Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Detroit Muslim woman loses case – take off the veil demands judge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A U.S. Federal Judge heard and dismissed a case on Monday involving a Muslim Detroit woman who claims that being forced to remove her veil in court caused her to lose her case.

In October 2006, 44-year old Ginnnah Muhammad donned a niqab – a traditional veil and scarf that covers the entire head and most of the face – during her hearing in which she was disputing a $3,000 fee from Enterprise Rent-A-Car to repair a vehicle which Muhammad claims burglars had broken into. According to the Associated Press, Judge Paul Paruk “told her he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness and gave her a choice: Take off the veil or have the case dismissed.”

Margaret Nelson, Assistant state attorney general, represented Paruk and argued that he needed to “fully observe” Muhammad in order to properly determine the facts. “It was a temporary, necessary, limited action (that had) only incidental impact on the practice of her religion,” Nelson said.

Wired PR News, 13 May 2008

Terrorism is not jihad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When the media or individuals use Arabic terms such as jihad for acts of terrorism, or when they attach the word Islam in front of a word as in Islamo-fascism, Islamic terrorism, those words have an effect. They have an effect right here in America by linking the religion of Islam and terrorist acts in the mind of ordinary citizens. They have an effect on Muslims who are struggling to make clear to those Muslims who attempt to justify their crimes by some false interpretation of Islamic teachings that we do not accept their claims. They have an effect on Muslims worldwide who because of the use of language like Islamo-Fascist, have come to view the ‘war on terror’ not as a war on al Qaeda, but as a war on Islam itself.”

Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim, 13 May 2008

McCain’s war on ‘Islamic terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“With Senator Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee, the question facing America, increasingly, boils down to this: intensify the ‘clash of civilizations’, at the continued expense of domestic needs, or turn to diplomacy to resolve international conflict, so we can re-orient our national priorities to health care, education, economic recovery, and protecting the environment.”

Writing in the Huffington Post Robert Naiman observes that John McCain “continues to flog the idea of a war on ‘Islamic terrorism’, even though the official policy of the United States Government is that there is no US war on ‘Islamic Terror’.” Naiman points out: “Of course, if America sees itself as facing an enemy of ‘Islamic terror’, while that might be very harmful to the U.S. internationally, it could be very useful domestically. It would be much easier to rationalize a military attack on Iran.”

Islamic group offended by ‘mosque’ drill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Irving mosque' drill

A U.S. Islamic group said an emergency drill at a simulated mosque in Irving, Ill., inaccurately stereotyped Islamic mosques as safety risks.

Nearly 30 government agencies took part in last week’s drill, during which the village’s Continuing Recovery Center was referred to as “Irving Mosque,” a “home-base for a radical, heavily armed group with suspected terrorist ties,” the Springfield (Ill.) State Journal-Register reported Thursday.

“It really was in poor taste, probably as a result of a lack of cultural prowess on the part of the person who made that choice,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’.

The drill used simulated blasts, hostage situations and nerve gas to train law enforcement officers how to respond to such situations.

Diana Holmes, coordinator of the Montgomery County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, said she was unaware of the council’s criticism, the newspaper reported.

UPI, 8 May 2008

See also CAIR press release, 6 May 2008 and Op Ed News, 9 May 2008 … and, for a different view, Pipe Line News, 6 May 2008.

Practising Muslims ‘will outnumber Christians by 2035’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think-tank. The figures are published in the latest in a series of reports entitled Religious Trends.

The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. Christian Research describes its aim as encouraging “change in Christian culture so that by 2010 more churches are growing”.

The Church of England moved to discredit the research last night, criticising its methodology and saying the results were “flawed and dangerously misleading”. A C of E spokesman said: “These sorts of statistics, based on dubious presumptions, do no one of any faith any favours. Faith communities are not in competition and simplistic research like this is misleading and unhelpful.”

The research does not compare like with like, according to the spokesman. The number of practising Muslims, for instance, is based on the number of people who said they were active in the 2001 census. If the same process were applied to Christians it would give a figure of 20 million active churchgoers, according to Church House, the headquarters of the C of E.

Daily Telegraph, 8 May 2008

See also the Times and the Daily Mail.

‘Hijab’ should be woman’s personal choice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We have a bad habit in Western secular society of thinking that we know best. And Western feminism often has an equally bad habit of thinking that its ideals are the right ideals for women of all cultures.

“In our society, the veils and scarves worn by Muslim women are commonly seen as symbols and tools of an oppressive Islamic patriarchy. This sort of establishment thinking makes feminism inaccessible for women of different beliefs, which robs the movement of its global power. Women who would like to be identified as feminists but choose to wear a headscarf don’t always seem to have a place.

“Western stereotypes surrounding the hijab – the scarf that covers the neck and hair of Muslim women – include the assumption that women are wearing it because of subjugation and religious indoctrination. Some argue that such coverage is used to make women subservient and invisible. But what really makes them invisible is assuming that the women who choose to wear the hijab, the abaya or anything else did not make the choice themselves.”

Amanda Teuscher in The Post, 6 May 2008

See also “Front Page news: Islamophobia makes you an expert on niqab” at Muslimah Media Watch.

‘Boris Johnson defeated Islamic extremists as well as Ken Livingstone’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“This result isn’t just a wonderful victory for Boris and the termination of Livingstone. It’s also a defeat for the campaign – an exceptionally dirty one, at that – waged against Boris by a small band of separatists claiming to act in the name of all London’s Muslims.”

Tory MP Paul Goodman attacks the role of the British Muslim Initiative and Muslims4Ken in the London mayoral election. (Yes, that the same Paul Goodman who David Cameron appointed as shadow minister for Communities.)

Conservative Home, 3 May 2008

See Anas Altiktiti’s responses in the comments section. He writes: “Paul Goodman’s piece is symptomatic of all that’s wrong with politics and politicians today. Neither Mr. Goodman nor his party have ever asked to meet up with myself or with any of the organisations that he has so steadily listed, yet he hesitates not for a second to label me and those organisations as extremists. In fact his whole argument seems to suggest that all Muslims who voted for Ken Livingstone are on the extreme side, and that only those who voted for his party are ‘moderates’.”

And see also Anas’s piece at Comment is Free: “The constituency we were addressing was worried about Islamaphobia. And we managed to ensure the issue of Islam, Islamaphobia and discrimination against Muslims was on every candidate’s agenda and a hot topic in every hustings. If it did nothing else than persuade Johnson to clarify his views on Islam, assert his conviction that it is indeed a religion of peace, and get him to visit a few mosques in an attempt to win back votes he was convinced he had lost, then it was a great success.”