Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

What today’s Islamists want

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim El Houdaiby of IkhwanWeb.com, the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English language website, writes:

“I find it very difficult to understand what makes Western governments, unlike civil society organisations, sceptical about engaging in healthy dialogue with moderate Islamists. I find it very difficult to understand their awkward silence in the face of ongoing violations of such activists’ human rights by their authoritarian regimes – banning them from political participation, and sending them to prisons by the hundreds. I find it even more difficult to comprehend the clear bias and lack of even-handedness illustrated by the Western silence regarding the ongoing military tribunals for moderate Islamists acquitted by civilian courts in Egypt.

“Western government officials should respond positively to the positive steps taken by moderate Islamists. By shunning dialogue with the moderate voices of political Islam, Western governments are gradually handing victory to the radicals both they and moderate Islamic politicians are keen to undermine.”

Common Ground News Service, 6 November 2007

The lyrical non-terrorist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Samina Malik“Pity Samina Malik, the young woman who will live for the rest of her life with the consequences of a terrorism conviction simply for being a suburban shopgirl who expressed her fantasies on the internet.

“Scribbling doggerel in praise of al Qa’eda on the back of WH Smith receipts will do no more to bring about the universal caliphate then a smartarse politics student with a Che Guevara poster in his bedroom does to further guerrilla struggle in South America.

“Malik is just one of many millions of kids in every country around the world wrapped up in a flirtation with any variety of anti-establishment symbolism that comes immediately to hand. Mostly it stops at posting message on online talk boards, as it did in her case….

“Let’s keep a sense of proportion here. Yes, I am in favour of intelligence service surveillance against violent Jihadists. But what is needed is action against real terrorists, not lyrical ones. Just imagine how counter-productive Malik’s conviction is going to prove in the struggle for the hearts and minds of alienated Muslim youth.”

Dave Osler at Dave’s Part, 8 November 2007

City high-flyer sues firm over ‘Guantanamo detainee’ jibes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A City high-flyer who worked on an innovative Islamic policy for a leading British insurer has brought a claim for racism against the company after he was welcomed to the office as “Guantanamo detainee 948”.

Anwar Khan, 24, who shares his name with a Afghan man held by the Americans at the Cuban naval base since 2002, says that he was greeted on 18 September by a colleague with the words: “So they have released you from Guantanamo Bay.” When Mr Khan logged on to his computer, he opened an email with a link to the Wikipedia page for detainee 948.

Mr Khan, from central London, has now begun grievance proceedings against the Royal & Sun Alliance (R&SA) insurance company after what he describes as one of the most distressing episodes in his life. The case is the latest to involve allegations of racism at work in which Asian men and women have complained that they have been racially victimised since Britain and America launched the “war on terror”.

Independent, 7 November 2007

‘Islamism’ and ‘political Islam’ are not monolithic ideas – Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5DOHA – “Islamism” and “political Islam” are not monolithic ideas and they are as diverse as other contemporary trends in the Islamic world, says a prominent Muslim scholar and intellectual from Europe.

“After 9/11 and 7/7, terminologies like radicalism, Islamism and political Islam have been widely used in West. The so called terrorism experts tend to put all ‘Islamists’ in one category,” said Dr Tariq Ramadan, President of the European Muslim Network (EMN) based in Brussels. He was delivering a lecture at the Education City yesterday on the topic “Understanding contemporary Islamic trends”.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not similar to Al Qaeda and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot be equated with Osama bin Laden, said Ramadan. We hear terms like “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims”, “moderates” and “fundamentalists”. Such terminologies remind us of the colonial attitude – “all the good are with us and all the bad are resisting us.”

The Peninsula, 7 November 2007

These fear factory speeches are utterly self-defeating

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Monday’s pre-legislation speech by the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans … was a classic ‘frightener’, reminiscent of Alastair Campbell rolling the pitch for a headline-grabbing initiative. ‘As I speak,’ intoned Evans with full dramatic effect, ‘terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country, radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism.’ Note the sexual connotation of ‘grooming’….

“Scaring the public as an act of policy may win a few headlines but it is stupid. It worked short term in 2003 and may prop up yet another terrorism law in yesterday’s Queen’s speech, a law presumably requested by MI5. But it can only damage British liberty in the long term.

“The Blair government ruined Britain’s reputation for fair treatment among the moderate Muslims on whom stopping a tiny number of fanatics now depends. Abroad it declared wars, bombed Muslim capitals, killed civilians, and initiated a crusade for ‘western values’ among people sceptical of their virtues. At home it extended terrorism laws to make every dark-skinned Briton feel he or she is being made a scapegoat. While Britain remains adequately safe from attack, it has been at a wretched cost.”

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, 7 November 2007

Siddique lawyer faces contempt of court charge

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Aamer AnwarAamer Anwar, the human rights lawyer who represented Mohammed Atif Siddique (see here and here), is to face 3 High Court judges on a contempt of court charge in relation to remarks he made after the trial.

Aamer was reported as saying that Mohammed Siddique did not receive a fair trial and the trial took place in an “atmosphere of hostility”, also describing the trial outcome as a “tragedy for justice” and that the prosecution was “driven by the State”.

Lord Carloway said that “the statement seems to be an attack on the fairness of the trial and thus presumably an attack on the court itself”.

In sentencing Siddique to 8 years, a message was undoubtedly being sent to angry young Muslims not to step out of line. Is Aamer Anwar now about to pay the price for questioning the British state’s increasingly draconian powers?

BBC News report, 6 November 2007

See also Scotland Against Criminalising Communities open letter.

Muslim group attacks ‘irresponsible MI5’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim youth organisation the Ramadhan Foundation expressed concern on Monday after MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans claimed that there are “at least 2,000” individuals at large who “pose a direct threat to national security and public safety.”

Speaking at the Society of Editors conference in Manchester, Mr Evans said that the threat of “al-Qaida-style” terrorism was “the most immediate and acute peacetime threat in the 98-year history of my service.” Making no mention of British militarism in Iraq and Afghanistan, which many believe is a catalyst for the radicalisation of young Muslims, he asserted that “the root of the problem is ideological” and “is the expression of a hostility towards the UK which existed long before September 11 2001.”

But Ramadhan Foundation spokesman Mohammed Shafiq complained that Mr Evans had “failed to accept that 2,000 people out of 1.6 million is a very small problem.”

He said: “This sort of language is inflammatory and we urge all those involved to speak responsibly. There is a real and present threat to the nation from terrorism. Only together can we defeat it. Terrorism is evil and anyone who is involved must be engaged and convinced of why their path is wrong and bring them back to the mainstream.”

But Mr Shafiq stressed: “We are ready to talk to the police and security services about how we should move forward, but we have to be honest about why this threat has appeared, mainly foreign policy. Only then will we be able to defeat terrorism.”

Morning Star, 6 November 2007

For right-wing press coverage of Evans’ speech see for example “Suicide bombers in our schools”, in the Daily Express, “Al Qaeda grooming British children to carry out terror attacks in UK”, in the Daily Mail, and “MI5: Al-Qa’eda recruiting UK children for terror” in the Daily Telegraph.

PM is ‘playing cheap politics at the expense of Canadian Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Canadians could be forgiven for thinking veiled Muslim women pose an urgent threat to the integrity of our electoral system after Prime Minister Stephen Harper made one of his first priorities in the fall sitting of Parliament a bill to force voters to show their faces at the polls.

“But there is not one shred of evidence that such a problem existed in the first place. Even Harper’s Conservative government has admited ‘there was no apparent case of fraud’ in three federal by-elections that were held in September in Quebec, when unjustified hysteria over veiled Muslim women first boiled over. Yet that has not stopped Harper from trying to fix this imaginary problem by proposing changes to the country’s election law that would require voters to show their faces before they cast their ballots….

“Harper has tried to dress up the bill as a means to ‘enhance public confidence in the democratic process’. But it has nothing to do with electoral integrity and everything to do with pandering to narrow-minded fears about minorities…. Harper and other federal politicians are shamefully playing cheap politics at the expense of Canadian Muslims.”

Toronto Star, 4 November 2007

Suspend Muslim immigration: Hanson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pauline Hanson (2)Senate hopeful Pauline Hanson has accused the Federal Government of opening up the immigration floodgates to people “who have no intention of being Australian”.

Ms Hanson, who is running in the federal election under the banner of Pauline’s United Australia Party, was campaigning on similar policies to those that won her international notoriety a decade ago, including calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.

Campaigning in NSW, the right-wing firebrand told website www.federalelection.com.au she was worried about the loss of Australian values, particularly as a result of Muslim immigration.

“I’ve seen the destruction of our industry, manufacturing, our farmers, everything that is Aussie and to be proud of … that’s been lost,” she said. “They’ve just opened up the floodgates to allow people here that have no intention of being Australian or being proud Australians. I’ve actually now called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration because I believe it’s not for reasons of religious or any other reason. But I think it is a cultural difference to us as Australians and we must protect our own culture.”

The Australian, 4 November 2007

Via Austrolabe