What does it mean to be a Muslim in a country where fear, ignorance and outright racism are in the ascendant? What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of headlines about draconian new terror laws, rows over school uniforms and racial abuse? Merryl Wyn Davies and Katy Guest report.
Category Archives: UK
Express reader denounces ‘jilbab disgrace’
“Another smack in the face for the indigenous population of Britain – this time by the appeal court ruling that the Islamic jilbab can now be worn in schools by pupils, taking preference over the standard school uniform. This ruling has been given to placate the ethnic minority Muslims. This must surely mean that pupils can now wear any religious garb they care to mention. The French have learned from history by introducing laws stopping any more erosion of their way of life.”
Letter in the Sunday Express, 6 March 2005
So Shabina, what’s the point of Britain? (Rod Liddle wants to know)
“It is one thing for a rancid, stone-age clique like Hizb ut-Tahrir to insist upon the metaphoric subjugation of women by dressing young girls from top to toe in sackcloth and ashes. It is another thing entirely for a sort of Allah-lite version to have been institutionalised in state schools and for the rest of us to smile indulgently and pretend that it is evidence of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’….
“What we need now is to inculcate a ‘core of Britishness’…. But a state school which kowtows to the un-British (for want of a better phrase) demands of its black and ethnic minority constituency is far more damaging to this national cohesion business than an insignificant little ginger group such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. We cannot force parents to inculcate that core of Britishness in their homes; but we can ensure that it takes place in our schools. The French seem to have grasped this point; it is about time that we did.”
Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times, 6 March 2005
Jilbab ruling is a bitter defeat for British beliefs
Jilbab ruling is a bitter defeat for British beliefs
Letter in the Daily Express, 4 March 2004
The Appeal Court ruling may be a victory for Miss Begum, but it is a defeat for the rest of us.
Speaking after the Appeal Court’s decision was announced, Miss Begum said that it was a landmark victory (paid for by the taxpayer, of course) and would have profound consequences – it most certainly will.
She then went on to talk of the bigotry and intolerance she had suffered here.
If Miss Begum wants to know what real bigotry and intolerance are, she should go and live in one of the Muslim states where Sharia law prevails. Why are we bending over backwards to accommodate the Muslim community, yet making it more and more difficult for non-Muslims here to express their religious or national beliefs?
So-called ‘victories’ like that being celebrated by Miss Begum do nothing to foster tolerance – precisely the opposite in fact.
Can the day be far away when the son or daughter of naturist parents petitions the Court of Appeal for the right to go to school naked?
I have not heard anyone express anything but incredulity, and in most cases outrage, at the decision to allow this young lady to defy her school authorities.
Robert Readman, Bournemouth, Dorset
Shabina Begum case: a victory for fanaticism, says Richard Littlejohn
Jilbab: A victory for fanaticism
Human rights was the Blairs’ pension plan long before they got into property speculation
By Richard Littlejohn
The Sun, 4 March 2005
If schoolgirl Shabina Begum actually wrote the speech she delivered on the steps of the Appeal Court yesterday then clearly her education hasn’t suffered from being refused permission to turn up for class dressed from head to toe in Islamic costume.
“The decision of Denbigh High School to prevent my adherence to my religion cannot unfortunately be viewed merely as a local decision taken in isolation. Rather it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post-9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the war on terror.”
Not bad for a 16-year-old. I wonder if her brief helped her draft it.
Miss Begum was speaking after winning a landmark case against the school, which sent her home because she insisted on wearing Muslim robes straight out of the Taliban catalogue instead of the approved uniform.
Not that she was being asked to parade around the playground in a St Trinian’s-style gymslip and pigtails. The school has a dress code which accommodates religious sensibilities and is perfectly acceptable to parents and pupils alike. The headmistress of Denbigh is herself a Muslim, as are 79 per cent of her pupils. Girls are allowed to dress modestly in skirt, trousers and a headscarf.
But that’s not good enough for the Islamic fundamentalists who want to turn Britain into a Stone Age theocracy.
This ruling was a victory for fanaticism. Muslim agitators have already been picketing the school trying to force other girls to comply with their own extreme ideas of how young women should dress.
What about the rights of the rest of society?
Terror threat from ‘very many’ Muslim men, says Met chief
Terror threat from ‘very many’ Muslim men, says Met chief
By John Steele, Home Affairs Correspondent
Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2005
Britain faces a potential terrorist threat from “very many” Muslim men who returned to Britain after spending time in training camps in Afghanistan, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said yesterday.
Sir Ian Blair, whose force, with MI5, leads anti-terrorism work in Britain, was asked if he supported the assertion of the Prime Minister earlier this week that there were “several hundred people in the UK plotting terror attacks”.
The commissioner told LBC radio in London: “Yes, I am aware of the fact that there are very many people who came back from the camps in Afghanistan and who are therefore potentially a threat to the United Kingdom.
“And I agree with the Prime Minister’s assessment, on that basis, that there are hundreds of people who came back from the camps and are now in the United Kingdom, and that is a very dangerous issue for us all.”
Scotland Yard sources made clear Sir Ian was referring to training camps run by al-Qa’eda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which were destroyed in the military campaign by American and British forces after the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001.
Police chief backs Blears over Muslim searches
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has backed a minister’s controversial comments that Muslims should accept that they will be stopped and searched by police.
Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, said on Tuesday that Muslims should accept as a “reality” that they would be targeted by police under the Government’s anti-terror measures. Yesterday Sir Ian Blair said he supported Ms Blears, and also supported the assessment of Tony Blair that that there were “hundreds” of people in Britain plotting to commit terrorist acts.
Asked if he agreed with Ms Blears’ comments, Sir Ian said: “I do actually: I think Hazel’s right to say it. The terrorism regulations around stop and search do not require individual suspicion, they are much more akin to searches around an airport.”
Rosie Kane MSP: Muslims targeted by anti-terror legislation
Motion from SSP to Scottish Parliament: “That the Parliament condemns the remarks of the Home Office minister, Hazel Blears.” … “believes that the targeting of Muslims by the security services will be done on a racist basis and abhors the fact that a Labour government elected with the support of substantial sections of Muslim communities should now be targeting those communities as if they were ‘the enemy within’.”
*S2M-2519 Rosie Kane: Muslims Targeted by Anti-Terror Legislation—That the Parliament condemns the remarks of the Home Office minister, Hazel Blears, to the Home Affairs Select Committee, and widely reported in the press, in relation to counter-terrorism powers that “some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community” and that “the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam”; regards these remarks as directly associating our Muslim communities with terrorism; believes that they will be used by racists and far-right thugs as a green light to attack Muslims and will result in an increase in racist attacks; believes that the targeting of Muslims by the security services will be done on a racist basis and abhors the fact that a Labour government elected with the support of substantial sections of Muslim communities should now be targeting those communities as if they were “the enemy within”, and further notes that the last terrorist outrage committed in the United Kingdom was by a far-right racist against the lesbian and gay community.
I’ve given hope and strength to Muslim women – Shabina Begum
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Shabina Begum, 16, described the court of appeal verdict against Denbigh high school in Luton as a victory for all Muslims “who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry”.
Dilpazier Aslam reports in the Guardian, 3 March 2005
Hazel Blears says police will target Muslim community
Muslims can expect the police to target them, minister says
By Richard Ford and Stewart Tendler
BRITAIN’S Counter-Terrorism Minister warned the Muslim community last night that it must face the reality of being targeted by the police because of the threat from an extreme form of Islam.
Hazel Blears provoked anger from Muslim leaders and the National Black Police Association (NPBA) for her “intemperate” comments. They said her statements could only exacerbate feelings among law-abiding Muslims that they were being unfairly targeted by police and intelligence services.
Ms Blears’s comments appear to conflict with the commitment by the police not to target suspects because of their race, a key recommendation of the 1999 inquiry by Sir William Macpherson into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager.
She said yesterday that Britain’s 1.5 million Muslims should accept as a reality that people of Islamic appearance are more likely to be stopped and searched.
“At the moment the threat is more likely to come from those associated with a most extreme form of Islam or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she told MPs.
“It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community. There is no getting away from the fact.”
Ms Blears made her comments when she gave evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into terrorism and the effects that counter-terrorism measures have on community relations.
She said later that because the current threat came from people masquerading as Islamists, police would have that in mind when using stop-and-search powers. “That is the reality. I do not think it should go unsaid.”