“British ‘Islamophobia’ may be driven more from suspicion about the intentions of British Muslims to try to institute Sharia there, rather than racism or bigotry.”
Robert Spencer at Dhimmi Watch, 13 January 2005
MCB calls for end to misrepresentation of proposed incitement law
The Muslim Council of Britain will today be joining the Commission for Racial Equality, the British Humanist Association and Justice to explain the need for legislation to protect faith communities from Incitement to Religious Hatred.
“It is our view that the public debate on this issue to date has caused more confusion about what the purpose of the legislation is, than shed light on what it is trying to achieve. Primary among the fears and concerns expressed is the belief that our right to freedom of speech is threatened by the proposal being put forward by the Government. Further to this there are people who have been ringing alarms bells about alleged curtailment of the right to criticise religious beliefs. This is emphatically not the case. The proposed legislation is meant to protect believers from incitement and not protect their faiths from criticism,” said Iqbal Sacranie, the Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain.
A presentation has been organised by the above named organisations in the House of Commons, for parliamentarians and journalists. The organisers will seek to clarify the purpose behind the proposed legislation. At this event the Secretary-General of the MCB will explain the need for the proposed amendment and clarify that “we are under no illusions that the proposed Bill offers protection to religious beliefs.”
The Mayor of London defends Qaradawi
“The office of London Mayor Ken Livingstone has released a dossier defending his meeting with Yusuf al Qaradawi. It’s a hard hitting document which forcefully defends Qaradawi’s status as a moderate and takes to task the mayor’s critics for misrepresenting Qaradawi’s views. It offers considerable evidence of Qaradawi’s consistent appeals for dialogue with the West and his condemnations of terrorism, and defends him against charges of anti-Semitism.”
Abu Aardvark welcomes Ken Livingstone’s dossier.
Tories misled over Muslim cleric comments
Ken Livingstone has hit back at Tory critics over his support for a Muslim cleric. The London mayor believes Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been deliberately misquoted over his views on the tsunami disaster.
Conservatives went on the offensive this morning over remarks attributed to al-Qaradawi that the Asian tsunami was God’s punishment for sex tourism in the region. Tory London Assembly member Bob Neill attacked Livingstone, who invited al-Qaradawi’s visit to City Hall last September.
But the mayor hit back, saying al-Qaradawi’s comments had been ‘completely distorted’ by a pro-Israeli organisation. Livingstone said:
“Qaradawi’s position is completely distorted by MEMRI, group set up by a former Israeli intelligence officer, which provided the translation. Qaradawi is campaigning to raise funds for the victims of the Tsunami in the Muslim world. He is quoted everyday on Al Jazeera calling upon Muslims to contribute to the relief. In the speech referred to by MEMRI, Qaradawi specifically calls for help for all the victims without discriminating between them according to religion.”
MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute – was set up by Colonel Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli intelligence and counter-intelligence officer and advisor to Israeli prime ministers.
Livingstone said he did not agree with all al-Qaradawi’s views, including the view that the tsunami was God’s retribution, but insisted the cleric was a moderate. To ban leaders like him was to cut off dialogue with the whole Muslim community. He admitted al-Qaradawi was not going to be seen on “the next gay pride march” but defending his right to meet the cleric, who was widely respected as a Muslim leader of international standing.
Other religious leaders of other faiths, like Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, had also expressed views that the earthquake and tsunami wave was an act of God, but al-Qaradawi was being singled out by people holding Islamophobic opinions.
Mayor responds to ‘dossier’ on al-Qaradawi
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, today released a dossier comprehensively answering claims that he should not have met the Muslim scholar Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi in July last year. The dossier demonstrated that the allegations made against Dr al-Qaradawi were almost entirely inaccurate.
“As Mayor of London, I have a responsibility to support the rights of all of London’s diverse communities and to maintain a dialogue with their political and religious leaders, irrespective of the fact that there will always be different views on many issues.”
The dossier launched today demonstrates that Dr al-Qaradawi is, as the moderate main umbrella group of Muslim organisations, the Muslim Council of Britain has argued, “the most authoritative Muslim scholars in the world today”.
The document comprehensively rebuts the charges against Dr al-Qaradawi made in a dossier circulated to London Assembly members in November last year. The authors called for the Assembly to conduct an inquiry into Dr al-Qaradawi’s visit to London.
Islamophobia and Tariq Ramadan
Islamophobia and Tariq Ramadan
From the Morning Star, 8 January 2004
By Ken Livingstone
Last month I appointed Yasmin Qureshi as my human rights adviser, and asked her to also address the related issue of the rise in Islamophobia.
One issue that Yasmin has drawn attention to is the treatment of respected Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan by the US authorities, after Mr Ramadan resigned his professorship at an American university following the withdrawal of his visa.
Swiss-born Professor Ramadan is one of the most respected philosophers of religion and conflict resolution. He was named by Time magazine as one of the world’s top 100 influential thinkers last year. He was described by the Christian Science Monitor’s commentator on ethics and religion, Jane Lampman, as “one of Europe’s most prominent Muslim reformers.”
Mr Ramadan spoke at City Hall last summer in favour of a woman’s right to choose to wear the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, in the light of the new French law banning conspicuous religious symbols in schools.
When the furore broke in the media last year about the visit of Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi to City Hall, Peter Tatchell and others condemned the conference at which he spoke on the grounds that no speaker had defended the right of women not to wear the hijab.
In fact, Tariq Ramadan said: “It is against the Islamic teaching to force a woman to wear the Hijab, because it is an act of faith.”
Despite Ramadan’s respected academic status, his American visa was revoked in July under the Patriot Act, adopted after the terrorist attacks on September 11, thus preventing him from taking up his post at the University of Notre dame in Indiana. He has so far been refused a new visa.
How Daniel Pipes witch-hunts Middle East scholars
US watchdog group hounds Middle East scholars
by Sarah Richards
Globe and Mail, 8 January 2005
Like any émigré to the United States, Tariq Ramadan was dependent on the stamp of somebody, somewhere, deep inside the Department of Homeland Security. His life was governed by waiting for one letter to set things in motion – packed bags, plane ticket, new job teaching at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
But after waiting seven months in vain for a visa, Mr. Ramadan decided to throw in the towel. “You know, I have kids here,” he said. “We are in limbo, we don’t know what will be our future, and I said, ‘Okay, it’s not going to work like that.'”
Mr. Ramadan was speaking from his apartment in Geneva in December. He had resigned his two Notre Dame positions, including one as the Henry R.Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace building at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
He never saw a student or even made it to the United States, because his visa was revoked days before he was to arrive in August. A second visa application proved fruitless.
Muslims under fire in Netherlands
After the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004, the organized and unorganized extreme Right took their chance and attacked mosques, Islamic schools and immigrant organizations with bombs, Molotov cocktails, stones and paint. The police counted 96 “incidents” against Islamic targets.
‘Dhimmi Britain’
“… the fact is that there is relatively little genuine prejudice against Muslims. What there is instead is a lot of irrational and unreasonable Muslim rage against anyone who tells the truth about Islamic violence and threats around the world, and an attempt to intimidate people into silence on the subject.”
Monitor non-violent Islamists, says Pipes
Daniel Pipes applauds the crackdown on Muslim communities in Germany. Pipes is particularly taken with the proposal by Uwe Schünemann, the CDU interior minister in Lower Saxony, to make radical Islamists wear electronic foot tags: “Doing so, he says, would allow the authorities ‘to monitor the approximately 3,000 violence-prone Islamists in Germany, the hate preachers [i.e., Islamist imams], and the fighters trained in foreign terrorist camps’.”
But Pipes feels that this doesn’t go far enough: “If hate preachers are tagged, why not the many other non-violent Islamists who also help create an environment promoting terrorism? Their ranks would include activists, artists, computer gamers, couriers, funders, intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, lobbyists, organizers, researchers, shopkeepers, and teachers. In short, Schünemann’s initiative could lead ultimately to the electronic tagging of all Islamists.
“But electronic tags reveal only a person’s geographic location, not his words or actions, which matter more when dealing with imams and other non-violent cadres. With due allowances for personal privacy, their speech could be recorded, their actions videoed, their mail and electronic communications monitored. Such controls could be done discreetly or overtly. If overt, the tagging would serve as a modern scarlet letter, shaming the wearer and alerting potential dupes.
“The Schünemann proposal points to the urgent need to develop a working definition of Islamism and Islamists, plus the imperative for the authorities to explain how even non-violent Islamists are the enemy.”
Front Page Magazine, 3 January 2005
It’s reassuring to know that Pipes is willing to make “due allowances for personal privacy”.