Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Muslims slam Merkel’s mosque remark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Angela MerkelBERLIN — German Muslims have hit out at Chancellor Angela Merkel for suggesting that mosque minarets should not be higher than church steeples, saying her provocative remarks were politically motivated.

“We must be on guard against sparking artificial discussions for political purposes which have little connection with reality,” Bekir Alboga, spokesman for the Coordination Council of Muslims, an umbrella organization for Muslims in Germany, said.

Merkel, a Lutheran pastor’s daughter, told a congress of her conservative Christian Democrats that “we must take care that mosque cupolas are not built demonstratively higher than church steeples”.

Merkel’s fellow conservatives in Bavaria have been saying for months that minarets should not dwarf steeples. Local residents are up in arms about plans to build mosques in Berlin, Munich and Cologne. Christians in Cologne do not want the city’s skyline – now dominated by one of the world’s largest cathedrals – to be altered by two tall minarets.

Islamophobic remarks have gained momentum after Merkel’s conservative party came to power in November 2005. In statements endorsed by Merkel’s party last June, Germany’s top cardinal warned against “uncritical tolerance” which could lead to Islam enjoying equal standing with Christianity in the country.

Islam Online, 7 December 2007

‘Muslim prayer beds’ – more lies from the Daily Star

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dewsbury Hospital“Hospital chiefs who told nurses to point Muslim patients’ beds towards Mecca five-times-a-day last night climbed down. They said they would now only do it for the ‘terminally ill’. Nurses had been breaking off from health care duties to perform the ritual at Dewsbury and District Hospital in West Yorks….

“There were claims last night that the bed shifting policy almost cost one 80-year-old her life. Staff at Dewsbury Hospital were so busy gran Mavis Fox was able to slip out unnoticed and walk over three miles home. She was rushed back after falling and gashing her head. Overworked nurses had failed to spot that she was missing. Mavis’s family are now fuming that she was able to walk out.

“One angry relative said: ‘They said the nurse was busy and they didn’t have enough staff. My gran could have died that day. It was really cold and no one even knew that she’d gone. If they can make moving beds for Muslims a priority why can’t they make it a priority to look after other patients?'”

Daily Star, 6 December 2007

There has been no “climb down” by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. There never was a policy of moving Muslim patients’ beds five times a day, nor were there any plans to implement such a policy. Read the original press release by the Trust and their correction of the Daily Star‘s lies here.

Muslims ‘criminalised for silly thoughts’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdul Bari at TUCYoung Muslims are being convicted of thought crimes and branded as terrorists for life, the country’s most prominent Islamic leader has told The Times.

Muhammad Abdul Bari said police and prosecutors were criminalising youths for harbouring “silly thoughts” and were undermining Gordon Brown’s £400 million drive to win Muslim hearts and minds. Dr Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, was commenting ahead of the sentencing today of Samina Malik, a shop assistant who styled herself as “the lyrical terrorist”, wrote poetry in praise of beheadings and joined extremist internet forums.

Dr Bari told The Times: “Many young people download objectionable material from the internet, but it seems that if you are a Muslim then this could lead to terrorist charges, even if you have absolutely no intention to do harm to anyone else. Samina’s so-called poetry was certainly very offensive but I don’t believe that this case should really have been a criminal matter. Young people may well have some silly thoughts. That should not be criminalised. It is their actions that we should be concerned about.” He said that if police were concerned about Malik they should have placed her under surveillance and detained her if she was involved in “actual terror-related activity”.

Dr Bari added: “Instead, she was prosecuted for what can only be termed really as a thought crime. This should not be of concern just to Muslims, but to all in our society who care about natural justice. Her conviction raises a lot of deeply worrying questions about Section 58 of the Terrorism Act and just how incredibly broad its scope is.”

He contrasted the stance taken by the police in cases like Malik’s with Gordon Brown’s antiradicalisation initiatives in schools, mosques and youth groups. The Prime Minister spoke in his security statement last month about mentoring programmes, roadshows and other methods to “isolate extremists”.

Dr Bari said that Malik’s conviction and other cases could prove counter-productive. He added: “It is certainly sensible for the Government to work with Muslim groups to counter extremist propaganda. This is, we have been told often, part of a ‘hearts and minds’ campaign directed at young British Muslims, but it is difficult to see how Samina’s conviction can do anything other than impair this effort.”

Times, 6 December 2007

Muslim woman sues for being forced to remove headscarf in US jail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jameelah MedinaA Muslim woman arrested for riding a commuter train without a valid ticket has filed a federal lawsuit in the United States, claiming her religious freedom was violated when she was forced to remove her headscarf when she was taken to jail.

Jameelah Medina also said she was intimidated by a deputy who accused her of being a terrorist and called Islam an “evil” religion, according to the suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The suit names the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and Deputy Craig Roberts of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

After determining her ticket was invalid, the officers told her to get off at the next station, where a deputy would be waiting for her. Roberts handcuffed Medina, put her in the back of a police car and began driving her to a jail.

During the ride, Roberts berated Medina and Islam, according to the suit. Roberts “accused Medina of being a terrorist and supporting terrorism. He stated that Muslims are evil … and that the United States was in Iraq at God’s direction to squash evil,” read the suit.

At the West Valley Detention Center in San Bernardino, Medina was forced to remove her headscarf despite several attempts to explain to a female deputy why she wore it, the suit said.

After several hours, Medina was released without being charged or fined, her lawyer said.

Associated Press, 6 December 2007

See also ACLU press release, 6 December 2007

Does US tolerate anti-Muslim hate-speech?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Savage NationLu Gronseth listens regularly to WWTC, a conservative talk-radio station in Minneapolis, and even advertises his mortgage-loan business on the station. But when he learned that a nationally syndicated radio show host had told WWTC listeners that Muslims should be deported and made rude comments about what they could do with their religion, Mr Gronseth pulled his ads from the station.

So have at least two other Minnesota businesses, at the urging of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., as have a handful of national companies, including OfficeMax, JCPenney, Wal-Mart, and AT&T. But the comments by host Michael Savage in October – and previous anti-Muslim speech – have not created the furor that knocked radio icon Don Imus off of MSNBC and CBS Radio after he denigrated a black women’s basketball team. That leaves many Muslims-Americans – and non-Muslims like Mr Gronseth – suspicious that Americans have a double standard when it comes to Islam.

“My sense is that you could say anti-Muslim comments that you could never get away with, saying for example, as anti-Jewish comments,” said Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence in Portland, Maine. “There’s a much greater public level of acceptance of denigrating Muslims.”

Christian Science Monitor, 4 December 2007

Meanwhile, Michael Savage is suing the Council on American-Islamic Relations for breach of copyright after the CAIR website rebroadcast excerpts from his show in which he called the Qur’an a “book of hate” and said Muslims “need deportation”.

San Francisco Chronicle, 4 December 2007

Calgary girl gets to play in soccer game after minor modification to hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CALGARY – A 14-year-old girl who made national headlines over her determination to wear a Muslim headscarf while playing sports was allowed yesterday to compete in a soccer tournament. Safaa Menhem learned just moments before the game that she had been given the go-ahead to wear her hijab with just a few slight modifications. The pint-sized forward received a rousing ovation when she stepped onto the Calgary Soccer Centre pitch for her first shift. “I’m happy I got to play,” a beaming Safaa said after the game, which her team won 4-1.

Canadian Press, 30 November 2007

Bear scrutiny

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“The guilty verdict against Gillian Gibbons is absurdity itself. The case is triply insane: the storm generated over a pathetic teddy bear; the involvement of the state and judiciary; and finally the sentencing of the poor woman…. The truth is that this is a political affair from start to finish. Gibbons was collateral damage in a dispute between the Sudanese government and Britain.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi at Comment is Free, 30 November 2007

Jews and Muslims forge a bond in the Oxford mêlée

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oxford protestJewish and Muslim student leaders at Oxford University have expressed hopes that their co-operation in trying to stop the David Irving-Nick Griffin debate on free speech on Monday night will herald a new relationship between the two groups.

Their members were among up to 2,000 banner-waving, chanting demonstrators who besieged the Oxford Union buildings for four hours in the centre of the university city. A sit-down protest blocked the narrow entry gate to the Union and stopped many of the sell-out audience from getting in.

The Union of Jewish Students and Oxford University’s Islamic Society carried a huge banner marked with the symbols of both organisations. Some Muslim demonstrators carried posters proclaiming “Hands off our Jews”, while the Jewish Society carried others saying “Hands off our Muslims”.

Jewish Society president Steven Altmann-Richer said: “Ironically, the first event we held with the Islamic Society was last term when someone from the Muslim Council of Britain talked to us about the dangers of the BNP.”

Jewish Chronicle, 30 November 2007

A few sandwiches short at this teddy bear’s picnic

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims in this country don’t have a problem standing with Gillian Gibbons on these ridiculous charges. Predictably though, sections of the media have been quick to exploit their own agendas. Right-thinking people can easily see though that this is the usual case of Liberalism vs Authoritarianism, and clearly everyone in this country is on the side of the former in this case. It’s not another chance to pit Muslim vs non-Muslim.”

Osama Saeed at Rolled Up Trousers, 29 November 2007

US presidential candidate would not have Muslims in his cabinet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mitt RomneyPresidential canidate Mitt Romney has discounted appointing Muslims to his cabinet on more than just the one occasion reported in a CSM op-ed yesterday.

TPM Election Central has learned that at a private fundraising luncheon in Las Vegas three months ago, Romney said a second time he would probably not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet – and on this occasion, he made other comments that one witness described as “racist.”

The witness, Irma Aguirre, a former finance director of the Nevada Republican Party, paraphrased Romney as saying: “They’re radical. There’s no talking to them. There’s no negotiating with them.” A second witness, a self-described local registered Republican named George Harris, confirmed her account.

The new accounts provided by the witnesses lend credence to the now-notorious account of a more recent private Romney event that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday that already caused an uproar. In that account, a Muslim businessman, Mansour Ijaz, claimed that Romney had said that based on the “numbers of American Muslims” in the country, “I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified” for a Muslim.

TPM, 27 November 2007