Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Tennessee Lieutenant Governor says Islam advocates violence and Muslims refuse to condemn 9/11 hijackers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ron RamseyLt. Gov. Ron Ramsey says in an interview with the student journalism program at Middle Tennessee State University that the Sept. 11 hijackers were members of a cult and he doesn’t think other Muslims are willing to call them that.

Ramsey’s comments, posted on YouTube, has earned the Republican speaker of the state Senate a rebuke from the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Responding to a question about the Rutherford County mosque controversy, Ramsey said that although “you can’t lump everybody into one bucket, at the same time there is an aspect of the Muslim religion that does advocate violence.”

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Geller: Oppose resolution condemning ethnic cleansing in Burma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pamela Geller is telling her fellow anti-Muslim activists to convince Congress to reject a resolution “urging the Government of Burma to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and respect internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma.”

The Rohingya minority have faced vicious persecution in Burma, but Geller accuses them of “waging jihad in Burma.”

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‘I am a Muslim, not a terrorist’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The long-awaited report from the UK Government’s Extremism Taskforce was published yesterday. It contains key recommendations regarding online extremism and countering institutions whereby people can become vulnerable to radicalisation. The recommendations include new ASBO-like Terror and Extremist Behaviour Orders: methods that aim to cause shock, rather than help eradicate the real causes of extremism. And with the report referencing previous discredited strategies, it risks further stigmatising Muslim communities.”

Imran Awan, deputy director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University, and co-author of the study Extremism, Counter-terrorism and Policing, writes at Open Democracy, 5 December 2014

EDL protest outside Portsmouth mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL protest outside Jami mosque

Around 20 members of the English Defence League (EDL) protested outside the Jami mosque in Southsea last night.

Chanting and waving placards, one of which read “terrorists are being radicalised here”, the protestors said they feared terrorist attacks could be carried out in the city by men from Portsmouth who have gone to Syria to fight with al-Qaeda linked groups.

As reported in The News, young men from Southsea who worshipped at the mosque have gone to fight in the country. Their actions have been condemned by key members of the local Muslim community, including worshippers at the Jami mosque.

EDL members traded insults with a counter demonstration of around 20 people, who were stood next to the mosque, in Victoria Road North, with police present to prevent trouble. The counter demonstration was largely made up of Unite Against Fascism members who said they had come to defend the mosque and worshippers.

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Islamophobia on the Internet: Major new report exposes online hate targeting Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobia on the InternetThe Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI), an Australian charity dedicated to the growing problem of online hate, has announced the release of a major new report into the targeting of the Muslim community.

The report, Islamophobia on the Internet: The growth of online hate targeting Muslims, is now available to journalists and bloggers by request. Parts of the report are publicly available on the OHPI website, and the full report will be available on 10 December to mark International Human Rights Day.

The report examines anti-Muslim hate on Facebook and was produced by the OHPI in consultation with the Islamic Council of Victoria. More details here.

Signs of revolt mount as French universities reject secular charter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Université de MontréalQuebec’s largest university is panning the province’s secular charter as a useless measure, adding to signs of a growing revolt against the Parti Québécois’s controversial bill.

The French-language University of Montreal is challenging the very basis of the government’s argument for its legislation. When the minister responsible for the charter, Bernard Drainville, introduced it in September, he said it was meant to address a “crisis” over religious accommodations that had festered for years and created tensions in Quebec.

The U of M searched its human-resources files going back 20 years and found no incidents whatsoever involving conflicts over religious accommodations. Whatever minor incidents occurred were quickly settled by applying the university’s internal rules, a spokesman said.

The university decided at a meeting of faculty, student representatives and administrators on Monday that the government’s legislation serves no purpose.

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Trial begins in legal challenge to no-fly list

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rahinah Ibrahim (2)An eight-year legal odyssey by a Malaysian university professor to clear her name from the U.S. government’s no-fly list went to trial Monday in federal court in San Francisco.

Rahinah Ibrahim claims she was mistakenly placed on the list because of her national origin and Muslim faith. She has fought in court since her arrest at San Francisco International Airport in January 2005 to clear her name.

Several similar lawsuits are pending across the nation, but Ibrahim’s legal challenge appears to be the first to go to trial.

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Campaign launched against ‘witch-hunt’ of Muslim students by ‘Student Rights’ group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Students have launched a campaign against the pressure group ‘Student Rights’, which appears to have little or no connection to actual students – but does appear to be connected to a right wing think tank.

In the wake of the severe rise in anti-Muslim bigotry this year and with the second annual Islamophobia Awareness Month falling this November, the new counter-campaign, ‘Real Student Rights’, aims to challenge the dog whistle politics of Student Rights, which serves only to fuel the ever-more entrenched Islamophobia in Britain today.

Hilary Aked reports.

Ceasefire, 30 November 2013

Islamophobia in Russia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

"Русский марш - 2013" в Москве
Nationalist demonstration in Moscow last month

The election in August 2013 of Sergei Sobyanin, an ultranationalist, as mayor of Moscow has given racism in Russia a prominent official face. Then last week, the mayor stunned the world by announcing that Moscow was banning the construction of new mosques. The ban was one of the latest and clearest signs of the growing anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments in Russia.

The four existing mosques in Moscow are overcrowded, but Mayor Sobyanin declared that no new mosques would be built because “they are used by migrant workers,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. A new mosque is currently under construction, but there won’t be any more, the mayor said. He told the Russian daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, “No new building permits will be issued. I think that’s enough mosques for Moscow.”

There are an estimated 2 million Muslim residents in the city, but none of Moscow’s four existing mosques can hold more than 10,000 people. Worshippers frequently have to use the streets or wait for hours to enter the existing mosques, especially on Fridays and religious occasions.

Russian Muslim activists say that Russian authorities have long tried to prevent construction of new mosques, but this is the first clear ban in recent memory.

Although most pronounced in Moscow, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant racism is not confined to the capital city. According to the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, surveys show that xenophobia and other racist expressions are prevalent among 50 percent of Russians. Amnesty International has reported that racism in Russia was “out of control” and estimated the number of Russian neo-Nazis in the tens of thousands.

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