Considering it has come from Straw, chances are it will be ignored fairly swiftly, but, it is worth reminding ourselves as to how Straws previous “debate” affected that section of the British populace…

An eight-year old-boy was left terrified by racist thugs who punched him in the face and pulled off his mosque cap.
Mohammed Tamazul was attacked whilst on his way to his uncle’s home on Stockport Road Levenshulme, Manchester where friends and family gathered for special evening Ramadan prayers.
As he made his way Mohammed noticed three teenage boys following him on mountain bikes.
One of them got off and asked if he was Muslim.

Full Story here

A Muslim woman was prevented from getting on a bus in Greater Manchester because she would not remove her veil.

The 22-year-old Manchester University student from Oldham says other passengers laughed when the driver refused to let her on because he could not check her identity with her bus pass.

Full Story here

A leading Muslim has blamed Jack Straw’s comments for an attack in which a woman’s veil was torn from her face.
The woman was attacked in Liverpool by a man shouting racist abuse, the day after the former foreign secretary criticised veils that cover the face.

Full story here

Thugs burst into a mosque and savagely attacked the imam and several others as they prayed. One man was taken to hospital and at least three others were also hurt at the Eccles and Salford Islamic Centre

Full story here

A Muslim family of four were shot at when their car was hit by a bullet while out shopping in west London, The Muslim News reports exclusively in this week’s issue of the paper. The incident, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the latest wave of Islamophobia attacks in the UK, took place, when the family from Bosnia were loading items in their car at Denham Car Boot Sale, near Uxbridge.

Full Story here

A 20 year old Muslim student was arrested under Britain’s terrorism law for taking photographs in east London for his university project before being released without charge.

Full Story here

A man has been arrested following reports that worshippers at a mosque on Tyneside were being racially abused. Officers were called to the west end of Newcastle after it was reported that a man was shouting racial abuse at visitors to the building. A 38-year-old was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment and is currently in custody assisting police with their inquiries.

Full story here

A 53-year-old imam has been punched and kicked by a man who entered a mosque in the west end of Glasgow. Strathclyde Police confirmed that the incident, at the Dawat ul Islam centre, happened at about 1800 BST on Friday.Full story here

A white Muslim convert was spat on and racially abused in front of her young children as they travelled home after attending a commemoration of the victims of the July 7 terror bombings.

Michelle Idrees, dressed in a traditional burkha, was targeted by a father and his two sons as she travelled on a Thameslink train travelling out of London. She was returning to her home in Luton, Bedfordshire, when Charles Adams called her a “Muslim bitch” before spitting on her face.

Full story here

A Teesside family have returned from holiday to find their house daubed with anti-Muslim graffiti. The Joacph family home and its neighbouring garage, in the Saltersgill area of Middlesbrough, were covered with messages. These claimed that the family were terrorists, and also called for the killing of Muslims.

Full story here

Thats really just a selection… On top of that, there was the Daily Express… a selection of whos’ covers I shall now repost..

On a more positive note, Straw did see support from his political rivals the BNP, but that ultra socialist leader of the opposition,David Cameron, suggested too many politicians are “piling in” to the debate on Muslim women who wear full-face veils. Perhaps the reactions detailed above are the British values Straw wants to embolden within his peasants, or maybe he’s just spouting ignoratn populist tribe with a view to becoming deputy leader, who knows?

(Full text below)

Sir,

How refreshing to see a non-Muslim paper defending Muslim women’s rights to wear the veil. God bless you. However, I am fed up of people like your columnist Charlie Wolf giving their own opinions as to why we wear niqab and presenting it as fact. As Mr Wolf has never worn a niqab before, how would he know?

Please let me take this chance to clear up the misconceptions and give the real reason Muslimahs like myself choose to cover up. Firstly, his comment that ‘the veil is not a Koranic (sic) or religious command but cultural’, is pure nonsense. It is everything to do with religion. There are 4 schools of jurisprudence in traditional Sunni Islam, of which two say that it is an obligation for women to cover their faces in the presence of unrelated men; one says it is desirable and earns extra reward from God but is not obligatory; and the 4th (the Hanafi school, which most British Muslims follow) is split between the previous two opinions. So Mr Wolf, please don’t presume you know more about Islam than the Muslims do.

Furthermore, we do not wear niqab to ’set ourselves apart from society’. I wear niqab and I go out with both my Muslim and non-Muslim friends; how is this setting myself apart?

Second, his comment ‘If Muslim men are sexually incontinent, it should not be women who suffer’. He seems to be under the impression that rape and sexual harassment are only carried out by Muslim men! In fact, Muslim men are commanded in no uncertain terms in the Qur’an to lower their gaze when in the company of unrelated women, whether they are ‘hijabed’ or not. In case you didn’t notice, we are living in a country where Muslims are the minority – and yet women are still assaulted. Go figure. Of course we should all have the right to go out dressed how we like and not be harassed or – God forbid – raped, but we are not living in an episode of Barney the Dinosaur where everyone wants to be your best friend. This is the real world and there are nasty people out there. I cover myself for the same reason you keep your front doors locked, for the same reason you fit alarms to your cars and keep your expensive mobiles concealed in public – and after all, isn’t a woman’s safety and dignity more important than material possessions? Wearing the hijab/niqab does not guarantee my safety from sexual harassment, but it does reduce the risk. You may see it as collective punishment, but ask any niqabi, she will tell you it’s a collective blessing.

In short, my hijab liberates me from the feeling that I need to look perfect and sexy all the time in order to be worth anything; it prevents unwelcome attention from the opposite sex; my body is my own, not public property for anyone to see; my beauty and charms are reserved only for that one special man in my life who is worthy of it. I love my hijab and everything it gives me, and no amount of criticism from Jack Straw, or indeed Charlie Wolf, can ever take that away.

Regards,
Safiyyah Malik
London

Victims of police shooting not evil paedophiles after all.

The man, shot by the Police when Two Hundred and Fifty of them raided his house to stop an “imminent” chemical attack.. which which involved a weapon that could disperse chemicals.. quickly.. a weapon which turned out not to exist, and the chemicals, and indeed entire “plot”, which transpired to be fictitious.

After the police realised they’d destroyed two innocent men’s homes and reputations they managed to find child Porn images on the phone and PC of one of the Men… only, the images weren’t sent by Text message, or by blue-tooth.. they were “embedded” into a phone (Which, coincidentally, means that the date the images were placed on the phone cannot be ascertained, and also, only someone working with the Phone Company, or the police, would have the technology to actually embed the images into the phone.)

I can’t really say I’m surprised at this, its what the British establishment are best at.. Mudslinging and character assassination.

BBC summary here.

Doing the Veil: My day going undercover as a Muslim in Dublin (do you notice how she nicked my blog title)

SOME WESTERN LEADERS BELIEVE THE HIJAB IS A DIVISIVE SYMBOL – WHILE THE WOMEN OF ISLAM REGARD IT AS A KEY TESTIMONY TO THEIR FAITH. AOIFE ANDERSON IS TRANSFORMED, WITH SURPRISING RESULTS.

It’s the burning issue that has divided the West from Islam in recent days.

In secular European countries, there’s been a backlash against the wearing of religious symbols such as the Muslim Hijab, the Christian cross and other statements of faith in the workplace and in schools.

In the past few weeks, a British Airways worker has been suspended from work for refusing to remove a Christian crucifix necklace, while a Muslim teacher was suspended after refusing to take off her veil while conducting her English language classes.

Many employers refuse to give reasons why their staff are not allowed to express their faith in their work dress – they insist that rules are rules.

And in Britain, top politician Jack Straw has slammed the wearing of Hijabs in public, claiming that he feels uncomfortable around them.

It’s an issue that upsets Ali Salem, from the Islamic Cultural Centre in Dublin’s Clonskeagh. (He is also, more importantly, General secretary of the Irish Council of Imams)

“This is setting major limitations on people’s freedom. Everything has limits – but this is too much… The Hijab is a code of modesty – it is not just visible, there is one for each sex, but both are different. It is not a choice, it is an Islamic obligation.. If someone asks a Muslim to remove their Hijab, they are interfering with private aspects of people’s lives.  There is a big difference between wearing a Hijab and wearing a cross – the cross is not an obligation.. If you want me to remove me to remove my Hijab then you want me to replace my religion with regulations for Public life, I will not do that.. people can take it or leave it, but these employers are interfering with very personal matters and my opinion is that it is slavery to ask any woman to reveal any part of her body for a job”

In a bit to discover whether religious symbols create unnecessary fear, division or anger, I spent a day wearing a Hijab.

Behaving according to its code of modesty – no eye contact with men, no eating because it is Ramadan, and nothing else that would show disrespect to the faith – I took to Dundrum Town Centre to analyse public reaction to the overtly religious symbol.

Despite my initial fears I found the Hijab to be so comfortable it was forgettable – but a few suspicious looks did remind me of its existence.

Shop assistants in a number of busy stores including Pennys, Boots and Tesco were either indifferent or their usual chatty selves – and some even offered me more assistance.

When I asked for directions I found that after their initial surprise of my Irish accent, people politely informed me where I needed to go.

Apart from a few curious glances on escalators and one overly cautious security guard noting my every move, the experience revealed that wearing religious symbols isn’t a big deal for most Irish.

The Socialists for their part have said that their sources indicate that the Star is trying to have it forced into tomorrow, Thursdays, edition. We shall see.

Below is the text of an Open Letter from the Stop the war coalition concerning Islamophobia and the so-called “War On Terror”, the letter is an indication of the coalitions solidarity with the Muslim peoples and its opposition to Racism and Islamophobia. Read it!

The coalition recommend that people print off the letter (PDF here), sign it, and send it back to them at “Stop the War Coaltion, 27 Britannia Street, London N10 2BS”.

STOP THE WAR COALITION

020 7278 6694

http://www.stopwar.co.uk/

OPEN LETTER

There is an attempt to plunge this country into a racist hysteria, directed against Muslims, of a kind we have not seen for a generation or more. Recent weeks have seen a series of speeches by leading politicians designed to isolate and demonise British Muslims. These have been reflected in spurious news stories and, still more seriously, violence directed against Muslim people and places of worship.

In particular, we deplore the recent remarks by Jack Straw concerning the veil worn in public by some Muslim women. His intervention undoubtedly created the climate in which the racist attack on a Muslim woman in Liverpool took place. Likewise, the bullying attacks of John Reid have served only to spread fear amongst Muslims.

We further condemn the attempted fire-­bombing of a mosque in Windsor the latest in a number of such episodes nationwide, and note the failure of many commentators and politicians to condemn this outrage.We express our solidarity with all British people of the Muslim faith, and affirm their right to worship and dress as they please and to live their lives in peace and security.

The current wave of Muslim­ baiting is rooted above all, in the disastrous ‘war on terror’, of which this government has been such a prominent supporter. This war has made Britain more vulnerable,not less, to terrorist attack an uncomfortable fact from which ministers try to distract by attacks on the Muslim community. If the government is concerned about improving the cohesion of our communities, let it first of all abandon its support for the foreign policy of the US administration, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We call on all people of good ­will to reject the anti-­Muslim hatred being whipped up and to support the values of tolerance now under attack.

Another week, another racist onslaught against Muslims

“Ban The Veil” screamed the Daily Express, in Glasgow Imam Shamsuddin is subject to a violent assault, in Liverpool a Muslim woman has a veil ripped from her face by a man shouting racist abuse, in Falkirk a mosque was deliberately set ablaze.

The cause of this renewed wave of attacks on the Muslim community?
Home Secretary Jack Straw’s political ambitions. Such is the all pervading climate of Islamophobia, it is now regarded as a political badge of honour to outbid your political rivals in being seen to be racist towards Muslims.
So now we have a situation in which Labour Party, yes Labour Party, ministers are falling over themselves to match the rhetoric of the British National Party.

Incredibly, Race Relations minister, yes you read that right, Phil Woolas, joined the row over the teaching assistant suspended for wearing a veil by demanding that she be sacked.
Complaining that Nick Griffin had once been prosecuted for far milder remarks about Muslims, the BNP this week said:
“Mr. Griffin’s warning now seems a distant echo compared to the repeated calls in recent days from government ministers for Muslims to start adapting to our British way of life.”
Not wanting to be outflanked on the right by Labour, the Tories joined in by accusing Muslim leaders of encouraging “voluntary apartheid” in Britain by shutting themselves away in closed societies and demanding protection from criticism.
Proud of the role that it had played in whipping up fear, violence and hatred, the Daily Express declared that 98% of Britons wanted to ban the veil. A small detail I know but that was in fact 98% of Daily Express readers who had phoned in to the newspaper.

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian, always eager to give ‘secular’ cover for the Islamophobes, complained that the number of Muslim women choosing to wear the veil was increasing and it was therefore legitimate to get stuck into them.
Voice readers must ask themselves why it is that we are seeing a constant increase in the targeting of Muslims in this way. It has nothing whatsoever to do with concerns for women’s rights or the eradication of ‘differences’ in society and everything to do with the inherently racist agenda of Western imperialism as it prepares for a further extension of the recolonisation of the Muslim world.

Â

‘It is part of my religion, my identity. It’s not about being different from other people’

by Roz PatersonIn Straw’s home constituency of Blackburn, the word on the street is that, since he has lost the ‘Muslim vote’ through his support for the Iraq war – assuming you accept the idea that Muslims vote en bloc – he is now courting the extreme white one.
But in stating his aversion to the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers a woman’s face, revealing only her eyes, he is at risk of causing the divisions within communities that he claims to be trying to heal.
Straw stated that he now asks women to remove full veils when attending his surgeries. He says such garments hinder community relations. Blair has now waded in, saying Straw had every right to say what he said, and that a bit of honest debate never hurt anyone.
But what do the subjects of his comments think? Would they agree that no one got hurt?
“To me, it’s like he said he doesn’t like Muslim people,” one woman told the Voice. She has lived in Pollokshields, Glasgow, for 27 years. She has always worn the hijab, which covers her hair and neck. To her, it is “part of my religion, my identity. It’s not about being different from other people here.”
Indeed, with regard to those “community relations” that Straw is so worried about, this woman argues that she has always felt at home here, and never been criticised for wearing Muslim dress.
She might now, though, says Imran Alam, from Shawlands, Glasgow, who points out that women have been wearing these items for decades now, and “no one noticed. But Straw’s remarks make people more sensitive to it; they see it now.”
He points out that when British people, including Jack Straw no doubt, go to foreign cities, they marvel at the wonderful culture.
“But when it arrives on their doorstep, it becomes another matter. Yet when Brits go and live abroad they cling to their British identity, setting up little British enclaves in Spain, in Greece, wherever.
“Wouldn’t they feel victimised if they were told to drop their identity?”
On the subject of the worldwide revival of Islam, which he notes scholars expected to see die out in the 19th century after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, he says it has become equated with freedom struggles.
“A lot of Muslim countries have corrupt, self-serving rulers. The movements for freedom, like Hamas, are conducted under the flag of Islam. You can understand why people are turning to a higher form, to something beyond, after generations have suffered, in places like Palestine for instance, and politics and leaders have provided no solutions.”
It’s happened before. The Jews in concentration camps embraced their faith. A move that should not be confused with the rise of Zionism, just as the struggles that Imran is talking about should not be confused with blowing up London buses.
He adds that it is impossible for Muslims not to see the latest salvo against British Muslims as part of an international campaign against Islam.
“People start to question it. Why is he saying this now? What’s the agenda?”
Another woman, who habitually wears the hijab, echoes this. “I just want to know why he said this. It’s caused us a lot of uneasiness. To me, it is worse than someone coming up to me in the street and calling me a ‘Paki’. That’s just a stupid thing to say, they don’t know what they mean by ‘Paki’. But this, it feels very personal. I feel like I am personally being attacked.”
Her friend, who wears the niqab, agrees that the decision to wear ‘purdah’ goes very deep, and is related to upbringing and religious values.
For her, the niqab is “from our religion, about a woman not showing the shape of her body.”
Being asked to remove it, and by a man especially, is a particularly intrusive request. A request that would be difficult not to interpret as an assault on her privacy.
Both women felt that Muslims have been under increased attack since the London bombings last July. To them, it feels like a collective punishment.
“My son is only seven years old. He heard what was being said then, and asked, ‘Why are they always blaming Muslims?’ We’re not all the same. Yet we are treated as if we are.”, wherever.Straw unveils Labour’s racism

by Ken FergusonJack Straw’s disgusting use of the wearing of the veil by Muslim women as a pawn in his desperate struggle for power spotlights the utter bankruptcy of Blairism.
Decades of anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigning by trade unionists, socialists and community activists is cast aside by this Labour careerist as he strives for promotion.
Make no mistake about it – behind all the high-sounding stuff about respect for culture, integration into ‘our’ way of life (sic), lies squalid, naked political ambition.
Straw has been MP for Blackburn since 1979.
Has it really taken 27 years for his concern about Muslim women’s dress to become a central issue?
No!
Straw’s ‘thoughts’, though dressed up with pious-sounding language, are just the usual cocktail of political fear and political ambition.
Straw and company are uneasy at the growth of the BNP and the electoral damage it might inflict on Labour.
Nobody on the left wants to see the BNP anywhere than in the political dustbin but Straw’s tactics are dangerous and divisive and likely only to boost the far right.
The real reason for the Straw intervention can be found, for Scots, nearer home.
Dr John Reid, the multi-tasking, cabinet careerist MP for Airdrie, has set the gold standard in right-wing rhetoric in the increasingly bitter war of the Blair succession.
Reid – who, as we go to press, is still Home Secretary – is a reformed Stalinist in his politics but not his methods.
An unashamed self-publicist, his recent meeting with Muslim activists with his ‘spot a suicide bomber’ lecture was no doubt planned to get the sort of heckling it did indeed generate.
Reid is carving out an increasingly right-wing profile as he struggles to deprive Gordon Brown of the keys to Downing Street.
The result is that the entire Labour debate is now conducted in terms that are solely right-wing, with the newly re-branded Tories increasingly looking like the new party of the left!
In practical terms, the result is more demands for more jailings, bursting-full prisons, and a dramatic increase in dawn raids and the persecution of asylum seekers.Cable Street
This sorry spectacle is taking place on the 70th anniversary of an event which throws into sharp relief the revolting neo-racism of the modern Labour party’s men in suits – the battle of Cable street.
On 4 October 1936, London’s East End echoed to the sounds of battle as 300,000 trade unionists, socialists, communists and working people flooded the streets to stop Oswald Mosley and his fascist blackshirts in their tracks.
Often ignored now, the fact is that Mosley had significant support in wide circles of the British establishment, who saw Hitler as a potential bulwark against the Soviet Union and socialist ideas.
Radical journalist Claude Cockburn exposed much of this when he wrote of high-level meetings between Nazi ambassador Ribbentrop and leading Tories.
It was opposition to the whole pro-Nazi agenda, as well as Moseley himself, that brought thousands onto the streets in angry protest.
The result was reported in the Communist Daily Worker of the day thus:
“Sir Oswald Mosley’s challenge to east London yesterday resulted in the most humiliating rout of the blackshirts. The trumpeted march through Whitechapel never took place – and never looked as if it could possibly take place.”
Describing the action the Worker continued:
“The rout of the Mosley gang is due to the splendid way in which the whole of east London’s working class rallied as one man – and one woman – to bar the way to the blackshirts. Jew and gentile, docker and garment worker, railwayman and cabinet-maker, turned out in their thousands to show that they have no use for fascism.
“The East End workers had said: ‘Mosley shall not pass.’ They showed yesterday that they meant it.”
Today, as we watch the unfolding racism of the Labour leadership contest, we must always remind ourselves that it is Cable Street, not Downing Street, that points the way ahead.Â

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Muslim pupils are more liberal and tolerant than non-Muslim pupils, a Home Office-funded study has found.

The research, involving 400 15-year-olds, was carried out by Lancaster University in a two-year project after the 2001 Burnley riots.

It found that nearly a third of non-Muslim pupils thought one race was superior, compared to a tenth of teenagers in a mainly Muslim school.

He spoke to pupils from three schools in Burnley and Blackburn. One had mainly white pupils (School A), one mainly Asian students (School B) and the third a mixture (School C).

The survey found that 8% of pupils at school A and 12% in School C expressed an interest in finding out about other people’s religious beliefs, compared to 42% at the mainly Asian school.

At School A, 29% of the pupils questioned were in favour of different faith communities working together to create a better society, compared to 76% at School B.

Now, on to a story in the Guardian

Universities urged to spy on Muslims

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.

The document says potential extremists can be talent-spotted at campus meetings then channelled to events off campus.

The document gives five real-life examples of extremism in universities. The first talks of suspicious computer use by “Asian” students, which was reported by library staff. In language some may balk at, it talks of students of “Asian appearance” being suspected extremists.

Charming, really.