Islamophobia Watch

The Channel 4 deputy head of news and current affairs, Kevin Sutcliffe, today dismissed accusations of Islamophobia in the broadcaster's programming, stating that it would remain "fearless" in its coverage.

Mr Sutcliffe, one of five panelists involved at a sometimes heated session at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh international television festival about the portrayal of Islam in the media, said critics would be "hard pressed to point to Islamophobia" in Channel 4's programming.

"We have a rounded view and approach to this issue ... we are quite fearless about what we want to say and when we want to say it," he added. In response to the Crown Prosecution Service criticism that the controversial Dispatches documentary Undercover Mosque had "distorted" the views of those filmed, Mr Sutcliffe said it was a "phoney argument".

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, agreed that following events such as 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid and London it was "inevitable" there would be an "increased scrutiny of Muslim organisations and mosques".

However, he said that he was "entitled to ask if it is fair". He then stated that Muslims and Islam "does not have a level playing field in the media in this country". Mr Bunglawala expressed concern over "authored documentaries" in which "journalists have an axe to grind". He cited a Panorama documentary by John Ware as an example.

Maryam Namazie, spokesperson of the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain, strongly disagreed, arguing that the UK media was too soft in its coverage of Islam. "Media doesn't cover the realities of Islam at all, it is very soft," she said. She added that the political Islamist movement in Britain and Europe had engineered a "victim status", whereby criticism of Islam was being equated to racism against Muslims. "Criticising a belief is not racism, it is not the case that that Muslims are being vilified," Ms Namazie said.

Guardian, 24 August 2007

If there's one thing that illustrates the problem with the attitudes to Islam to be found in liberal media circles, it's the fact that a sectarian lunatic like Namazie who represents nothing and nobody is given a platform at an event like this, as if she had something serious to contribute to the debate.

See also Inayat Bunglawala's post at Comment is Free, 24 August 2007 

Remember the "Muslims want ban on Easter eggs" nonsense from Belgium? Here's Diana West's take on this ridiculous, concocted story:

"Clearly, Antwerp's Muslim population (or some sizable portion thereof) rejects the right of the native Christian culture to express itself in terms of its traditional symbols. But what does it mean if post-Christian Antwerp accedes to this Muslim 'demand'?" Well, of course, "it will mean that another outpost of the West will have agreed to strip itself of the defining symbols of its own identity"!

Washington Times, 24 August 2007

Pauline Hanson's "chances of winning are next to none" and her divisive policy could incite anti-Muslim assaults, a pro-Muslim activist says. Executive Director of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations, Kuranda Seyit, said Ms Hanson's new anti-Muslim policy platform was simply "fear-mongering and a grab for attention". "It's very sad any person who is in the public arena should abuse a minority community for their own benefit."

Ms Hanson said her new Pauline's United Australia Party will look at "putting a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia". Sydney-based Mr Seyit said she's just ''jumping on the (anti-Muslim) bandwagon'' and "she's grabbing at straws". "Indirectly she could be responsible for an assault or attack."

Mr Seyit was equally scathing of anti-Islam thinker Dr Wafa Sultan, who recently met Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard. Syrian-born Dr Sultan is a US-based psychiatrist who spreads the message that there is no difference between moderate and extremist Muslims.

Mr Seyit criticised Dr Sultan's blanket assertions of an "evil Islam" and dismissed her as simply being a public figure with no legitimacy or credibility. "She is speaking without any authority," he said. "She is blackening the name of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world who live in harmony and peace in their societies. How can you suggest that all Muslims are evil? It's ludicrous! You can't paint the whole Muslim world with one brush."

Mr Seyit said Muslims have lived in Australia for almost the past one and a half centuries, and our society reaps major benefits from their involvement.

Courier-Mail, 24 August 2007

Gordon Brown has welcomed back into the government fold an influential Muslim organisation shunned by Tony Blair. Ministers have re-established links with the Muslim Council of Britain ten months after a fallout over its criticism of Britain's presence in Iraq. While Mr Blair insisted that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the radicalisation of young British Muslims, the council's leader said British Iraq policy was directly to blame for the 7/7 tube and bus bombings.

Representatives of the group were invited to a meeting with Communities Secretary Hazel Blears earlier this month in a signal of the resumption of cordial relations. The meeting with Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, and another representative as well as a number of other Muslim organisations on August 8 means that the council is once again considered a "stakeholder" in the Government's efforts to fight terrorism.

Conservative home affairs spokesman Damian Green called on ministers to explain why they have revised their policy and claimed there was "chaos at the heart of the government" over how to promote community cohesion.

Daily Mail, 24 August 2007

See also the ToryDiary entry "Labour get back into bed with Muslim extremists" at Conservative Home. This reports that Paul Goodman MP, shadow communities minister, has written to Hazel Blears demanding an explanation. Well he would, wouldn't he?

"FOX News once again used a discussion that purported to be about problems of religious intolerance as a platform to foment exactly that. On last night's (8/22/07) Hannity & Colmes, a debate about a smear campaign against CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) turned into a smear campaign as FOX News producers gave Islamophobe Sean Hannity more camera time. Hannity, in turn, gave 'his' guest, the hatemongering David Horowitz more time to well, hate-monger. Alan Colmes and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell nevertheless did an excellent job with what they clearly knew was a stacked deck."

News Hounds, 23 August 2007

"I read that Human Rights Watch has advertised for a position of Shari 'ah adviser for its Women's Rights section. So will Human Rights Watch also hire an adviser on Jewish and Christian religious laws, or do the folks of Human Rights Watch feel that gender equality has been fully achieved in all religious groups with the exception of Islam?"

As'ad Abukhalil at Angry Arab, 20 August 2007

A dispute over an "insulting" carnival procession entry has developed into a row over political correctness. Locals dressed as Muslims took part in the carnival in the Cornish market town of St Columb Major in protest over plans for a mosque. A group of students visiting the area thought the act was offensive to Muslims, and called in police.

The group, calling themselves the Page Three Beauties from the Ramalamadingdong Times, carried placards with names including "Miss Poppadomistan" and "Miss Reallyamanistan". A home-made banner read "Join the Kernow Mosk drekly and become a Musli" over a picture of a Cornish pasty. Kernow is the Celtic name for Cornwall, while drekly is Cornish slang for "get it done quickly". The group knelt down in mock prayer, using fake compasses to "find" the correct direction to locate Mecca.

The stunt was apparently intended as a harmless send-up of the Prince of Wales's plan for a mosque in his nearby "Surfbury" model settlement. The plan has been criticised because there are only 33 practising Muslims in a population of 22,000.

The students complained to the police and the carnival organisers. Nina Brenton, one of the event's organisers, said: "We were approached by about six students from out of the area and they thought it was disgusting and offensive to Muslims.

"They had a real go at us and asked how we could allow it in our carnival. We told them it was not up to us to dictate what is offensive unless a group is clearly causing offence. We did advise the group what had happened and gave them the choice of whether to carry on, and they did."

She said the act was "all in good fun" and involved "just a group of local lads, mostly in their thirties". She added: "The crowd seemed to love them. It just offended this small minority."

Telegraph, 23 August 2007

See also the article "How Miss Slackistan and the Burka Beauties fell foul of the racism zealots" in the
Daily Mail, 23 August 2007

Over at the Stormfront fascist discussion list the far right enthusiastically joins in the "fun", while the British National Party asserts that the evidently rather half-hearted intevention by the police is "just the latest example of appeasement to Islamic sensibilities in OUR country".

"News today that one in four children born in Britain has a foreign parent is the clearest possible evidence of the effect of mass immigration on our society. Many people simply don't understand how this could have happened without anyone being consulted and they are deeply concerned about the future....

"This mass immigration is dividing England into two zones. In the countryside, life continues much as usual. In the cities, multiculturalism is rapidly taking over. In London, one third of the population are immigrants and half of all children are born to foreign mothers.

"In many city schools immigrant children can find little British culture to adhere to, even if they wished to do so. Trevor Philips was right to suggest that we are 'sleepwalking towards segregation'. Second-generation Muslims have not only failed to integrate; a small, dangerous minority are so filled with hatred for our country that they turn into suicide bombers.

"The situation is now very serious but not hopeless. The first requirement is to get the numbers under control. The Government reels off a list of measures, many of them admirable in themselves, but they still refuse to put any overall limit on immigration despite the fact 75 per cent of the public wish to see one. They are living dangerously. There is a growing groundswell of anger to which they would be wise to respond."

Andrew Green of Migration Watch in the Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2007

The question is posed by Dean Godson of the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. He writes:

"How did the Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police come to refer Channel 4's Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque, to Ofcom? It is one of the most bizarre decisions taken by public authorities in recent times. Having decided that they could not or would not prosecute the purveyors of Wahhabite hate speech portrayed in the film – mostly from the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham – they instead turned round on the documentary-makers and investigated them for allegedly stirring up racial hatred....

"In a packed seminar at Policy Exchange last week, speaker after speaker denounced West Midlands Police for shooting the messenger and for appeasing some of the most sectarian elements in their force area....

"Above all, the referral caters to the sense of 'victim culture' peddled by the Muslim Council of Britain and others: that our current discontents are caused as much by media sensationalism and 'Islamophobia' as by Islamist ideology itself. It will reinforce that strain of opinion within the MCB that holds that mosques and other institutions don’t need to clean up their act."

Times, 23 August 2007

A NSW Senate candidate has compared the immigration of Muslims to Australia to the bird flu and says it should stop. Christian Democratic Party (CDP) Senate candidate Paul Green called today for a  moratorium on Muslim immigration while a study on its social impacts was carried out.

He said it would be easier to carry out such a study with the country's Muslim population at 300,000, rather than three million at a later date. A study would also give the Australian people a chance to have a say on the immigration program, Mr Green said.

"If there was bird flu coming from a people's group across the nation would we not halt, assess the risk management of what it means to Australia and then assess the factors and then say, is it not safe to continue that or withhold it until it is dealt with," he said. Mr Green said Australia would suffer the same fate as "Britain, France and Holland" unless the study was carried out.

Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile said his party's immigration policy also called on a priority for Christians who have been persecuted, particularly in Muslim countries, to be allowed into Australia. "It's a very broad policy, and it is certainly not racist," Mr Nile said. Mr Nile said he believed the Federal Government was already starting to adopt some of the CDP policies.

The Australian, 23 August 2007