Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Muslims and non-Muslims rally to support Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement that Hizb ut-Tahrir would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, many Muslim and non-Muslim groups and personalities have expressed amazement and shock that a non-violent political party could be targeted in this manner. Moreover several UK national newspapers and leaked government documents have revealed that even the UK Home Office has stated that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a terrorist party or a violent organisation.

Dr Imran Waheed, Media Representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, said, “Since the statement of the Prime Minister, we have received dozens of messages of support from leading Muslim and non-Muslim groups and personalities. Not everyone may agree with our politics but everyone agrees that banning a non-violent political party is injustice and will set a very dangerous precedent.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir press release, 9 August 2005

Cruel confinement of ‘enemy combatant’ in United States

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A lawsuit filed against U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reveals the gratuitous cruelty inflicted on a foreign student held without charges for more than two years as an “enemy combatant” in a South Carolina naval brig, Human Rights Watch said. Although three men have been confined in the United States after being designated “enemy combatants” by President George Bush, the complaint by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri provides the first look into the treatment of any of them in military custody.

“It is bad enough that al-Marri has been held indefinitely without charges and incommunicado,” said Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program. “Now we learn that his life in the brig has also been one of cruelty and petty vindictiveness. Whatever the Bush administration believes he has done or wanted to do, there’s no excuse for how they are treating him.”

HRW news release, 8 August 2005

VA Muslim attacked by men shouting racist slurs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on law enforcement authorities to treat an assault this morning on a Virginia Muslim woman as a hate crime.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported that a 23-year-old Muslim woman, who is 8 months pregnant and wears and Islamic head scarf, said she was out for her morning walk in Arlington, Va., when three white men in a pick-up truck began screaming anti-Muslim and racist slurs at her. According to the victim, the men shouted, “You terrorist b*tch, go back to your country. . .You n*gger b*tch.” (The woman is African-American.) The truck drove away and then returned as the woman continued on her walk. One of the men, who was wearing military-style clothing, allegedly got out of the vehicle and began shoving the woman and preventing her from moving away. During the assault, he shouted, “You terrorist b*tch. . . We’re going to kick your a*s. . . you’re nothing.” The other men then called the attacker back to the truck and it sped off.

“We believe these types of incidents are the direct result of the growing level of virulent anti-Muslim rhetoric Americans are exposed to on the Internet, in newspaper editorial pages and on radio talk shows,” said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Our nation’s political and religious leaders must begin to challenge Islamophobic hate-mongers.” Hooper noted that a Washington, D.C., radio talk show host was recently suspended without pay for stating repeatedly that “Islam is a terrorist organization.” He added that an Illinois man was arrested just last Friday for threatening to bomb CAIR’s Capitol Hill headquarters. In July, a national council of American Muslim religious scholars issued a “fatwa,” or formal Islamic legal ruling, against terrorism and religious extremism. That fatwa has been endorsed by some 200 Islamic groups, leaders and institutions.

CAIR news release, 9 August 2005

Telegraph readers debate hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hijab is Our RightAs you might anticipate, there is the usual racist crap: “… the real intention of this apparel is to denigrate women and deny them their individuality. As a Western woman, I regard this apparel as insulting to my sex, my religious beliefs and my cultural mores. If Muslims wish to enjoy the manifold benefits of living in the West, they must both respect and observe our customs as well as our rules.” (Katherine Barlow, Vienna, Austria)

However, some letter writers take a very different line:

“It will be a very poor outcome for all of us if we, the British people, allow ourselves to be manipulated by this campaign into attacking Muslim women. I would hope that the ideals inherent in the whole of our British culture would continue to respect women of all races, colours and creeds. Whatever these terrorists think, we are now a multicultural society…. Muslim women should not discard their hijabs. Otherwise the terrorists will have won.” (Geoffrey Collingwood, Brackley, Northants)

“Katherine Barlow (Letters, Aug 5) regards Muslim women’s apparel as an insult to her mores. I am English and have lived here all my life. I prefer not to wear the cleavage-displaying, thigh-revealing garb favoured by many of my compatriots. If I can choose to dress how I please, why on earth should Muslim women be criticised for similar choices?” (Linda Garrett, Potters Bar, Herts)

Daily Telegraph, 5 August and 8 August 2005

It’s a disturbing thought that there are Torygraph readers who take a much more progressive position on this issue than many liberals do.

Outrage! shows light-minded attitude to truth shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An article by Richard Kim in the US magazine The Nation offers a lengthy but interesting analysis of Outrage’s light-minded attitude to factual evidence when it comes to pursuing their Islamophobic agenda. Kim shows that Outrage’s press release claiming that two Iranian youth had been executed for being simply being gay (see here) was based on a dubious account by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq cult and dismissed other reports that the two had in fact been convicted of gang-raping a 13-year-old boy at knife-point.

Richard Kim outlines how “Outrage!’s press release came to inspire an escalating series of demands and actions … appeals to the greatest democracy in the world to defend freedom against Islamic extremism, calls for the gay movement (and even individual would-be gay soldiers) to join the fight against ‘Islamo-fascism’ and pleas to European governments to sever ties with Iran and impose sanctions – at a time when the EU was engaged in delicate negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capacity. The story of ‘two gay teenagers executed in Iran’ was a compelling narrative that … offered up an unambiguous conflict between ‘Islamo-fascism’ and Western democracy”.

The Nation, 7 August 2005

Muslim MPs oppose ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sadiq_KhanThe Guardian has learned that a radical Muslim group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which the prime minister intends to ban, is not involved in violence or terrorism, according to a leaked unpublished government report prepared for Tony Blair.

Two of Labour’s four Muslim MPs yesterday told the Guardian that they oppose banning Hizb ut-Tahrir, as announced on Friday by the prime minister as part of a package of measures to tackle extremism after the bombing attacks on London last month.

Shahid Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, told the Guardian that he thought banning the group could be a mistake. Mr Malik is one of four Labour Muslim MPs who have met Mr Blair to discuss how to crack down on extremism. He said: “By banning them their ideas are still there, but unanswered. British Muslims must intellectually confront these ideas.”

Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting, has been targeted by the group’s activists. Mr Khan, a civil rights lawyer, said: “I dislike immensely Hizb ut-Tahrir and despise some of their activists, but nothing I’ve seen or experienced amounts to them inciting violence. There’s no justification for a ban, and people are saying it’s an example of double standards as there is no plan to ban the British National party.”

Last year a paper, called Young Muslims and Extremism, was prepared for Mr Blair on the orders of the home and foreign secretaries. It says: “Most of the structured organisations, eg Hizb ut-Tahrir, will not directly advocate violence. Indeed membership or sympathy with such an organisation does not in any way presuppose a move towards terrorism.”

Guardian, 8 August 2005

The leaked Young Muslims and Extremism paper is available here.

MAB calls for broad coalition to defend civil liberties

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MAB demonstrationMAB calls for the formation of a broad coalition made up of elements throughout society, that will work to defend and uphold our civil liberties and freedoms. MAB has begun making contacts with a number of groups and organisations in this regard and will be making further contacts over the coming days and weeks, ensuring that this coalition reflects the diverse and colourful face of Britain and its people.

MAB will be co-organising and calling for a national demonstration on the 24th of September, in which the main banners will be in support of our civil liberties, support of the victims of the London bombings, the condemnation of terrorism and the call to show solidarity with the Muslim community in Britain who have been the brunt of a vicious attack from a variety of sectors since the bombings. The demonstration will also be calling for the withdrawal of our soldiers from Iraq as one solution to the problem persisting there. This demonstration will be used to show national unity and accord on the main and vital issues facing our country, and the importance of having the people, rather than laws and security measures, at the heart of any solution to the problems we face.

Muslim Association of Britain news article, 8 August 2005

FOSIS takes on Times over Anthony Browne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FOSIS’s letter of complaint in response to Anthony Browne’s Times article attacking the Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi has received a reply (pdf) claiming that “neither The Times nor Mr Browne is pursuing an anti-Muslim agenda” and, even more bizarrely, that Browne’s description of MAB as “Islamic fascists” did not “amount to trying to undermine the good work that the Muslim Association of Britain is doing”!