Think Progress has the details.
Category Archives: State Oppression
Cameron’s Munich speech marks securitisation of race policy
In delivering his speech, Cameron clearly had in his sights a domestic audience, wooing the Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which, in calling for the disciplining of Muslim communities, have promoted a crude British nationalism based on uncritical support for the armed services and military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Only the day before, the Daily Mail had carried a feature attacking two Birmingham Muslim councillors, Salma Yaqoob and Mohammed Ishtiaq, for refusing to participate in a standing ovation for a British soldier awarded the George Cross for bravery in Afghanistan.)
But Cameron’s speech was also intended to send a clear signal to the United States and the European center-Right that Britain would no longer pursue different ethnic minority and race policies from its European counterparts. In particular, Cameron was showing his support for Angela Merkel and her German Christian Democrat party’s idea that security and cohesion are brought about not through integration and pluralism, but through monoculturalism and assimilation into the dominant Leitkultur (lead culture).
Cameron’s speech was reported as a trailer for the up-and-coming government counter-terrorism review and Lord Carlile’s review of the Prevent strategy. And it is here that Cameron indicated to a German security audience support for the German intelligence services’ approach to the compartmentalisng of Muslim organisations into ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’, with greater surveillance of those deemed ‘illegitimate’. In his speech, Cameron promised that the British government would no longer fund or share platforms with Muslim organisations that, while non-violent, were also a part of the problem because they belonged to a ‘spectrum’ of Islamism. While those who openly support terrorism are at the ‘furthest end’ of this spectrum, it also includes many Muslims who accept ‘various parts of the extremist world view’ including ‘real hostility towards western democracy and liberal values’.
In this, what should be feared is that Cameron is indicating that the government’s review of counter-terrorism policy has been greatly influenced by the approach taken by the German intelligence services (Verfassungsschutz) which has at its base a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate Muslim organisations coupled with the most widespread system of religious profiling in Europe.
Liz Fekete analyses Cameron’s Munich speech.
Cameron’s counter-productive counter-terrorism
“Although he has not named names, it seems clear that some of the most effective opponents of al-Qaida influence in Muslim communities in the UK are set to be reclassified as extremist and subversive.”
Bob Lambert replies to David Cameron.
Italian town adopts Lega Nord proposal to ban veil
A small town in Italy has banned women from wearing burqas and face veils, making it the first time such a law has been passed in the country. Sesto San Giovanni, a small town on the edge of Milan, has made national headlines after it decided to ban women from wearing burqas.
Chabani Ibrahim of the town’s Islamic Center says he has no idea why the local authorities decided to agree to the ban. “We have real concerns about the position of this motion in the town council’s priorities as there are a lot of other problems that need solving in this town,” he told Press TV.
“There are only a handful of women who wear burqa and you hardly ever see them on streets. At the same time, there are nearly 6,000 Muslims who don’t have a descent place to practice their faith on a daily basis,” he added.
The idea was originally proposed by a female councillor from the far-right Northern League Party. Alessandra Tabacco argued that there is a law in Italy that says people should identify themselves since it is an issue of security.
Those most affected by the decision feel that it is an unfair and unnecessary attack on their freedom of expression. “It is our religion. Everyone should respect it in the same way that we are respecting other people’s faiths,” a Muslim woman said.
Another German state considers veil ban for civil servants
The German state of Lower Saxony is considering banning the Islamic full-face veil for civil servants, its interior minister said Thursday, after a neighbouring region said it would take similar measures. “The burqa has no place in public service,” Uwe Schuenemann told the Neue Presse regional daily. “Lower Saxony is currently looking at legal regulations for employees and officials.”
On Wednesday, the western state of Hesse prohibited the wearing of the veil for civil servants, the first of Germany’s 16 states to enact such a regulation. “Civil service employees and those who come into contact with citizens should not be veiled,” said Hesse’s interior minister Boris Rhein in a statement.
German state imposes veil ban on civil servants
Civil servants in the central German state of Hesse are now forbidden from wearing burqas. The announcement came Wednesday after a city employee in Frankfurt communicated that she would not reveal her face when she returned from maternity leave.
“Civil servants may not be veiled, especially those who have contact with citizens,” Hesse’s Interior Minister Boris Rhein said Wednesday after the woman’s attorney and the city agreed she would not return to work on Tuesday and would remain home until the situation was sorted out. Rhein added that, while a headscarf was allowed, the donning of a burqa could be perceived as “hostile to Western values.”
The city of Frankfurt had told the mother of four – who previously did not wear a burqa to work – that she must choose between the veil and her job. City staff department head Markus Frank justified the decision, saying “our employees show their faces. That is a basic requirement for building trust.”
Die Linke politician faces jail for insulting Sarrazin
A regional politician has been fined €1,500 or 50 days in jail for allegedly calling Thilo Sarrazin, the author of a controversial book criticizing Muslim immigrants, an “ass.”
Helmut Manz, 43, the deputy spokesman of the opposition Left Party in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was overheard uttering the word at a demonstration outside a convention hall in the city of Dortmund where Sarrazin was speaking. Sarrazin filed a legal complaint when he heard about the insult.
Brussels: court acquits Muslim woman charged with wearing veil
A court in the Brussels borough of Etterbeek has acquitted a Muslim woman who was taken to court for wearing the niqab, local media reports said today. The magistrate ruled that a fine for wearing the niqab was not in proportion to the offence.
Last year Belgium’s lower house of parliament passed a legislation banning the full veil, or burqa, but because of the current political crisis in the country the bill is yet to go before the Senate for its approval.
It is estimated that only about 30 Muslim women wear the burqa in Belgium which has a population of a about 450,000 Muslims.
See also “We need a law to ban the burqa”, Islam in Europe, 31 January 2011
Update: See “Local ‘burqa ban’ violates human rights (according to Belgian judge)”, Strasbourg Observers, 16 February 2011
Flying while Muslim – passenger thrown off plane in Denmark for reading about Islam
Islam in Europe reports that the Scandinavian airline SAS removed Joakim Johansson, a Swedish convert to Islam, from a plane at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport because he was reading manuscripts about Islam. After being interrogated by police and held in a cell for several hours, Johansson was eventually allowed to board another plane and continue his flight to London. Johansson commented: “I feel terrible that they generalise like this. They seem to think that a religious Muslim is automatically a terrorist.”
Zakir Naik to address Oxford Union by satellite
An Indian Muslim scholar who is banned from entering Britain is to address the Oxford Union via satellite link, in a direct challenge to the home secretary, Theresa May.
Zakir Naik, who was placed under an exclusion order last summer, has been invited by the debating society to take part in a discussion in two weeks’ time on the theme of religious tolerance.
The invitation has angered May and could provide an awkward dilemma for the Conservative party. The former shadow home secretary Chris Grayling promised to ban the use of satellite technology to broadcast the views of excluded Islamist preachers based abroad.
Naik, who founded the global satellite channel Peace TV, was the first Muslim preacher to be banned by the coalition government when he was stopped from entering the country in June.
The Mumbai-based television evangelist was invited weeks ago to take part in the debate with academics and students. Thames Valley police have been advising the union on how to conduct the meeting.
Naik told the Guardian he was delighted by the invitation. “This gives me the perfect opportunity to show the British people my true views rather than the distorted and false grounds cited by the home secretary,” he said.
He has argued that he is a moderate and is currently involved in an appeal court action to have the order lifted.
Peace TV has a huge following in the Muslim districts of Mumbai, Naik’s native city. Naik has been named as the third most popular spiritual guru in India.
In a letter highlighting the reasons for his exclusion, May quoted Naik’s assertion that “all Muslims should be terrorists” as one example of his unreasonable behaviour. He claims the statement was taken out of context and that he was referring about the right to “terrorise” thieves.
Another passage quoted by the home secretary is said to come from a 2006 lecture, in which Naik said of Osama bin Laden: “If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him.” Naik claims the lecture was given in 1998, before the September 11 attacks.
The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism committee, called for the government to halt the broadcast. “The coalition government should pursue this with vigour. Naik is a subversive pest and his words not be allowed to reach the vulnerable and the impressionable,” he said.