Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

London mayor backs anti-Islamophobia rally

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BMI_Liberty rallyIslamophobia on the March

By Ken Livingstone

Morning Star, 4 November 2006

On November 20, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster, a national rally will be held to defend freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Organised jointly by the British Muslim Initiative and Liberty, it has the support of a wide range of organisations, including faith groups, anti-racist campaigns and labour movement bodies.

The rally will be the first step in initiating a national campaign to defend freedom of religion and culture and to combat the rise of Islamophobia.

The aim is to support the principle that communities from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, of all religions and none, should live together in a spirit of tolerance and respect for each other’s customs and values.

London itself is in many respects a model for the sort of multicultural society we want to build. The diversity brought about by successive waves of migration has been a key factor in the success and dynamism of the capital.

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How veil remarks reinforced its support

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jack_StrawJack Straw’s comments on veils have been good news for the owner of The Hijab Centre in the MP’s constituency of Blackburn. Nadeem Siddiqui tells me he is selling more veils than he did before his local MP made his controversial remarks.

Mr Siddiqui is the largest seller of veils in the area. “I used to sell two or three a week but now I am selling five to six. They are mainly being bought by young, British-born Muslim women,” he said. “These women are experimenting with the wearing of the niqab. Their mothers often do not cover themselves but they seem to want to do it.”

It is probably not the impact that Mr Straw intended when he wrote in his local newspapers that he felt uncomfortable when dealing face to face with veiled women. The majority of Muslims condemned Mr Straw over his comments. One month later, they are still upset.

“I voted for Mr Straw at the last election” says Mr Siddiqui. “I’m now reconsidering my support for him. Most of the people around here are doing the same because of what he said about the veil”.

British Muslims do not accept the argument that veiled women contribute to segregation or are a barrier to integration. Instead they feel they are being deliberately stigmatised as a problem community and are fearful of the future.

BBC News, 5 November 2006

Anti-fascists express disgust at BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP NoAnti-fascist campaigners waving flags and placards gave BNP leader Nick Griffin a noisy reception as he arrived at Leeds Crown Court to answer race-hate charges yesterday. Mr Griffin was also greeted by a handful of far-right supporters as he arrived with co-defendant Mark Collett.

The BNP leader is charged over a speech he made in West Yorkshire in 2004, which was filmed by an undercover BBC reporter. Mr Collett faces four similar charges relating to two speeches that he made in the town during the same year.

Rodney Jameson QC opened the prosecution’s case by detailing the alleged racist remarks. He said that Mr Griffin had told a crowd at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, on January 19 2004, that Islam was a “wicked, vicious faith.” Mr Griffin is also alleged to have said that Asian Muslims were turning Britain into a multiracial “hell” as they tried to conquer the country. Mr Jameson said that Mr Griffin had urged the gathering to vote BNP to ensure that “the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country.”

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Paris airport faces strike threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unions at France’s main airport, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, have threatened to call a strike over alleged bias against Muslim workers.

Seventy-two workers, mostly Muslims, have lost security clearance at the airport since May 2005. Officials say the workers posed a risk because of alleged links to groups with “potentially terrorist aims”.

Unions will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the strike, which could be called for the end of the month. Didier Frassin, head of the main CGT union at the airport, told AFP news agency there would also be a march outside the prefecture in Roissy, which took the decision to remove the security clearance from the workers.

BBC News, 3 November 2006

‘Muslim degree course is set to cause controversy’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under that heading this week’s Tribune reports that the University of Chester is to offer a degree in Muslim youth work, which has been developed in collaboration with Muslim agencies.

Ron Geaves, head of theology and religious studies at the university, is quoted as saying: “It seems to me that if ever a community was crying out for more skilled youth workers, it is the Muslim community. There are a huge number of Muslims who work already in the voluntary sector but are not qualified, which limits their career choices.”

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, is not impressed. “I get a bit fed up with the idea that we have to have specific things geared to the Muslim community”, she tells Tribune. “Why can’t we have a youth worker working with all youngsters generally?”

Yakoub Islam adds:

In relation to this story, it is worth mentioning that Professor Ron Geaves is an ethnologist who has been working with British Muslim communities for over two decades. His research has seen him spend prolonged periods living within Muslim communities in England, particularly working class Barelwi Muslims who voices are seriously under-represented in every area of British society.

Ann Cryer’s comments are therefore all the more offensive for their willful ignorance, in the face of one of the most authorative academic voices on Muslims in Britain, whose knowledge of the impact of decades of discrimination against Muslims comes first hand. British Muslim communities are dogged by high rates of youth unemployment due to Islamophobia. Many young Muslims feel marginalised by British society. This is reflected in the rates of drug abuse and criminality, such that today Muslims make up 1 in 10 of the prison population in England.

Professor Geaves’ comments reflect his understanding of a desperate need; Anne Cryer’s reflect the bigotry of a desperate and despicable politician.

Camilla hides poppy behind ‘Muslim scarf’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Camilla Hides Poppy“Camilla meanwhile has being coming under fire from the Daily Express for one for not wearing a poppy. Yesterday they declared ‘Islamic Camilla dumps poppy’, because it was chaffing her ‘Muslim scarf’.

“Today, they are moaning that ‘she is wearing one but you can’t see it under Muslim scarf’. As you can see from the picture, she is wearing the traditional Pakistani daputta. This is a Muslim scarf how? The Express would do well to remember before stoking this Islamophobic and racist nonsense that tens of thousands of soldiers from the sub-continent laid down their lives in WWI for their British colonial masters, and if they’re sincere about commemorating the war veterans, then let’s focus on that.”

Osama Saeed at Rolled Up Trousers, 2 November 2006

Former PM blasts Australian government for marginalising Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, is at odds with the Federal Government over tensions over Islam in Australia. The Government has branded the former Liberal leader an apologist for radical Islam, after Mr Fraser accused his party of marginalising Muslims for political purposes. Earlier this week, Mr Fraser said the Government was gearing up for what he called a Muslim election next year.

ABC Online, 2 November 2006

Federal charges urged in hate attack on NY Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the Justice Department to bring federal charges against a number of teens who attacked a Muslim man in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sunday evening.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said prosecutors are calling the attack a hate crime. The victim, who will require reconstructive facial surgery, said: “They were saying you Muslim terrorist…get out of the country.”

A court hearing for two of the alleged attackers is scheduled for Friday in Brooklyn Criminal Court.

“The viciousness of this attack, coupled with the allegations of bias-motivated slurs should be sufficient to bring federal hate crime charges against the alleged attackers,” said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar.

Iftikhar said that CAIR yesterday called on religious and political leaders to repudiate the growing Islamophobia in American society that can lead to such attacks.

CAIR press release, 2 November 2006

The Global Peace and Unity Event

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Global Peace and Unity Event
25th & 26th November 2006

The wait is over! Islam Channel brings back to you the long awaited Global Peace & Unity Event. This year it’s even more spectacular, with a vision which is ahead of its time.

The Global Peace & Unity event, the first of its kind originated in Europe, was organised to highlight and promote the need for global peace and unity among Britain’s varied and distinct communities.

This family event also seeks to break barriers and open bridges between the variety of cultures and groups that follow the Islamic faith, as well as with other communities with whom we share our space.

The Global Peace & Unity Event aims:

• To provide a platform for entertainment and knowledge.
• To encourage understanding and positive interaction between the Muslims and Non Muslims.
• To introduce the British Muslims and Non Muslims to the true face of Islam.
• Dispel the myths surrounding the Islamic faith and to promote dialogue.
• To build bridges across faiths, communities and societies.
• To promote Muslim businesses, Islamic culture and art.

Further details on The Global Peace and Unity Event website.

Australian media seizes upon Muslim cleric’s comments to whip up xenophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Australian media, working hand in hand with the Howard government and the opposition Labor Party, has seized upon a sermon delivered last month by a Sydney-based Islamic cleric to escalate its hysterical campaign against Muslims.

Last Thursday, the Australian published translated excerpts from a sermon delivered by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali last month, in which the Muslim cleric appeared to blame rape victims for their plight. “She is the one wearing a short dress, lifting it up, lowering it down, then a look, then a smile, then a word, then a greeting, then a chat, then a date, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay Jail, then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years,” he said. This was an apparent reference to the extraordinarily harsh sentence imposed on 20-year-old Bilal Skaf for gang rape convictions in Sydney six years ago.

Hilali quoted an Islamic scholar who said that rape victims should be imprisoned for life because “if she hadn’t left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it”. He then continued, “If she was in her room, in her house, wearing her hijab, being chaste, the disasters wouldn’t have happened”.

The position that women are responsible for rape – which is, by definition, non-consensual – is backward and reactionary. The current political and media campaign against Hilali’s comments, however, is entirely hypocritical. It has nothing to do with a principled opposition to sexual violence against women. The banner of women’s rights and sexual equality is being cynically paraded by the most right-wing and chauvinist forces in order to advance their own agenda.

World Socialist Web Site, 2 November 2006