Category Archives: USA

Berkeley conference adopts resolution condemning Islamophobia in France

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berkeley Islamophobia conference 2013

Resolution of the 4th Annual International Conference on Islamophobia at UC-Berkeley in Support of French Muslims and Opposing Islamophobic Discourses in France

Whereas; for the last ten years, Islamophobia has increased in an alarming way all over the world.

Whereas; every year, the Annual International Conference on Islamophobia at UC-Berkeley confirms the global perverse and continuing problem of Islamophobia.

Whereas; France is one of the countries in the world where racism against Muslims has increased the most. In the name of secularism, women’s rights, the defense of Republican values, and the struggle against terrorism, Islamophobic discourses affect all spheres of the French society (politics, media, intellectual debates, economics, etc).

Whereas; the French state itself – the judicial, legislative and executive powers – from the higher to the bottom levels of the French public administration has become a promoter of Islamophobia. The March 2004 law against the veil is at the heart of public legitimization of discriminatory practices against Muslims.

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Fox News host smears Keith Ellison as ‘very dangerous’ and ‘the Muslim apologist in Congress’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bolling smears EllisonThe Five, Eric Bolling took a baseless swipe at Rep. Keith Ellison, calling him “very dangerous” and “the Muslim apologist in Congress.”

The only person who challenged that disgusting statement was Dana Perino. “Liberal” Bob Beckel didn’t say a word.

In fact, the clip opens with Beckel criticizing Ellison’s comments on the reactions in the aftermath of the Boston bombings. Beckel said, “Religion is politics… Sharia law itself is rooted in imams and clerics who teach this stuff. …He’s just flat wrong.

Bolling chimed in. “He’s also very dangerous. He’s kind of been like the Muslim apologist in Congress for a long time he raised his right hand and took the oath of office on the Koran… I think it’s time for profiling, don’t you?” Andrea Tantaros agreed, sneering, “Hans and Sven are not on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

NewsHounds, 24 April 2013

See also Media Matters for America, 23 April 2013

Islamophobia? It’s just ‘a figment of liberals’ imaginations’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, that’s what Brendan O’Neill argues at the Telegraph. He asserts that there is no sign of any mass outbreak of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States following the Boston bombing. But then, O’Neill is part of a political tendency – formerly the ultra-left Revolutionary Communist Party but now organised around the right-wing libertarian online magazine spiked, whose adherents have long argued that Islamophobia is a myth.

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Boston bombings: western governments reaping what they sow?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

According to US newspapers, the sole surviving suspect says the west’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan were major motivations for doing what he did. And without any outside, foreign assistance, according to US officials quoted in the Washington Post.

This fact will be played down or more likely ignored very largely by the government in Washington.

But it is important because it is a direct admission from the suspect himself that politics and western foreign policy are the driving forces for him rather than Islam, al-Qaeda, foreign connections and all the rest of it currently being pointed at in so many quarters despite the patent lack of meaningful evidence.

Alex Thompson’s View, 24 April 2013

See also “Bomber motivated by religion? Media regurgitates government propaganda”, Loonwatch, 24 April 2013

Update:  See Glenn Greenwald, “The same motive for anti-US ‘terrorism’ is cited over and over”, Guardian, 24 April 2013

Muslim garb gets Houston student singled out at festival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Worldfest

When a fire alarm went off Saturday at the Westchase Marriott during a seminar he was holding for Houston WorldFest, Hunter Todd decided to do some investigating.

After the 200 attendees filed back into the meeting room when the hotel gave an all-clear, Todd, the chief executive officer for the 46th annual WorldFest film festival, approached a woman sitting in the front of the room who was wearing traditional Muslim covering.

Todd asked to search her backpack. He said he was “super polite” to the woman, who opened the backpack. She had just a few water bottles inside. That’s when another attendee, University of Houston student Mike Rudd, confronted Todd and accused him of racially profiling the woman.

Rudd, a UH senior, described the woman as a fellow student at the university, where he is studying film and media production.

On his Facebook page, Rudd states he asked Todd why he had demanded to search the woman’s bag, and that Todd told him, “because she is Muslim and a suspicious character, now sit down.”

Houston Chronicle, 23 April 2013

See also “W[t]F? WorldFest founder/CEO Hunter Todd searches Fest attendee’s bag ‘because she is a Muslim'”, Houston Chronicle, 22 April 2013

CAIR decries inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric on Boston bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today decried the wave of inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric following the Boston Marathon bombings and the revelation that the suspects in the case are Muslim.

CAIR also noted that Americans of all faiths have rejected the call by a minority of extremists to stereotype Muslims and Islam.

While at least two anti-Muslim hate attacks were linked to the bombings, CAIR says it has not received any reports of violent bias-motivated incidents since the suspects were identified.

“We believe it is a positive sign that the vast majority of Americans have rejected the type of guilt by association advocated by extremist commentators seeking to exploit the tragic events in Boston to further their personal agendas,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “As a nation, we have learned to judge a person based on their actions, not on their faith or ethnicity.”

Awad said the recent spike in hate rhetoric comes in the wake of a coordinated long-term effort by Islamophobic activists and groups to demonize Islam and marginalize American Muslims.

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Fox News ‘liberal’: US should ‘cut off Muslim students from coming to this country’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bob Beckel cut off Muslim studentsFox News liberal Bob Beckel had some policy ideas about Muslims on Tuesday’s edition of “The Five.”

Beckel and his co-hosts were talking about the Boston bombing suspects, who are Muslim. The general consensus seemed to be that, by probing into their lives and their possible motives for the attacks, members of the media were avoiding the main issue.

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Boston suspect’s widow ‘ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Appearing on Fox News Republican talk show “Hannity” Monday night, right-wing columnist Ann Coulter said she’s sad that not only does she think the Boston bombing should shut down the nation’s immigration reform debate, she would like to see the alleged bomber’s widow in jail too, not for committing a crime but for “wearing a hijab.”

“I don’t care if she knew about this,” Coulter said. “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab. This immigration policy of us, you know, assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. They’re assimilating us into their culture. Did she get a clitorectomy too?”

Hannity seemed momentarily puzzled at the sudden citation of female genital mutilation, stammering his reply. “I, uh, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said before confidently adding: “But your point is well taken.”

Raw Story, 23 April 2013

See also Newshounds, 22 April 2013