Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Middlesbrough striker subjected to Islamophobic abuse

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mido (1)Football’s simultaneous ability to enthral and appal was encapsulated on an afternoon when Julio Arca’s bewitching passing could not quite erase the depression imposed by the moronic behaviour of some Newcastle fans.

Listening to them persistently subject Mido, Middlesbrough’s new Egyptian striker, to vile and ignorant Islamophobic abuse detracted from a compelling game that was dominated by Gareth Southgate’s gloriously creative side.

Fed up with being stereotyped as a terrorist bomber in a barrage of anti-Arab abuse, the Egyptian celebrated his first-half goal by walking over to the away fans and pressing a finger tight to his lips. Adhering, pedantically, to the strict letter of the law, Mike Dean booked him.

“I find it strange that 3,000 people can abuse one person and nothing is done. On the other hand, when the boot is on the other foot, it gets him into trouble. In terms of civil liberties I find that strange,” said Southgate. “We had to calm Mido down at the end of the first half.”

Guardian, 27 August 2007

Further coverage in the Daily Mirror and Middlesborough Gazette.

See also Osama Saeed’s comments at Rolled Up Trousers, 27 August 2007

SIOE joins with football hooligans in Harrow protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen GashAnti-Islam campaigners have been locked in a bitter row with Muslims and anti-fascists ahead of a planned 9/11 protest.

Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), which has a number of branches on the continent, is organising the demonstration outside Harrow Central Mosque but has been accused of racism over its beliefs. A Facebook event hosted by the English Defence League (EDL) and Casuals United, who are also attending the rally, has been peppered with criticism.

SIOE’s moto is: “Racism is the lowest form of stupidity. Islamophobia is the height of common sense,” and members say they do not believe in moderate Muslims. Stephen Gash, of SIOE, says Islamophobia is not racist and accuses the western media of being biased, selectively failing to report immoral acts he claims have been committed by Muslims around the world.

Sarah Cox, 72, of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), said: “They claim they are not racist in that they are not against people because of the colour of their skin but because of their religion. But given that a lot of people who come from Islamic backgrounds may not be particularly religious but identify themselves as Muslim for cultural reasons it’s as racist as the antisemitism of the Nazis. It’s a form of irrational discrimination.”

EDF and Casuals United are made up of football supporters and some say many are football hooligans. Mr Gash said the EDF and Casuals United were for more “boisterous” people. He said: “I didn’t see any violence at the protest in Birmingham. If they do the same things as in that demonstration I will not have a problem with them.”

Local branches of the UAF, from Brent and Harrow, are newly formed specifically to tackle this issue and include members of traditional left wing groups including trade unions.

Harrow Times, 26 August 2009

See also Harrow Observer, 26 August 2009

And “Unite Against Fascism to counter 9/11 Harrow Mosque protest”, Harrow Times, 26 August 2009

UAF leaflet and petition (pdf) here and here.

MCB replies to Dean Godson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sir, Dean Godson (comment, August 23) criticises the Crown Prosecution Service’s investigation of Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque. Just two weeks ago, an imam at the Central Mosque, London, was grieviously assaulted. Any attempt by British Muslims to highlight such acts that are at least in part fuelled – we believe – by sections of the media fomenting anti-Muslim prejudice, are regarded by Mr Godson as a concerted effort to peddle a “victim culture”.

Moreover, Mr Godson’s accusation that the Muslim Council of Britain does not seek reform of British mosques cannot remain unanswered. Long before it became fashionable to look into the conduct of mosques and imams, the MCB led the way in promoting good practice in our British Muslim institutions. Even now, and without government help, we are spearheading a campaign to work with 100 mosques across the country and help to transform them into dynamic British institutions that are welcoming of all.

DR MUHAMMAD ABDUL BARI
Secretary-General
The Muslim Council of Britain

Letter in The Times, 25 August 2007

Florida televangelist loses show after CAIR complaint

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bill Keller with BibleST. PETERSBURG, Florida — A Christian televangelist in Florida who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station’s owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, “Live Prayer with Bill Keller.”

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a “1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell” and called the Prophet Mohammed a “murdering pedophile.” He also called the Quran a “book of fables and a book of lies.”

Associated Press, 24 August 2007

See also CAIR news release, 24 August 2007

Update:  “They’re just after censorship, pure and simple,” Keller said in an interview with www.bannedmagazine.com. “The crazy thing is all I did was tell the truth about Islam from the Biblical perspective. It’s a false religion and there was no prophet named Mohammed. He’s a false prophet… I’m just lost, don’t these people own remote controls? It’s past the point of being offended. They just want to silence people who take a hard Biblical view of the world.”

 

Australian Muslims slam Hanson policy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pauline HansonPauline Hanson’s “chances of winning are next to none” and her divisive policy could incite anti-Muslim assaults, a pro-Muslim activist says. Executive Director of the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations, Kuranda Seyit, said Ms Hanson’s new anti-Muslim policy platform was simply “fear-mongering and a grab for attention”. “It’s very sad any person who is in the public arena should abuse a minority community for their own benefit.”

Ms Hanson said her new Pauline’s United Australia Party will look at “putting a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia”. Sydney-based Mr Seyit said she’s just ”jumping on the (anti-Muslim) bandwagon” and “she’s grabbing at straws”. “Indirectly she could be responsible for an assault or attack.”

Mr Seyit was equally scathing of anti-Islam thinker Dr Wafa Sultan, who recently met Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard. Syrian-born Dr Sultan is a US-based psychiatrist who spreads the message that there is no difference between moderate and extremist Muslims.

Mr Seyit criticised Dr Sultan’s blanket assertions of an “evil Islam” and dismissed her as simply being a public figure with no legitimacy or credibility. “She is speaking without any authority,” he said. “She is blackening the name of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world who live in harmony and peace in their societies. How can you suggest that all Muslims are evil? It’s ludicrous! You can’t paint the whole Muslim world with one brush.”

Mr Seyit said Muslims have lived in Australia for almost the past one and a half centuries, and our society reaps major benefits from their involvement.

Courier-Mail, 24 August 2007

Channel 4 rejects ‘Islamophobia’ claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Undercover Mosque

The Channel 4 deputy head of news and current affairs, Kevin Sutcliffe, today dismissed accusations of Islamophobia in the broadcaster’s programming, stating that it would remain “fearless” in its coverage.

Mr Sutcliffe, one of five panelists involved at a sometimes heated session at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh international television festival about the portrayal of Islam in the media, said critics would be “hard pressed to point to Islamophobia” in Channel 4’s programming.

“We have a rounded view and approach to this issue … we are quite fearless about what we want to say and when we want to say it,” he added. In response to the Crown Prosecution Service criticism that the controversial Dispatches documentary Undercover Mosque had “distorted” the views of those filmed, Mr Sutcliffe said it was a “phoney argument”.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, agreed that following events such as 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid and London it was “inevitable” there would be an “increased scrutiny of Muslim organisations and mosques”.

However, he said that he was “entitled to ask if it is fair”. He then stated that Muslims and Islam “does not have a level playing field in the media in this country”. Mr Bunglawala expressed concern over “authored documentaries” in which “journalists have an axe to grind”. He cited a Panorama documentary by John Ware as an example.

Maryam Namazie, spokesperson of the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain, strongly disagreed, arguing that the UK media was too soft in its coverage of Islam. “Media doesn’t cover the realities of Islam at all, it is very soft,” she said. She added that the political Islamist movement in Britain and Europe had engineered a “victim status”, whereby criticism of Islam was being equated to racism against Muslims. “Criticising a belief is not racism, it is not the case that that Muslims are being vilified,” Ms Namazie said.

Guardian, 24 August 2007

If there’s one thing that illustrates the problem with the attitudes to Islam to be found in liberal media circles, it’s the fact that a sectarian lunatic like Namazie who represents nothing and nobody is given a platform at an event like this, as if she had something serious to contribute to the debate.

See also Inayat Bunglawala’s post at Comment is Free, 24 August 2007 

Islam and women’s rights

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I read that Human Rights Watch has advertised for a position of Shari ‘ah adviser for its Women’s Rights section. So will Human Rights Watch also hire an adviser on Jewish and Christian religious laws, or do the folks of Human Rights Watch feel that gender equality has been fully achieved in all religious groups with the exception of Islam?”

As’ad Abukhalil at the Angry Arab, 20 August 2007

Another unfair, unbalanced discussion about Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“FOX News once again used a discussion that purported to be about problems of religious intolerance as a platform to foment exactly that. On last night’s (8/22/07) Hannity & Colmes, a debate about a smear campaign against CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) turned into a smear campaign as FOX News producers gave Islamophobe Sean Hannity more camera time. Hannity, in turn, gave ‘his’ guest, the hatemongering David Horowitz more time to well, hate-monger. Alan Colmes and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell nevertheless did an excellent job with what they clearly knew was a stacked deck.”

News Hounds, 23 August 2007

Head count belies vision of ‘Eurabia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muhammad is the second most popular name for newborn boys in Britain, if you add together the various spellings. In the Seine-St-Denis suburb of Paris, Mohamed is number one. In the four biggest Dutch cities in 2005, either Mohamed or Mohammed came top.

Facts like these have led some pundits to forecast the Islamicisation of Europe – a future “Eurabia”. Bernard Lewis, a scholar of Islam, cited the immigration from Muslim countries and relatively high birth-rates of immigrants as trends that mean “Europe will have Muslim majorities in the population by the end of the twenty-first century at the latest”.

Most academics who have analysed the demographics dismiss such predictions. Jytte Klausen, a professor of politics at Brandeis University who studies European Muslims, says: “It’s being advocated by people who don’t consult the numbers. All these claims are really emotional claims.”

Nominal Muslims – whether religious or not – account for 3-4 per cent of the European Union’s total population of 493m. Their percentage should rise, but far more modestly than the extreme predictions.

Financial Times, 20 August 2007