Wearing a headscarf is no big deal … unless you happen to be a Muslim, in which case this simple piece of cloth arouses opinions, hostile glances and worse.
Yvonne Ridley in the Observer, 12 December 2004
Category Archives: UK
Moore in the Telegraph writes ‘Mohammed’ & ‘paedophile’ in one sentence
“Was the prophet Mohammed a paedophile? The question is sometimes asked because one of his wives, Aisha, was a child when he married her.”
Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph, 11 December 2004
Telegraph: No such thing as Islamophobia
“In reality, evidence for ‘Islamophobia’ – as distinct from a justified fear of radical Islamist terrorism or a desire to protect our freedoms, institutions and values from those who hold them in contempt – is anecdotal and slight. I have met one ‘Islamophobe’ – the gay gentleman who cuts my hair, which is hardly a firm basis to jettison centuries of hard-won religious give and take.”
Michael Burleigh in the Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2004
Atkinson joins Evangelical Coalition
Television star, Rowan Atkinson, from the celebrated comedy series “Blackadder” has joined conservative Christian groups in opposing the proposed religious hatred Bill. The celebrity will lead a coalition of comedians, writers and religious groups to oppose the Government’s plans to control extremists who incite religious hatred.
The force will now launch a campaign against some of the components of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill.
Opposition to the religious hatred Bill has been clearly voiced by many conservative groups including the Barnabas Fund, the Evangelical Alliance, and the Lawyer Christian Fellowship. The Bill is due to receive its second reading this week, and will look to create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred, which has the aim of protecting faith groups, in particular Muslims.
Stoned to death… why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam
“From Norway to Sicily, governments, politicians and the media are laying aside their doctrines of diversity and insisting that ‘Islamism’, as the French call the fundamentalist form that pervades the housing estates, is incompatible with Europe’s liberal values.
“The shift is not just a reaction to exceptional violence such as the Madrid train bombings, or the murder of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamic Dutch film-maker, by a Dutch-Moroccan. It stems from a belief that more muscular methods are needed to integrate Europe’s 13-million strong Muslim community and to combat creeds that breed extremists and ultimately, terrorism. With mixed results, governments are trying to quell the scourge by co-opting Muslim leaders to promote a moderate European Islam.”
Charles Bremner in The Times, 4 December 2004
Imaan discusses Qaradawi
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.
Jilbab: AWL defends ‘those who insist on oppressing themselves’
“The ironic thing is that the increased wearing of overtly Islamic dress is due to the increase of fundamentalist influences, some of which pay no attention to democracy at all, especially when it comes to the rights of women. The language of those who demand the right to cover themselves in order to establish themselves as the property of men is that of the feminist movement of 1970s Britain. They call for ‘a woman’s right to choose’. This is quite bizarre.”
The Alliance for Workers Liberty on the jilbab ban in Tower Hamlets. But, let’s be fair, the AWL does argue that “those who insist on oppressing themselves” should have the right to wear Islamic dress.
Boy, 14, beat Muslim student in racist attack
It did not occur to Yasir Abdelmouttalib to be afraid. And he paid little heed to friends warning him against wearing Islamic white robes to prayers. That decision seems to have cost him his health and his future. It almost cost him his life.
Yesterday the trial ended of three 14-year-old boys accused of a vicious attack on the 22-year-old university graduate as he waited for a bus in Willesden, north-west London, one Friday afternoon in June.
The jury heard how three boys taunted and spat at Mr Abdelmouttalib through the bus window and how, when he remonstrated, one boy took ferocious revenge. Mr Abdelmouttalib, a tall, slight figure, was repeatedly punched and kicked and struck in the head with a heavy roadsweepers’ broom.
One teenager was convicted at Harrow crown court of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and will be sentenced on December 20. Two others, who denied taking part in the attack, were acquitted.
Mr Abdelmouttalib was unable to give evidence. He remains in hospital, brain damaged and paralysed. He has lost most of his sight.
He told the Guardian that he still retained his spirit: “Everything has changed, but they will not defeat me … I was an active man. Now I can’t do anything. I can’t read, my memory is failing. I had to stop my studies.” He hopes to do a PhD one day. “But who can tell? My life is in the hands of Allah.”
His speech is slow and slurred, but his anger is palpable. “I would sentence him to death because as far as I am concerned, he wanted to kill me. He hit me as if I had sworn at him or killed someone he loved.”
He believes his tunic and beard may have singled him out. “All the time television talks about Osama bin Laden and I think they thought, ‘Let’s take revenge.’ They are not human beings. No human would attack someone like this.”
Qaradawi not welcome, says Peter Tatchell
“Qaradawi’s projected return visit to London is part of a grand plan to promote fundamentalist Islam in Britain, The Islamists want to undermine liberal humanitarian values, which they see as corrupt and decadent.”
Peter Tatchell writing in Labour Left Briefing, November 2004.
Reproduced on the What Next? journal website.
Muslims ‘facing most faith bias’
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.