The latest circular for money by Britain First is another frenetic set of calls for money, though on this occasion it is to, “devastate Sadiq Khan’s campaign and alert hundreds of thousands of Londoners to his Islamic extremism.”

So what is new for this group which attempts to use the public as its ongoing purse in order to run bizarre schemes and to promote its extremism and anti-Muslim bigotry? Well, according to Britain First their media team have come up with “a short powerful video exposing Sadiq Khan and his Islamic extremism.” Have we not heard this campaign tactic used before? It is a tactic that we believe Londoners dislike – negative campaigning.

The ‘media team’ that Britain First talk about, is probably a man who has spent his life alone and who has watched too many of their extremist videos spending nights in with his computer and Airfix model set. So their e-mail pitch for last-minute cash states:

“Specifically, we want to push the video as an advert on Facebook, with a budget of around £2,500.

Doing this will cause Khan damage, real damage.

With a budget of around £2,500 we can hit hundreds of thousands of London voters.”

Let us hope that Londoners do cause damage to fascists tomorrow, by ensuring that they elect in a candidate who will do everything in their power to maintain the diversity of London and the heritage of different communities in our trail-blazing city. That is the best response we can give to fascists when we see, hear or smell them.

The post ‘Operation Lionheart’ by Britain First Shows the Level Far Right Extremists Will Stoop To appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This report looks at the impact of on-line and off-line experiences of anti-Muslim hostility on British Muslims in the UK. It highlights how some male Muslims are failing to report in Institutional anti-Muslim prejudice for fear of being targeted and for fear that they will be seen to be ‘weak’ in the eyes of their families and lead to instability in their employment. It also highlights how key ‘trigger’ events such as the murder of Lee Rigby, the actions of the so-called Islamic State and the Rotherham grooming scandal, have led to multiple impacts within Muslim communities. It also re-affirms the link between racist language and anti-Muslim prejudice, with one female respondent saying, “actually, 9 out of 10 times, the abuse I receive is based on race. Although they use religion because I am identifiable as a Muslim woman, the words that come out of their mouth have to do with race, so the race and the religion are tied up together in people’s minds.”

Participants in the report talk about the disturbing nature of verbal and physical violence that they have suffered. A convert to Islam, Sophie (who wears the Hijab) stated, “a guy walked past, he spat at me and called me a ‘Muzzi’. Also, I’ve been called dirty Paki, (I am white), as a group of guys walked past and shouted ‘speak English in our country.’ I was looking at a map and did not say anything.”

Some participants also warned about the risks of radicalisation, especially for young people as a result of suffering online and/or offline anti-Muslim hate crimes. One respondent, Hamza, noted that “anti-Muslim hate crime has affected Muslims. This is why Muslims are going to Syria. This is why they support ISIS. When people experience Islamophobic abuse, they will be easily radicalised. They feel weak, lonely, isolated, and rejected from British society. This is when these hate preachers pick them up and brainwash them. If you are constantly victimised, you are weak.”

This report also highlights an impact on Muslim communities which is rarely discussed and which includes changes in dress style so that attention is not drawn to the visibility of their faith. The report highlights the issue of Muslims managing their Muslim identity on-line and off-line with the aim of reducing future abuse. It states that, “the reality of anti-Muslim hate crime creates ‘invisible’ boundaries, across which members of the Muslim community are not ‘welcome’ to step. The enactment of both virtual and physical boundaries impacts upon ‘emotional geographies’ in relation to the way in which Muslims perceive the spaces and places around and outside their communities of abode. Rather than risk the threat of being attacked, either off-line or on-line, many actual and potential victims opt to change their lifestyles and retreat to ‘their own’ communities.

]]> 1227 https://www.faith-matters.org/incidents-showing-more-aggression-towards-muslims-on-the-streets/ Fri, 09 Oct 2015 17:19:17 +0000 https://tellmamauk.org/?p=6523 Over the last 8-10 weeks it is becoming clear that anti-Muslim incidents are becoming more aggressive at a street level. This trend is worrying since assaults rarely came into us and about 5% of the cases reported to us annually were previously classified as physical assaults. This figure is now over 10% and we have

The post Incidents Showing More Aggression Towards Muslims on the Streets appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The following report that came into Tell MAMA shows the casual face of prejudice and bigotry and consistently re-enforces how Muslim women are targeted, by mainly young men. As we have said before anti-Muslim hate at a street level is mainly male on female abuse and it needs to be viewed through this lens since many of these men target and pick out visible Muslim females.

This incident highlights the insidious and abusive nature of anti-Muslim hatred at a street level and the gender targeting that is involved.

“I work in (sandwich shop) as a team member. Woman in a Hijab comes in to the store with 3 children. She seems quite stressed and is saying ‘Haven’t three men got anything better to do?’

Very soon after, the 3 white males enter the store and start giving her looks. She says

‘Why were you calling me a ninja?’ The men deny it.

I intervene and ask the men to leave, at this point both the woman and the 3 men are recording the incident on their mobile phones.

Two of the three men come back after half hour, and as one approaches my colleague he  says ‘ I don’t want to be served by his kind’.

The post The Casual Face of Anti-Muslim Hatred appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We have been informed by a female Muslim victim of an assault that took place against her on Saturday after the Arsenal and Chelsea game in Wembley.

At around 6 pm, a mother was sitting at a bus-stop in Wembley Central. She was wearing the Hijab and some Chelsea fans walked by her and then assaulted her with what she says was an umbrella or a football flag that had been rolled up. She was hit with the item and she stood up shouting as to why she was being assaulted.

The assault stopped and another Chelsea fan responded by swearing at her and he then called her a ‘bomber’. The fans walked off leaving the mother in pain and with her daughters in significant distress since they had viewed their mother in a vulnerable position and having been assaulted and humiliated by Chelsea fans. The impacts of the assault were therefore many-fold, including physical and psychological impacts on the whole family.

The assault was severe enough for the Muslim female to have to take pain-killers.

Such attacks are not rare and we have just documented the following case which was reported a few days ago.

We have passed on details to the police and are working with the victim so that she can get access to justice. We will also be contacting Chelsea for an urgent meeting on this matter so that they can ensure that racism and bigotry are challenged and that they maintain public messages against such behaviour by their fans.

The post Chelsea Football Fans Assault Muslim Female on Saturday After Arsenal & Chelsea Match appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The English Defence League: Challenging Our Country and Our Values of Social Inclusion, Fairness and Equality. A detailed report on key leaders within the English Defence League, their funders and those that formulate its strategy. This report is a damning insight into a group that promotes a non-racist image, yet those aligned and linked to it hold views that are openly discriminatory against all Muslims and some speak the same language of the British National Party – the language of exclusionism, of non-equal human rights and of the need to ‘send people back.’ These values go contrary to what our country stands for and what we as a nation are about. We are about Fairness, Freedom, Hard Work, Equality and Social Inclusion. We are a modern Britain and a modern nation born from hard work and fairness!

Please Note:
We would like to clarify that Mark Israel, described in paragraph 4.9. of our report on the English Defence League as “a former volunteer with the Board of Deputies’ Community Security Trust (CST)”, has not been a CST volunteer for many years; and that CST (a separate organisation from the Board of Deputies) has repeatedly condemned the EDL, for example in the following posts on the CST Blog:

• https://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=555
• https://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=686
• https://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=963
• https://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=1602
• https://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=1956