Islamophobia Watch

Hyped media reporting on terrorism increases Islamophobia, according to a new study by social psychologists at Royal Holloway, University of London. The study, the first of its kind in Britain, analysed the psychological reasons behind the reported rise in Islamophobia and how this is linked with a perceived threat to national identity. The research, which follows a similar one undertaken in the US post 2001 attacks, drew the same conclusion. It concluded increased perception of national threat increased support for draconian strategies and immigration policies, including policies, which would reduce the civil liberties enjoyed by British Muslims.

Muslim News, 30 June 2006

Smashed mosque windows and workers losing their jobs because of their ethnic background are among the signs that anti-Arab sentiment is on the rise in Ontario, the Ontario Human Rights Commission said yesterday. Chief commissioner Barbara Hall expressed dismay at an increase in "Islamophobia" in Ontario as she released the commission's annual report at the Ontario legislature.

London Free Press, 30 June 2006

See also the Muslim News, 30 June 2006

"Today, the radical Islamist community stands strong in Texas and Connecticut as one unified force, under the aegis and aura of the Muslim Brotherhood, ready to assist the coming generation in its future quest to become even stronger. Unfortunately, the unity that brings these groups together is also the same unity that will attempt to destroy us from within – all along, while America provides them with a platform to express their anger and assist in our demise."

Joe Kaufman at Front Page Magazine, 30 June 2006

Substitute "London" for "Texas and Connecticut" and "Britain" for "America" and it could be David T of Harry's Place writing, couldn't it?

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has sounded a warning by saying Muslims would always identify themselves by religion before nationality. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Rahim Ghauri questioned the media mogul's knowledge of Islam. "I don't know how much experience Mr Murdoch has in dealing with Muslims, apart from the things that his reporters write about Muslims," he said.

The Age, 27 June 2006

"The war on terror, a euphuism [sic] for dealing with those militant Islamics hell bent on bringing death and destruction to the West, has received a killer blow from Britain’s own top cops. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has announced plans to assign family liaison officers to assist relatives of terrorist suspects arrested by anti-terrorist units....

"The effete liberal response to dealing with those intent on murdering western infidels is a far cry from the actions of others in a similar position. US Colonel Alexander Rodgers was fighting Muslim extremists in the Phillippines in 1911. He introduced a system of burying all dead Muslim juramentados in a common grave with the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. This relatively simple device resulted in the withdrawal of juramentados to sections not held by Rodgers.

"This latest bid to appease the fifth column of home grown militants reveals how those charged with safe-guarding our streets and the majority community from death, injury and damage, are thoroughly unfit for their role."

BNP news article, 27 June 2006

"Police have no right to rush into action on dubious intelligence, say most Muslims in poll", a headline reads in today's Guardian. Sounds reasonable to me. Not to Robert Spencer, though. He comments: "So it's better to be blown up than risk inconveniencing innocent Muslims. I see." We suspect that if Spencer himself were shot by police while walking down the stairs of his own home in his pyjamas, he might view this as rather more than a mere inconvenience.

It's not just the BNP who are pissed off about IslamExpo. They are joined by David T of Harry's Place, who claims that "it is impossible to miss the dominant presence of the falangist Muslim Brotherhood and of other allied Islamist groupings. That much is apparent from the event's home page, where the speakers who are pictured and presented prominently include a range of high profile Muslim Brotherhood activists, including ... Tariq Ramadan". So, according to this nonsensical argument, the Muslim Brotherhood are fascists and Professor Ramadan is one of their activists.

This would be the same Tariq Ramadan who has stated: "je n'ai pas de lien organique et organisationnel avec les Frères musulmans. Ma pensée est indépendante et ne s'élabore pas dans le cadre de leurs structures, dont je ne suis pas et que je ne représente pas, contrairement à ce que continuent à diffuser divers services de police en Europe.... j'ai des divergences de vue réelles et profondes avec la pensée des Frères, avec la façon dont sont gérées leurs structures et dont ils conçoivent leur engagement sur le terrain." (Alain Gresh and Tariq Ramadan, L'Islam en questions, pp.35-6.)

But what can you expect from David T? Elsewhere he has denounced Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a "Qutbist", when Qaradawi's differences with Sayyid Qutb are publicly stated and indeed obvious to anyone with an elementary knowledge of the subject. And this from a man who announces in his Guardian Comment is Free profile that his field of expertise is "the state of the British Left generally, and in particular ... its strange romance with political Islam". Unfortunately, David T's attitudes towards the Left and Islamism are determined by the same underlying principle – ignorant bigotry.

"It has to be the lowest depths of insensitivity to which one can plunge but insensitivity is demonstrated by the organisers of next week's IslamExpo, an international conference and exhibition at London's Alexandra Palace.

"Running from the 6th-9th July the event coincides with the anniversary of the London terror bombings in which four militant Islamic suicide bombers murdered 52 innocent commuters in four separate attacks; three on the Tube and one on a double decker bus. A further 700 were injured on 7th July last year, 100 of them seriously.

"The Expo includes workshops on Islamic art and calligraphy, films on Islamic history, a giant souk (market place), and lectures on a range of topics including 'the roots of terrorism' and 'jihad: holy war'. Well known Establishment figures are due to address the Expo including Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland and BBC's Frank Gardner, Sport and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Tory peer Sebastian Coe will address the gathering with a talk, rather prematurely, entitled: 'The London Olympics: A Triumph For Multiculturalism'....

"The sight of the mayor of our capital city and a Labour government minister appeasing adherents of a religion which seeks to bring all of Europe into its embrace, the dar-al-Islam, should be a reminder to voters to oust Labour at every possible opportunity."

BNP news article, 26 June 2006

Other members of the Islamophobia Watch collective will no doubt disagree, but I'm with the Wahabbis on this one. Saudi scholar Muhammad Al-Munajid complains that "the West has managed to captivate the hearts of most of the human race with an inflated piece of leather flying between three wooden beams".

See MEMRI TV transcript

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"British Muslims have been stridently complaining about the 'barbaric and unacceptable treatment' at the hands of the police. Demanding an apology at the highest levels, Muddassar Ahmad, the founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, said: 'We clearly, clearly want an apology unqualified.' He then issued a statement demanding an 'end to the association of Islam with terrorism' as well as a full review of the war on terror.

"Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the ubiquitous Muslim Council of Britain, has gone even further and issued thinly-veiled threats of violence: 'Angry people can do anything. Angry people can even feel that they should take the law into their own hands, so anger has to be directed into positive action.' It is truly astounding for such language to emanate from the population that has produced the killers who barely a year ago bombed the London subway and whose seven members are presently on trial for conspiring to commit further acts of terrorist mayhem.

"Although there may be a temptation to feel angry with the Muslims, it is important to realize that they are only partially to blame. The relentless portrayal of them as victims and of the police as abusers has created an environment which almost calls for this kind of reaction. This in turn brings about a situation where a terrorist-breeding community can freely condemn those who try to stop its members from committing acts of terrorist destruction. It is an obvious fact that western Europe is being terrorized by Muslims within. We have everything to fear from them, for they harbor those who would destroy us if they could."

The American Thinker, 26 June 2006