Islamophobia Watch

More on The Hijacking of British Islam: Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain debates Dean Godson of Policy Exchange on Al Jazeera

Scotland Yard yesterday faced fresh controversy after it emerged that the man accidentally shot by police during an anti-terrorism raid in east London last year has claimed armed officers again threatened to shoot him and subjected him to racist abuse during a second recent incident. Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, who was shot in the shoulder during a raid by police on his home in Forest Gate in 2006, says he and his brother Abul Koyair, 20, were stopped by armed police with one officer shouting "shoot him, shoot him".

According to their account they were on a motorbike near their home two months ago when they stopped to watch a police operation at a pizza takeaway. As they drove off, they were followed by police and ordered to stop. According to the brothers, one officer emerged from the car carrying a handgun. A second officer allegedly shouted "shoot him, shoot him, put him down." Mohammed Kahar said that he then replied: "Don't shoot me, my hands are in the air."

The brothers say they were manhandled off the motorcycle and one was pushed to the ground while the other was handcuffed. They claim that they were called "Paki", "tossers" and "wankers". Mohammed Kahar said he heard one officer say "that's the two brothers" and another asked "how many millions do you get?" – presumably a reference to compensation to be paid to the men over last year's raid. Their sister, who was passing by on a bus, intervened and was charged with a public order offence for which she has been issued with a fixed penalty notice.

Guardian, 3 November 2007

"This is just the latest in a seemingly never ending torrent of negative portrayals of Muslims and Islam. Both films and television will claim to tackle any number of difficult issues, yet they find it impossible to show Muslims in a realistic manner. If there is no room for our reflection in their media mirror, then it's time we made our own mirrors."

A Muslim blogger responds to the Channel 4 drama Britz.

Outlines via Indigo Jo Blogs

Update:  MPACUK have posted a link to an interesting discussion from BBC Asian Network featuring Moazzam Begg, Saba Zaman and others, though we could have done without the speaker from British Muslims for Secular Democracy.

Juan Cole argues that the aspiring Republican candidates for the US presidency "have taken their cues from Bush and his Administration. They have continued to vastly exaggerate the threat from terror attacks (far more Americans have died for lack of healthcare or from hard drugs) and have demonized Muslims". He concludes: "The Republicans are playing Russian roulette with America's future with their bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric."

The Nation, 1 November 2007

Jane Mee Wong reports on opposition to Horowitz's hate-fest at the University of Washington.

Northwest Asian Weekly, 3 November 2007

A local politician is seeking to prevent the Ahmadiyya Community USA from building a mosque and recreation center on 224 acres of farmland at Walkersville, Maryland. Chad Weddle, a lawyer and a town commissioner, has proposed a zoning amendment that would prevent the construction of places of worship on land zoned for agriculture there. "Agriculture shouldn't have buildings on it," Weddle said.

Walkersville, 56 miles northwest of Washington, has 5,800 residents – 90 percent white and mostly dairy farmers. Many members of the community are opposing the group's plans to build. Some residents are "apprehensive of Muslims", Mayor Ralph Whitmore says. "Tensions are still there. We have a lot of people here who haven't forgotten 9/11". Whitmore says people who have loved ones fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have reservations about Muslims in the community. "We're not a very diverse community."

Fox News, 2 November 2007

EAST LANSING – The fallout from the appearance of controversial British National Party leader Nick Griffin at Michigan State University last Friday continues.

Griffin was originally supposed to deliver a lecture on the dangers of radical Islam but protesters demanded he answer questions. In a two-hour cantankerous give and take with more than 75 protesters and 30 supporters, Griffin delivered a range of views.

"Muslims gang rape women in Norway and other cultures. Only Muslims do this," he told the crowd.

Explaining why he was qualified to lecture at MSU about Islam, Griffin responded, "My credentials are I have a degree in history and law. I am significantly older than most of you are here, and I have spoken with many, many Muslims."

Griffin also called protesters stupid, accused them of being bussed in from Detroit, and of being lesbians. He also told protesters he would "shove" homosexuals back in the closet and "kill them."

Prior to the speech protesters complained of Griffin's party's racist agenda that includes the removal of all non-white people living in Britain, and his alleged Holocaust denial. He reiterated during Friday night's session that "it is a well known fact that the chimneys were added" to concentration camps after the war.

PrideSource, 1 November 2007

See also videos at YAF Watch

Diana Johnstone reviews Bernard-Henri Lévy's new book Ce grand cadavre à la renverse. According to BHL there is, Johnstone writes, "a new 'fascist' enemy to combat: 'Islamofascism' or, as he prefers to call it, 'Fascislamism'." This is evidently a fairly broad category, as BHL identifies Fascislamism "even in the relatively moderate positions of Tariq Ramadan, for instance, not to mention veiled women and Muslims who object to cartoons portraying the prophet Mohamed as a terrorist bomber."

Counterpunch, 1 November 2007

A young North Wales thug who yanked off a Muslim woman's veil was today spared jail after he made a public apology in court. Damien French, 21, of Brighton Road in Rhyl, admitted charges of racially aggravated common assault and a racially aggravated public order offence when he appeared before Mold Crown Court this morning. The judge, Mr Recorder Robert Trevor-Jones, said that French’s behaviour in grabbing the hijab had been "deplorable, despicable and quite disgraceful". French was given an 18-week prison sentence suspended for two years.

Mold Crown Court heard how victim Shahenna Hussain, 23, was walking with her sister and two nieces, pushing push chairs along the street at the junction of High Street and Wellington Road one afternoon in April. French was seen by a witness in a nearby shop to be initially hurling foul racial abuse at a coach which appeared full of Asian passengers.

Miss Hussain saw the defendant and his group, realised what was happening, put her head down to avoid eye contact and continued on her way. The defendant and his group noticed her and her sister as she crossed the road and he shouted and swore in racial terms towards her. Prosecutor Gareth Parry said: "She suddenly felt a violent grip to the top of her head, connecting with her hijab, which was fixed with two pins. But pins were forced open." She was "extremely upset and angry" and felt violated, explained Mr Parry.

Daily Post, 2 November 2007

See also BBC News, 2 November 2007

The Washington Post reports that Donald Rumsfeld argued that their inherent laziness makes Muslims susceptible to terrorist propaganda. In an internal memo from May 2004 the then US Defense Secretary wrote that oil wealth had detached Muslims "from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed," he wrote. "An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism."

Washington Post, 31 October 2007