was doing his field training.

The Times article falsely states that Islam “forbids the touching of dogs”. CAIR-MN clarifies that many Muslims are uncomfortable around dogs, as they believe the saliva of dogs invalidates the ritual ablution performed before prayer. For this reason, it has become a cultural norm for individuals not to have dogs in their homes. However, “the moral and legal need to accommodate individuals using service dogs far outweighs the discomfort an individual Muslim might feel about coming into contact with a dog, which is one of God’s creatures,” said CAIR-MN Communications Director Valerie Shirley.

One unfortunate result of the St. Cloud Times article is that threats have been turned on the larger Muslim community. By Wednesday, there were more than 300 comments on the St. Cloud Times website about Hurd’s story, many of them hostile.

Engage Minnesota, 14 May 2008

Sample comments on the St. Cloud Times website:

“This is another craven, left-wing college administration giving in to soft jihad. America is giving in to these Muslim monsters. We let them lie, libel, and threaten with impunity. they never have to face up to anything. We are too nice in this country to our enemies. They exploit this weakness.”

“Muslims are a foreign and vile presence in our country. How the hell is it that they murder Amercians and plot and dare to raise their foul voices against our citizens? We need grassroots support for a deportation law!”

“It’s sad we carter [sic] to the needs of these people , we bring them in, feed them, cloth them, and house them, and they still turn on us.”

“Ban this damned death cult/crime syndicate now! Islam is not a religion. It is an excuse, dreamed up by a pedophile moon-god worshipper, to justify his (Muhammeds’ – may pigs blood be upon him) every lust for child-rape and violence.”

Obama Islam smear changes stripes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When the Islam smear against Obama first came out, it was based on the idea that he is currently, a Muslim. Then the Pastor Wright controversy put that mess to rest, since Obama’s affiliations to an obviously Christian Church became front and center. Now there is a new Islam smear. This one says that Obama was a Muslim – and as a result, he is going to arouse the wrath of Muslims around the world who are going to want to kill him for apostasy (converting away from Islam, punishable by death).”

Ali Eteraz responds to an article by Edward Luttwack in the New York Times, which he describes as “solid fear-mongering”.

Huffington Post, 13 May 2008

Daily Telegraph leader writer and Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson (“Barack Obama ‘could face Islamic execution'”) hails the NYT article as “fascinating stuff”: Telegraph blog, 12 May 2008

Birmingham professor speaks at extremist Islamic group debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbA University of Birmingham professor and student have come under fire for supporting a debate held by an extremist Islamist organisation.

Sociology professor John Holmwood spoke at a debate on secularism organised by the Hizb-ut-Tahrir group, which on its website constitution calls for a pan-Islamic caliphate and the execution of people who convert from Islam. Yasmin Patel, who was elected to be the minority students’ support officer on the Guild of Students at the university, sent out emails encouraging attendance at the debate.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which translates as Party of Liberation, is a global political group, which has been accused of fostering extremism against women and Jews. Its constitution calls for a state of constant war against Israel.

Prof Holmwood said the meeting, held in Small Heath on Sunday, had not been involved with extremism and it was important to engage groups in debate. He said:

“There were about 100 people there, probably 100 per cent Muslim, but 90 per cent of them weren’t Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Not engaging views is more dangerous than some of the opinions of those you are engaging with. I went there not knowing what to expect. What happened was there was a good debate and people came up afterwards and said some of them wanted to come up to the university and talk about issues of secularism, and that can only be a good thing.”

Adam Sher, secretary of the University of Birmingham’s Jewish Society, said: “A minority officer, in my opinion, shouldn’t be espousing the views of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.”

Birmingham Post, 13 May 2008

For the origins of this witch-hunt, see The Ministry of Truth and Harry’s Place.