IHRC urgent alert: complain to BBC about Panorama documentary

John Ware“The broadcast journalist John Ware, responsible for last year’s one-sided Panorama programme on British Muslim leadership, is making another documentary about British Muslims. This time he is focusing on the community’s alleged support of Palestinian groups and aims to expose activists’ links with political movements such as Hamas which Ware considers to be a terrorist organisation….

“Ware’s last programme ‘A Question of Leadership’ was supposed to examine the role of the Muslim Council of Britain. Instead, it degenerated into an ‘McCarthyite’ attack on Muslims and their beliefs, overflowing with Islamophobic stereotypes and glaring inaccuracies. John Ware’s pro-Israel bias was also evident in the documentary. He reserved all his criticisms and condemnations for the Palestinians without a word of criticism for the Israelis. The programme resulted in the BBC receiving over 600 complaints in the first week alone and provoked wide spread condemnation by Muslim groups and non Muslims alike….

“IHRC is deeply concerned that once again BBC is being used as platform to unleash another prejudiced and hate-filled attack on the Muslim community, by a journalist whose anti-Muslim prejudice has been fully exposed. IHRC also feels that by choosing a journalist with a personal agenda against Muslims, to present a programme on the Palestine-Israel conflict, the BBC will be unable to fulfill their duty to report with accuracy and impartiality.”

IHRC alert, 8 June 2006

Demonstration on Sunday

Scotland YardSTOP POLICE TERROR. DEFEND CIVIL LIBERTIES. JUSTICE FOR MUSLIMS.
Sunday 11th June, 2pm, Outside Scotland Yard.

RALLY FOR JUSTICE
The police raid in Forest Gate on June 2nd involving some 250 officers was one of the largest single raids in Britain. With the intensification of “terror raids” throughout the country and “trial-by-media” sensationalism, communities are under severe attack and must show unity.

STOP POLICE TERROR
The heavy-handed tactics of the police are proving counterproductive. Instead of increasing security, high profile police “terror” raids have only spread more fear.

JUSTICE FOR MUSLIMS
Despite the Government’s boasts of a diversified society, the criminalisation of Muslim communities and rising Islamophobia are a direct result of Government policies.

DEFEND CIVIL LIBERTIES
The anti-terror legislation is eroding all of our civil rights and the Government intends to extend police powers without the need for accountability.

SUNDAY 11th JUNE
2pm
ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE SCOTLAND YARD
Nearest Tube: St James Park.

For more information call: 07908 750 748 or 07915 063 564

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MPs fear police terror raid will hit community relations

MPs fear police terror raid will hit community relations

By Nigel Morris and Arifa Akbar

Independent, 8 June 2006

Police and the intelligence services have been warned by Muslim leaders and MPs that the Forest Gate raids have had a damaging effect on community relations in the fight against terrorism.

As detectives were granted more time to question two men arrested in east London last week, supporters of a drive against Islamophobia condemned the operation.

Ghayasuddin Siddique, leader of the Muslim parliament, said: “It has been an absolute disaster, it’s shameful… Police and the intelligence services have lost all credibility.”

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, said: “I don’t think you can minimise the adverse impact of events like those of the last week. If somebody has their door kicked down at four in the morning it sends out a very negative impression about the nature of our society.”

He said the raids may prove to have been justified, but if they turned out to be mistaken it would make Muslims feel “confronted and embattled” .

Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, said the police needed to ” reflect on the downside of their activities”. He said: “There’s a concern about the willingness of the community to volunteer information [to the police] if their neighbour, someone down the road, their son has been treated unfairly.”

They were speaking in Westminster at the launch of a commission on ways to combat Islamophobia.

Its chairman, Richard Stone, said: “Police and politicians need to show a bit more sensitivity.”

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‘Blaming all Muslims, or Islam or multiculturalism is just a McCarthyesque witchhunt against a rather powerless minority community in Canada’

No easy answers

Toronto Star, 8 June 2006

By Haroon Siddiqui

Blaming all Muslims, or Islam or multiculturalism, is just a witchhunt against a rather powerless minority community

Dalton McGuinty said it best. He found the alleged Toronto terrorist plot to be both “unsettling and reassuring,” the latter because law enforcement agencies have done their job, removing what has been described as Canada’s greatest terrorism threat.

Now the courts will decide whether that’s what it was.

Let the rule of law prevail, in fair and transparent trials.

If we are hearing some skeptical voices about the dramatic charges, there is a reason. Similar claims made in 2003 against 22 Pakistani and Indian students — that they had planned to topple the CN Tower and the Pickering nuclear reactor — proved to be utterly false.

That episode of incompetence, coupled with the Maher Arar tragedy and the ongoing detention of four terrorism suspects without charge on security certificates, devalued the moral currency of the law enforcement agencies — always a liability in a democracy.

This time, however, authorities seem to be on firmer ground.

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Who shot Abdul Kahar?

“The situation is not irrecoverable. If mistakes were made in the latest operation, it is better for the police to admit to them frankly. There is a lot of goodwill out there. But after the fatal shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, any attempt to mislead the public could well have bad consequences for us all.”

Inayat Bunglawala on the consequences of the Forest Gate police raid.

Comment is Free, 5 June 2006

False prophets

“For a long time now, I have been meaning to take a cool, reflective look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji. The ordeal of keeping calm long enough to write about them and avoiding serious damage to my blood pressure at the same time was mainly what prevented me.”

Excellent post by Brian Whitaker at Comment is Free, 5 June 2006

See also the article by Laila Lalami that Whitaker recommends, in The Nation, 1 June 2006

The future of Europe in Islam

THE FUTURE OF EUROPE IN ISLAM

Panel Debate – Wednesday 7th June (18:45-20:45)

UCL Chemistry Auditorium
Christopher Ingold Building
20 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0AJ

This panel discussion aims to explore the future of Europe in Islam. Islam is frequently cited as Europe’s fastest growing religion, and its followers have increasingly been in the spotlight. The rise of the far right across Europe together with a growing confident Muslim identity raises interesting questions about the role that Europe is playing in shaping the future of Islam and Muslims living in the west.

The invited panel of speakers will set out their vision for the future of Europe in Islam and engage with each other in a lively debate and discussion. Members of the audience will be able to put forward their questions for the panellists to discuss.

Panel Members:

Dr Hisham Hellyer, Warwick University (Chair)
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Oxford St. Anthony’s College
Dr Abdul Wahid, Hizb ut Tahrir
Dr Yahya Michot, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Huda Jawad, UK Programme Director, Forward Thinking
Mehdi Hassan

Tickets can be booked online at: www.myh.org.uk/events.htm

All proceeds generated from this event will go toward supporting the work of Muslim Youth Helpline.

Angry families threaten legal action against police over anti-terror raid

A young Muslim man shot by police on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist chemical plot last night protested his innocence and alleged that police failed to give warning before opening fire.

Solicitors for Mohammed Abdul Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, who was also seized in a dawn raid on Friday involving 250 police officers, said they denied any wrongdoing.

A family who live next door to the brothers alleged that they were also arrested and assaulted, leaving one man with a head injury and needing hospital treatment.

Observer, 4 June 2006


For comment, see Rolled Up Trousers and Lenin’s Tomb.

Meanwhile, Melanie Phillips is demanding that MPACUK should be prosecuted for “incitement to riot – or worse”  because they called on Muslim youth to protest against the shooting.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 2 June 2006