Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

We need protection from the pedlars of religious hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain replies to Charles Moore, in defence of the proposed law banning incitement to religious hatred.

Daily Telegraph, 14 December 2004

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is not impressed: “What this law does is make Muslims a protected class, beyond criticism, precisely at the moment when Britain needs to examine, honestly and thoughtfully, the implications of having admitted into the country a large number of people with greater allegiance to the Sharia than to the present British state. The long night for Britain is just beginning.”

Dhimmi Watch, 15 December 2005

Racists in vicious anti-mosque fight

Posted on by Eddie Truman

BNP anti-mosque leaflet SwanseaRacists have launched a vicious hate campaign in Swansea to protest against the opening of a new mosque. Thousands of leaflets have been pushed through letter boxes in the Sandfields area of the city to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment, it is claimed.

The area has been targeted by doorstep campaigners from the British National Party because of plans to open a new mosque in St Helen’s Road. Activists from the party found out about the plan to convert the old St Andrews United Reformed Church from a leading Islamic website.

The building is currently derelict after it was gutted by arsonists two years ago. Conversion into a mosque would save it from being pulled down. Planning permission from the council would not be needed because the building would be retained as a place of worship.

According to the BNP website more than 70 far right extremists have already met in the city to discuss their plan of action. The Post can reveal that only last month party chairman Nick Griffin and the national treasurer John Walker visited the city to canvass the area.

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Turn again, Dick Warrington

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel at Crooked Timber has a thoughtful article on the proposed religious hatred law, even if he comes down against it:

“This is a bad and illiberal Bill, but most of the opposition to it is pretty ill-informed and quite ill-conceived. It’s got nothing to do with giving Abu Hamza the right to censor your every weblog post and everything to do with preserving public order in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, ‘Islamophobia’ is not a fictitious problem in as much as there are quite clearly ‘critiques’ of Islam which are being used as a fig leaf for outright racism and the self-styled defenders of ‘Enlightenment values’ don’t seem to regard this as any problem at all of theirs. In fact, an awful lot of people commenting on this issue don’t appear to be able to keep a decent degree of separation in their own minds between genuine civil liberties issues and just randomly having a go at Muslims for being backward and uncivilised. And if I was a Muslim, I daresay I’d be pretty hacked off at that.”

Crooked Timber, 13 December 2004

 

Qaradawi’s dangerous ideas

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abu Aardvark reveals that Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been denounced by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, for his opposition to terrorism.

“Zarqawi’s fury with Qaradawi has received little attention because it doesn’t fit the current storyline – the whole ‘theologian of terror‘ thing – but it does suggest an important development in the real battles taking place in Arab and Muslim public opinion. Qaradawi is dangerous to the likes of Zarqawi, because he is vastly influential, he adamantly rejects his radical, violent, exclusivist vision of Islam and he instead offers a moderate, democratic, but genuinely Islamist alternative.”

See here.

Imaan discusses Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Muslim lesbian and gay group Imaan was initially listed as a supporter of the anti-Qaradawi “Community Coalition”. However, it turned out that one of Imaan’s officers had signed up to the coalition without consulting the rest of the group. As a result of protests by the membership, Imaan withdrew from the coalition.

A serious and thoughtful discussion of the issues arising from the anti-Qaradawi campaign took place on the discussion board of Imaan’s website. Not a single contributor to the discussion argued favour of supporting the Community Coalition.

“If Qaradawi comes to London again and Outrage and the other racists form a campaign against him, I will be out there standing against them and I will defend him”, one Imaan member wrote. Another contributor agreed: “I add to the objections of aligning ourselves as Queer Muslims with the racists in Outrage and other such organisations.”

The prevailing view was that Outrage! and the other supporters of the anti-Qaradawi campaign were making things worse for lesbian and gay Muslims in particular and adding to the general atmosphere of Islamophobia.

See here.

Tariq Ramadan rejects ‘clash of civilizations’ idea

Posted on by Bob Pitt

At an interfaith conference in Prague sponsored by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, a prominent Muslim intellectual rejected the notion that the world is on the verge of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Tariq Ramadan describes himself as a “Western Muslim.” He says the “clash of civilizations” idea fails to consider the large and growing Muslim presence in the West.

Radio Free Europe, 2 December 2004

Muslims ‘facing most faith bias’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims in the UK are more likely to face discrimination based on religion rather than race, a study says. The report, by the Open Society Institute (OSI), says Islamophobia is adding to the problems of the UK’s most disadvantaged faith group.

Since 2002 increasing Islamophobia had added to the long-established problems of the group in areas such as education, employment and housing, researchers found. Eighty percent of UK Muslims have reported being victims of Islamophobia since September 11 and more than a third complain of being singled out by authorities while using UK airports. Young Muslim women were the most likely to report discrimination in the aftermath of September 11 and believed this was related to their decision to wear traditional dress.

“In the post-September 11 environment, religion is more important than ethnicity in indicating which groups are more likely to experience racism and discrimination,” the report concluded.

BBC News, 22 November 2005

Britain must ‘combat Islamophobia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The UK government must combat Islamophobia and pursue a more Muslim-friendly foreign policy if British Muslims are to fully integrate into society, a new report says.

Released on Thursday by the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), the report states that most British Muslims suffer from negative media coverage, lack of legal protection from discrimination, and a lack of respect by government and society at large.

The study, which is based on the feedback of more than 1000 British Muslims, also challenges the widely held assumption that the loyalty of British Muslims to the state is open to question.

Over the past few years certain sections of the British media and some British politicians have blamed Muslims for their alleged lack of affiliation to the UK, and charged them with ingratitude to the government and wider society.

However, the IHRC survey found that most British Muslims see no contradiction between Islam and good citizenship, and argue they are loyal to the state because of their religion.

Aljazeera, 18 November 2004