Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Justin Welby warns of hysteria over threat of Muslim radicalisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Justin WelbyThe Archbishop of Canterbury has warned against becoming “too hysterical” over Islamic radicalisation in Britain as he spoke of his concerns about developing a “culture of fear” towards Muslims.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said there was a problem with radicalisation of Muslims in Britain and an “issue” with young men travelling to Syria and returning to the UK “highly radicalised”.

But, speaking in an interview on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, the Archbishop said the proportion of Muslims in Britain who are radicalised remained “extraordinarily small”.

He said there was a danger of a “national culture of fear” over the issue. “Clearly there is an issue with people going to Syria and coming back highly radicalised. There is a problem with radicalisation,” he said.

“But the proportion of Muslims who are radicalised is extraordinarily small and I’m just edgy about developing a national culture of fear because I don’t think that gets us anywhere and I think we’re in danger of slipping into a very fearful culture in which we see everyone against us and us against everyone and we’re constantly trying to defend ourselves.”

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Trojan Horse scandal: Birmingham accuses Ofsted head of smear campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

England’s Chief Inspector of Schools is today accused of abandoning “objectivity and independence” in his handling of the Trojan Horse scandal and of “tarring” a generation of Muslim children with “the brush of extremism”.

In a coordinated attack city leaders, officials and businessmen in Birmingham said Sir Michael Wilshaw’s “ill-advised and ill-informed” approach to “isolated” problems in the city had damaged community relations and led to a teacher recruitment crisis. They suggest the Chief Inspector is attempting to deflect attention from Ofsted’s failure to identify problems in schools they previously judged “outstanding”.

“While we have no intention of belittling the serious issues at play, Sir Michael has crossed the line from [giving] independent advice on the schools system to a full-on attack on the city of Birmingham,” said Jerry Blackett, chief executive of Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. “The Chief Inspector of Schools should be motivated by overall improvement for the children of the city. His tirades appear to be motivated either by politics or self-publicity, or both.”

He went on to accuse the Ofsted head of deliberately trying to damage Birmingham. “Sir Michael forgets that these public and high profile attacks go way beyond supporting the city in improving schools performance, safeguarding or governance. He entirely ignores the numerous success stories and positive examples from the area to focus on the negative experiences of a minority.”

Until now, senior figures in Birmingham have remained diplomatic in their comments about Ofsted’s Trojan Horse investigation, despite private misgivings about its remit, method of inspection, and findings.

Last week, however, Sir Michael used an appearance before MPs to lay the blame for problems found in five Birmingham schools squarely at the door of the city council. Now senior local government officials and politicians have accused Sir Michael of deliberately misrepresenting problems with governance in a small number of schools by associating them with a wider threat of Islamic extremism.

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Legal challenge to French mayor’s ban of Muslim hijab on beach

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Affiche wissous plageAfter two mothers wearing Muslim hijabs, or headscarves, were refused access to a beach in the French municipality of Wissous, its regional government of Essone on Saturday legally challenged Wissous’ ban on the wearing of religious symbols.

The Versailles Administrative Court, approached in an urgent joint application by Essone and by the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), was due to give its decision late Saturday afternoon.

Wissous Mayor Richard Trinquier, of the right-wing UMP party, had been at the beach the previous Saturday and had made the decision to turn the women away. Wissous is about 30 kilometres south of Paris and is a popular summer leisure spot.

Trinquier told the hearing the beach rule protected France’s commitment to secularism. He said it was in no way an obstacle to the practice of religion, but that there had been an increasing presence of religious symbols in public, which were “an obstacle to living together”.

The applicants argued that the by-law forbidding religious symbols on the beach established by the mayor amounted to “religious discrimination” that “violates the principles of the Republic”.

The rule “violates a fundamental freedom, the freedom of religious belief”, argued the lawyer for the CCIF, Sefen Guezguez. He said it showed a misunderstanding of the law.

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Austrian parliament rejects FPÖ proposal for ‘burqa ban’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FPÖ anti-niqabThe Austria Presse Agentur reports that a proposal by the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) to introduce a law on the French model banning the “concealment of the face in public space” has failed to find a majority in the Austrian parliament.

Only the Team Stronach party supported the FPÖ’s demand for an anti-‘burqa’ bill.

While the FPÖ MP Carmen Gartelgruber denounced the veil as “a symbol of the oppression of women”, Nurten Yilmaz of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) questioned the feminist credentials of a party who had opposed changing a line in the national anthem that referred to Austria as the “home of great sons” to “home of great daughters and sons”.

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‘Trojan Horse affair fuels Islamophobia’ in Newham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than 60 teachers in Newham have signed an open letter to Michael Gove, saying the Trojan Horse affair has increased Islamophobia in the borough.

The letter, written by award-winning poet Michael Rosen and author Alan Gibbons, was also signed by Alex Kenny, secretary of the east London branch of the National Union of Teachers. It accuses the Education Secretary and the press of using the story to fuel racism in schools and ignoring allegations of the Trojan Horse dossier being a fake.

Robert Ferguson, of Newham Sixth Form College, said the affair had been conducted in a way that equated Muslims in education with extremism and terror. He said: “This is having an impact especially in Newham and other parts of east London. I have been approached by colleagues really concerned, but also determined to take a stand.”

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Call for ban on far-right marches in Berwick-upon-Tweed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berwick anti-fascist protestBerwick Chamber of Trade’s chairman has led calls for a ban on future protest marches through the town by far-right groups.

John Haswell was speaking after the Ban the Burka demonstration by the Scottish Defence League and North East Infidels on Saturday. “They shouldn’t be allowed back,” he said. “It doesn’t do our reputation any good at all. We’re a seaside tourist town and this is the last sort of thing we want our visitors to see.” A survey he carried out before the event found 155 shops and businesses did not want the protest march coming through town.

Several businesses including Pier Red on Castlegate and The Leaping Salmon on Golden Square stayed closed, sacrificing profits to avoid the risk of potential trouble. Terri Conway, duty manager at The Leaping Salmon, said: “It was just the chance of something happening – we closed last year when the SDL came to march, and we would close again if they came next year. Obviously being closed on a Saturday, when the weather was eventually so nice, hit us very hard.”

Around 40 right-wing protesters marched down Castlegate, along Walkergate to The Parade and back via Cowport to the railway station. A 100-strong counter-demonstration organised by Berwick Trades Union Council [pictured] took place on Marygate at the same time.

Phil Thompson, secretary of Berwick TUC, said: “It is vital that we continue to organise, to unite, to make sure they are not allowed to spread their racist and Islamophobic hatred and violence in our community.”

One 39-year-old man, from within the SDL march, was arrested for disorderly conduct and summonsed to appear at court.

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French mayor bans hijab from beach

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard TrinquierTwo mothers were refused access to the beach at Wissous, Essonne, because they were wearing Muslim headscarves.

The women had taken their children to the popular summer leisure venue at the weekend, but they fell foul of a new bylaw that refuses entry to anyone wearing distinctive “religious symbols”.

Patrick Kitnais, director of the mayor’s office told Europe 1 that the women were wearing a hijab, a scarf that covers the head but does not hide the face. “The mayor was there, so he denied access to these people,” he said.

The town’s UMP mayor, Richard Trinquier [pictured], who ousted Socialist incumbent Roy Regis-Chevalier in March’s municipal elections, insisted he had applied “the law of the Republic and secularism”, in refusing entry to the two women, and said anyone wearing a distinctive cross or yarmulke would also be banned.

He said that the beach at Wissous is not a public place. It is, he said, a public establishment – and therefore it is bound by laws that prohibit the wearing of religious symbols. “If women remove their veils, they are welcome,” he said.

A 2004 law governing the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols applies only to educational establishments.

Former mayor Mr Regis-Chevalier branded the incident an “Islamophobic act”. And Abdelkrim Benkouhi, president of local Islamic association Al Madina, said: “The children were shocked and did not understand why they could not play on the inflatables like every other child. In previous years, there have been no problems.”

Representatives of Al Madina met the mayor to discuss the matter, but the two sides could not reach an agreement, Le Parisien reports. “The mayor says it is a private space. This is pure and simple discrimination,” Mr Benkouhi said.

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Yasmin Qureshi MP: ‘Media publishing complete lies about Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yasmin QureshiReports and comments on Muslims by the media and politicians bear the hallmarks of the portrayal of Jews in Nazi Germany, an MP has said.

Labour’s Yasmin Qureshi said very similar words to those included in information and literature put out by the Nazis were being used against Muslims in Britain at the moment. She added 99.9% of coverage in newspapers and on television is anti-Muslim, with “complete lies” published on front pages and made-up stories giving people the wrong impression of Islam and its followers.

The Bolton South East MP also told a debate that a lot of people in some parts of the country have “never come across a Muslim person or a black person or an Asian person” and so their views about a particular religion, group or culture will “come from what they read in the paper”.

Ms Qureshi, herself a Muslim, spoke out during a debate on the Srebrenica massacre, in which some 8,000 Muslim men were killed in Bosnia in 1995. Addressing what could be done to prevent anything similar happening again, she told the Westminster Hall debate that a recent survey showed 33% of people in the UK think that Muslims are “not really right for this country” and the religion “is not appropriate, they don’t belong here”.

Ms Qureshi said: “Now, I feel very offended. I wasn’t born in England but I was brought up here, this is my country. (There’s) three million Muslims out there and I know (because of) the actions of a few, everyone is getting slated with it.

“And there’s a lot of people in this country, in parts of the country, they’ve never come across a Muslim person or a black person or an Asian person, and any information they have about a particular religion or group or a culture or a community will come from what they read in the paper.”

Ms Qureshi said this led to people forming their view of a person on images and information rather than from people they have met.

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CAIR-NY asks authorities to probe rash of anti-Muslim graffiti in Brooklyn neighborhood

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Allah is Evil graffitiThe New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on local law enforcement authorities and public officials to investigate a recent rash of anti-Muslim graffiti in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Kensington.

The graffiti, including such slurs as “Islam is evil,” “Allah is evil” and “Islam is barbaric,” has been sprayed on mailboxes and other places around the neighborhood recently. Similar graffiti has been spotted in the ethnically-diverse area over the last two years.

“No community should be subjected to this type of anonymous hate campaign,” said CAIR-NY Director of Operations Sadyia Khalique. “We urge local law enforcement authorities and public officials to investigate this ongoing hate vandalism and to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

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