Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Abbott defends new anti-terrorism laws as Islamic groups warn of ‘witchhunt’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tony Abbott announces anti-terrorism measuresTony Abbott has defended the need to force people returning from declared conflict zones to prove they were there for legitimate purposes, saying Australian-born fighters were “exultantly holding up the severed heads of surrendering members of the Iraqi security forces”.

The prime minister intensified his rhetoric over planned national security reforms on Wednesday, as some members of the Islamic community warned of the potential for a “witchhunt” against Muslims and of the practical difficulties flowing from the effective reversal of the onus of proof.

Labor remains in a holding pattern, reluctant to express a clear position before a government briefing expected to occur within the next few days, although the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the new criminal offence of travelling to a designated area without a legitimate purpose rang “alarm bells”.

The Greens argued the government was “trashing long-established legal norms”.

There remains uncertainty over elements of the government’s planned reforms, including the range of customer information that internet service providers would be be forced to store under a mandatory data retention scheme. The human rights commissioner, Tim Wilson, handpicked by the federal government to defend freedom, said the proposed data retention scheme was “a very serious threat to privacy”.

Abbott announced on Tuesday his plans to broaden the listing criteria for terrorist organisations, lower the threshold for arrest without warrant for terrorism offences, extend police and intelligence agencies’ powers to stop, question and detain suspects, and make it easier for the Australian federal police (AFP) to seek control orders on returning foreign fighters.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, would be able to designate an area where terrorist organisations were conducting hostile activities, such as parts of Iraq and Syria, and it would become an offence to travel to those areas “unless there is a legitimate purpose”.

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Yasmin Qureshi backs call for boycott of HSBC

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yasmin Qureshi LabourA Bolton MP has backed calls to boycott a bank which closed the account of an Islamic aid charity.

Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, said she will also speak to ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about the Ummah Welfare Trust, which was cut off by HSBC after it said providing services for the charity was ‘outside its risk appetite’.

The organisation, based in St Helen’s Road, has provided medical supplies, support and aid to communities in Gaza, which has been the centre of intense fighting between Israel and militant group Hamas.

Ms Qureshi said it was unacceptable that HSBC should not give more explanation about the decision – and as a customer she will consider changing her bank.

She said: “When I met with representatives from the Ummah Trust they told me it was a complete surprise when they received the letter from HSBC. Because HSBC is in 18 countries across the world and it’s a global bank it’s the best bank to use, and there’s never been any problem.

“It seems it has deliberately picked on the trust because it is doing a lot of work in Gaza at the moment. A similar situation happened in 2008 when again the trust was working in Gaza, during the last time there was a big almighty onslaught from Israel.

“HSBC has given no reason, no explanation, no nothing. I support the boycott, and I think I’m going to have to reconsider my own situation as a customer at HSBC.”

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Hundreds of police officers to be drafted in for English Defence League demo in Batley

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hundreds of police officers from West Yorkshire and beyond will be drafted into Batley on Saturday (Aug 9) for a rally by the right-wing English Defence League. Traders have been told that up to 700 police officers will be put on standby to help prevent trouble.

The Yorkshire EDL Batley Division has called a national demonstration in protest at what they say is the growing influence of Islam and English people “treated as second class citizens.” As many as 600 EDL supporters from across the country could converge on Batley.

A counter demonstration, organised by Kirklees Unite Against Fascism and Huddersfield TUC, will also be held. The Celebration of Unity event is described as a “peaceful, anti-racist” gathering with music and speeches.

The EDL previously held big demonstrations in Dewsbury, in 2011 and 2012. In June 2012 around 500 EDL supporters met up in Dewsbury town centre. Afterwards it was estimated that policing and lost trade had cost the economy up to £500,000.

Batley councillors, politicians, Muslim leaders and the Bishop of Pontefract the Rt Rev Tony Robinson have all signed a Batley Unity Statement opposing the EDL rally.

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Bolton: NWI anti-mosque protest meets counter-demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NWI protest Bolton August 2014Hundreds of protestors closed off Blackburn Road for more than an hour over protests about the extension of a mosque in Astley Bridge.

The demonstration, organised by far-right organisation the North West Infidels, sparked a second protest by the Bolton Trades Union Council, Bolton Against Racism and members of the local community which was policed by hundreds of officers.

The NWI drafted in supporters from across the UK to object to the extension of the Taiyabah Islamic Centre on disused land off Canning Street. Planning permission was granted in July to create 19 new classrooms as part of the new mosque, which will have a dome and minaret tower.

During the protest bottles, a firework and eggs were thrown at officers, who had been brought in from across the North West to police the protest. Two people were arrested, including one woman who hit an officer in the face.

The opposing protestors were “penned in” on either side of Blackburn Road. They hurled insults at each other, waved banners and chanted outside Wynsors World of Shoes in Blackburn Road.

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Rowan Williams says Islam makes positive contribution to society, ‘secularist’ groups disagree

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rowan_WilliamsIslam is restoring traditional British values such as shared responsibility and duty, a former archbishop has said.

Rowan Williams said that Muslims had brought back “open, honest and difficult public discussion” in one of their “greatest gifts” to Britain.

He used a speech yesterday to criticise sections of the press for portraying Muslims as “un-British” and complained of “illiteracy” about religion among figures in government.

Secularist groups accused Dr Williams of “foolishness”, but his remarks were welcomed by British Muslim organisations.

Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, said: “I’m still smiling about the comments he made about Sharia law a few years ago. You’d think he’d have learnt his lesson.”

In 2008, when still Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams provoked controversy by stating that the application of some aspects of Islamic law in British courts was “unavoidable”. He also drew both praise and criticism after telling a literary festival in 2012 that the hijab gave some Muslim women strength.

Yesterday, Dr Williams, who stood down as the head of the Church of England to become master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 2012, told the Living Islam Festival in Lincolnshire that Christianity and Islam were shifting British values back towards the community.

He said that Britain was an “argumentative democracy” where “we are not just individual voters ticking boxes but individuals and communities engaging in open, honest and difficult public discussion. One of the greatest gifts of the Muslim community to the UK has been that they have brought that back to the people.”

Asked if he meant that Islam was rejuvenating British values, Dr Williams said: “Yes. I’m thinking of the way in which, for example, in Birmingham we have seen a local parish and a mosque combining together to provide family services and youth activities, both acting out of a very strong sense that this is what communities ought to do. ”

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‘Report it!’ victims of hate urged

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Building BridgesA campaign has been launched to encourage Muslims in Leeds to report hate crimes amid moves to improve the way police record such incidents.

The Building Bridges project, based at the Hamara Centre in Beeston, is behind the Report It! initiative, which urges victims to come forward following concerns that many are staying quiet. It comes after West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson pledged to look at whether hate crimes could be recorded to show the numbers of offences committed against particular faith groups.

Tafazal Mohammad, Building Bridges project co-ordinator, said it was difficult to assess whether Islamophobic crime had risen. He said:

“In some parts of London there is evidence that anti-Muslim hate crimes have gone up several hundred per cent. In Leeds we have got anecdotal evidence, but we want to be a bit more statistical in terms of trying to identify the extent of the problem. A lot of people won’t report it because they think it’s a waste of time and nothing will be done about it. We’re trying to say that if they don’t report it, in a sense they can’t complain if nothing is done.”

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HSBC closes Muslim groups’ accounts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

North London Central MosqueHSBC bank has written to Finsbury Park Mosque and other Muslim organisations in the UK to tell them that their accounts will be closed.

The reason given in some cases was that to continue providing services would be outside the bank’s “risk appetite”.

The wife and teenage children of a man who runs a London based Islamic think tank have also been contacted.

HSBC said decisions to close accounts were “absolutely not based on race or religion”.

“We do not discuss relationships we may or may not have with a customer, nor confirm whether an individual or business is, or has been a customer. Discrimination against customers on grounds of race or religion is immoral, unacceptable and illegal, and HSBC has comprehensive rules and policies in place to ensure race or religion are never factors in banking decisions.”

The bank said it was “applying a programme of strategic assessments to all of its businesses” after a $1.9bn fine in 2012 over poor money-laundering controls. “As a result of these ongoing reviews, we have exited relationships with business and personal customers in over 70 countries. The services we provide to charities are no exception to this global review,” the bank added.

Finsbury Park Mosque in north London [pictured] was written to by HSBC on 22 July. The only reason given for the intention to close its account was that “the provision of banking services… now falls outside of our risk appetite”. In the letter, the bank notifies the treasurer of the mosque that it will close the account on 22 September.

Khalid Oumar, one of the trustees of the mosque, questioned the motives behind the letters. “The letters that have been sent and the letters that we received do not give any reason why the accounts were closed in the first place,” he said. “That has led us to believe that the only reason this has happened is because of an Islamophobic campaign targeting Muslim charities in the UK.”

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Are French Muslims integrated? Depends on what you mean by integration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jennifer Fredette, assistant professor of political science at Ohio University and author of Constructing Muslims in France – Discourse, Public Identity, and the Politics of Citizenship, takes up the misuse of the term “integration” in the French context, where it is reinterpreted to justify a one-sided and discriminatory demand for assimilation:

The social scientific definition of “integration” refers to a dual process whereby immigrants embrace and become invested in their new home and are, in turn, accepted as equals by those who were there before them. In French political discourse, however, the term “integration” generally loses the reciprocal connotation. Here, a “failure of integration” refers lopsidedly to the inability of immigrants to assimilate into local customs and attitudes, consequently retaining markers of social difference that set them apart….

Politicians on the far right are not alone in questioning the civic virtues of French Muslims: they are joined by politicians on the center-right and the left. The media are full of articles questioning the Frenchness of Muslims. Several respected intellectuals have gone so far as to critique Islam or practices some Muslims choose to follow as incompatible with the Republic.

When these shapers of public opinion consistently raise criticisms of Muslims and demand legal action against the headscarf in public primary and secondary schools, universities, and beach areas; against the niqab in public; and against prayer in the streets (which resulted from a lack of prayer space and open hostility at the municipal level to mosque construction), they rarely exhibit any self-awareness that they themselves are standing in the way of the second half of integration.

Monkey Cage, 29 July 2014