Category Archives: State Oppression

Why Muslims in Birmingham feel like a ‘suspect’ community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ narrative, has revealed a new suspect community. Whether inadvertently or not, measures such as profiling, hard-line policing, stop and search and surveillance all have the potential to stigmatise an entire population, such as Irish people living in Britain during the conflict in Northern Ireland, and now the Muslim community in Britain.”

Imran Awan, deputy director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University, and co-editor of the study Extremism, Counter-terrorism and Policing, examines the impact of counter-terrorism legislation and other repressive measures on the Muslim community in Birmingham.

Huffington Post, 9 March 2014

Marine Le Pen calls for strict application of secularism … to defend France’s ‘Christian roots’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marine Le Pen Front NationalMarine Le Pen, whose party is riding a wave of anti-immigration and anti-Muslim voter sentiment around Europe, says it will cut public funds to religious groups in towns where it wins municipal elections this month.

Le Pen told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that secularism will be strictly applied in towns where her far-right National Front prevails on March 23 and 30, and that referendums will be held on major issues.

Le Pen, 45, praised the recent Swiss decision, in a referendum, to cap immigration, saying countries have an “inalienable right” to control their borders. Le Pen claimed the Swiss decision, passed by a razor-thin 50.3 percent “yes” vote, would have sailed through France with a 65 percent approval rating if such a referendum held here.

Le Pen – who took the helm from her father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2010 – has worked to remove the stigma that has kept the party out of mainstream politics by giving it a kinder, more politically correct face. But the National Front has forged ahead with its anti-immigrant stance, especially regarding Muslims.

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Hundreds protest outside police headquarters after Moazzam Begg charged

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Moazzam Begg protest Birmingham

Hundreds of people called for the release of former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg today in a protest outside West Midland Police’s headquarters. The demonstration was held just hours after 45-year-old Begg was charged with Syria-related terrorism offences at Westminster Magistrate’s Court. Around 500 people attended.

Police closed Snow Hill Queensway and part of Colmore Circus in the city centre as a safety precaution while protesters gathered outside police headquarters Lloyd House.

During the demonstration, a statement from Begg’s daughter was read out by Asim Qureshi, the Research Director for CAGE. “No six-year-old should remember their father being kidnapped and thrown into the back of a car. My father was released to our home safe in England without charge and without trial from Guantanamo by the time I was ten. He has lived in the home with the belief that England will keep us safe from unjust cruelty.

“Most would keep quiet after an experience like Guantanamo. My father never stayed silent. He fought to give a voice to the voiceless.

“To relive that moment once again four days ago was a nightmare I never hoped to encounter again. We are standing strong and we are ready for what may be a long and drawn out fight. My request to you all on behalf of my father and our family is do not let these issues rest and continue the struggle. Innocent until proven guilty.”

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Conservative MP calls for public veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim women should not be allowed to cover their faces in public as there is no formal requirement in their religion, a Conservative MP suggested today. Philip Hollobone was putting forward a Bill seeking to prohibit the wearing of face coverings, in particular the Muslim veil and balaclavas.

Presenting his Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill, the Kettering MP expressed regret that his campaign had “come to this”. Speaking during the Bill’s Second Reading, he said: “But there’s growing concern amongst my constituents and across the country about the increasing number of people who are going about in public places covering their faces and this is causing alarm and distress to many people in our country.” Mr Hollobone told the Commons that he had received correspondence from alarmed Britons from across the country, “who are concerned that in this respect we are heading in the wrong direction as a nation”.

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Federal judge tosses out legal challenge over NYPD surveillance of Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

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.

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Quebec’s politicians present spineless spectacle over ‘charter of values’ debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Liberal leader Philippe Couillard migrated from saying the Charter was unnecessary and would pass “over my dead body” all the way to stipulating what “must be included in the Charter” in order to “affirm [the] values of the host society.” (For some reason this includes a ban on public sector workers wearing niqabs and burkas because they cover the face, and chadors despite the fact they don’t.) Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault’s “moderate” compromise proposal would still ban teachers from wearing religious symbols. The hard-left Québec Solidaire is the acme of tolerance, drawing the line on such restrictions at judges and police officers — but it only has two MNAs and 8% support in the latest Léger Marketing poll, published Jan. 20. (After QS MNA Amir Khadir was recently photographed in discussion with Muslims wearing hijabs, the pro-labour, pro-sovereignty, pro-charter group SPQ Libre stridently accused him of cuddling up to fundamentalists.)

Chris Selley argues that even if the Parti Québécois gets its way and manages to impose the so-called secularism charter it may well face defiance over the actual implementation of the proposed bans. In the meantime, rival political parties of left and right have demonstrated a spineless failure to take a stand against the PQ on this issue.

National Post, 7 February 2014

Highly qualified Muslim immigrants face employment discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week, Quebec business interests sounded an alarm about the negative economic ramifications on the province of the proposed values charter. First the Conseil du patronat and then the head of a cable and media company warned that Bill 60 would discourage immigrants needed for economic growth.

This issue arose the first day of the charter hearings last month, when the leader of a Muslim organization talked about a crisis among families of highly qualified North Africans who are being shut out of jobs in their fields.

Samira Laouni, of Communication pour l’ouverture et le rapprochement interculturel, estimated that current unemployment in the North African community is around 30 per cent – even though overall unemployment in Montreal is roughly 8 per cent. Laouni contends that employment discrimination against Muslims started after 9/11 and deteriorated after the Herouxville incident in 2007, when the town council there passed a code of conduct for minorities targeting Muslims. She commented that since the proposal of the Quebec values charter, the employment situation for Muslims has worsened.

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Judge orders NYPD to begin turning over Muslim spying documents

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A federal judge has ordered New York City to begin a process to hand over investigative documents from the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims as part of a long-running lawsuit.

In an order issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Haight, Jr. said there was a “manifest” need for further legal discovery, which could bolster the plaintiffs’ claim that the NYPD has engaged in discriminatory surveillance of Muslims. “The Muslim community is concerned about the attentions being paid to it by the NYPD. That concern is natural and reasonable,” Haight found.

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Family at Charter hearings describes being ‘marked’ by Muslim customs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Claude PineaultA family’s presentation at the Charter of Values hearings in the National Assembly is getting a lot of attention online.

A YouTube video where the Pineault-Caron family spoke of their travels to Morocco and Turkey shows them concerned and dumbfounded by common Muslim customs.

Among these customs was taking off shoes upon entering a mosque and praying on all fours. “Taking off your shoes, what is that?” said Genevieve Caron. “Praying on all fours on a little carpet – what is that?” Caron said they complied because they had gone there to visit, but when she toured the mosque and saw a large curtain, with men praying on one side and women praying on the other, she remained “marked” by what she’s seen.

Claude Pineault [pictured] went on to describe his experience in a marketplace in Tangier, Morocco, where he said he was pickpocketed by two men wearing religious headgear. “Who was under those disguises? Women? Men? I don’t know,” he said, “What I do know is it’s unthinkable to permit people to walk around in Quebec – on the streets, in public places, anywhere besides houses and in private – wearing these disguises.”

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Judge rules in favor of Muslim woman on no-fly list

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rahinah Ibrahim (2)A Muslim woman now living in Malaysia struck a blow to the U.S. government’s “no-fly list” when a federal judge ruled Tuesday (Jan. 14) that the government violated her due process rights by putting her on the list without telling her why.

Muslims and civil rights advocates say the no-fly list disproportionately targets Muslims, and they hope the ruling will force the government to become more transparent about the highly secretive program.

“Justice has finally been done for an innocent woman who was wrongly ensnared in the government’s flawed watch listing system,” Elizabeth Pipkin, a lawyer representing Rahinah Ibrahim, said in a statement.

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