Anne Marie Waters – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org Working with Faith Communities Countering Extremism, Supporting Integration & Challenging Hatred. Founded by Fiyaz Mughal Wed, 19 Oct 2016 08:59:07 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://www.faith-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/favicon.png Anne Marie Waters – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org 32 32 95725945 Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused https://www.faith-matters.org/muslim-female-on-advisory-board-to-government-on-tackling-islamophobia-incessantly-abused/ Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:11:07 +0000 https://tellmamauk.org/?p=7248 Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred. The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to

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Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred.

The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to reach out to and ensure that all communities feel safe within our country.

On the 6th of January 2016, Mrs Ahmed simply tweeted out that she has been on a school run to pick up her 11-year-old daughter and stopped to wait at a junction with a car in front of her. This vehicle’s driver, it seems, was abusive towards Mrs Ahmed and subsequent tweets stated that she did not aggravate the driver and that she has previously suffered such intimidating incidents without any provocation.

Mrs Ahmed simply reported to us, (as a national third-party reporting project), the fact that she perceived this incident to be anti-Muslim in nature since she is visibly Muslim. She also stated that she did not do anything to provoke the individual concerned.  In fact, this is one of the reason’s why third-party reporting centres were set up after the Macpherson report of 1999. They were set up so that members of the public could report in hate incidents or hate crimes based on their perception of the incident. These reports would then be sent to the police who would either crime the report for action or place it as some form of intelligence so that if anything occurred in the future, there was a trace of the initial complaint.

Having received the tweets from Ms Ahmed, we ensured that we contacted her to find out more about what had happened and to re-assure her that we would be in touch with the police on the matter so that they could be in touch with her. For those who are not aware, this is one of the roles of a third-party national hate crime reporting project like Tell MAMA. Ensuring public confidence in the system to ensure justice for the victim is key. This means contacting victims to corroborate a version of events with any evidence available.

So what could possibly go wrong when a victim of perceived anti-Muslim prejudice reported into a national project, set up to support victims of anti-Muslim prejudice?

Well, along came Anne-Marie Waters, Chairwoman of ‘Sharia Watch’ and one of the self-appointed leaders of Pegida UK. Having imposed herself into the conversation, she suggested that those reporting hate incidents into third-party reporting projects, should not be ‘using up police time.’ This after she decided to include references to grooming and sexual abuse, making the bigoted link between innocent law-abiding Muslims and others who had been involved in grooming activities. The rage of Anne-Marie Waters though, did not last very long according to her tweets, yet they generated a barrage of hateful tweets to the victim thereafter.

Every day, tens of hate incident reports go into third-party hate crime organisations and agencies. Some of these reports lead to arrests and some provide strong intelligence to stop future crimes that could lead to more serious assaults. Such projects therefore provide confidence and support for victims.

Not according to Anne-Marie Waters, who decided that she knew better and in the process, spiralled the conversation into a blame game with the victim being targeted by someone who may know very little about the experiences of black and minority ethnic women and the racism, prejudice and bigotry that some have faced.

We have listed the threads of conversations below and these are just a snapshot of the abusive messages that Ms Ahmed received over a 48 hour period with a sustained and co-ordinated campaign to abuse and intimidate her.

Akeela Ahmed - man being abusive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Akeela Ahmed - man being abusive 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To further whip up a storm, self styled ‘New Era’ Tommy Robinson joined in to agitate with the folowing tweet that further inflamed the situation. Given the abuse that Ms Ahmed was now receiving, this tweet exacerbated the volume and intensity of the abuse that she received and which was also directed at us.

The tweets below are just a snapshot of the hundreds of tweets that were directed at the victim.

 

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 1691 Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused https://www.faith-matters.org/muslim-female-on-advisory-board-to-government-on-tackling-islamophobia-incessantly-abused-2/ Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:11:07 +0000 https://i1.wp.com/tellmamauk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Twitter-1.jpg?fit=300%2C158

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred. The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]>

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred.

The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to reach out to and ensure that all communities feel safe within our country.

On the 6th of January 2016, Mrs Ahmed simply tweeted out that she has been on a school run to pick up her 11-year-old daughter and stopped to wait at a junction with a car in front of her. This vehicle’s driver, it seems, was abusive towards Mrs Ahmed and subsequent tweets stated that she did not aggravate the driver and that she has previously suffered such intimidating incidents without any provocation.

Mrs Ahmed simply reported to us, (as a national third-party reporting project), the fact that she perceived this incident to be anti-Muslim in nature since she is visibly Muslim. She also stated that she did not do anything to provoke the individual concerned.  In fact, this is one of the reason’s why third-party reporting centres were set up after the Macpherson report of 1999. They were set up so that members of the public could report in hate incidents or hate crimes based on their perception of the incident. These reports would then be sent to the police who would either crime the report for action or place it as some form of intelligence so that if anything occurred in the future, there was a trace of the initial complaint.

Having received the tweets from Ms Ahmed, we ensured that we contacted her to find out more about what had happened and to re-assure her that we would be in touch with the police on the matter so that they could be in touch with her. For those who are not aware, this is one of the roles of a third-party national hate crime reporting project like Tell MAMA. Ensuring public confidence in the system to ensure justice for the victim is key. This means contacting victims to corroborate a version of events with any evidence available.

So what could possibly go wrong when a victim of perceived anti-Muslim prejudice reported into a national project, set up to support victims of anti-Muslim prejudice?

Well, along came Anne-Marie Waters, Chairwoman of ‘Sharia Watch’ and one of the self-appointed leaders of Pegida UK. Having imposed herself into the conversation, she suggested that those reporting hate incidents into third-party reporting projects, should not be ‘using up police time.’ This after she decided to include references to grooming and sexual abuse, making the bigoted link between innocent law-abiding Muslims and others who had been involved in grooming activities. The rage of Anne-Marie Waters though, did not last very long according to her tweets, yet they generated a barrage of hateful tweets to the victim thereafter.

Every day, tens of hate incident reports go into third-party hate crime organisations and agencies. Some of these reports lead to arrests and some provide strong intelligence to stop future crimes that could lead to more serious assaults. Such projects therefore provide confidence and support for victims.

Not according to Anne-Marie Waters, who decided that she knew better and in the process, spiralled the conversation into a blame game with the victim being targeted by someone who may know very little about the experiences of black and minority ethnic women and the racism, prejudice and bigotry that some have faced.

We have listed the threads of conversations below and these are just a snapshot of the abusive messages that Ms Ahmed received over a 48 hour period with a sustained and co-ordinated campaign to abuse and intimidate her.

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To further whip up a storm, self styled ‘New Era’ Tommy Robinson joined in to agitate with the folowing tweet that further inflamed the situation. Given the abuse that Ms Ahmed was now receiving, this tweet exacerbated the volume and intensity of the abuse that she received and which was also directed at us.

The tweets below are just a snapshot of the hundreds of tweets that were directed at the victim.

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 4052 Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused https://www.faith-matters.org/muslim-female-on-advisory-board-to-government-on-tackling-islamophobia-incessantly-abused-3/ Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:11:07 +0000 https://i1.wp.com/tellmamauk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Twitter-1.jpg?fit=300%2C158

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred. The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]>

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred.

The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to reach out to and ensure that all communities feel safe within our country.

On the 6th of January 2016, Mrs Ahmed simply tweeted out that she has been on a school run to pick up her 11-year-old daughter and stopped to wait at a junction with a car in front of her. This vehicle’s driver, it seems, was abusive towards Mrs Ahmed and subsequent tweets stated that she did not aggravate the driver and that she has previously suffered such intimidating incidents without any provocation.

Mrs Ahmed simply reported to us, (as a national third-party reporting project), the fact that she perceived this incident to be anti-Muslim in nature since she is visibly Muslim. She also stated that she did not do anything to provoke the individual concerned.  In fact, this is one of the reason’s why third-party reporting centres were set up after the Macpherson report of 1999. They were set up so that members of the public could report in hate incidents or hate crimes based on their perception of the incident. These reports would then be sent to the police who would either crime the report for action or place it as some form of intelligence so that if anything occurred in the future, there was a trace of the initial complaint.

Having received the tweets from Ms Ahmed, we ensured that we contacted her to find out more about what had happened and to re-assure her that we would be in touch with the police on the matter so that they could be in touch with her. For those who are not aware, this is one of the roles of a third-party national hate crime reporting project like Tell MAMA. Ensuring public confidence in the system to ensure justice for the victim is key. This means contacting victims to corroborate a version of events with any evidence available.

So what could possibly go wrong when a victim of perceived anti-Muslim prejudice reported into a national project, set up to support victims of anti-Muslim prejudice?

Well, along came Anne-Marie Waters, Chairwoman of ‘Sharia Watch’ and one of the self-appointed leaders of Pegida UK. Having imposed herself into the conversation, she suggested that those reporting hate incidents into third-party reporting projects, should not be ‘using up police time.’ This after she decided to include references to grooming and sexual abuse, making the bigoted link between innocent law-abiding Muslims and others who had been involved in grooming activities. The rage of Anne-Marie Waters though, did not last very long according to her tweets, yet they generated a barrage of hateful tweets to the victim thereafter.

Every day, tens of hate incident reports go into third-party hate crime organisations and agencies. Some of these reports lead to arrests and some provide strong intelligence to stop future crimes that could lead to more serious assaults. Such projects therefore provide confidence and support for victims.

Not according to Anne-Marie Waters, who decided that she knew better and in the process, spiralled the conversation into a blame game with the victim being targeted by someone who may know very little about the experiences of black and minority ethnic women and the racism, prejudice and bigotry that some have faced.

We have listed the threads of conversations below and these are just a snapshot of the abusive messages that Ms Ahmed received over a 48 hour period with a sustained and co-ordinated campaign to abuse and intimidate her.

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To further whip up a storm, self styled ‘New Era’ Tommy Robinson joined in to agitate with the folowing tweet that further inflamed the situation. Given the abuse that Ms Ahmed was now receiving, this tweet exacerbated the volume and intensity of the abuse that she received and which was also directed at us.

The tweets below are just a snapshot of the hundreds of tweets that were directed at the victim.

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 4056 Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused https://www.faith-matters.org/muslim-female-on-advisory-board-to-government-on-tackling-islamophobia-incessantly-abused-4/ Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:11:07 +0000 https://i1.wp.com/tellmamauk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Twitter-1.jpg

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred. The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]>

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

Akeela Ahmed has worked for many years in the community sector and currently also sits on the Cross Government Advisory Group to tackle Anti-Muslim hatred.

The Advisory group meets with ministers and advises and informs them of key areas and issues where anti-Muslim bigotry affects Muslim communities and is part of the Government’s strategy to reach out to and ensure that all communities feel safe within our country.

On the 6th of January 2016, Mrs Ahmed simply tweeted out that she has been on a school run to pick up her 11-year-old daughter and stopped to wait at a junction with a car in front of her. This vehicle’s driver, it seems, was abusive towards Mrs Ahmed and subsequent tweets stated that she did not aggravate the driver and that she has previously suffered such intimidating incidents without any provocation.

Mrs Ahmed simply reported to us, (as a national third-party reporting project), the fact that she perceived this incident to be anti-Muslim in nature since she is visibly Muslim. She also stated that she did not do anything to provoke the individual concerned.  In fact, this is one of the reason’s why third-party reporting centres were set up after the Macpherson report of 1999. They were set up so that members of the public could report in hate incidents or hate crimes based on their perception of the incident. These reports would then be sent to the police who would either crime the report for action or place it as some form of intelligence so that if anything occurred in the future, there was a trace of the initial complaint.

Having received the tweets from Ms Ahmed, we ensured that we contacted her to find out more about what had happened and to re-assure her that we would be in touch with the police on the matter so that they could be in touch with her. For those who are not aware, this is one of the roles of a third-party national hate crime reporting project like Tell MAMA. Ensuring public confidence in the system to ensure justice for the victim is key. This means contacting victims to corroborate a version of events with any evidence available.

So what could possibly go wrong when a victim of perceived anti-Muslim prejudice reported into a national project, set up to support victims of anti-Muslim prejudice?

Well, along came Anne-Marie Waters, Chairwoman of ‘Sharia Watch’ and one of the self-appointed leaders of Pegida UK. Having imposed herself into the conversation, she suggested that those reporting hate incidents into third-party reporting projects, should not be ‘using up police time.’ This after she decided to include references to grooming and sexual abuse, making the bigoted link between innocent law-abiding Muslims and others who had been involved in grooming activities. The rage of Anne-Marie Waters though, did not last very long according to her tweets, yet they generated a barrage of hateful tweets to the victim thereafter.

Every day, tens of hate incident reports go into third-party hate crime organisations and agencies. Some of these reports lead to arrests and some provide strong intelligence to stop future crimes that could lead to more serious assaults. Such projects therefore provide confidence and support for victims.

Not according to Anne-Marie Waters, who decided that she knew better and in the process, spiralled the conversation into a blame game with the victim being targeted by someone who may know very little about the experiences of black and minority ethnic women and the racism, prejudice and bigotry that some have faced.

We have listed the threads of conversations below and these are just a snapshot of the abusive messages that Ms Ahmed received over a 48 hour period with a sustained and co-ordinated campaign to abuse and intimidate her.

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To further whip up a storm, self styled ‘New Era’ Tommy Robinson joined in to agitate with the folowing tweet that further inflamed the situation. Given the abuse that Ms Ahmed was now receiving, this tweet exacerbated the volume and intensity of the abuse that she received and which was also directed at us.

The tweets below are just a snapshot of the hundreds of tweets that were directed at the victim.

 

Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly AbusedMuslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused

The post Muslim Female on Advisory Board to Government on tackling Islamophobia Incessantly Abused appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 5063 Who is Pegida UK’s new leader Paul Weston? https://www.faith-matters.org/who-is-pegida-uks-new-leader-paul-weston/ Tue, 05 Jan 2016 19:12:52 +0000 https://tellmamauk.org/?p=7183 At a Bedfordshire pub, the UK branch of Pegida announced a new leadership structure, following its disastrous relaunch in late 2015. At the helm is Paul Weston, leader of the fringe party Liberty GB. Weston stood in the 2015 General Election and mustered just 0.4 per cent of the vote (158 votes) in Luton South.

The post Who is Pegida UK’s new leader Paul Weston? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

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At a Bedfordshire pub, the UK branch of Pegida announced a new leadership structure, following its disastrous relaunch in late 2015.

At the helm is Paul Weston, leader of the fringe party Liberty GB. Weston stood in the 2015 General Election and mustered just 0.4 per cent of the vote (158 votes) in Luton South. His party came bottom in the 2014 European Elections with 0.02 per cent of the vote (2,494 votes).

He stood in the 2010 General Election for Ukip and achieved just 664 votes in the Cities Of London & Westminster constituency. In a 2010 interview, Weston warned that immigration results in the “ethnic cleansing of the English”. And that a civil war could occur in the next ’20 years’.

Apocalyptic and self-victimisation narratives continue to pervade his ideology and writings.

Following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013, Weston warned that ‘we are losing a racial war, we are losing a cultural war‘. He claimed that you would find ‘no white people in Tower Hamlets’ due to rising demographics of non-whites and Muslims.

In response to accusations of racism, Weston responded “If I want to avoid a civil war happening in my country, I am prepared to accept being called a racist“.

Weston quit Ukip after Lord Pearson stood down as leader. For him, the party would take a soft line towards Islam under Nigel Farage. He wrote in 2012 that “I think Islam will cause even more death and destruction in Europe over the 21st century than Nazism and Communism caused over the 20th century”.

Ukip, however, are happy to exploit anti-Islam sentiments when politically expedient.

Weston took on the chairmanship of the British Freedom Party (BFP) in 2011. A year later and the party announced an alliance with the English Defence League (EDL). The EDL’s founder and ex-leader, Tommy Robinson, and his cousin, Kevin Carroll, joined the leadership structure.

In the 2012 Local Elections the BFP stood six candidates (five in Liverpool and one in Basildon) with derisive results.

Weston left the BFP before it dissolved. He launched Liberty GB in 2013. The foundations of Liberty GB are contingent on cultural nationalism and anti-Islam sentiments.

In 2014, police arrested Mr Weston after quoting from Churchill’s book The River War. In truth, the arrest had more to do with a failure to follow a dispersal order, and charges were later dropped.

Nor is Mr Weston a stranger to Pegida. He spoke at their Newcastle rally in March 2015; where he went on to compare the Prophet Muhammad to the ISIS extremist Mohammed Emwazi. A year earlier, his speaking engagements included EDL rallies.

Mr Weston’s links counter-jihad circles runs deeper than his political career. His blogs on the counter-jihad site Gates of Vienna began in 2007. He attended a Brussels conference in in that same year alongside Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Lars Hedegaard, and Bat Ye’or. Mr Weston attended the 2008 counter-jihad conference in Vienna. And in 2011, Weston brought a delegation of BFP members to the London counter-jihad conference. At the 2012 counter-jihad conference in Brussels, Tommy Robinson spoke on behalf of the BFP and EDL.

A discussion of Pegida’s new leadership is not complete without reference to Anne Marie Waters. She chairs an organisation called Sharia Watch. In May of last year, Ms Waters invited Tommy Robinson to speak at the launch of Voice UK – Victims of Islamic Cultural Extremism.

In the past she has contributed to Lars Hedegaard’s counter-jihad website Dispatch International. And shared a platform with him in 2011. In 2013, Anne Marie Waters

Before the 2015 election, a Daily Mirror sting exposed her anti-Islamic views during a Mothers Against Radical Islam And Sharia (MARIAS) rally. As Ukip’s parliamentary candidate for Lewisham East she went on to gain 3,886 votes (9.1 per cent).

Waters and Weston were due to speak at the ‘Draw Mohammed’ cartoons exhibition. Amid security concerns, the event was later cancelled.

So why the change? Pegida hope to tap the wellspring of anxieties towards Islam and appeal to ‘middle England‘ and individuals put off by the violence of the EDL. Pegida affords a new platform for Tommy Robinson’s unrepentant views towards Islam – without the toxic legacy of the EDL.

George Whale, Liberty GB’s Treasurer, who sat on the BFP’s Executive Council, has been invited into Pegida UK’s administrative team. So has Liberty GB’s Outreach Officer Jack Buckby – who posed for photos with former BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Pegida’s leadership change demonstrates the insulated yet interconnected networks within counter-jihad circles. This contiguous ideology extends across Europe and North America. It creates its own online echo chambers and speaks to simplistic, binary world views.

Pegida hopes this interconnectivity will come to fruition with simultaneous protests across Europe on February 6.

The post Who is Pegida UK’s new leader Paul Weston? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 1650 Mohammed Cartoons Cancelled https://www.faith-matters.org/mohammed-cartoons-cancelled/ Wed, 19 Aug 2015 18:48:15 +0000 https://tellmamauk.org/?p=5913 Organisers of the ‘Mohammed Cartoons Exhibition‘ have cancelled the event citing security concerns. After talking up the event and inviting Geert Wilders and far right Liberty GB leader, Paul Weston,  the event is no longer. We have also highlighted the association of the Lawyers’ Secular Society in the event through this article. Today, we have also

The post Mohammed Cartoons Cancelled appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]>

Organisers of the ‘Mohammed Cartoons Exhibition‘ have cancelled the event citing security concerns. After talking up the event and inviting Geert Wilders and far right Liberty GB leader, Paul Weston,  the event is no longer.

We have also highlighted the association of the Lawyers’ Secular Society in the event through this article.

Today, we have also learnt that the Secretary for the Lawyers’ Secular Society, Charlie Klendjian, has resigned.

We have also commented previously on this proposed events and statements are listed below:

Fiyaz Mughal, Director of Tell MAMA, said: “Inviting a man who is currently awaiting trial for racial hatred after vowing to make sure there were ‘fewer Moroccans‘ in Holland is hardly the poster boy any sane or reasonable campaign wants to have as their keynote speaker.”

“Let us not be fooled that this is about testing the boundaries of free speech. If they wanted that, they would do it without people like Wilders and that says it all”

Commenting on the decision to drop the ‘Mohammed Cartoons exhibition’, the Director of TELL MAMA, stated:

“By inviting Geert Wilders, who has been charged for alleged anti-Moroccan comments and Paul Weston of Liberty GB, an extreme far right group, this event was simply meant to irritate and inflame. If this was a genuine attempt to speak up for free speech, organisers would have invited groups like ‘the Pen’.

In the end, with all of the hot air, what have organisers achieved? Nothing but an attempt to raise the temperature and inflame community tensions. Hardly anything constructive for humankind.”

The post Mohammed Cartoons Cancelled appeared first on TELL MAMA.

]]> 872 Civil war? A note of caution about the ‘counter-jihadists’ and their Muhammad cartoons exhibition https://www.faith-matters.org/civil-war-a-note-of-caution-about-the-counter-jihadists-and-their-muhammad-cartoons-exhibition/ Mon, 27 Jul 2015 16:05:53 +0000 https://tellmamauk.org/?p=5563 HOPE Not Hate’s useful expose of the ‘counter-jihad’ network’s plan to use their Muhammad cartoons exhibition on September 18 to create a UK civil war is disturbing. The ‘civil war mentality’ that follows sections of this movement is not exactly new. Since the inception of the Tell MAMA project in 2012, we have often found

The post Civil war? A note of caution about the ‘counter-jihadists’ and their Muhammad cartoons exhibition appeared first on TELL MAMA.

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HOPE Not Hate’s useful expose of the ‘counter-jihad’ network’s plan to use their Muhammad cartoons exhibition on September 18 to create a UK civil war is disturbing. The ‘civil war mentality’ that follows sections of this movement is not exactly new. Since the inception of the Tell MAMA project in 2012, we have often found this rhetoric across social media platforms. A current of fatalism underpins much of this racialised anti-Muslim discussion.

Of course, some desire civil war (imagined or otherwise) because it gives those disaffected and disempowered voices a grand narrative and sense of belonging. Hence why groups like Britain First heavily borrow the iconography of the Knights Templar.

Key individuals in the movement like Tommy Robinson openly peddle anti-Muslim conspiracies. In a 2014 interview, he told Newsweek “The UK is heading to civil war. Whether it happens in five, 10 or 20 years, there will be bloodshed”. A year later, he claimed halal meat funds terrorism.

Socialisation in the offline and online worlds potentially hardens ideologies and perceived grievances towards this type of thinking. In his keynote speech on counter-extremism, Prime Minister David Cameron argued that ‘grievance justifications’ must be challenged. A challenge that extends to far-right and ‘counter-jihad’ circles.

Quite often, these groups foster a sense of self-victimisation. For example, they would argue that is not ‘racist’ to worry about becoming a ‘white minority’ in Britain (a classic white supremacist trope). The far-right are mere victims of immigration, Muslims and a two-tier justice system. Therefore, they must find ways to reinsert themselves back into the dominant culture.

The Prime Minister was also correct to say that we must challenge the conspiracy peddlers ‘who try to suggest that there is some kind of secret Muslim conspiracy to take over our government’. A fear of ‘Islamisation’ also dates back to the European tradition of viewing Jewish and Muslim communities as ‘foreign intruders’ in societies. ‘Intruders’ intent on changing societies through demographics alongside the historic, nefarious and paradoxical antisemitic trope of disproportionate Jewish influence over public institutions.

A similar notion of this belief is ‘Dhimmitude’ a term coined by ‘pseudo-scholar’ Bat Ye’or. Ye’or contends that non-Muslims serving in Muslim conquered lands treaty for protection from their new leaders. A bizarre notion that feeds a false narrative that Muslims are afforded legal and political favours.

The idea of a ‘Muhammad cartoon contest’ or exhibition is infantile and crass; but they have the right to host an event, no matter how desperate their need for attention. Others can peacefully counter-protest. But like in Texas, the best antidote is to ignore it. Indulging these groups provides the media attention they crave.

Had two extremists not reacted with violence, it is unlikely many beyond Texas would know of the AFDI’s contest (that spawned various copycat events in Europe and North America). Sadly, extremists on both sides intend to fan the flames of bigotry. Murderous intentions are no response to offence.

Thankfully though, many British Muslims are secure enough in their faith to follow the response of the Prophet Muhammad when faced with insults. Giving voice to this middle ground is key to drowning out extremist narratives on both sides.

The post Civil war? A note of caution about the ‘counter-jihadists’ and their Muhammad cartoons exhibition appeared first on TELL MAMA.

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