Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the tragic case of Sobia Yousef, who stabbed herself to death in a Shipley supermarket, apparently in a state of depression following the loss of her daughter to a terminal illness. A link to the report was posted on the English Defence League’s Facebook page, where it provoked a series of disgusting comments along the lines of “Got no sympathy for immigrants or muslims. They bring it on themselves” and “at least there’s 1 less to breed”. EDL News has the details.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Clarion Fund’s new Islamophobic film, ‘Honor Diaries’
“The Clarion Fund (now the ‘Clarion Project–#1 news site on the threat of Islamic extremism’) rides again. After producing three classic Islamophobic films, Obsession, Third Jihad and Iranium, T-H-E-Y’R-E B-A-C-K with a new one, Honor Diaries. The new project focuses on honor killings and Islam’s supposed hatred of women. One has to ask why a film about the purported abuse of Muslim women was produced by Jews, and ones with a distinct ideological agenda at that.”
Richard Silverstein reviews the Clarion Fund’s latest exercise in Islam-bashing.
Newsnight’s ‘Muslim discussion’
On Monday evening BBC Newsnight broadcast a piece about the representation of British Muslims.
Bizarrely, the segment featured a 6-minute film by Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz, probably the least representative Muslim in the UK. Among the individuals Nawaz interviewed was the Iranian “ex-Muslim” Maryam Namazie, who is a leading figure in a crazed far-left sect called the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and even less representative of anyone than Nawaz himself is.
In the studio discussion that followed the film Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar took on Nawaz, although Nawaz’s disinclination to allow his critics to speak without trying to talk over them meant that the debate produced more heat than light.
The discussion was originally intended to include Myriam Francois-Cerrah, but for some reason the Newsnight producers decided against this. Over at the Huffington Post, she has outlined the criticisms she would have made of Maajid Nawaz, had she been present.
TN Tea Partiers freak out on TV reporter for covering their effort to block Muslim cemetery
Tempers flared in a confrontation between anti-Islamic activists and proponents of a plan to build an Islamic cemetery adjacent to a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN.
WSMV Channel 4 reported that supporters of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro asked the judge presiding over the hearing to recuse himself from today’s hearing about an injunction to stop the ICM’s expansion. The motion was granted, infuriating opponents to the cemetery plan.
Supporters of the Islamic Center said that Judge William Corlew lll ruled against them in the initial fight over whether to allow the mosque to be built at all in 2010. Federal judges overruled Corlew and construction proceeded. The Islamic Center and its attorney John Green didn’t believe it could get an impartial ruling from Corlew in the matter and he recused himself from the hearing.
“We’ll go to another judge because the Islamic center didn’t think Judge Corlew could give them a fair trial. I think it was sad today for all the people took off work to be here,” said Lou Ann Zelenik, a local Tea Party official and longtime opponent of the Islamic Center.
Green said that the “degree of hyperbole and misinformation” in the case has reached a point of true “absurdity.”
In the hallway outside the meeting room, mosque opponents turned nasty, jostling and shoving, then insulting a mosque supporter and ordering him not to film them. One elder gentleman accompanying Zelenik said that Islam is “not a religion” and told ICM supporters, “You’re the ones that’s lying.”
EDL Girls and Muslims
Last week BBC3 broadcast a documentary entitled “EDL Girls: Don’t Call Me Racist”, which followed a number of English Defence League “Angels” as they went about their lives whipping up hatred against the Muslim community. The subjects were treated sympathetically, and the violence and viciousness of the EDL were left unexamined, although it proved impossible to disguise their ignorance and bigotry. Over at the Tell Mama website, Aniqah Choudhary has a good article exposing the failings of the film.
‘My hell as a white Muslim living in Bristol’: Woman says she is racially abused every day
Assaults, insults, sly remarks and threats. All have been hurled at Kelly Ziane since she converted to Islam at the tender age of 18. She was not coerced, nor did she change her religion in order to marry – she did so because she believed it was the “right” faith for her.
For a white girl from Bedminster it was a bold and radical change to make, something she has been reminded of on numerous occasions since then. But the 36-year-old mum-of-three has not wavered from Islam – she says her skin has grown thicker and her resolve stronger, even when she felt forced to take her children out of their primary school because she was racially abused by another parent.
Kelly contacted the Bristol Post after we reported on a racially motivated assault in a Bedminster shop last week.
She said: “I saw the news the other night, about the Muslim women attacked at Poundstretcher in East Street, and there was a police officer saying racist incidents are very rare in Bristol. In my experience, that’s not the case at all.
“I converted to Islam 19 years ago. I grew up in Bedminster and over the last ten years it’s got a lot worse. I don’t have enough fingers to count on my hands the number of incidents. It gets to the stage where you don’t see the point in reporting everything that happens to you. I know I should, and I would urge everyone to report hate crimes, no matter how small.
“The insults used to bother me, but over the years you get used to blocking it out and carrying on with your life. If you let it get to you, you would end up feeling so hateful towards everyone. You have to have strength, otherwise you might end up thinking I can’t do this, it’s not for me.”
Kelly said the abuse has varied over the years, from being spat at by a man who tried to pull off her headdress (hijab) on her way home from work, to being called a “Paki” and a “raghead” by women in shops, to the ignorance of being asked whether she speaks English in everyday situations.
Bullet fired at Illinois mosque during prayer service
A bullet was reportedly fired through the dome of an Orland Park mosque Tuesday morning, damaging the building during a early morning prayer service.
No one was hurt when the single shot was fired through the dome of the mosque a few minutes after 6 a.m. during the Fajr, or break-of-dawn prayer, according to a statement from the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The bullet penetrated the dome and caused debris to fall and disrupt the service, according to the statement. About 40 people were in the prayer center at the time.
EDL call for march in defence of plans to build 300 student flats near Cambridge mosque
English Defence League (EDL) supporters are calling for a national demonstration in Cambridge after Muslims objected to student accommodation being built near a planned mosque. The call for a march or rally in the city comes after Muslims slammed proposals for more than 300 student flats in Mill Road – saying they instead want homes for families.
One supporter of the Cambridge branch posted on their Facebook page: “We do not want a super mosque in Cambridge. They are now demanding that students can’t live next to the new mosque, what’s next shut down Mill Road? Enough is enough. EDL please demo in Cambridge. We need you.”
Planet Fitness kicked Muslim woman out for wearing head scarf: lawsuit
A New Mexico woman is claiming Planet Fitness isn’t always ‘judgment free.’
The national budget-friendly gym chain promises members an atmosphere free of “gymtimidation.” But Tarainia McDaniel, a Muslim woman, says a gym in Albuquerque booted her out because she was wearing a head scarf. The woman reportedly told staff at the gym that the head scarf was an essential part of her Muslim faith. In return, she was told to go find a baseball cap.
Ten thousand join UN Anti-Racism Day demo
Around ten thousand people participated in the Stand Up to Racism & Fascism demonstration on Saturday 22 March 2014. The event coincided with UN Anti-Racism Day and was part of an international day of action with demonstrations taking place across the globe from New York, Athens to Sao Paulo.
The demonstration was vibrant, positive, diverse and lively with a range of different communities including EU migrants from Romania, Bulgaria and Poland to Roma, Gypsy, Kurdish, Muslim, Christian and other faith communities joining trade unions, anti-racist, anti-fascist and social movements. The event was a magnificent display of Britain’s diversity, multiculturalism and unity against racism and hatred.