AMSTERDAM — Moroccan and Turkish groups in the Netherlands have set up a new action committee named “Genoeg is genoeg” (enough is enough) to organise a campaign against the Dutch government’s tough immigration and integration policies.
The organisers are calling for a national demonstration on 17 September in Amsterdam. Two spokesmen for the new organisation outlined the plans for the demonstration during a press conference in the Moroccan capital of Rabat on Monday.
The proposed incitement law won’t stop criticism of religion says Sher Khan of the MCB.
James Zogby assesses the official US delegation to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) “Conference on Anti-Semitism and Other Forms of Intolerance” convened last week in Cordoba, Spain:
“For the most part, the participants appeared to have been selected for reasons having more to do with domestic political patronage and ideological purity than with the purposes of the conference itself. Most were political conservatives, including the group’s lone Catholic clergyman. One of the delegation’s Jewish representatives has been known to argue vigorously against Israel becoming a ‘nation of all its citizens’ or a ‘democracy’ since that would ‘dilute’ the state. Another appeared to have been selected mainly because he switched his support from Gore in 2000 to Bush in 2004. And the delegation’s only Muslim representative was an individual who has recently aligned himself with the far-right against all of the US’s Muslim organizations arguing that he alone stands against terrorism, which, presumably, he believes, the others support.”
A federal judge yesterday ordered the D.C. fire department to allow three bearded Muslim firefighters to serve on full duty until Aug. 1, when he expects to decide whether the safety issues outweigh the men’s claims that shaving would violate their religious rights.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson told an attorney for the city and an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union that he would decide the case after a one-day hearing Aug. 1 that will examine whether facial hair puts firefighters at risk. The case was first filed in 2001.
“This is definitely a victory, even though it is temporary,” said plaintiff Hassan A. Umrani, a city firefighter who has worn a full beard since his first day on the job 16 years ago.
Arthur Spitzer, an attorney for the D.C. chapter of the ACLU, said the order violated a preliminary injunction issued in a 2001 case in which six firefighters challenged the department on the point the policy violated their religious freedom.
The case was never settled, and the preliminary injunction remains in place.
“One day in November 2001 a large group of protesters from the British National Party dressed as Crusaders and paraded outside the Houses of Parliament with placards reading ‘Get Islam Out Of Britain’. Had they been overtly targeting a racial group, they would have been breaking the law – incitement to racial hatred has been a crime since 1986. To get round the law, groups on the far Right have been cunningly reformulating their noxious rants. Instead of targeting racial groups, they target unprotected religious groups.”
Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB defends the proposed law against inciting religious hatred.
“More than stopping sharia, we need to stop the hysteria surrounding it. So misleading and dishonest has the debate been that it reveals more about our political and media prejudices than the minority in question. A request by a small Ontario Muslim group to start faith-based family mediation or arbitration between two consenting adults – a practice long used by Christians (Mennonites and Catholics in particular), Jews (especially the Orthodox) and one sect of Muslims, the Ismailis – has been blown up into the spectre of Taliban-like justice coming to Canada.”
Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star, 12 June 2005
Everyone has the right to live free from harassment and hatred. The bill to ban incitement to religious hatred should be supported.
Polly Toynbee confuses the rights to freedom of speech and artistic expression – which will remain – with a right to whip up hatred against people because of their religion, which will be made unlawful. Currently, only some religious groups, such as Jews and Sikhs, are legally protected from incitement to hatred, while Muslims are not. It is this inconsistency that the extreme right exploits.
The bill is proposing legislation similar to that which criminalised incitement to racial hatred in 1986, which has not curtailed any of the freedoms to tackle controversial issues Ms Toynbee implies. Islamophobia is not a nonsense. Recent Crown Prosecution Service figures show 50% of religiously aggravated offences were directed against Muslims. This hatred needs to be combated by the law.
Milena Buyum
National Assembly Against Racism
“The MCB welcomes the move by Government to present the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill to Parliament. Courts have already extended such protection to Sikh and Jewish people, and it was an anomaly that other faiths too did not enjoy the same protection under the law. Rightwing groups have taken advantage of this to harass Muslims. The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has issued a news release (9th June) welcoming the Bill outlawing incitement to religious hatred and noting that this proposal is massively supported by Londoners: ‘Our polls show that 72 per cent of Londoners support new laws to outlaw incitement of hatred against people on grounds of their religion. Just 15 per cent oppose such laws’.”
A secret document obtained by Time magazine shows the pressure tactics used against a major al-Qaida suspect by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The magazine said in an article set to hit stands Monday it obtained a secret 84-page interrogation log for Mohammed al Qahtani, believed by the U.S. government to have entered the country in August 2001, intending to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The document says al Qahtani’s head and facial hair were forcefully shaved; he was deprived of sleep, submitted to a drill known as “Invasion of Space by a Female,” strip-searched and forced to stand nude, and intimidated with a dog. The magazine said in an article set to hit stands Monday it obtained a secret 84-page interrogation log for Mohammed al Qahtani, believed by the U.S. government to have entered the country in August 2001, intending to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
See also New York Times, 12 June 2005
For the official response, see US Department of Defense news release, 12 June 2005
And for further details of abuse at Guantánamo, see Cageprisoners.com, 12 June 2005
Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic meets Muslims who speak openly about what it means to be a British Muslim – at a time when the nation is fighting a ‘war on terror’. “If you have a Muslim name or wear a beard, we are all tarnished with the same brush,” says Tariq, a PR executive. World events are forcing young Muslims to confront a crisis over their identity. Tariq changed his name to Daniel Jacob in order to get a job after a series of rejections for employment that he was amply qualified – as Daniel, job offers flooded in.
Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic is on BBC 2, Sunday 12th June, 19:00