Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Idaho Senate passes human rights resolution after mosque hit by swastikas

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BOISE, Idaho – Senators passed a symbolic measure highlighting Idaho’s commitment to human rights, just days after an Islamic mosque in Boise was targeted by swastika stickers. It reaffirms the state’s commitment to “freedom from discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin or disability.” Senator Edgar Malepeai argued the resolution sends a message to racist or bigoted groups that Idaho doesn’t tolerate hateful acts.

In the 1980s and 90s, meetings of the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake in northern Idaho earned the state a reputation as a haven for racist groups. Malepeai says he’s concerned the incident at the Islamic Center of Boise last week could be a harbinger of renewed neo-Nazi activity. Malepeai says, “We need to respond to this resurgence of hate, and a resolution is a necessary step.”

Associated Press, 14 March 2007

The inspirational effect of Phyllis Chesler

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I recently read one of the best and most insightful columns I’ve ever seen. ‘How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam: Is it racist to condemn fanaticism?‘ by Dr Phyllis Chesler originally appeared in The Times of London on March 7, 2007…. If every American were to read ‘How my eyes were opened’ I honestly believe that all but perhaps half a dozen Marxist holdouts would be all for leveling Teheran and Damascus tomorrow, at the very least.”

Erik Rush at Renew America, 12 March 2007

Abdiel Abdalhayy comments: “Smart, well-lettered racists and Islamophobes like Dr Chesler have to consider that semi-literate racists and Islamophobes like Erik Rush will, more than anyone else, wrap their meaty fists around articles like ‘How my eyes were opened’ and drag them through their dark, stupid world. Once likeminded racists who aren’t smart enough to blog on RenewAmerica.us have someone read articles like Rush’s to them, they’ll distill the message even further, and maybe take action. That’s the real weapon Chesler points at people like me, whether or not she realises it – or cares, for that matter.”

Abdiel, 12 March 2007

‘Keep Muslims out of Australia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fred_NileAustralia should give priority to Christians wanting to flee persecution in Muslim countries the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, the Reverend Fred Nile, says. Mr Nile, a member of the NSW upper house, has called for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim immigration to Australia.

There had been no serious study of the potential effects on Australia of the more than 300,000 Muslims who are already here, he said. The CDP leader wants a study to look at the examples of the Netherlands and France, where the Muslim minority has become large enough to “flex its muscle”.

“The same thing is happening in our city of Sydney … they (Muslims) concentrate and virtually by population numbers they dominate that actual community,” he told Southern Cross Broadcasting today.

The NSW Greens called on the major parties to publicly reject Mr Nile’s call for an immigration moratorium and cancel any preference deals with his party. “Rev Nile’s statement makes NSW look ugly and racist,” Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said. “All public figures should distance themselves from such an unacceptable policy.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 2007

Australian Muslims announced on Monday, March 12, plans to form a political party to fight the spiraling Islamophobia in the country, opening the membership door for people of different faiths. “The political parties are focusing too much unfair attention on Muslims,” Kaysar Trad, spokesman of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia (IFAA), told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “We have to do whatever we can to make politicians focus on real issues rather than diversions on Muslims.”

Islam Online, 12 March 2007

Swastika stickers left at Idaho mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BOISE, Idaho — A few swastika-emblazoned stickers have been left on a mosque and another building in town, prompting a police investigation, officials said.

The stickers were reported Sunday as children arrived at the Islamic Center of Boise for Sunday school, said Furqan Mehmood, the center’s education director. The stickers were left on a door and other surfaces, apparently on Saturday afternoon, officials said.

Somali refugees who went to the mosque to pray that day noticed them but didn’t report them; they were unfamiliar with the swastika symbol and assumed they were benign, Mehmood said.

The stickers promoted Combat 18, a loosely organized neo-Nazi group that likely originated in Britain, officials said.

The incident violates Idaho’s felony malicious harassment law, said police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower. The stickers peeled off easily, leaving no damage.

In February, the stickers were found at a property management business, Hightower said. It is unclear why the business was targeted.

Associated Press, 9 March 2007

See also “CAIR asks FBI to probe Nazi vandalism of Idaho mosque”, CAIR press release, 10 March 2007

Australian police investigate ‘anti-Islamic website’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Federal police are investigating an anti-Islamic website that calls on supporters across Australia to oppose a mosque planned for North Cairns.

The “Winds of Jihad” website, created by a Cairns man who calls himself Sheik Yer’Mami, includes instructions to “do whatever it takes to stop them (Muslims) from spreading their tentacles”. It also urges opponents of a mosque being built at 31 Dunn St, opposite the Pioneer cemetery, to launch a public campaign against the development.

The Far North’s Muslim spiritual leader Imam Abdul Aziz labelled the website as “vulgar”, saying he contacted the Australian Federal Police yesterday to alert them to the website. He said the AFP was investigating the website because of its offensive and racist content.

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Islamophobia and the ‘West’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As the non Marxist philosopher-athelete, Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi’ Berra, said, ‘this is dejavu all over again’. Although the global political situation may be different, present-day anti-Muslim racism (broadly defined) not only bears a good deal of resemblance to the anti-Jewish racism or anti-Semitism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but some of the social economic factors are similar, as are the political forces exploiting and developing this racism….

“Those who challenge expressions of intolerance against Muslims in the U.S. are mocked by chauvinists and the political Right generally for being ‘politically correct’ as those who praised the achievements of Jewish immigrants and the richness of Jewish immigrant culture a century ago were mocked by chauvinists and the political Right as naïve and misguided believers in a ‘melting pot’ society who were protecting socially dangerous elements….

“As Marxists we must both understand and oppose the present attacks on Islam as a religion and Muslims as people as a continuation of both the search for scapegoats at home and enemies abroad by the most reactionary supporters of our ruling class, just as we actively fought and fight against anti-Semitism.”

Norman Markowitz in Political Affairs, 6 March 2007

The BNP’s new intellectual guru

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HateThe anti-fascist magazine Searchlight investigates the British National Party’s efforts to win respectability by covering “its racist anti-Muslim bashing with a quasi-intellectual veneer”. According to their report:

“A key figure in this process is a name unfamiliar to most. Described by John Bean, lifelong fascist officer and editor of Identity, as ‘the BNP economics guru’, Alan Goodacre has come from nowhere to command a key role in the formation of BNP policy…. According to Bean, Goodacre is also editor of the BNP’s Jihad Watch bulletin, one of several subscription email bulletins that the BNP sends out, which contain not original research but a highly selective set of press cuttings that give the deliberately distorted impression of an impending demographic and economic collapse: an acute blend of paranoia and fantasy dressed up as news.

“Goodacre also stated his intention to try and gain the help of Adrian Morgan who writes regularly for the Western Resistance website and has previously contributed to the Guardian and New Scientist and was once a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. Morgan also contributes to the ‘Islam Watch’ website … which would explain Goodacre’s interest in him. Indeed, Goodacre’s evident Islamophobia led him to write a letter to the Jewish Chronicle claiming that the party had genuinely repudiated anti-semitism and no longer denied the Holocaust (which is news to us), while appealing to British Jews to understand that the BNP ‘are the only party in Britain that is truly fighting the Islamofascist threat’.”

Searchlight, March 2007

Muslim women lose swimming pool discrimination case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Muslim mothers in Sweden on Wednesday lost a discrimination case against an indoor swimming pool where the lifeguards had asked them to remove their veils and body-covering clothing.

The Gothenburg court ruled the municipal pool had not discriminated against the women. It ordered the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination, which had brought the case on their behalf, to pay the City of Gothenburg’s costs of 30,850 kronor (4,375 dollars, 3,330 euros).

The women, Houda Morabet and Hayal Eroglu, were at the pool separately on two different occasions in April 2004, accompanying their young children but not to swim themselves. Both were wearing veils, long pants and long-sleeved tee-shirts because their religion does not allow them to reveal parts of their body in public.

The ombudsman argued in court that the lifeguards’ insistence that they change into tee-shirts was an act of discrimination.

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