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Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
FIFA lifts ban on head covers
Football’s world governing body FIFA has authorised the wearing of head covers for religious purposes during matches.
That will allow female Muslim players who wear a hijab in everyday life to cover their heads during matches as well. FIFA added that male players will also be authorised to do so following a request from the Sikh community in Canada.
“It was decided that female players can cover their heads to play,” said FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke at a meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the sport’s lawmakers, in Zurich.
“It was decided that male players can play with head cover too,” he said, although they will not be the same as those worn day to day. “It will be a basic head cover and the colour should be the same as the team jersey.”
CAIR-AZ condemns ADL’s stereotyping of Muslims in Bill 1062 debate
The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-AZ) today called on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to apologize for stereotypical statements made about Muslims during recent debate over Arizona Senate Bill 1062, which would have shielded businesses from lawsuits if employees acted on religious beliefs to discriminate against customers.
In testimony before a state Senate committee the ADL’s assistant regional director posed a scenario in which, “A Muslim-owned cab company might refuse to drive passengers to a Hindu temple.”
“It is unconscionable that a group purporting to defend civil rights would resort to religious bigotry to promote its political agenda,” said CAIR-AZ Board Chair Imraan Siddiqi. “The introduction of this stereotypical scenario gave way to the narrative that Muslims are in some way serial abusers of ‘religious freedom based denials of service,’ which is completely baseless.”
Siddiqi noted that Muslims, like the majority of other Arizonans, believe that those serving the public must treat all customers equally, or be prepared to seek another line of work.
Kingston students become fifth to officially condemn ‘Student Rights’ group
Kingston university students passed a motion against the Henry Jackson Society front group ‘Student Rights’ last night at their annual ‘Big Student Meeting’.
The SU becomes the fifth in the country to formally condemn the activities of the group, following motions at four University of London institutions: LSE, Goldsmiths, UCL and Birkbeck.
Students at the meeting who support the ‘Real Student Rights’ campaign said the Vice Chancellor of the university was also in attendance and witnessed students vote unanimously in favour of the motion.
CAIR asks Florida university to cancel event featuring Jonathan Matusitz
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has asked Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to call off an event featuring UCF Professor Jonathan Matusitz that is scheduled for next week.
The group sent a letter today to Embry-Riddle’s president urging him to withdraw the invitation to have Matusitz speak about a book he wrote on terrorism. Matusitz, an associate professor at University of Central Florida, has been accused of promoting anti-Muslim bigotry.
“We were shocked to learn that Dr. Matusitz would be a part of Embry-Riddle’s 2014 President’s Speaker Series …,” wrote Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of the council’s Florida chapter. “Dr. Matusitz has an extensive history of vilifying Islam and Muslims.”
A spokesman for Embry-Riddle said the university has invited Shibly and other members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to participate in the event as audience members.
Belgian Jewish organisation condemns ‘obsession with the Muslim headscarf’
CEJI: “Obsession with headscarf works negatively on the integration of Muslim women”
Brussels, 26 February 2014.
CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe is deeply troubled by escalating racism and racial tensions in Belgium, highlighted in reports issued this week by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) (1) and by the Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism submitted to the United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination (CERD) (2).
CEJI is deeply concerned about the division within the Belgian anti-racism movement today on the Muslim headscarf. CEJI believes strongly in the fundamental right of religious freedom and sees more harm than good coming out of this obsession with the Muslim headscarf. Not only has this obsession had negative consequences on the integration of Muslim women in the education and employment system of Belgium, but it also has had a serious impact on the freedom of Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and even Christians to wear religio-cultural dress and symbols. Neutrality is defined only by what is considered an acceptable norm, and we are challenged to re-consider how to make our public space effectively inclusive. Social coercion to wear or not to wear the headscarf is counterproductive to the goal of women’s emancipation.
U.S. hate groups in decline as radical ideas go mainstream
The number of radical-right hate and militia-type “patriot” groups in the United States, which peaked in 2012 after four years of explosive growth, fell significantly last year due in part to the mainstreaming of right-wing ideas, a civil rights group said Tuesday.
The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, which tallied 939 active hate groups and 1,096 patriot groups in 2013, for a total of 2,035, which the organization said remained a relatively high number historically. It represented a 14 percent decline over the 2,367 groups counted in 2012.
The drop came as mainstream politicians began co-opting more right-wing ideas into state legislation which face constitutional challenges, Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center, said in a teleconference with reporters.
Anti-mosque graffiti in Dordogne
Sud Ouest reports that on Saturday night graffiti protesting against a planning application for a Muslim prayer room and community centre was sprayed on a number of buildings in the Dordogne commune Montpon-Ménestérol.
A petition opposing the plan had previously been circulated, while more aggressive critics denounced a Muslim place of worship as an “invasion” and demanded that a church should be built instead.
The graffiti featured the sarcastic slogan “Vive la mosquée, merci Lotterie”. The reference is to the mayor of Montpon-Ménestérol, Jean-Paul Lotterie, who has refused to be intimidated by the Islamophobic campaign, stating: “Nobody will ever say that I am anti-Muslim. I would rather lose an election than my soul.”
Lotterie has lodged a complaint with the police. He condemned the “racist nature” of the graffiti and said that “the immense majority of the people of Montpon” reject such actions.
Federal judge tosses out legal challenge over NYPD surveillance of Muslims
The first legal challenge to the New York police department’s blanket surveillance of Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been dismissed by a federal judge in New Jersey in a ruling that lawyers acting for the plaintiffs have described as preposterous and dangerous.
Judge William Martini, sitting in the US district court for the district of New Jersey, threw out a lawsuit brought by eight Muslim individuals and local businesses who alleged their constitutional rights were violated when the NYPD’s mass surveillance was based on religious affiliation alone. The legal action was the first of its type flowing from the secret NYPD project to map and monitor Muslim communities across the east coast that was exposed by a Pulitzer prize-winning series of articles in 2011 by the Associated Press.
In his judgment, released on Thursday, Martini dismisses the complaint made by the plaintiffs that they had been targeted for police monitoring solely because of their religion. He writes: “The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.”
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights that represented the plaintiffs along with attorneys from the civil rights group Muslim Advocates, said that the ruling was dangerous. He equated it with the now widely discredited US supreme court ruling in 1944, Korematsu v United States, that declared constitutional the blanket internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war.
“The dangerous part is that Martini’s ruling sets no limits on racial profiling of Muslims. You don’t have to deeply unpack this to see that it is wrong,” Azmy said.
ENGAGE action alert over Littlejohn article
See also “British Muslims condemn anti-Muslim bigotry printed in the Daily Mail”, Muslim Council of Britain press release, 20 February 2014
And Ryan Erfani-Ghettani, “The building bricks of a rightwing press onslaught”, IRR News, 20 February 2014