Muslims need not apply

Posted on by Eddie Truman

The backlash from the war on terror on Britain’s non-white population is growing. Applications to visit relatives in Britain from countries with large Muslim populations are twice as likely to be turned down than they were just over a year ago. Families in Britain’s biggest ethnic minority communities are now struggling to have relatives visit them.

An analysis of last year’s statistical reports from British embassies around the world by Citizens Advice, the charity and national body for the bureaux, shows that refusals increased by more than 100% in countries with big Muslim populations.

The biggest rises in refusals were for applications from the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. In Tehran, refusals jumped 188% between the first and second half of last year. From January to July, 8.5% of applicants were refused, but from August to December, a quarter was turned down. In New Delhi and Mumbai, refusals increased 105% during the same period.

Britain’s biggest non-white communities have been badly affected. There are 1 million people of Indian descent and 500,000 of Bangladeshi origin in the UK. Refusals of applications from families in Calcutta rose by 443%, and in Dhaka more than 60% of applications to visit relatives in Britain were refused in the second half of the year, compared with 38% in the first.

While it is getting harder for some people to visit relatives, it is getting easier for others. Refusals of applications from North America declined by 29% and from South America by 1% during the same period.

This dramatic rise in refusals of applications from one set of countries, many observers say, is driven by the “war on terror”. Decisions may be based less on hard evidence than on the possibility that applicants could be in some way connected to terrorist organisations.

Guardian, 16 April 2003

Montreal Muslims call for peace during Daniel Pipes lecture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Everything inside me tells me not to even write this article because, in my estimation, the person I am writing about is so hateful and so vile that I am loathe to even give him any attention at all. The person I am talking about is Daniel Pipes who is well known in our community for his anti-Arab/anti-Muslim statements and writings and his far to the right pro-Israeli positions.”

Yahya Abdul Rahman reports on Daniel Pipes’ lecture at McGill University.

Montreal Muslim News, 13 March 2003

Accused academic speaks out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A British academic accused by the US of leading an Islamic terror group has defended himself, saying his only “crime” was to talk about politics to friends on the phone.

Dr Basheer Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, was one of a total of 16 men charged by the US last week. The father-of-two from Oxford was accused of being the UK head of Islamic Jihad – believed to be responsible for more than 100 killings in and around Israel. The indictment against Mr Nafi was 170-pages long, and listed 50 charges. Its main evidence was years of tapped telephone conversations.

But Dr Nafi denies having anything to do with the militant Palestinian organisation. “As I have repeatedly told reporters: I have never been a member of Islamic Jihad, I have never spoken on behalf of Islamic Jihad and I have never raised funds for Islamic Jihad,” he said.

US intelligence said Dr Nafi had a number of conversations with Florida lecturer Sami al-Arian – arrested in the US, and accused of being the US head of the group – about funding of the Jihad.

But Dr Nafi said: “Of course I have spoken with Sami al-Arian. He is a friend, a good friend of mine. We have spoken hundreds of times and about Palestinian politics. But since when was that a crime?

“I meet people all the time on trains, in shops, on planes, and we talk. Palestine is a very small nation, and everybody talks about politics all their life. The problem with this indictment is that they have just lumped together a group of people who have no connection with each other.”

Some of the total of 16 people indicted had nothing do with political organisations, he said – while others had publicly spoken on their behalf. “How can they all be put together in this one document?”

Dr Nafi, who has lived in Oxfordshire for 20 years, is an Islamic studies lecturer at London’s Birkbeck College.

BBC News, 26 February 2003

US furious as Britain ignores extradition plea

Posted on by Bob Pitt

America yesterday expressed fury that the Home Office has not handed over Dr Bashir Nafi, the British academic charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism for a Palestinian group. An official in the US Department of Justice said: “I thought the Brits were on our side in the war against terrorism. But when something like this happens, you wonder.”

Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2003

See also Daniel Pipes on the “terrorist profs”, New York Post, 24 February 2003

UK academic to fight terror claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An academic accused by the US of playing a leading role in an Islamic terror group says he will “fight to the bitter end” to clear his name. Basheer Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, was one of eight men indicted by US Attorney General John Ashcroft this week. He is accused of being the British head of Islamic Jihad – designated a terrorist organisation in the US.

BBC News, 22 February 2003

The BBC visited Kingston Blount, the village in rural Oxfordshire where Dr Nafi has his home: “Little seemed to be happening in Kingston Blount itself, save for the quiz night coming up in the village hall. There weren’t any notices about the next meeting of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

BBC Oxford Features, 21 February 2003

University defends indicted academic

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British academic accused by the US of being the UK leader of the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad was today described as a “highly respected and valuable” academic.

Egyptian born Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, who lives in Oxfordshire, was one of eight men named in an indictment announced by US attorney general John Ashcroft yesterday.

The US authorities want to extradite Mr Nafi because of his alleged involvement in Islamic Jihad, which is held responsible by Israeli authorities for killing more than 100 people. The Home Office said that no formal request had been made by the US authorities.

Mr Nafi was this morning reported as saying the allegations were “absurd” and “fabricated”.

Mr Nafi is a part-time lecturer at Birkbeck college, part of the University of London, where he teaches on the postgraduate diploma course in Islamic studies and for the certificate/diploma programme. The two courses are run jointly by Birkbeck’s faculty of continuing education and the independent Muslim College – where he teaches full-time.

Dr Gwen Griffith-Dickson, director of Islamic studies at Birkbeck, said: “Mr Nafi is a highly respected, valuable member of the academic team. He is a specialist in the Islamic history of ideas, covering a broad range of thinkers from all traditions in Islam. His work on Palestinian issues is part of a much wider scholarly research on the issues of state and society in Islam.”

Defending her colleague against accusations of fundamentalism, she added: “Mr Nafi has always taken an analytical and scholarly approach to the study of Islam. He has also sought, with energy and commitment, to encourage critical thinking about religious issues and academic balance in his students, and thus to encourage social responsibility.”

Guardian, 21 February 2003

Taxi knife attacker jailed

Posted on by Eddie Truman

A man who slashed a Muslim taxi driver across the neck after calling him a terrorist has been jailed for four years. Steven Jack was found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow of permanently disfiguring Mohammed Yusuf in a racially aggravated attack.

Jack and two companions were travelling in Mr Yusuf’s private hire taxi in Glasgow city centre in November 2001. During the journey 27-year-old Jack called Mr Yusuf a Taleban terrorist and said “you want to bomb our country”.

Mr Yusuf said he asked the passengers to leave the car. But Jack was carrying a knife and he slashed the driver across the neck, inflicting a wound which needed 11 stitches.

Mr Yusuf said that he was a practising Muslim and he became a target because of his beard and Afghan hat.

BBC News, 17 February 2003

US Muslims sue over mass arrests

Posted on by Eddie Truman

US Muslim groups have launched a class action lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft and federal immigration officials over the detention of hundreds of Muslim men.

Four groups said they had filed the suit to protest against last week’s controversial round-up of men from Arab and Muslim nations without permanent residency status in the Los Angeles area.

BBC News, 24 December 2002