We Are Norwich march against the EDL (photo: Bill Smith)
Police made four arrests during an English Defence League march and counter-protest in Norwich.
Officers from 11 forces were on duty as about 200 EDL supporters and up to 2,000 members of the We Are Norwich coalition marched through the city. Police said the day passed off relatively peacefully, although extra officers remained in the city centre into the evening as a precaution.
Diversity in the classroom is getting bigger in society all over the globe; however, there has been a growing issue of “Islamophobia.” This term is defined by UNESCO as a word to “demote fear, hatred, or prejudice against Islam and Muslims.” In response, UNESCO published a set of guidelines to address this issue and what schools can do to prevent racism among students.
“Through education, we can teach children not to hate from the very young age. Through education, we can raise tolerant leaders. Through education, we may establish a lasting culture of peace,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
Marc Schneier and Shamsi Ali write:
In addition to having similar dietary laws, customs and rituals, we found out on Nov. 6 that American Jews and American Muslims have another thing in common; each community gave 70 percent or more of its vote during Tuesday’s presidential election to President Obama.
According to two national exit polls, about 70 percent of American Jews supported President Obama over Republican candidate Mitt Romney. A poll conducted in the Muslim community in late October showed that 68 percent of American Muslims backed Obama.
What do these similar vote totals in support of President Obama say about our two communities? First, the results show that majorities of American Jews and American Muslims support President Obama’s vision of an inclusive society where people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds have a chance to succeed….
There is, however, a second reason for the overwhelming support for Obama among American Jews and Muslims; namely that both communities strongly reject the anti-Muslim rhetoric articulated by prominent Republicans during the past several years. For example, national Republican leaders shamelessly demagogued the bogus “Ground Zero mosque” controversy of 2010 and held congressional hearings in 2011 based on the false claim that 80 percent of American mosques support Islamic radicalism. This year some Republican congressional leaders also claimed the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the U.S. State Department, while Republican-controlled legislatures in states such as Oklahoma and Kansas passed wholly unnecessary and unconstitutional bans on sharia (Islamic) law.
Despite loud and well-funded efforts to enlist the Jewish community in the Islamophobia campaign of recent years, the majority of American Jews have emphatically rejected it.
A Chesapeake judge has ruled that the Department of Motor Vehicles shouldn’t have a revoked an Army veteran’s license plate that it said was offensive.
Sean Bujno’s personalized plate, “ICUHAJI,” was revoked last year because the DMV said it could be interpreted as socially, racially, or ethically offensive or disparaging.
LOURDES — Leading bishops have voiced alarm at a rise in anti-Islamic sentiment in France and admitted that hardening attitudes within the Roman Catholic church are fuelling the trend.
In comments that will add to pressure on President François Hollande to respond to demands from France’s large Muslim community to speak out on the issue, the Bishop of Angoulême, Claude Dagens, said he was profoundly concerned by recent developments.
“It is with much pain that I notice the emergence of a Catholic Islamophobia, in the same way that there has been a Catholic anti-semitism for centuries,” Dagens told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of an assembly of French bishops here.
French Muslim leaders have appealed to President François Hollande come out as strongly against Islamophobia as he has against anti-Semitism. They estimate that the number of anti-Muslim acts in France rose 34 per cent last year.
Leaders of the Muslim umbrella body, the CFCM, which was set up by former president Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister, met Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Thursday to call for action against what they claim is a rise in Islamophobia.
They called on Hollande to condemn it in a “solemn declaration”, similar to his call for the fight against anti-Semitism to become a “national cause”.
A jury has been shown a photograph of a man wielding a stick outside Kingston Mosque moments before an attack by masked and hooded men.
Henry Hunter, 19, denies violent disorder and racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage, after a group of men targeted the mosque in East Road.
At Kingston Crown Court, a jury of eight women and four men heard how Mr Hunter took part in a protest march through Kingston town centre on November 21, 2010.
Prosecutor Anthony Montgomery said that although the march passed without incident, several men who had been captured on CCTV during the protest later threw sticks, bottles and rashers of bacon at the mosque, and damaged a sign attached to the building.
Forgotten estates: far right extremists move into community politics
By Dave Porter and Owen Jones
HOPE not hate, November-December 2012
FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISTS looking to spread their message of hate are infiltrating community protest groups and hijacking them for their own political ends.
Leicester has become the latest battleground for extremists spreading messages of hate under the banner of community activism.
Self-declared racists from the EDL and BNP are hijacking sensitive community issues to their own ends – using them as a fertile recruiting ground while pretending to be non-political.
Through these means, large sections of the community who would normally shun such hate groups are being hoodwinked by racists looking to capitalise on and stir up local feelings.
In Leicester, a group calling itself the Committee for the Forgotten Estates of Thurnby Lodge and Netherall has been central in organising protests against a former scout hut in Thurnby Lodge being converted into a community centre by a Muslim organisation called As-Salaam Trust.
An Oklahoma bank’s requirement that branch visitors remove anything covering their faces discriminates against Muslims, a civil liberties group says.
The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called Wednesday on Valley National Bank in Tulsa to change a policy that requires visitors to the $221 million-asset bank’s four branches to remove their hats, hoods and sunglasses so bank employees can see their faces.
The policy – which Valley National says is a security measure – prevented a Muslim woman from entering a Valley National branch in Tulsa on Oct. 9, the council says. An employee allegedly told the visitor she would have to be escorted to and from the teller unless she agreed to remove her hijab, a loose-fitting garment that some Muslim women wear over their heads.
“Recognize that a religious headdress is different than a hat,” Adam Soltani, the council’s executive director, told American Banker. “In Oklahoma, there has never been an instance of anyone impersonating a Muslim woman to rob a bank or anywhere else.”
The English Defence League (EDL) and its opposing “We Are Norwich” group are both staging marches on Saturday, November 10.
The counter protesters will gather at Chapelfield Gardens at 11am before marching at 12.30pm to City Hall via Theatre Street, Brigg Street and Hay Hill. They will have speeches at approximately 1pm before dispersing.
At 12.45pm the EDL group will gather at Castle Gardens before also marching to City Hall at 1pm, via Castle Meadow, Opie Street, Bedford Street, Exchange Street and Gaol Hill. There they will have speeches at approximately 1.30pm before dispersing.