Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Faith groups to protest Geller ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of Montgomery County faith groups plan to protest anti-Islamic Metro bus ads Monday in Rockville.

The Montgomery County Faith Community Working Group (FCWG) – which includes members of the local Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian faith communities – issued a statement saying they are “deeply saddened by the placement of anti-Muslim ads on buses owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).”

The ads include photos of Adolf Hitler meeting with an anti-Jewish Islamic leader during World War II, and call for an end to American aid to Islamic countries. The ads, placed by a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, started appearing in May on 20 Metro buses in the D.C. Metro area.

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‘The problem here is the knee-jerk actions of some politicians’ – Park View Educational Trust responds to Gove’s ‘Trojan Horse’ witch-hunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Park View School

Verbal statement on Ofsted reports on Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen schools delivered outside Park View School at 09.30 by Dave Hughes, vice chairman of Park View Educational Trust

On behalf of the staff, students and parents who have worked so hard to improve their schools, we are extremely disappointed to confirm that Ofsted have graded Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen schools as inadequate and put them into Special Measures.

We support the role of Ofsted in holding schools to account in a fair and transparent way. But we wholeheartedly dispute the validity of these gradings.

Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen are categorically not inadequate schools.

Our Ofsted inspections were ordered in a climate of suspicion created by the hoax Trojan Horse letter and anonymous, unproven allegations about our schools in the media.

Ofsted inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot.

The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this, because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools.

Our schools do not tolerate or promote extremism of any kind. We have made a major commitment to raising all students’ awareness of extremism. People who know and have worked with our schools are appalled at the way we have been misrepresented.

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Oldknow Academy replies to Sunday Times smears

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oldknow Academy

The Sunday Times – the newspaper responsible for presenting the transparently forged “Trojan horse” letter as genuine – has published an article by its political editor Tim Shipman based on a leaked report by the Education Funding Agency on the Oldknow Academy primary school in Birmingham.

Oldknow Academy has issued a point-by-point rebuttal of what they call a “vindictive and hate spreading article”. It states: “The contents of the article are wholly inaccurate, sensationalised and inflammatory and aimed at scaremongering the public.”

You can read the statement here.

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Thousands march against racism in Belfast

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Belfast march against racism

Thousands of people have taken part in an anti-racism march in Belfast. Organisers said it was designed to “reassure ethnic and religious minorities in Northern Ireland”. Representatives of the Muslim community and trade unions were among those who spoke at a rally ahead of a march from Writers’ Square to Belfast City Hall.

It was organised in response to an upsurge in hate crime and controversial remarks about Islam by a pastor and First Minister Peter Robinson. Pastor James McConnell made a public apology on Friday for calling Islam “heathen” and “satanic”.

Saturday’s march was led by Belfast’s Lord Mayor, Nichola Mallon, Dr Donald Watts, president of the Irish Council of Churches and Dr Mazhar M Khan, a member of Northern Ireland’s Muslim community. Amnesty International, the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (NIC-ICTU) and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM) organised the event.

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Progressive Christians should take on the Christian right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We need to expose the truth about certain Christian groups that are happy to ally themselves with far-right politics. Foremost among them is Christian Concern (previously called Christian Concern For Our Nation).

Christian Concern claims to speak up for Christian values in public life. They are one of the main groups behind the Coalition for Marriage, which has drawn in more moderately conservative Christians and gained significant media coverage with its outrageously untrue claim that the legalisation of same-sex marriages would allow churches to be sued for not holding them. Many middle-of-the-road Christians have been happy to endorse the group’s ‘Not Ashamed’ campaign, which encourages Christians to be open about their faith.

Rumours have long circulated that the leaders of Christian Concern held a meeting by phone with Tommy Robinson when he was leader of the English Defence League. Christian Concern last month had the opportunity to get rid of these rumours, when they were asked outright by a journalist (not me) if they were true. Christian Concern’s press officer, after consulting with its leaders, told the journalist that they had no comment to make.

Christian Concern deny being party-political – they had to apologise to their supporters in 2010 when they appeared to endorse the tiny Christian party. But in 2011, the group held a meeting on ‘Dismantling Multiculturalism’ with Gerard Batten, Ukip MEP for London. Proposals they appear to have agreed on include a ban on kosher and halal food in schools and hospitals, an end to Islamic banking in the UK and a ban on non-English signs in public (Batten has since tried to play it all down, saying these were only ideas). By last year, Christian Concern’s bulletins to supporters were commenting on Ukip’s local election success in joyful terms.

Symon Hill writes at Politics.co.uk, 6 June 2014

Stevenage pub withdraws from hosting EDL members before march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marquis of LorneA pub will no longer host English Defence League (EDL) members before they march tomorrow (Saturday).

The Marquis of Lorne, in Stevenage High Street, had agreed to allow EDL members to meet at the pub prior to their 1.30pm march through the town. They have now withdrawn and have yet to decide whether to open their doors throughout the day.

A statement on the pub’s Facebook page reads: “We at the Marquis of Lorne agreed to the EDL starting their march here purely as a business opportunity – not for political reasons. We have now withdrawn. We apologise to anyone we may have offended over this matter.”

At present the EDL is still advertising The Marquis of Lorne as a meeting place on Facebook.

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Reykjavík: Anti-Muslim rhetoric brings gains to Progressives

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last night, the Progressive Party won two seats in the municipal elections, having won no seats on city council in the previous elections in 2010. As late in the campaign as May 23, polls showed the party still not holding enough to support to win a seat.

But later that same day, Progressive mayoral candidate Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörsdóttir announced she would reverse a decision made last year by Reykjavík City Council to grant a plot of land for the building of a mosque. Within days, the party gained enough to support to win at least one seat on city council.

DV reports that Sveinbjörg shared material on her Facebook about Muslims, allowing Islamophobic material posted on her page to stand. The aforementioned examples were posted by Skúli Skúlason, the founder of the Facebook group “We protest against a mosque in Iceland”, which has over 4,000 followers. Skúli has accused Muslims of committing atrocities in Europe, and has called Anders Breivík’s videos “a work of genius”. He has also repeatedly expressed his support for Sveinbjörg.

The night before elections, Sveinbjörg told Stöð 2 viewers she was worried that an influx of Muslims in Iceland could lead to forced marriages becoming a problem in this country, and said she wanted to “open a discussion on freedom of religion” in Iceland.

The other new Progressive councilperson, Guðfinna Jóhanna Guðmundsdóttir, told DV that the granting of a plot of land to a mosque was detrimental to Reykjavík’s housing problem. Svanur Guðmundsson, Guðfinna’s husband (and also the Progressive’s campaign manager), publicly asked, “Since when were Muslims a minority?”

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