Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Religious leaders push back against Rep. Goode

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Virgil GoodeMore than 20 prominent religious leaders have launched an on-line petition demanding that Rep. Vigil Goode (R-Va) reexamine his opposition to newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim from Minnesota, taking his unofficial oath of office using the Qur’an, and to apologize for his statement that, without punitive immigration reform, “there will be many more Muslims elected to office demanding the use of the Qur’an.”

The petition warns, “An attack against one religion is an attack against them all. Next week, it could be Jews. Next month, it could be Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals. Right now, it is Muslims. It is they who feel targeted by repression and abuse, and they who live among us in a growing climate of fear…. We hold it to be self-evident that all Americans have the right to practice their faith, whatever it may be, and that any Americans – regardless of race, color or creed – may be elected and sworn into office holding whatever book they consider sacred…. We would point out that there are some five million Muslims in the US. Many have been here for generations. They are every bit as American as Rep. Goode. Some Americans have also converted to Islam, including Rep. Ellison. We call for a renewed unity among people of conscience and of faith.”

The petition adds, “In a spirit of reconciliation and peace, we invite Rep. Goode to join with us in an inter-religious delegation to visit a mosque in his district, in order that the healing may begin.”

Atlantic Free Press, 7 January 2007

The online petition is here.

Report links lawyer’s religion to FBI’s zeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FBI fingerprint examiners were reluctant to admit that they had mistakenly linked an Oregon lawyer to the 2004 Madrid train bombings in part because he was a Muslim convert and had represented a terrorism defendant in court, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The 20-page summary report by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that Brandon Mayfield’s religion “was not the sole or primary cause” of the FBI Laboratory’s mistaken identification of him, but it contributed to the bureau’s reluctance to reexamine conclusions in the case. Several FBI and Justice Department officials acknowledged that “Mayfield’s religion was a factor in the investigation,” the report said, in part because officials expected that any suspect in the bombings was likely to be Muslim.

Washington Post, 7 January 2006

Swindon mosque bomber is jailed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Swindon mosqueA racist thug who tried to firebomb a mosque and daubed sick graffiti on its walls was jailed yesterday.

Mark Bulman, 22, got five years for the attack in which he wrote “Go to Auschwitz” and “Allah is a pervert” on the building.

He also painted a Nazi swastika on its walls after smashing a window and lobbing in a petrol bomb. But it failed to explode in the empty building.

Daily Mirror, 6 January 2007

See also “Racist jailed for arson attack on mosque”, Swindon Advertiser, 6 January 2007

Another article from the Advertiser sheds a revealing light on the British National Party’s new “respectable” image. A couple of months earlier, when a teenager was convicted of an arson attack on the same mosque, a spokesman for the Swindon branch of the BNP had stated: “We just want to say that justice has been done and he deserves to be locked up for this attack on the Muslim community.” And who was this BNP spokesman? None other than Mark Bulman.

Islamophobes mislead US senator

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) recently rescinded an award to Basim Elkarra, the executive director of the Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This disturbing news was met with a flurry of rhetorical high-fives by anti-Muslim extremists in the blogosphere. After Boxer’s decision to rescind the award was made public, Elkarra received an e-mailed death threat. That threat is being investigated by the FBI.”

Parvez Ahmed in The American Muslim, 6 January 2007

No foreign finance for Italian mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Giuliano AmatoROME: Italy’s interior minister said the threat of terrorism remains a reality in Italy, and vowed to take a close look at who is financing Italy’s many mosques and who is teaching at Islamic schools.

Giuliano Amato proposed following France’s example of creating a foundation to manage money destined for religious groups, in remarks published Friday in Italy’s leading dailies and confirmed by his office.

“The spread of mosques in Italy that are built with money from foreign states is unacceptable,” Amato told Italian reporters. “There’s something about that that I don’t like. I want to know who is financing what in my country.”

Last year, France created a new foundation to handle financing for France’s Muslim community, for building and renovating mosques and other projects. The foundation has representatives on the board and allows France’s government to play a role in the issue, without breaking its 1905 rule that forbids the government from financing religions.

“The idea is to at least have foundations so we can have some transparency,” said Amato’s spokesman, Fabrizio Forquet. In Italy “mosques are set up by whomever and are financed by such foreign countries as Saudi Arabia,” Forquet added. “So what are these mosques? Are they a religious site or centers for propaganda?”

Hamza Roberto Piccardo, secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, an umbrella group for Italy’s Muslims that has a reputation for radicalism, dismissed the idea.

“Free church in a free country, that’s all I’m going to say,” Piccardo said. “The constitution says religious communities set themselves up according to their own statutes, and a secular state only needs to worry that everything is done legally.”

Associated Press, 5 January 2007

See also “Italy to monitor mosque funding”, BBC News, 5 January 2007

The ‘demonization’ of Muslims and the battle for oil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again. The Crusades consisted in demonizing the Turks as infidels and heretics, with a view to justifying military action. Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against ‘Islamic terrorism’ … supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term ‘Islamo-fascism’, serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of ‘Western democracy’ and the ‘free market’ as the only alternative for these countries….

“Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world’s oil reserves. ‘Axis of evil’, ‘rogue States’, ‘failed nations’, ‘Islamic terrorists’: demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America’s ‘war on terror’. They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil….

“Vilification of the enemy is part and parcel of Eurasia energy geopolitics. It is a direct function of the geographic distribution of the World’s oil and gas reserves. If the oil were in countries occupied predominantly by Buddhists or Hindus, one would expect that US foreign policy would be directed against Buddhists and Hindus, who would also be the object of vilification.”

Michel Chossudovsky in Global Research, 4 January 2007

Muslims in South Australia subjected to unfair treatment, report finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in South Australia are being racially abused “like never before”, a Government report has found. The trend has prompted the Equal Opportunity Commission to launch a new project to work with the SA Muslim community, described in the commission’s latest annual report as being “under pressure”.

SA Equal Opportunity Commissioner Linda Matthews said in the annual report that a “small minority are behaving in an unacceptable way” towards newly arrived Muslims. “For generations, South Australian Muslims have been an integral part of our community,” she said. “But in the last five years, the heightened global attention on Islam has seen local Muslims singled out for unfair treatment like never before.”

Roman Catholic Church Vicar-General Monsignor David Cappo, who also heads the State Government’s Social Exclusion Unit and is a member of the executive committee of Cabinet, told The Advertiser‘s Rex Jory racism was widespread among young Adelaide people. “They are very harsh to Asian communities. Now the Muslims are going to get it as well,” he said.

The Australian, 31 December 2006

Americans oppose Dutch Islamic veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Many adults in the United States are against a proposal developed by the Dutch government that seeks to ban Islamic veils, according to a six-country poll by Harris Interactive published in the Financial Times.

59 per cent of Americans believe Islamic women should have the right to wear the garments if they wish to do so.

Support is significantly lower in the five European nations surveyed, with Spain at 39 per cent, Italy at 34 per cent, Germany at 33 per cent, Britain at 23 per cent, and France at 23 per cent.

Angus Reid Global Monitor, 31 December 2006

Dutch veil ban poll

Ethnic smears hinder good government

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More on the “Islam won” story (see here). The statement was originally attributed to Omar Alghabra after he was selected as a Liberal Party candidate in Canada. When that account was shown to be a fraud, the accusation was shifted to another Muslim politician, Khalid Usman.

“It’s an allegation Mr. Usman vehemently denies. ‘I know for a fact I never said Islam won. It was nothing about Islam taking over something,’ he said. ‘There is no way in the world. I never would have said it.’ Mr. Usman said he was out of the room for much of the meeting and, when he came in, was invited to the stage to make a few comments. He allows he may have uttered a traditional praise to Allah, but not with the intention of bringing religion into politics. If a Christian politician were to shout ‘hallelujah’ after a victory, would there be a controversy?”

Yorkregion.com, 29 December 2005