Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

This onslaught risks turning into a racist witch-hunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The relentless media onslaught in Britain on Muslims, their culture and institutions risks turning into a racist witch-hunt. On the ground, it translates into violent attacks – and Crown Prosecution Service figures show that 82% of convictions for identified religiously aggravated offences last year involved attacks on Muslims. Those attacks reportedly spike not only after terrorist incidents but also in response to media feeding frenzies. Some pro-war liberals like to argue that Islamophobia doesn’t exist – try telling that to those at the sharp end.”

Seumas Milne in the Guardian, 20 September 2007

Damaging relations with the Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Relations between Muslims and police in central Scotland have been battered by the country’s first al-Qaeda-linked terrorist case, with community leaders claiming the investigation has created mistrust and ‘left a bad taste in the mouth’. They are angry at the way Mohammed Atif Siddique’s family was treated. His parents, brothers – one of whom was 13 – and 15-year-old sister were shackled by police who raided the family home in Alva, Clackmannanshire.”

Scotsman, 19 September 2007

Note the casual reference to Mohammed Atif Siddique as an “al-Qaeda-linked terrorist”, which takes things to a new level of absurdity – and demonstrates that the police are not exactly alone in damaging relations with Scotland’s Muslim community.

ACLU, Muslims sue FBI over records

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FBI logoThe American Civil Liberties Union and Muslim advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Justice Department on Tuesday, alleging that authorities failed to turn over records detailing suspected surveillance of the Muslim-American community.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, alleges that the FBI has turned over only four pages of documents to community leaders, despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than a year ago.

The request sought records that described FBI guidelines and policies for surveillance and investigation of Muslim religious organizations, as well as specific information about FBI inquiries targeting 11 groups or people. The lawsuit states that all the plaintiffs – who include some of the most prominent Muslim leaders in California – have reason to believe they have been investigated by the FBI since January 2001.

The groups filed an initial FOIA request in May 2006, several months after federal law enforcement officials confirmed the existence of a classified radiation monitoring program used in surveillance at mosques, homes and businesses. The FBI responded to the request first by saying it couldn’t identify any records that met the criteria requested.

After an appeal, the agency turned over four pages that dealt with the Council of American-Islamic Relations and Hussam Ayloush, the council’s executive director for Southern California. Those documents dealt with a suspected hate crime at a mosque that the council had reported to the FBI and a conversation Ayloush had with an FBI agent about cooperating with federal law enforcers.

Ayloush, who said he is questioned by federal agents every time he flies internationally, said he had hoped the FOIA request would help him determine why he is stopped. “Either … we’re being stopped because we’re Muslims – which is morally wrong – or the government must have some erroneous info linked to me that I need to be able to clear,” he said.

Associated Press, 19 September 2007

Siddique trial was a travesty of justice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The media this morning are asking ‘Guilty… But is Siddique really a terrorist?’ Of course Mohammed Atif Siddique isn’t a terrorist. With a prosecution case that sought to manipulate the emotions of the jury, and terrorism laws so ill-drafted that it seems they can mean anything at all, the jury can hardly be blamed for getting it wrong. But even under our Kafka-esque laws it makes no sense to call this young man a terrorist, and it is to be hoped that the argument will be taken successfully to the appeal court. The case has been a travesty of justice from start to finish.”

SACC press release, 18 September 2007

Scary Muslims in the Times of London

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arthur Dudney responds to the recent anti-Deobandi witch-hunt in the Times:

“Who are these dreaded ‘Islamists’ destroying Britain from within? Well, they’re Deobandis, which probably means little to non-Muslim Britons. The Deobandi movement is an Islamic revivalist movement founded in the northern Indian town of Deoband in the mid-nineteenth century in reaction to the failure of Indian society to mount an effective opposition to British colonialism….

“As someone who studies South Asia and knows something about Islamic revival, I don’t think there is cause for concern over the fact that many Muslim scholars in Britain have Deobandi affiliations. Among the diverse group, there are liberals and conservatives, radicals and centrists. Instead of recognizing this, the Times latches on to Deobandi influence as a convenient explanation for radicalization of British Muslims.

“The worst offender is Andrew Norfolk, whose article ‘A movement fostered by the fear of “imperial” rule’ describes the rise of the Deobandi movement and shifts from a restrained, historical tone to unsubstantiated accusations against the British Muslim community. By playing up the opposition to colonialism, the lede implies that if the Deobandis were hostile to British colonial rule once, then they should also be hostile to modern ‘British values’. Does he really believe that opposing colonialism was about opposing ‘British values’?”

SAJA Forum, 17 September 2007

For an example of the hysteria generated by the Times articles, see the letter in today’s Telegraph by Winston S. Churchill, who writes:

“Not for 70 years has there been a more clear or present danger to our internal security, to our free society and to our democracy, than that posed by this vipers’ nest in our midst. The Deobandi, an ultra- conservative sect, outlaws music, art, television and football, and also demands the entire concealment of women…. When will the Government wake up to this mortal threat which – if not swiftly dealt with – threatens to bring strife and bloodshed to the streets of Britain on a scale far exceeding anything seen in the bombings of recent years?”

Europe can feel at home with 16m Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When Italians immigrated to France in the late 19th century, many French be­lieved these often under­educated, religious newcomers would never integrate. Some Italians were killed in race riots, write Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse in their book Integrating Islam. Later, Portuguese, Polish or Jewish immigrants were deemed ‘unable to integrate’ into France, but they did.

“Now the European Union’s 16m or so Muslims are often considered unassimilable. Fifty years after they began arriving in Europe, their rates of joblessness and incarceration remain high. A very small number are fundamentalist terrorists, as in the recently foiled plot in Germany. Muslims also traditionally have more children than native Europeans. Hence the American neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz, in his new book, predicts that western Europe will be ‘conquered from within by Islamofascism’.

“Yet the Financial Times’ recent series of articles on Muslims in Europe showed nothing of the kind. We found that most concerns about Europe’s Muslims were overblown – despite the terrorists – and in time may fade like those ancient fears of Italians.”

Simon Kuper in the Financial Times, 17 September 2007

UCU stands firm against ‘spying’ on Muslim students

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UCU logoAcademics’ union UCU rejected criticism from new Universities Secretary John Denham on Sunday over its refusal to “inform” on Islamic students.

At the union’s conference this spring, delegates overwhelmingly voted to oppose the government’s guidance to universities on how to deal with so-called “radicals” who try to recruit students.

In the guidance last year, ministers urged universities to work with the police to “isolate and challenge the very small minority who promote violent extremism in the name of Islam.” It advised universities how to identify Muslim students suspected of being radicalised by preachers or rogue Islamist societies on campus.

UCU delegates condemned what lecturers described as a “witch-hunt” in which ministers wanted them to “inform on” their students.

But Mr Denham claimed on Sunday that “the opposition from the University and College Union was misplaced. Everybody understands the nature of the threat that we face, which is a threat to people involved in higher education as much as anyone else,” he declared. “All we are trying to do is to make sure that everybody has the strength to ensure that people are not recruited to the sort of organisations which are promoting and organising violence of whatever sort.”

However, a UCU spokesman stressed that the union’s views had not changed since the government’s original guidance was published in November 2006. He said that lecturers supported the view that “campus harmony is achieved by openness, tolerance and dialogue and not focusing on any particular group of students.” UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “Lecturers want to teach students. If they wanted to police them, they would have joined the force.”

Morning Star, 17 September 2007

See also BBC News, 17 September 2007

The pathologisation of Muslims in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Farish Noor“‘No we are not racist. It is just that we need to preserve and protect our German identity and culture, and our Judeo-Christian heritage. The more Turkish Muslims come here, the less we know who and what we are. We cannot allow our identity and culture to be confused like that…’

“The gem quoted above was the comment made by a rather ordinary German at a public debate on Islam and the Rule of Law in Berlin; and just one week after an equally gruelling series of public talks in Amsterdam I could not help but feel as if Europe’s slide to the right is accelerating faster than ever.

“That a public forum on Islam and the rule of law could degenerate into a senseless round of Turk-bashing speaks volumes about the shallowness of public debate in some parts of Europe these days…. What was most alarming, however, was the manner in which a host of complex issues and dilemmas were reduced and pathologised to a single problem: The Muslims and their non-Western culture and belief system.”

Farish A. Noor in the Daily Times, 14 September 2007