Category Archives: State Oppression

How phony fear of US jihadis obscures the real threat of far-right terror

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Since 9/11, American law enforcement has taken a disproportionate interest in American Muslims across the country, seeing a whole community as a national security threat, particularly in California and New York City. But here’s the thing: the facts that have been piling up ever since that date don’t support such suspicion. Not at all.

The numbers couldn’t be clearer: right-wing extremists have committed far more acts of political violence since 1990 than American. That law enforcement across the country hasn’t felt similarly compelled to infiltrate and watch over conservative Christian communities in the hopes of disrupting violent right-wing extremism confirms what American Muslims know in their bones: to be different is to be suspect.

Matthew Harwood at Comment is Free, 10 July 2013

Anti-Muslim acts on rise in France: CCIF annual report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CCIF rapport annuel 2013The Committee against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) says there has been a steady rise in anti-Muslim acts in France in recent years. The CCIF said in its annual report on Wednesday that the number of anti-Muslim acts jumped to 469 cases in 2012 from 298 in 2011, and 188 in 2010.

The report also denounced France’s civil service as “one of the principal vectors of Islamophobia” as it said bureaucrats often over-interpreted official secularist policies to incorrectly reject to serve Muslim women who wear Islamic headscarves.

According to the law, civil servants and girls who attend state schools are banned from wearing headscarves, but adults using a public service are not. However, some French officials refuse to conduct a civil wedding or issue documents if the woman concerned covers her hair, the report said.

The CCIF report added that anti-Muslim acts have increasingly targeted people, especially women, adding that assaults against mosques had approximately doubled in 2012 compared with the year before.

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Catalonia lifts veil on ‘burqa ban’ plans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Catalan Government has announced plans to control the wearing of burqas and other face-covering attire in public spaces “for reasons of public safety”.

The proposed rule will also control the public wearing of other garments including helmets and masks, Ramon Espadaler, Interior Minister for Catalonia, announced in the autonomous region’s parliament on Wednesday. A full debate will follow the introduction of the public safety motion designed to combat people concealing their faces in public places.

Espadaler argued that it had nothing to do with “religious issues”, according to Catalan daily La Vanguardia. “It is not a general prohibition. That would lead us nowhere and we would be infringing on fundamental rights,” he said. He added: “We want to be sensitive” and urged a “careful, subtle and clear debate” to find a “consensus”.

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Secret no-fly list blamed for American’s Bangkok nightmare

Posted on by Bob Pitt

U.S. citizen detainedA Southern California medical student is back home after spending nearly two weeks at a Bangkok airport when he says his name turned up on a no-fly list. Rehan Motiwala’s ordeal ended Friday when he was finally granted permission to fly out of Thailand and was greeted at Los Angeles International Airport with hugs from his family, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Civil rights groups sue NYPD over Muslim spying

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hina Shamsi announces civil rights suit
ACLU attorney Hina Shamsi announces the civil rights suit (Photo: Seth Freed Wessler)

The New York Police Department’s widespread spying programs directed at Muslims have undermined free worship by innocent people and should be declared unconstitutional, religious leaders and civil rights advocates said Tuesday after the filing of a federal lawsuit.

“Our mosque should be an open, religious and spiritual sanctuary, but NYPD spying has turned it into a place of suspicion and censorship,” Hamid Hassan Raza, an imam named as a plaintiff, told a rally outside police headquarters shortly after the suit was filed in federal court in Brooklyn.

The city’s legal department responded with a statement calling the intelligence-gathering an appropriate and legal tactic that helps keep the city safe from terrorism.

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Lawsuit on questioning Muslims at U.S. border can proceed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A lawsuit challenging the questioning of Muslims about their religious beliefs at the U.S. border can continue, a U.S. district court judge in Detroit ruled Tuesday.

The lawsuit names FBI Director Robert Mueller III, former acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner David Aguilar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, along with individual agents.

Judge Avern Cohn ruled that the plaintiffs in the case, four Muslim Americans who were all detained and questioned each time they crossed the U.S.-Canada border, had demonstrated that the agencies had a policy of questioning Muslim Americans entering the country, appeared to violate equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

The lawsuit alleges Muslim Americans were singled out and asked questions like which mosque they go to, how often they pray and who their religious leader is.

Politico, 13 June 2013

Police check of veiled woman sparks clashes near Paris

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse an angry crowd in a town on the outskirts of Paris where clashes erupted on Wednesday night after they questioned a woman wearing a full facial veil, which is banned in France.

A police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the trouble started when police stopped a 25-year-old woman in the centre of Argenteuil, a suburb north-west of Paris, who was wearing a full-face Muslim veil, or niqab.

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French burqa ban to be heard by the Grand Chamber ECtHR

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Chamber of the ECtHR to which the application in S.A.S. v France (No. 43835/11) was assigned has relinquished jurisdiction to the Grand Chamber, neither party having objected to relinquishment.

Under Law no. 2010-1192 of 11 October 2010, which came into force on 11 April 2011, it is forbidden in France to conceal one’s face in a public place: “Nul ne peut, dans l’espace public, porter une tenue destinée à dissimuler son visage”.

The applicant, a French national who is a practising Muslim, states that she wears the burqa in order to live according to her faith, her culture and her personal convictions. She also wears the niqab veil in public and in private, but not consistently; however, she wants to be able to wear it when she so chooses. She states that her purpose in wearing the burqa or the niqab is not to inconvenience others but to live according to her principles. She also asserts that neither her husband nor any other member of her family puts pressure on her to wear the burqa.

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CAIR lawsuit claims U.S. citizens detained, asked about religion

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Four Americans citizens are suing U.S. Customs, Border Protection and the FBI. They claim their First Amendment right were violated when they were detained. The government wants the lawsuit dismissed.

One of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit says he actually lost a business because getting across the border became such a time consuming hassle. Now the Council on American Islamic Relations is trying to change that with this lawsuit.

“There is an actual policy that’s in place that instructs these border authorities and FBI agents at the borders to ask a certain set of questions,” says CAIR attorney Lena Masri.

Questions that Masri says cross the line.

“Which mosque do you pray at? Do you pray your morning prayer at the mosque? Who is your religious leader? Are you Sunni or are you Shia?” Masri says. “They’re invasive, and they’re unconstitutional.”

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