Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Exeter University responds to EDL criticism ahead of national march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Exeter protest

The University of Exeter has responded to criticism from the English Defence League ahead of a national demonstration. The far-right EDL has used the university’s Islamic studies and Muslim research centres as justification for staging a national demo in the city.

EDL are expecting supporters to travel from around the country to a march which will take place on Saturday, November 16. A counter demo by a group called Exeter Together, aimed at showcasing the city’s diversity, is being held on the same day with hundreds of groups and individuals, one of the latest being Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw, signing up in support.

The full route of the march has not yet been made public, although the university said it is not expecting it to come near them.

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Canadian city pulls Geller ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Edmonton bus with Geller ad

EDMONTON — The city will re-examine the way controversial Edmonton Transit ads are approved after pulling anti-Muslim bus placards offering to help Muslim girls threatened with honour killing.

“The minute I found out about these ads, I called over to Charlie Stolte, our general manager of Edmonton Transit Service, and showed my displeasure,” Coun. Amarjeet Sohi said Tuesday. “They target one group, and in my mind they were very discriminatory and racist, and there’s no place for that kind of bigotry on city property.”

The posters on the back of five buses were taken down Tuesday, eight days after they went up.

They show a photo of young women above the caption “Muslim girls honor killed by their families. Is your family threatening you? Is there a fatwa on your head? We can help.” There’s a link to FightforFreedom.us, which warns about the “encroachment of Islam on western civilization.”

The site is operated by SIOA (Stop Islamization of America), which put up the same material in Tampa, Fla. It has also run ads on buses in New York, San Francisco and Miami aimed at people facing family threats who wanted to leave Islam, and fought plans to build a mosque near New York’s destroyed World Trade Center site.

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Torygraph gets slap on the wrist from PCC over inflammatory post-Woolwich article

Posted on by Bob Pitt

How to spot a terrorist5Pillarz reports on the outcome of complaints made to the Press Complaints Commission about an inflammatory article by Alan Judd (“How to spot a terrorist living in your neighbourhood“) published in the Daily Telegraph on 28 May, in the midst of the anti-Muslim backlash that followed the killing of Lee Rigby.

The only concession the PCC was prepared to make to complainants was to accept that Judd’s claim about most terrorists in the UK being Muslims was inaccurate. The Telegraph has therefore added the following clarification: “When this article was first posted it said that the great majority of terrorists have been Muslim males aged 16-34. The reference to terrorists should have read Islamic extremist terrorists in Britain. We have amended the article accordingly.”

As for objections to Judd’s disgraceful list of telltale signs of incipient terrorism among Muslims (including “a sudden ostentatious insistence on religious ritual, especially in a secular context”), which targeted whole swathes of the Muslim community, the PCC rejected these complaints.

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Sydney Islamic bookshop shuts, blaming extremism ‘lies’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al Risalah Islamic BookstoreAfter being accused of being an extremist and secretive organisation, the Al Risalah Islamic Bookstore in Bankstown, which has found itself at the centre of a media storm in the past year, has shut down.

The closure of the business has been blamed on a vendetta against the bookshop by some community members and alleged ”defamatory” statements made in the media about the store and its patrons.

Lawyer Zali Burrows, acting on behalf of the manager of the bookstore, Wisam Haddad, and three others, has filed a defamation action against Nationwide News, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph, over its coverage of the Muslim riots in the city last year.

”Sex used to sell; these days it’s Muslims and terrorists,” she said. ”My clients are taking a stand against irresponsible media that promote religious intolerance and discrimination that often leaves a carnage of reputations in its wake.”

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Interfaith prayers at Delaware Islamic Center as 3 teens charged in vandalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Society of Delaware vandalism (2)Three 16-year-old boys were arrested and charged Monday evening in last week’s vandalism at the Islamic Center of Delaware in Ogletown, state police said Monday night.

Word of the arrests surfaced as Delaware residents of many faiths gathered for a prayer service at the Islamic Society’s multi-purpose hall in a show of community solidarity.

The president of the Islamic Society of Delaware said the incident showed the power of a community to push back against intolerance. “We can make our town … our state … a better place,” Mahamed Allimulla said to a crowd of more than 150 people that filled every seat in the Islamic Society of Delaware hall.

Among them were Jews, Christians and Sikhs who spoke to the crowd. They each said they value interfaith efforts in Delaware, and that the incident would spark renewed commitment to teaching the community about religious tolerance.

The damage was discovered Friday morning as members arrived at the mosque on Salem Church Road. The main sign identifying the Islamic Society of Delaware was knocked down, a digital sign was damaged with rocks and a white picket fence was broken into pieces, with a cross made of some broken fencing.

Although a makeshift cross was part of the vandals’ work, police did not add a hate crime to the charges leveled Monday. Each of the three youths was charged with felony criminal mischief resulting in damage of more than $5,000, and each was charged with second-degree conspiracy, Sgt. Paul G. Shavack said.

Authorities did not consider the crude construction of a cross – typically considered a Christian symbol – to be proof that the incident was an anti-Islamic or religion-motivated vandalism spree, he said. “We have no evidence that it was a hate crime,” Shavack said.

“After a thorough and comprehensive joint investigation by the Delaware State Police and FBI,” he said, “there was no evidence to suggest that this act of vandalism was directed, targeted or focused on the Islamic Society of Delaware or the Islamic community.” Rather than a hate crime, Shavack said, “it was a random act of stupidity by teenagers.”

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Bosses and landlords constantly snub Muslims for jobs and homes says BBC probe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bosses and landlords are turning away Muslims, an undercover probe has found.

Two white reporters were secretly filmed applying for jobs and flats – one called Ian in western dress and another as “Moham­mad” wearing Islamic styles.

Of 40 jobs ranging from newspaper delivery to shop manager Ian got 13 interviews and Mohammad only three. Vacancies he was told were “already taken” were available to his colleague. Ian was offered five flat tenancies out of 10 and Mohammad only two.

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Emerson’s ‘Jihad in America’ film panned

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jihad in America The Grand Deception“Resembling the anti-Communist, red-baiting films of the 1950s, Jihad in America: The Grand Deception effectively sums up its intentions with its title. This documentary co-directed by Rachel Milton and Steve Emerson (the latter is the executive director of the organization Investigative Project on Terrorism) is a broad indictment of Islam, seemingly implicating every person of that faith as a potential violent jihadist determined to destroy America.”

The Hollywood Reporter isn’t greatly impressed by Steve Emerson’s witch-hunting film.

Vandalism at Islamic Society of Delaware

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Society of Delaware vandalism

Worshippers making their way to morning prayer found the entryway to the Islamic Center of Delaware vandalized.

The fences to their driveway had been torn down, a wooden sign had been knocked to the ground and an electronic sign was damaged with rocks and possibly mud tossed at it. A cross was fashioned from the debris and placed on the electric sign along Salem Church Road near Newark.

“This is very hard. This is very shocking for us,” said Mahamed Allimulla, president of the Islamic Society of Delaware. “We’re just trying to realize why this happened.”

Allimulla said the damage was done sometime between midnight and 5:30 a.m. today. State police were out investigating the damage this morning. Allimulla said he would be contacting federal authorities as well.

Although police have not commented on the incident, Allimulla said he believes this to be a hate crime and wondered if the people who did the damage had been casing the organization, since Friday is the day of Jumma prayer, drawing about 1,000 people for the afternoon service.

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Muslims real target of charter, law prof. says

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MONTREAL — Muslims are the real target of the proposed charter of Quebec values, while kippot and turbans are “collateral damage” in the provincial government’s plan to eliminate religious symbols from the public service, a McGill University law professor says.

Speaking Oct. 20 at a panel discussion on the issue at Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Daniel Weinstock said Islamophobia is “the elephant in the room” in the push to secularize Quebec.

“We are not at the centre [of this debate], but as Jews, according to our ethical tradition, we have to stand up resolutely for our Muslim brothers and sisters,” Weinstock said, receiving widespread applause.

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