Manal Omar had used her five-piece “Islamic-style” swimsuit for years – in Rio, Washington and Kuala Lumpur – and it had never brought her more than a curious glance. Then she went for a dip in Oxford …
For the Oxford Mail article to which Manal Omar refers, see here.
Nazi slogans and swastikas have been daubed on about 50 graves in the Muslim section of a French WWI cemetery.
The military cemetery, near Arras in the north of France, is one of the country’s biggest and is on the site of some of the war’s early battles.
French President Jacques Chirac said the desecration “was an unspeakable act that scars the conscience”.
About 78,000 colonial subjects of France, including many Muslims from North Africa, died in the war.
Rival presidential candidates Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy also condemned the vandalism.
“This desecration is all the more shocking because it affects the graves of fighters who gave their lives for France,” Mr Chirac said in a statement.
The official prosecutor’s office said none of the graves had been destroyed.
Reuters adds: “SOS Racism, a rights organisation, blamed the vandalism on comments made in the presidential election campaign, without pointing to any particular candidate. ‘The increase in the xenophobic and stigmatising comments throughout this presidential election campaign is responsible for racist individuals taking action’, it said in a statement.”
The Muslim Council of Britain and Unite Against Fascism call on all Muslims to use their vote in the forthcoming local elections in England and Scotland, and the Scottish Parliamentary and Wales Assembly elections to stop the dangerous British National Party (BNP).
The BNP is a fascist party in the tradition of Hitler’s Nazis and it seeks an all-white Britain which could only be achieved through violence and an end to democracy. It is against the values of the British people.
Its vote has soared over the past six years, on the basis of whipping up hostility, particularly towards Muslims, and spreading racist lies. Where the BNP is active, racist and Islamophobic attacks increase. Where it wins council seats, it gains a cloak of respectability, legitimising hostilities against Muslims and increasing the climate of Islamophobia.
The BNP’s growth can be stopped if the majority of people go out and vote on 3 May.
The BNP can grab seats where the majority of people don’t vote. We must all stand united against these peddlers of hate.
The Muslim Council of Britain and Unite Against Fascism are asking Muslims to vote with fellow Britons on 3 May. Whoever you vote for, vote for local matters that concern you and stop the BNP. Participating in local elections is your civic duty and is in the best traditions of Islam.
A French court Tuesday ordered construction work on a mosque in the Mediterranean port of Marseille to be suspended in response to legal action by far-right groups.
The court found in favor of the National Front (FN), the Movement for France (MPF), and the National Republican Movement (MNR), who accused the city of granting a veiled subsidy for the mosque’s construction, violating French law on the separation of Church and state.
Marseille city hall decided last July to break a decades-long deadlock over the future mosque by allocating a plot of land for its construction, on a 99-year lease, for a charge of €300 per year. The Marseille administrative court overturned the city’s decision, ruling that the generous conditions amounted to a subsidy in disguise, demanding that the mosque renegotiate the terms of the lease in the next two months.
Jean-Claude Gondard, secretary-general of Marseille city hall, said that the court decision would cause a delay of three to four months at most, and that a new lease would be submitted to the city council in June. He said that the city was committed to file for planning permission in the autumn, but that “the mosque’s opponents are very political, and liable to try to block the project every step of the way.”
Moulay Abderrahmane Ghoul, regional head of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, denounced the far-right lawsuit as a “xenophobic and racist political act,” but said “the city’s will to build the mosque” was not in question.
But the MNR hailed the decision as a “judicial and political victory … against the Islamization of France.” And Philippe de Villiers, presidential candidate for the Catholic nationalist MPF, welcomed the ruling, calling for a moratorium on all mosque constructions and a charter “imposing respect for the laws of the republic on Islam.”
Hadas Thier and Aaron Hess look at how racist caricatures of Islam are used to justify war and occupation.
MONTREAL – A Muslim girl barred from competing in a taekwondo tournament because of her hijab was adamant yesterday that she would give up neither her sport nor her head covering. “I won’t take it off for any reason,” said 11-year-old Bissan Mansour. “Even if I can’t go to tournaments, I can continue to practise until I become world champion.”
Bissan and four of her teammates, all Muslims of Lebanese descent from the Ultimate Tae Kwon Do Club in Montreal, were told they could not compete in the Raymond Mourad provincial tournament in Longueuil unless they removed their hijabs, which were deemed a safety risk that violated competition rules.
Delegates called on the NUJ executive to step up efforts to stamp out “pernicious and insidious” press Islamophobia on Sunday.
Glasgow delegate Ruth Allan noted that Islamophobia “follows the KKK rulebook, which states that vulnerable ethnic minorities need to be isolated from the mainstream, so that they can more easily be attacked.”
South Yorkshire delegate Phil Turner damned Cabinet Minister Jack Straw’s comments about Muslim women covering their faces, arguing that what Mr Straw said had been designed to whip up racism “in a way not seen since the days of Enoch Powell.”
But Press and PR delegate Gillian Hammond endorsed Mr Straw’s comments, asserting: “The full-face niqab can become a disguise for people with sinister purposes – there are people out there who are up to no good and it needs to be said.”
Executive member Michelle Shawstreet applauded the “brave” Daily Star chapel who, led by Steve Usher, forced management to withdraw the “inflammatory, racist and deeply offensive Daily Fatwah page” in October last year by walking out.
Morning Star, 16 April 2007
Campaigns alleging that a nation is being ‘swamped’ by foreigners have always been part of the repertoire of right-wing extremist politics. The influx of immigrants, their culture and language is regarded as a threat to one’s ‘own’ people and – depending upon which version is being promulgated – Western or German culture.
In recent times, the danger of being ‘swamped’ has been replaced by that of a ‘Muslim-takeover’, with the difference, however, that such agitation is not limited to right-wing extremist circles. Magazines such as Der Spiegel, Christian Democratic and Social Democratic politicians, and former liberals or leftwing intellectuals have now joined in the chorus.
Der Spiegel appeared on March 26 with the headline, “Mecca Germany. The quiet Muslim takeover.” The front page showed the familiar sight of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, swathed in darkness with the Islamic crescent moon and star above.
Regular Spiegel columnist Franz Josef Wagner commented, “Our symbols of justice wear a headscarf or a burka. What sort of country do we live in that our laws are no longer valid?”
The deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) parliamentary faction Wolfgang Bosbach told the press he had long feared “the fact that we are gradually importing moral values from other cultures into Germany, even making them the basis of the legal system.”
The feminist Alice Schwarzer opined that the German legal system had “for a long time, been systematically infiltrated by Islamist forces” and Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian state premier and Christian Social Union (CSU) chairman, warned, the “rule of law in Germany” should not “kow-tow to the Koran” or let itself be “undermined.”
What has occasioned this extreme agitation? It revolves around a divorce case being heard by the Family Court in Frankfurt am Main, in which a German woman of Moroccan origin wants to divorce her Moroccan husband.
The Prison Service’s attempts to curb the growth of radical Islam in jails by restricting communal prayers and reading of the Qur’an during work breaks are exacerbating the problem, according to the first in-depth study of Muslim prisoners. The research, based on interviews with 170 current and former Muslim prisoners, also reveals that bans on access to certain TV programmes and newspapers in high-security prisons have also backfired.
The four-year research project by Aberdeen University anthropologist Gabriele Marranci also finds that a small minority of former young Muslim offenders are vulnerable to recruitment by militant organisations as a result of their prison experiences. “I found no evidence to suggest that the Muslim chaplains are behaving or preaching in a way that facilitates radicalisation,” said Dr Marranci. “On the contrary, my findings suggest that they are extremely important in preventing dangerous forms of extremism. However, the distrust that they face, both internally and externally, is jeopardising their important function.”
The research shows that Muslim prisoners were subject to stricter surveillance than other inmates, especially when they adopted religious symbols such as beards, veils and caps: “Growing a beard is, in almost all establishments I visited, interpreted as ‘radicalisation’ of the individual,” said Dr Marranci, a lecturer in the anthropology of religion. He warns that the continuing atmosphere of suspicion surrounding Muslim prisoners increases a sense of frustration and depression which a strong view of Islam can help to overcome.
HAMILTON – A clear message has been delivered this afternoon on the campus of McMaster University. Dozens of community, labour and student groups banding together to say no to racism. The Hamilton District Labour Council’s Don Fraser among those speaking out, after anti-islamic graffiti was spray-painted on the office door of a professor who organized a recent event promoting diversity. Fraser calling an injury to one, an injury to all. McMaster President Dr. Peter George also spoke to the gathering saying islamophobia, anti-semitism and racism will not be tolerated “on this campus”.