Islamophobia Watch

"In the week after the July 7 bombings, Johnson wrote a piece which described the Koran and Islam itself, not merely Islamic radicalism, as 'viciously sectarian' and 'medieval', accusing it of 'disgusting arrogance', and adding that Islamophobia was a 'natural reaction' to Muslim holy texts. Now ask yourself, as a Jew, how you would feel if someone who wrote that way about Jews and Judaism was leading in the polls for the London mayoralty. Then ask yourself, as a Londoner, whether that was the message we needed to hear in the immediate aftermath of 7/7 when every other public figure, including our own Chief Rabbi, was urging people to come together and not to turn on a religious minority because of the wicked actions of four murderous individuals."

Jonathan Freedland explains why the Jewish community should back Ken Livingstone against Boris Johnson in the London mayoral election.

Jewish Chronicle, 11 April 2008

Muslims in Oxfordshire have denied they had plans to broadcast a call-to-prayer from their mosque. In January, there were reports of an application to attach a loudspeaker to the Central Mosque in Oxford. The Bishop of Oxford, Rt Revd John Pritchard received a death threat after he lent his support to the idea. But the mosque's treasurer, Masood Ahmed has now said no planning application to broadcast the call-to-prayer was made.

Mr Ahmed said some members had considered having three two-minute calls a day or calls only on Fridays, and looked into the idea. He said they may have been "slightly misguided." He told the BBC: "All we did was just inquire what the planning applications involved, and that was all, there wasn't any formal planning application whatsoever. We have a very good relationship with our neighbours, and if any application was to be put in place, then we would have consulted our neighbours first before we went ahead."

He said currently the mosque, in Manzil Way, Cowley, used short-wave radio transmitters to broadcast its call-to-prayer, which was a system that worked well. Mr Ahmed said currently there was "no plan" to put in a planning application.

After an interview in January on the subject, Bishop John received "hundreds of letters, e-mails and phone calls, both positive and negative". He said: "At the extreme end some of the comments were certainly unpleasant, and I did receive a death threat. On the ground in Oxford, I am glad to say that Christians and Muslims enjoy good relationships, and I am in regular contact with leaders of other faiths."

The Central Mosque is one of four east Oxford mosques, attracting congregations of up to 700.

BBC News, 12 April 2008

A Saudi man has created a riposte to films criticising Islam in a video which portrays Christianity as a religion of violence. The film, entitled Schism, was made by Raed al-Saeed. It splices together Bible verses and Iraq war images – including British soldiers beating civilians. Other images show Christian extremists in America apparently encouraging children to fight a "war" for Jesus.

The film, which was posted on the internet last month, was initially removed by YouTube, the video sharing site. Mr Saeed complained to the site and it has been restored.

Mr Saeed said his film was not intended to outrage or provoke, but rather to illustrate how all religions could be depicted as preaching violence. "It is easy to take parts of any holy book and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written," reads the closing image in the six-minute film. Schism is a response to the recently released film Fitna by Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, in which acts of violence by Islamic extremists are inter-cut with Koran verses.

It had been feared that Fitna would prompt violent global outrage amongst Muslims. So far, however, reaction has been muted. Instead it has spawned a host of parodies as well as more serious responses such as Mr Saeed's film. "In Schism I have used the same methodology that Wilders has used and that involves taking texts out of context," he said.

Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2008

See also Arab News, 10 April 2008 

Watch video here 

A 20-year-old Malmö woman has been awarded damages after she was asked to leave a bus for wearing a veil. The woman has received 25,000 kronor ($4,203) from public bus service operator Arriva after an agreement was reached with the Ombudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO), according to local newspaper Sydsvenskan.

The woman was instructed to leave the bus in the southern Swedish city when she refused to remove the niqab veil that she was wearing as part of her sartorial hijab headdress. The bus driver had asked the woman to remove her niqab so that he could identify her, however the woman was using a bus pass that did not require identification.

"The bus driver has not acted according to Arriva's values. There is no doubt where the fault lies and this is most regrettable. We are happy to pay out the money to make up for it," said Jan Wildau at Arriva. As a result of the incident the bus driver, who was employed on an hourly basis, no longer works for Arriva.

The Local, 12 April 2008

Writing on his Spectator blog, Stephen Pollard expresses astonishment that he agrees with Inayat Bunglawala's CiF post on the case of Hassan Butt. But Pollard can't resist quoting Inayat from an earlier post on CiF: "So on February 14 1989, when the Iranian Islamic leader, Imam Khomeini delivered his fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's death, I was truly elated." Along with other quotes from a decade-and-a-half ago, we're invited to believe that this represents Inayat's current position. In fact, in that post on the Satanic Verses controversy (entitled "I used to be a book burner") he wrote:

"Looking back now on those events I will readily acknowledge that we were wrong to have called for the book to be banned. Today I can certainly better appreciate the concerns and fear generated by the images of book-burning in Bradford and the calls for the author to be killed. It seems crazy now, but I really did believe that some committee of learned elders should vet all books before they could be sold to the public.

"In the intervening years I have managed to travel to Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and elsewhere and it is always with a sense of warmth that I return to the UK. Our detractors had been right. The freedom to offend is a necessary freedom. Moreover, Islam has flourished wherever there has been a free atmosphere. I continue to strongly disagree with the way Rushdie caricatured early Islamic heroes of mine, but banning the book was not the answer."

Behind a film from Dutch politician Geert Wilders lies a system that has let racism into the mainstream, writes Maina van der Zwan.

Socialist Worker, 12 April 2008

The Daily Star has a perfect storm of scare stories; sex offenders and Muslims.
In the latest instalment of The State Goes Soft On Muslims stories from the Richard Desmond owned rags, now it is the UK's jails which are capitulating to Muslims.
Except they are not.
A Muslim has written to a letter to the prisoners paper Inside Times but that doesn't stop Shadow Justice Minister Nick Herbert providing the Daily Star with an outraged quote.

Daily Star [page contains images degrading women] 

Boris Johnson today accused the Mayor of "demeaning" his office by suggesting Mr Johnson had smeared Islam after the London bombings. The Tory candidate said he took "deep offence" at Ken Livingstone's claim he had said the Koran was "inherently" violent.

However, the Mayor insisted Mr Johnson's remarks – in contrast to his own rousing response to the 7 July attacks – showed his true reaction to the tragedy.

In the first radio hustings on LBC radio between the three main candidates, Mr Johnson insisted he would have issued "exactly the same" kind of remarks after the bombings, which killed 52 people, as Mr Livingstone had if he had been running the city at the time. "What Londoners want in the event of a tragedy of that kind ... is someone who will speak for the city and give a voice to our defiance and our unwillingness to submit to that kind of terror and kind of cowardly attack," he said.

However, the Mayor claimed: "I know what Boris would have said because he wrote it in the Spectator the following week. Very different. I said this is a criminal act by a handful of men. It doesn't define a faith or an ideology. What you said, Boris, was Islam was the problem... And the Koran is inherently violent. I actually made certain that we were looking at individuals. You smeared an entire faith."

An audibly furious Mr Johnson responded: "Can I tell you what deep offence I take at that? I think you really traduce what I said. My view is that Islam is a religion of peace and indeed I am very proud to say I have Muslim ancestors. My great-grandfather knew the Koran off by heart, Ken Livingstone, and I really wish you would leave off these kinds of tactics, which demean this race and demean your office."

Evening Standard, 10 April 2008

Listen to the Livingstone-Johnson exchange here

For an example of the Spectator's coverage of Islam during Boris Johnson's stint as editor, see our accompanying illustration. 

For a selection of Johnson's statements about Islam, see here 

The far right British National party is trying to shed its antisemitic past as part of a drive to pick up votes among London's Jewish community. The party, which could get its first seat on the London assembly if voter turnout is low next month, is campaigning in Jewish areas across the capital and attempting to play on what it sees as historical enmity between the Jewish and Muslim communities.

In one leaflet, handed out in north London last weekend, the party's only Jewish councillor, Pat Richardson, is quoted along with a picture of young Muslims holding a placard reading: "Butcher those who mock Islam."

"I'm in the BNP because no one else speaks out against the Islamification of our country," said Richardson. "Being Jewish only adds to my concern about this aggressive creed that also threatens our secular values and Christian tradition."

The move has sparked a furious reaction among Jewish organisations who say the BNP is still antisemitic and racist.

Guardian, 10 April 2008

For previous coverage of this issue see here and here.

The Muslim Council of Britain today joined forces with Operation Black Vote and a diverse coalition of groups from Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh faiths to unite against the threat from far Right political groups.

This unprecedented coalition launched a 100-foot billboard poster across the Capital that warns of the critical danger from the far Right at the upcoming elections.

The poster is designed in a Banksy style design, with a hard hitting image. The MCB is encouraging Muslims to readily join fellow Londoners to go out and vote on local matters and stop the far right. If you don't vote, you don't count.We must all stand united against these peddlers of hate. The far right will aim to gain legitimacy by winning a seat on the London Assembly and use the funding paid to Assembly Members by your council tax to promote its Islamophobic hatred. Participating in local elections is our civic duty and is in the best traditions of Islam.

The threat is also real outside London, with local elections taking place in certain cities and counties in England and Wales (www.aboutmyvote.org.uk for further information).

*ACT NOW*!

- The MCB has launched a campaign to raise awareness amongst its affiliates. Mosques are advised to encourage their congregations to vote on 1 May
- Affiliates are advised to launch effective local campaigns by seeking coalitions with other groups and other faiths
- Muslim student groups are raising awareness amongst young people in student unions
- Muslim and ethnic media are hosting debates and discussions on democratic participation and airing the MCB ad to encourage voter registration (to see the video, visit www.mcb.org.uk/vote2008)
- MCB is working with a diverse range of bodies who are commited to
democratic participation, wish to raise the very real social concerns affecting Londoners, and those active in preventing the far-right in gaining a foothold in public life

*ACT NOW!*

For further information, visit www.mcb.org.uk/vote2008

MORE INFO:
To find out more about Operation Black Vote's campaign, visit: http://www.obv.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=995&Itemid=1

Download Unite Against Facism Leaflet:
http://www.mcb.org.uk/vote2008/index_files/stopfarright.pdf

The London Citizen's Agenda:
http://www.londoncitizens.org.uk/files/LONDON%20CITIZENS%20AGENDA%20FOR%20LONDON.pdf