“The problem isn’t Islam. It’s your movement to demonize Islam in the liberal left.” Rabia Chaudry calls out US comedian/TV host Bill Maher.
Update: See Omar Baddar, “5 things Bill Maher got wrong in latest Islam rant”, Huffington Post, 13 May 2014
And Fatimah Mazhar, “Why Bill Maher’s Islamophobia is way more dangerous than right wing bigotry”, Carbonated.tv, 13 May 2014
Halal meat is on every menu; sharia law is taking over; the niqab is undermining the nation. Ever noticed how often the same old stories keep appearing about Muslims in Britain? Here’s the truth about these and other media myths. Nesrine Malik writes.
Rotherham was brought to a standstill when hundreds of English Defence League protesters marched through the town.
Hundreds of people from the EDL marched through the town centre between 1pm and 3pm on Saturday, with another large group from Unite Against Fascism holding a counter-protest at the same time.
A huge police presence of around 1,000 officers from forces around the country outnumbered both groups and ensured the march took place largely peacefully. There were no arrests and police said the event saw ‘minimal disruption and no disorder’.
Barriers were set up around the town centre, with the opposing groups cordoned off from each other. The groups traded insults across the barriers but were kept well apart.
EDL members chanted songs mentioning Islam and Allah as they marched. They gathered in All Saints Square to listen to speakers who insisted the organisation is ‘patriotic’, rather than racist.
Indignation about animal welfare is masking something a lot more insidious, argues Elizabeth Day:
We are in the grip of a moral panic about Islam. Muslims have become, like single mothers or benefit scroungers before them, a totemic symbol of our nastiest fears. As with all forms of prejudice, it is insidious, lurking in the shadows like noxious gas. But it is there if you look for it, if you are attuned to the vocabulary.
The term “takeover” is used again and again – in Birmingham, for instance, where 25 schools are currently being investigated amid allegations of a “hardline Islamist plot” even though the leader of Birmingham City Council is on record as saying he believes no such plot exists. It is there when newspapers run snidely worded articles on Muhammad being a popular boy’s name and it is there when fears are whipped up of a “Muslim majority” existing by 2050.
We should not conflate one issue (the provenance of our meat) with something much more unpleasant (our fear of otherness). Because for all the professed concern around what it means to eat halal meat, there is a deeper, more menacing undertow to the national debate. And that is the most unpalatable thing of all.
Two Muslim school inspectorates face axe
By Richard Kerbaj and Sian Griffiths
TWO Muslim school inspectorates face being closed down as Michael Gove, the education secretary, expands his investigation into alleged efforts by Islamists to take over secular schools.
The Department for Education (DfE) is understood to be investigating the Association of Muslim Schools UK (AMS-UK) and the Bridge Schools Inspectorate (BSI) amid claims that some of their inspectors support fundamentalist Islamic beliefs.
BSI, established in 2008, is approved by the DfE to inspect privately funded Muslim and Christian faith schools and AMS-UK is approved to inspect religious classes at private Islamic schools.
Letter to the office of Mayor Lutfur Rahman – 30th April 2014
Tower Hamlets Citizens Statement in response to Panorama programme on Tower Hamlets 31st March, and the decision by the Metropolitan Police on 17th April that there was ‘no case to answer’.
Statement made by Tower Hamlets Citizens well before electoral process for May 22nd; absolutely not intended as an endorsement of any candidate for Mayor.
A demonstration by the British National Party against speculative pre-application plans for a new mosque in Hemel Hempstead was countered by two other groups today.
The Unite Against Fascism group and a members of the local Muslim community staged oppositions to the protest in Barnacres Road, where it was suggested the former Nash Mills Methodist Church site could house a mosque in unofficial proposals leaked by Dacorum Borough Council last August.
The BNP presence was led by the party’s organiser for the eastern region Chris Livingstone, who is standing as a BNP candidate in the European elections on May 22.
A strong police presence was maintained throughout the demonstration, with each faction separated by barriers manned by officers, opposite and around The Denes shopping centre.
After Ava Vidal wrote an article about Islamophobic attacks on British women, she found herself on the receiving end of a heck of a lot of abuse. Here she shares the worst of it (mainly from young men) and explains what she’s learned.
Update: Not that her arguments have had much effect on her critics:
Nigel Farage’s attempt to hold his first rally in Scotland last night saw a couple of dozen Ukip members outnumbered by hordes of protesters.
Mr Farage’s launch of his Scottish European election campaign was dominated by 300 or so anti-Ukip campaigners who descended on Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange in an attempt to upstage the right-wing leader.
Bearing placards with slogans such as “Stand up to racism and fascism”, crowds gathered under Radical Independence Campaign banners.
Security was tight, after the last time Mr Farage made a public appearance in Edinburgh – when he locked himself inside the Canons’ Gait pub on the Royal Mile to avoid a protestors outside.
Some thoughtful observations by Yasir Qadhi on the media response to the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria.