Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh said today: “It is with great sadness that we reveal this year’s winners. Sadly the competition was extremely tough and we see no signs of this abating in the year to come.”
IHRC press release, 26 June 2004
Unfortunately for Daniel Pipes, although shortlisted for the Most Islamophobic Media Personality award he lost out to Polly Toynbee.
Muslim women have launched a Europe-wide campaign to protect their right to wear the hijab headscarf.
The international network Assembly for the Protection of Hijab, or Pro-Hijab, was formed in response to headscarf bans in France and parts of Germany. Pro-Hijab aims to reverse bans already brought in and prevent more “abuses of democracy” being imposed.
“As Muslims we are proud of the hijab, we are not oppressed,” said co-ordinator Abeer Pharaon.
The group, launched in London on Monday, wants to banish the “negative sterotypical image of the hijab which lies at the root of this discrimination” and to offer Muslim women a platform from which they can speak out.
The group has the support of a number of prominent groups such as the Muslim Association of Britain, National Assembly Against Racism, the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe and human rights group Liberty.
MEP Caroline Lucas, Fiona McTaggart MP, and George Galloway MP and London Mayor Ken Livingstone have also supported the founding of the campaign.
“Qaradawi, as I’ve written many times, is probably the leading moderate Islamist, and the most popular Islamist public intellectual, in the Arab world today…. Qaradawi, for all his Muslim Brotherhood roots, has spent the last few decades preaching a moderate, tolerant form of Islamism which places dialogue, toleration, and democracy at the center of Islamic political theory.”
US political scientist Abu Aardvark defends Yusuf al-Qaradawi against the outbreak of Islamophobic hysteria in the British press prompted by Dr al-Qaradawi’s visit to London.
“Will the phenomenon of a gay man successfully popularizing the rhetoric that pits ‘Islam’ (misrepresented as inherently and monolithically homophobic and misogynistic) against the ‘Western Civilization’ (made out to be inherently and monolithically feminist and pro-gay) remain unique to the Netherlands? Or will the Netherlands be a harbinger, as more white gay men, now integrated in the militaries and soon to gain the equal right to marriage in most rich industrialized nations, lose the ability to identify with other outcasts …? Take Peter Tatchell, perhaps the most famous queer activist in Britain, for example. Unlike Fortuyn, Tatchell is still capable of gesturing toward the existence of tolerant Muslims, but a number of his writings suggest a paranoid fear of political powers of Muslims.”
US radical activist Yoshie Furuhashi draws parallels between the late Dutch racist Pim Fortuyn and Peter Tatchell of Outrage! on her Critical Montages blog.
On Friday 28th May 2004 the British National Party exercised their right to make a party political broadcast. Against a backdrop of Muslim women in hijab, the image of Abu Hamza and also Muslims praying on St Thomas’s Road outside Finsbury Park Mosque, BNP leader Nick Griffin delivered a threatening Islamophobic message:
“…the real danger of Islamic fundamentalist terror does not come from distant Iraq. It comes from the growing threat from Muslim extremists living here in Britain. The former Archbishop of Canterbury has pointed out that only a few Muslim leaders have condemned the evil of terrorism… Tony Blair, Michael Howard, Charles Kennedy – all claim that Islam is a religion of peace – there are many peaceful and tolerant verses in the Qur’an, but there are also some, like Chapter 9, v. 123… of course Christianity used to be like that but our forebears reformed it and made it compatible with the modern world, with democracy and our Western tradition, tolerance and intellectual freedom. Now moderate Muslims who want to live here in the West must do the same with their faith…we insist that Islamic fundamentalists stop Islamifying Britain….In 1968 Enoch Powell spoke about his forebodings for he future [at this point there is an image of Powell with a quote ‘I see the River Tiber foaming much blood’] and Enoch was right. Unless urgent action is taken to defuse the crisis by shutting Britain’s doors to any further immigration and deport bogus asylum seekers and radical Islamists…unless these things are done then Powell’s warnings will come true and we will find ourselves in the middle of a bloody civil war….”
The Muslim Council of Britain has responded by urging the community to turn out and vote against the BNP:
“The rise of Far Right parties poses a dangerous threat to our communities. Many of you will have seen the threatening and virulently anti-Muslim party political broadcast by the BNP shown on our TV screens last Friday. They make no secret of their extreme hatred of Islam and Muslims. Under the electoral rules, this fascist leaning party needs only five percent of the votes to win seats in the Greater London Assembly elections and around 9% of the votes to gain delegates to the European Parliament. If this happens, may God forbid, the BNP would have access to much more than just television and radio. By right, they would be given funding with which to promote their racist agenda in Britain. Therefore, it is important to make sure that all members of our community, men and women, young and old, cast their vote on Thursday 10 June. Irrespective of whom they vote for, their participation will help reduce the percentage of votes cast for the BNP, making it more difficult for them to succeed with their divisive and menacing plans. This is the time to make a difference.”
For full text of MCB letter to Imams, 2nd June 2004, click here.
“Which Muslims in the West support Islamism, which do not? Those who have Al-Qaeda connections or deal in terrorism are relatively easy to classify, once they are found out. The state has ways to investigate and punish illegal activities…. But what about individuals who apparently break no laws but promote an Islamist agenda in a legal fashion, sometimes from within the heart of the establishment?”
Daniel Pipes attacks Dr Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at UCLA and widely recognised as one of the most important and influential Islamic scholars today.
Spring 2004 issue of the Middle East Quarterly
Abu Aardvark comments: “Daniel Pipes has just published an attack on the Islamic scholar Khaled Abou el Fadl. This attack, even by his standards, is despicable.”
On 19 April 2004, over 400 police officers conducted dawn ‘anti-terror’ raids across the UK and arrested ten people on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Within hours, the arrests were connected to an Al-Qaida plot to blow up Old Trafford – the home of Manchester United Football Club. Police sources were quoted in newspapers as saying “the plot involved several individual bombers in separate parts of the stadium”.
Six men and a woman were arrested in Manchester and three men were arrested in Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands. They were identified as North Africans and Iraqi Kurds. They were all held for eight days and then released without charge.
Rebaz Ali and Shadman Sofi, both Iraqi Kurds, were two of those arrested and detained. Their ‘connection’ to an alleged plot to blow up Old Trafford came from ‘evidence’ found at their home – a Manchester United match fixture list, t-shirts, posters and old ticket stubs. The reason the men had these items in their possession is that both men were simply life-long supporters of Manchester United.
“Life for Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims has never been easy. For decades they have struggled in the face of discrimination. But since 11 September 2001, things have become even worse. A report by the Commission on British Muslims yesterday revealed just how poorly they are treated in this country.
“There has been an upsurge in attacks on Muslims and their places of worship. The police have been ineffective in preventing such assaults. They seem more concerned with harassing young Muslims under new stop-and-search powers granted by the Terrorism Act. There has been little evidence that such heavy-handed tactics achieve anything other than alienating the Muslim community.”
Editorial in the Independent, 3 June 2004
A review of terrorism arrests, 24 May 2004
Of the 572 persons arrested in Britain up to April 2004 under anti-Terrorism laws, 289 were released without charge (51%). Of the remaining, 186 were charged with passport irregularities and other crimes not related to terrorism. Of the 97 charged with a terror-related offence 14 convictions have been upheld (2% of arrests).
The excellent Salaam website carries a section on ‘The Secret State’.
Muslims in the United States were subjected to a record number of alleged harassment attacks in 2003, a new report by a Muslim rights group says.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said it received 1,019 claims of physical and verbal abuse, up from 602 the previous year. It said Muslims were harassed at work, in schools and in their communities.
Fears of terror attacks after 11 September 2001 and the Iraq conflict contributed to the increase, it said. The Cair also blamed what it called Muslim-bashing in the US media and the misapplication of the country’s anti-terrorism bill, known as the Patriot Act.