Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 2-8 September 2013
Australia fails to rise up for Danny Nalliah
Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion reports that, contrary to their grandiose claim that the support they received in the general election would mark a “history making day for Australia”, Danny Nalliah’s rabidly Islamophobic Rise Up Australia Party received a mere 38,856 first pretence votes, representing 0.37% of the electorate.
However, as Richard Bartholomew points out, “the real point of such parties is to gain publicity and to nudge the mainstream parties in a particular direction rather than to win lots of votes; Nalliah is doubtless very happy with how the election went”.
Wilders’ PVV tops opinion polls
Support for the anti-immigration PVV continues to grow in the latest Maurice de Hond opinion poll, which puts Geert Wilders’ party on 32 seats – or around 21% of the vote. This is up one seat on a week ago and more than double the party’s general election total. De Hond puts the Socialist party in second place, with 24 seats or 16% of the vote.
Marois defends multiculturalism comments
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois says she didn’t mean to offend anyone with comments blaming multiculturalism for social unrest and bombs in Britain.
She said her comments were made in the context of a discussion about different models of integration around the world. Marois added that she didn’t intend to interfere with United Kingdom policies. “It’s up to Quebec to develop its own model, according to its own values and history,” Marois said Saturday in a statement posted to the Parti Québécois website.
The statement is Marois’ first on the subject since an interview published Friday with Montreal’s Le Devoir, which set off a flurry of criticism.
600 join EDL protest against ‘sharia law’ in Tower Hamlets
About 600 supporters of the EDL tried to march to the East London mosque on Whitechapel Road on Saturday but were stopped by police near Aldgate East station, around 600 metres from the mosque.
East of the police lines a far larger counter-demonstration waved Unite Against Facism and Hope Not Hate banners.
The march started just after 1pm south of Tower Bridge and the marchers walked through the City of London shouting and singing: “England” and “I’m English till I die.” Marchers included members of similar groups from Poland, Finland and Germany.
CAIR calls for audit of NYPD Muslim surveillance costs
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on New York City Comptroller John C. Liu, candidate for NYC Mayor, to audit costs associated with the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) widespread surveillance program targeting law-abiding Muslims.
Second attack on Muret mosque
Al-Kanz reports that the mosque in Muret in southwestern France has suffered a second desecration. This time a shoulder of pork has been left outside the building. Last month a pig’s foot was tied to the gate.
Muslim teenager lashed out with knife after racist abuse at school
A Muslim teenager who suffered a slew of sickening racial taunts at school told how he “flipped” moments before threatening a fellow student with a knife.
Hassaan Mansoor, aged 17, snapped following vicious abuse from classroom bullies at Garnock Academy who branded him a “terrorist”. Mr Mansoor, of Howat Crescent in Irvine, was warned that because his mother wore a headscarf she would be stabbed if she came to school.
Appearing at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court, he was spared jail and given a year’s supervision and told to serve 130 hours of unpaid work.
Outside court, an emotional Mr Mansoor said: “The abuse had been going on for so long but nobody did anything about it. I said sorry to the boy right after I took the multi-tool out of my pocket. I’m sorry for what I did and it’s the only time I’ve ever been in trouble. It was totally out of character and it only happened because of what they had been doing to me for so long. I went to another school after that and the abuse stopped.”
Mr Mansoor was one of just two Asian students and the only Muslim at 1300-pupil Garnock Academy in Kilbirnie. The court heard that his knife threat came after “prolonged and horrific racist bullying” in the classroom and canteen.
Hijabs banned in Siberian village school
Prosecutors in southern Siberia have demanded that high school girls in a remote mountain village give up Muslim headscarves in classes to avoid violating a new nationwide secular dress code.
A check found some hijab-wearing students in a school in the Kosh-Agachsky district of Russia’s Altai Republic, local prosecutors said on their website Friday.
Mosque site vandalised in Charleville Mézières
The CCIF has been contacted by the association of the Mosque and Cultural Centre of Ardennes after a series of acts of criminal damage and vandalism at the mosque construction site in the rue Anatole France in Charleville-Mezieres.
According to preliminary information provided by the centre’s officials, supported by photographic evidence, Islamophobic graffiti was written on the walls of the mosque.
On the photographs that have been sent to us the message “No to Islam” and the (far-right) Celtic cross can be clearly seen.