ISLAMOPHOBIA: Anti Muslim Racism
Entries from April 1, 2005 - May 1, 2005
Suspicious US persecutes Muslim reverts
It’s not just US Muslims hailing from other origins that are taking the brunt of the now-suspicious society, but even those who were born and lived as full Americans then chose to revert to Islam are also feeling the unjust heat of persecution, for no reason other being "Muslim", according to a report by a major US daily.
Bob Pitt
Violent jihad – the essence of Islam?
"It's amazing that this kind of thing can be reported day after day after day and yet Islamic apologists and their allies still insist with a straight face that jihad is a spiritual struggle and that any military application of it is secondary, remote, and rare, if it exists at all. How did so many Muslims get a wrong idea of jihad? They don't answer that one, except to blame the bad old Wahhabis – which outrages the amply documented historical fact that jihad warfare has been waged from the beginning of Islam, and by the Prophet Muhammad himself, long before Wahhabism was even a gleam in Wahhab's eye."
Robert Spencer comments on the Cairo bombings.
Well, personally, I'd have thought it was Sayyid Qutb's ideas on jihad that provided the main inspiration for Islamic terrorist groups, particularly in Egypt. And what proportion of Muslims are Qutbists, exactly?
Muslims protest over terror laws
Hundreds of Muslims have taken part in marches through London and Blackburn to protest anti-terror legislation.
See also IHRC press release, 30 April 2005 and Islam Online, 30 April 2005
US conference on Islam
A two-day international conference on Islam opened today, Friday 29 April, in Madison, USA, with the objective of clearing stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam, and promoting dialogue and understanding among the different faiths.
Europe, radical Islam and secularism
Joe Katzman at Winds of Change expresses his admiration for Irshad Manji, who is quoted as saying: "I subscribe to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's point that 'Islamic terrorism, both in the Netherlands and abroad, is able to thrive because it is embedded in a wider circle of fellow Muslims'. This is a reality that most Western security experts have yet to grasp."
Winds of Change weblog, 28 April 2005
For the full Aspen Institute interview, see here
Arab Americans sue Denny's for discrimination
Seven men of Middle Eastern descent have sued a South Florida Denny's restaurant franchisee and one of its managers for $28 million, saying they were kicked out because of their ancestry and compared to Osama Bin Laden.
Film-maker defends Crusades epic
Kingdom of Heaven, a $130m (£69m) epic directed by British film-maker Sir Ridley Scott, has its US premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday. But it has already attracted criticism for its recreation of the 12th Century battle for Jerusalem between Christian crusaders and the Muslim leader Saladin.
The 'Islamophobes' that aren't
Stephen Schwartz complains that US Muslim organisations direct wild accusations of Islamophobia against people who are entirely blameless. Who are these persecuted innocents?
Official policy behind anti-Muslim cyber racism
The spiraling rate of cyber-racism against Dutch Muslims is the direct result of policies adopted by the government and politicians against the Muslim minority in the country, said a Muslim activist.
Hizb ut-Tahrir issues death threats against George Galloway (not)
An article in the new freesheet, the London Line, on Ulil Abshar-Abdalla of the Indonesian organisation Jaringan Islam Liberal, contains a major blooper. Apparently London is "home to Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of Islam's extreme voices ... its members recently issued death threats against Respect candidate George Galloway".