Islamophobia Watch

PATERSON, N.J. — For a dozen years, Mohammad Qatanani has supported the members of the Islamic Center of Passaic County by speaking at funerals, hashing out ethical dilemmas and sometimes opening his home to domestic-violence victims at a moment’s notice.

But now Dr. Qatanani, 44, the imam of the mosque here, requires the support of the members: he has been barred by federal immigration authorities from renewing his driver's license, and must call on friends to ferry him to hospitals for visits with the sick among his flock. There are fund-raisers for him at the mosque. And after Friday prayers, the hugs the men give him seem to last extra long.

The imam, who is Palestinian, and most of his family face deportation because of his detention in Israel decades ago and questions about whether he lied about it on his application for permanent residency, which he made in 1999 and which was recently denied.

Immigrant advocate groups said that other imams, in Pittsburgh, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and Dearborn, Mich., are also facing possible deportation, which Kareem W. Shora, executive director of the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called a major concern. "We don't know if it’s policy-driven or not," he said. "Is there a pattern? Is it very prevalent? Yes."

Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, an advocacy group based in Denville, N.J., said of Imam Qatanani: "If you want to deport him, what sort of person do you want to keep in this country?"

Rabbi David Senter of Congregation Beth Shalom in Pompton Lakes called the imam "the most moderate individual you could imagine." Rabbi Senter, who has publicly praised Imam Qatanani's work on behalf of interfaith understanding, said he deserves due process. "My fear is, because of Sept. 11 and the wide brush we've been willing to paint Muslims with, he will not get that."

New York Times, 24 April 2008

Police chiefs ordered binmen to act as spies by sifting through rubbish to look for pamphlets produced by Islamic terror groups. Town halls responsible for areas with large Muslim populations were summoned to London and told to get their refuse collectors to search bins for discarded documents or material that might identify and incriminate Islamic extremists. But the bin-searching instruction was deemed so potentially damaging to community relations that councils simply refused to carry out any sort of spying.

Bradford City Council leader Kris Hopkins said: "We were asked to snoop on our own residents by getting our binmen to rummage around people's rubbish. But the idea that our binmen should be rooting around a wheelie bin to see if they can spot dodgy bits of paper or funny wires is ridiculous. Our binmen aren't there to act like the secret police. They're there to empty our bins. It goes without saying that if any of our staff spotted something illegal they'd call the police. But our job is to bring communities together, to help our communities live side by side, not do the dirty work for MI5."

Mail on Sunday, 19 April 2008

Brian Feeney on the British government's proposal to extend detention of terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days.

Irish News, 16 April 2008

Tower Hamlets councilor Oliur Rahman was detained at Heathrow airport today (Wednesday) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He has expressed outrage over the incident.

Cllr Rahman was held for more than 30 minutes and quizzed by Special Branch about why he had attended the sixth Cairo international anti-war conference in Egypt. Cllr Rahman told the Advertiser from Heathrow: "A man standing behind the desk at immigration control asked to see my passport and said he was a police officer. He asked why I'd been in Cairo, how long I'd been there, what contacts I'd made and where I lived. I asked what was the purpose of these questions and he said he was from Special Branch and had the right to ask under the Terrorism Act."

"I'm really shaken about it," he continued. "They didn't stop anyone else from that flight and I'm sure it was because of the colour of my skin and because I'm a Muslim." He is writing a letter of complaint to the Met Police.

East London Advertiser, 2 April 2008

A Muslim Chaplain from Liverpool claims "discriminatory" interrogation is happening on a regular basis at Manchester Airport. Adam Kelwick, from Wavertree, says he was stopped and questioned for two hours on arrival at the airport as he returned from a Middle Eastern business trip on Wednesday, the third time this has happened since the introduction of the Terrorism Act in 2006. He claims officials searched his lap top, phone, asked for his bank account pin number and put a string of questions to him.

The chaplain, who carries out charity work in the city to aid social cohesion, claims other friends and colleagues have complained about similar experiences. He said:

"Some people I know would rather tolerate the congestion of the airports in London, rather than put up with the unreasonable questioning and discrimination at Manchester. I was ordered to remove all my items from my baggage piece by piece and was then taken into a small room and asked questions like 'what is your mother's date of birth?' and 'what school did you go to?'.

"It has happened a few times before at the airport but never when travelling from Liverpool or London. It is ironic, I was travelling in traditional Muslim dress, but an international terrorist isn't going to fly around the world with a beard and a gown on. It is discriminatory and unfair. The first time it happens you think 'OK, this is helping to deal with terrorism' so I don't mind, but for it to happen on a regular basis is unnecessary."

Liverpool Daily Post, 22 March 2008

Inayat Bunglawala questions the conviction of the so-called paintball "terrorists".

Comment is Free, 29 February 2008

Jordan Shilton examines the resurgence of the Danish cartoons controversy.

World Wide Socialist Web Site, 28 February 2008

Former SAS soldier Ben Griffin revealed yesterday that British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were "deeply involved" in US torture flights.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, British special forces, operating in a joint US/UK task force, have been responsible for the detention of "hundreds, if not thousands" of individuals, he said. These detainees have since ended up in Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay and other secret CIA locations.

"During my time as member of the US/UK task force, three of my colleagues witnessed a brutal interrogation in which near-drowning and electric cattle prods were used," Mr Griffin told a Stop the War Coalition press conference. "The special forces' policy of detention and not arrest was regarded as a clumsy legal tool used to distance British soldiers from the whole process. But my colleagues and I were in no doubt that anyone we detained, including non-combatants, would subsequently be tortured."

Last week, Foreign Secretary David Miliband admitted to MPs that two US rendition flights transporting terror suspects had landed on British soil. But Mr Griffin said that this "pales into insignificance" to the actions of British forces, adding: "For the government to claim that they only became aware of the use of British territory this week is disingenuous."

Morning Star, 26 February 2008

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The United Nations says Britain's war on terror has left Muslims feeling alienated in a nation that is no longer predominantly Christian.

The UN is questioning the treatment of Muslims living in Britain, 80 percent of whom feel discriminated against, especially with police having permission to search people without having to show reasonable suspicion. From 2004 to 2006, there has been an 84 percent increase in searches of people with 'Asian appearance', compared to an increase of 24 percent for white people. This has left Britons from Asian backgrounds feeling alienated in a country consisting of a large non-white population, considering themselves essentially British and entitled to equal treatment from authority figures.

Also under question is the role and privileges of the Church of England. A 23-page UN report shows two-thirds of the British people admit to no religious affiliation, unlike the UK's 2001 National Census which claimed nearly 72 percent of the population to be Christian. Based on this report, the UN is calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England, stating it no longer reflected "the religious demography of the country and the rising proportion of other Christian denominations".

Press TV, 24 February 2008

Foreign Secretary David Miliband made a forced apology yesterday after admitting that an air base on the British territory of Diego Garcia was used by CIA torture flights.

Mr Miliband's belated admission stood in stark contrast to new Labour's previous claims that the US had not used British territory or airspace for "rendition" flights.

In the face of credible evidence gathered by human rights organisations, former foreign secretary Jack Straw and former prime minister Tony Blair both flatly denied that rendition flights had touched down on British soil.

In a Commons statement, Mr Miliband told MPs that he was "very sorry" that previous information given by ministers had been "incorrect."

Details of the two flights, which stopped to refuel at the Indian Ocean island in 2002, were only passed to the government by US authorities last week.

Mr Miliband claimed that this was due to an "administration error" on the part of the US.

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