ISLAMOPHOBIA: Anti Muslim Racism
Entries from June 1, 2004 - July 1, 2004
British Press Unite in Hysteria Over Jilbab
"Well it seems that the 'fundamentalist threat' to British state education has been averted yet again. Last week's ruling against Shabina Begum's fight to wear the jilbab to school has brought shrieks of joy from all the usual suspects – liberal pundits and right-wing columnists alike ..."
Fareena Alam in the Times Educational Supplement, 25 June 2004.
Reproduced in Q NewsWinners of Islamophobia Awards 2004 announced
Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh said today: "It is with great sadness that we reveal this year's winners. Sadly the competition was extremely tough and we see no signs of this abating in the year to come."
Islamophobia pervades UK – report
Persistent and untackled Islamophobia in the UK could lead to 'time-bombs' of backlash and bitterness, according to a major report. Findings by a national commission into Islam in Britain found the aftermath of the 11 September attacks has made life more difficult for Muslims. It criticised public bodies for failing to address institutional Islamophobia.
Australian Muslim prayer hall site vandalized
The site of a controversial Muslim prayer hall was vandalized on Thursday with pigs’ heads skewered on stakes and pork offal smeared throughout the building.
Pipes and Abou el Fadl
"Daniel Pipes has just published an attack on the Islamic scholar Khaled Abou el Fadl. This attack, even by his standards, is despicable."
Bob Pitt
in Right Wing, USA, Resisting Islamophobia, Daniel Pipes
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Stealth Islamist: Khaled Abou El Fadl
"Which Muslims in the West support Islamism, which do not? Those who have Al-Qaeda connections or deal in terrorism are relatively easy to classify, once they are found out. The state has ways to investigate and punish illegal activities.... But what about individuals who apparently break no laws but promote an Islamist agenda in a legal fashion, sometimes from within the heart of the establishment?"
Daniel Pipes attacks Dr Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at UCLA and widely recognised as one of the most important and influential Islamic scholars today.
Spring 2004 issue of the Middle East Quarterly
Muslim pupil loses legal battle to wear jilbab
The high court rejects Shabina Begum's application for a judicial review.
Women vow to protect Muslim hijab
The international network Assembly for the Protection of Hijab, or
Pro-Hijab, was formed in response to headscarf bans in France and parts
of Germany.
Pro-Hijab aims to reverse bans already brought in and prevent more "abuses of democracy" being imposed.
"As Muslims we are proud of the hijab, we are not oppressed," said co-ordinator Abeer Pharaon.
The group, launched in London on Monday, wants to banish the
"negative sterotypical image of the hijab which lies at the root of
this discrimination" and to offer Muslim women a platform from which
they can speak out.
The group has the support of a number of prominent groups such as
the Muslim Association of Britain, National Assembly Against Racism,
the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe and human rights
group Liberty.
MEP Caroline Lucas, Fiona McTaggart MP, and George Galloway MP and London Mayor Ken Livingstone have also supported the founding of the campaign.
BNP election broadcast
On Friday 28th May 2004 the British National Party exercised their right to make a party political broadcast. Against a backdrop of Muslim women in hijab, the image of Abu Hamza and also Muslims praying on St Thomas’s Road outside Finsbury Park Mosque, BNP leader Nick Griffin delivered a threatening Islamophobic message.
'The 10th June 2004 Elections' on the Salaam website
Wrongly accused Man Utd. fans call for apology
On 19 April 2004, over 400 police officers conducted dawn 'anti-terror' raids across the UK and arrested ten people on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Within hours, the arrests were connected to an Al-Qaida plot to blow up Old Trafford - the home of Manchester United Football Club. Police sources were quoted in newspapers as saying "the plot involved several individual bombers in separate parts of the stadium".
Six men and a woman were arrested in Manchester and three men were arrested in Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands. They were identified as North Africans and Iraqi Kurds. They were all held for eight days and then released without charge.