Italy today became the latest European government to announce it was considering introducing a law which would make wearing a burqa illegal. MPs from the anti-immigration Northern League party, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling right wing coalition, have presented the proposal in a bill. It comes just weeks after France also said that it was considering making the wearing of burqas by Muslim women illegal.
Category Archives: State Oppression
More thoughts on the Siddique trial
Osama Saeed notes the double standards applied in connection with “terrorist” offenses, depending on whether the accused are Muslims or not.
Greens join Muslims to launch EU Guantánamo campaign
Green MEPs and the British Muslim Initiative called on the government on Thursday to step up efforts to bring Guantánamo Bay detainee Omar Deghayes back home to Brighton.
Speaking at the launch of a new campaign for European Union countries to offer homes to Guantánamo detainees, Sussex MEP Caroline Lucas pointed out that it’s been almost two months since the Foreign Office asked for Mr Deghayes’s release, “but he’s still being held captive unlawfully and we are all left waiting”. “The government must use the occasion of the current UN talks to press the urgency of Omar’s case,” Ms Lucas insisted.
Dr Lucas made her comments as she joined other Green Party MEPs in calling for EU governments to grant refugee status to other innocent men who are currently being held without charge at the concentration camp.
The MEPs have thrown their support behind a campaign spearheaded by French human rights group FIDH for asylum be to be offered to those Guantánamo detainees who are being held, on the grounds that they could face torture or persecution if returned to their home country. There are thought to be about 45 such prisoners.
British Muslim Initiative spokesman Anas Al-Tikriti also called on ministers to intensify their efforts to get Mr Deghayes back home. Mr al-Tikriti hailed the FIDH initiative, noting that at least one Tunisian detainee has pleaded to be allowed to remain in Guantánamo rather than face torture in Tunisia.
And he insisted that “those who masterminded Guantánamo, those who worked out its form and manner of functioning, should face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Mr Al-Tikriti warned that, if they were to get away scot-free, “other countries will feel that it is OK for them to commit the same crimes.”
Morning Star, 28 September 2007
Quebec women’s council calls for hjab ban
MONTREAL — The Quebec government should ban civil servants from wearing visible religious symbols at work to promote the province’s status as a secular society, the Quebec Council on the Status of Women says. That means female Muslim teachers should not be allowed to wear a hijab in public schools, said the council’s president, Christiane Pelchat. “Teachers are role models and they should be promoting equality between men and women,” Ms. Pelchat said.
She used the following example to show how reasonable accommodation would impinge upon the right to equality between the sexes. A teacher in a public elementary school converts to the Muslim faith and wishes to wear the niqab, the veil that covers her face in its entirety except for the eyes. But the council says the government should not let her display the religious symbol.
“The niqab sends a message of the submission of a woman, which should not be conveyed to young children as part of a secular education which is required to promote equality between men and women,” the council said it a statement released yesterday. The council has determined that the niqab is a religious sign that is discriminatory towards women, Ms. Pelchat said. “It is only women who are covered,” she said. “Are there Muslim men who are covered up?”
The council is a 20-member body that advises the government on issues relating to women.
‘Our son is no terrorist, just a young Muslim’
The family of Mohammed Atif Siddique, the Scottish student convicted this week of al-Qaeda terrorist offences, have come together to tell of their heartache and their anger at the way he has been treated.
They described how their son adopted a stricter Islamic way of life, a change that fractured their close relationship and ultimately led to his conviction. But they insisted Atif – who faces at least ten years in prison – was not a terrorist and that his actions were similar to those of thousands of ordinary young Muslims seeking answers about al-Qaeda and the “war on terror”.
In a wide-ranging interview, the family claimed “thousands” of other people ran the risk of falling foul of the same offences for which Atif was convicted. They said he had been criminalised for carrying out research on al-Qaeda.
Atif was the first person in Scotland to be convicted under controversial new terror laws that have raised questions about the balance between civil liberties and protecting the public.
Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman, Mohammed Siddique, the father of the 21-year-old, said: “After what’s happened to my son, stop your children going on the internet in case they end up in jail. The sad thing is, why shouldn’t our young people be able to find out what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan? Does it mean every child that goes on to a website is considered to be a terrorist? Thousands of young people in the Muslim community will have accessed the same material.”
Damaging relations with the Muslim community
“Relations between Muslims and police in central Scotland have been battered by the country’s first al-Qaeda-linked terrorist case, with community leaders claiming the investigation has created mistrust and ‘left a bad taste in the mouth’. They are angry at the way Mohammed Atif Siddique’s family was treated. His parents, brothers – one of whom was 13 – and 15-year-old sister were shackled by police who raided the family home in Alva, Clackmannanshire.”
Note the casual reference to Mohammed Atif Siddique as an “al-Qaeda-linked terrorist”, which takes things to a new level of absurdity – and demonstrates that the police are not exactly alone in damaging relations with Scotland’s Muslim community.
ACLU, Muslims sue FBI over records
The American Civil Liberties Union and Muslim advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Justice Department on Tuesday, alleging that authorities failed to turn over records detailing suspected surveillance of the Muslim-American community.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, alleges that the FBI has turned over only four pages of documents to community leaders, despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than a year ago.
The request sought records that described FBI guidelines and policies for surveillance and investigation of Muslim religious organizations, as well as specific information about FBI inquiries targeting 11 groups or people. The lawsuit states that all the plaintiffs – who include some of the most prominent Muslim leaders in California – have reason to believe they have been investigated by the FBI since January 2001.
The groups filed an initial FOIA request in May 2006, several months after federal law enforcement officials confirmed the existence of a classified radiation monitoring program used in surveillance at mosques, homes and businesses. The FBI responded to the request first by saying it couldn’t identify any records that met the criteria requested.
After an appeal, the agency turned over four pages that dealt with the Council of American-Islamic Relations and Hussam Ayloush, the council’s executive director for Southern California. Those documents dealt with a suspected hate crime at a mosque that the council had reported to the FBI and a conversation Ayloush had with an FBI agent about cooperating with federal law enforcers.
Ayloush, who said he is questioned by federal agents every time he flies internationally, said he had hoped the FOIA request would help him determine why he is stopped. “Either … we’re being stopped because we’re Muslims – which is morally wrong – or the government must have some erroneous info linked to me that I need to be able to clear,” he said.
Siddique trial was a travesty of justice
“The media this morning are asking ‘Guilty… But is Siddique really a terrorist?’ Of course Mohammed Atif Siddique isn’t a terrorist. With a prosecution case that sought to manipulate the emotions of the jury, and terrorism laws so ill-drafted that it seems they can mean anything at all, the jury can hardly be blamed for getting it wrong. But even under our Kafka-esque laws it makes no sense to call this young man a terrorist, and it is to be hoped that the argument will be taken successfully to the appeal court. The case has been a travesty of justice from start to finish.”
‘Scotland’s first home grown Islamic terrorist’
After a 4 week trial and a 9 hour jury deliberation, Scotland has its first home grown Islamic terrorist plot and plotter.
But without the near impossible to defend charges under the amended Terrorism Act of 2000, it is unlikely that the prosecution would have been able to make a Breach of the Peace charge stick.
As the news of the Siddique verdict came in, the 24 hour news channels put the headline up on their news ticker; “guilty of Islamist terror offences” said both Sky and BBC News 24.
Real Radio news led with “Scotland has its first home grown Islamic terrorist”.
The day after the end of the case saw the Scottish press carry security service sourced stories that they believed Siddique had been intending to carry out a terrorist attack in Canada.
There was no evidence produced in court to back up this far more serious accusation.
Lawyer Aamer Anwar said Siddique was doing what millions of people did every day: “looking for answers on the internet”.
He added: “Atif Siddique states that he is not a terrorist and is innocent of the charges and it is not a crime to be a young Muslim angry at global injustice.”
And that’s the central point in this farce: Siddique was not a terrorist or even a terrorist plotter.
He was an angry young man, angry about the situation Muslims in Palestine and Iraq face.
It was anti-social of him to show people footage he had on his mobile phone and reasonable that he should face a charge of breach of the peace if those people gave evidence that it put them in a state of fear and distress.
But they didn’t give such evidence; they testified that although unpleasant, they didn’t feel threatened.
So without the ludicrous charges of possessing video footage which is to be found without trying very hard on the internet, it is unlikely that Siddique would have even been convicted of a breach of the peace.
But there’s a point that needs to be made here about the people of Glasgow’s previous relationship to and support for terrorism.
All through the Irish war, the “troubles” as they are known, every Friday and Saturday night teams of people would methodically move through the bars and clubs of Glasgow frequented by both Catholics and Protestants and collect money for organisations who were actively involved in acts of violence.
In an era before the internet, predominantly young men would obsessively collect information on the activities of both Protestant and Republican armed groups.
This was something that went on pretty much unhindered by the state and yet in 21st century Scotland to have video footage on a computer of insurgents in Iraq is to be guilty of supporting terrorism.
This verdict will do more to push young, disaffected Muslims into the arms of extremist groups than any number of Jihadist DVDs on sale on the internet.
While right wing extremist groups openly use the internet to threaten groups and individuals with violence, publishing home addresses for example, the police and security services are using the draconian powers available to them to target angry young Muslims with footage from Iraq on their computers.
What we don’t get to hear about are the many family, friends and relatives of such people who are also being arrested and held without charge for days on end under the Terrorism Act, people for whom their only crime is to be a Muslim.
UCU stands firm against ‘spying’ on Muslim students
Academics’ union UCU rejected criticism from new Universities Secretary John Denham on Sunday over its refusal to “inform” on Islamic students.
At the union’s conference this spring, delegates overwhelmingly voted to oppose the government’s guidance to universities on how to deal with so-called “radicals” who try to recruit students.
In the guidance last year, ministers urged universities to work with the police to “isolate and challenge the very small minority who promote violent extremism in the name of Islam.” It advised universities how to identify Muslim students suspected of being radicalised by preachers or rogue Islamist societies on campus.
UCU delegates condemned what lecturers described as a “witch-hunt” in which ministers wanted them to “inform on” their students.
But Mr Denham claimed on Sunday that “the opposition from the University and College Union was misplaced. Everybody understands the nature of the threat that we face, which is a threat to people involved in higher education as much as anyone else,” he declared. “All we are trying to do is to make sure that everybody has the strength to ensure that people are not recruited to the sort of organisations which are promoting and organising violence of whatever sort.”
However, a UCU spokesman stressed that the union’s views had not changed since the government’s original guidance was published in November 2006. He said that lecturers supported the view that “campus harmony is achieved by openness, tolerance and dialogue and not focusing on any particular group of students.” UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “Lecturers want to teach students. If they wanted to police them, they would have joined the force.”
Morning Star, 17 September 2007
See also BBC News, 17 September 2007