Every few weeks, Susan Bro walks down 4th Street in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, until she gets to a brick wall covered in chalked messages like “Love over hate” and “Gone but not forgotten.”

“I come just to absorb the energy of the place,” Bro, 61, said on Tuesday as she stood on the block now named for her daughter, Heather Heyer, who was killed a year ago while marching against a white supremacist rally.

Since August 12, 2017, when James Fields rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heyer and injuring several others, Bro has channelled her rage and grief into spreading the same message that drew her daughter downtown that day.

Bro said she made a promise to her daughter at her funeral, when she saw her bruised, broken body for the first time and broke down in tears.

“I held her hand and said, ‘I’m going to make this count.'”

Heyer’s death capped a day of clashes after hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others descended upon the city, drawing national attention to the “alt right” movement that had grown bolder since President Donald Trump’s election.

Trump faced intense criticism after the protests when he seemed to equate the white nationalists with the counter-protesters, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Bro said she chose not to return several phone calls from the White House after learning of the president’s remarks.

As the city prepares for the first anniversary of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally, Bro is readying herself for another difficult milestone in a year full of painful moments without Heather.

“The ‘firsts’ are always hardest,” she said, her voice cracking. “I got through the others: Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas. This will be the last one.”

Bro said she would bring flowers to Heather Heyer Way on August 12 before speaking at an event to mark the anniversary.

Law enforcement agencies have made extensive plans to combat any potential violence, though the leader of last year’s gathering, local white nationalist Jason Kessler, failed to secure a permit for a sequel this year. Instead, he has obtained a permit to hold a rally in Washington outside the White House.

Before last summer, Bro, a former elementary schoolteacher, led a relatively quiet life, doing secretarial work and living in a modest trailer home about 30 minutes north of Charlottesville.

At Heyer’s memorial service, which drew nearly 2,000 mourners and was broadcast live on large screens, Bro said the national response to the tragedy was “just the beginning of Heather’s legacy.”

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her,” she said, drawing a standing ovation.

Within weeks of Heyer’s death, Bro created the Heather Heyer Foundation, in part to install a formal and legal structure to handle the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds that poured in from sympathizers around the country.

Bro runs the foundation from her home and from an office at a Charlottesville law firm, filled with tributes to Heyer that she has received over the last year: a portrait painted by an artist, a humanitarian award given posthumously by the Muhammad Ali Center, notes written by Heyer’s friends at her memorial service.

The foundation has organised a scholarship programme and is planning to launch a social justice youth programme.

Bro found herself making appearances on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show and at MTV’s Video Music Awards. She acknowledged that the intense media attention has caused resentment among some activists in Charlottesville who feel the focus on Heyer, a white woman, has distracted from the racial issues at the core of the clashes.

It has been a bit of a balancing act, she said, to amplify Heyer’s message without making it seem as though her daughter was the only victim who mattered. She noted that violence against black people often does not generate the same level of interest and warned against the “white-centred” narrative that portrayed Heyer as a leader rather than simply one of many people who decided to march.

“The issues have not changed,” Bro said. “We still have police shootings, over-policing, a lack of affordable housing, the prison pipeline.”

A year after burying her daughter, Bro reflected on the activism that brought Heyer to the protests.

“The point of Heather’s death is that we have a responsibility to rise up to address that hate,” Bro said. “Don’t sit by and wring your hands.”

Around 1,300 Danes marched through Copenhagen on Wednesday in protest at a new ban on the wearing of face veils in public, accusing the government of infringing on women’s right to dress as they choose.

Denmark’s parliament enacted the ban in May, joining France and some other European Union countries to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values.

The protesters, many wearing the niqab veil or the all-enveloping, body-length burqa, marched from the central, left-wing district of Norrebro to Bellahoj police station on the outskirts of the capital. They formed a human chain around the station and then marched back to Norrebro before dispersing.

Demonstrators, often with children in tow, chanted “no racists in our streets” and “my life, my choice” during the three-hour rally. No incidents were reported.

The marchers included non-niqab-wearing Muslim women and non-Muslim Danes with faces covered.

“We need to send a signal to the government that we will not bow to discrimination and a law that specifically targets a religious minority,” Sabina, 21, a niqab-garbed student, told Reuters, asking that her full name not be used.

She is one of about 150-200 Muslim women – 0.1 percent of those in the country – who daily wear either the niqab or burqa garments covering the face or the entire body. Muslims account for around 5 per cent of Denmark’s 5.7 million population.

Under the law, police will be able to instruct women to remove their veils or order them to leave public areas. Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen said officers would fine them and tell them to go home.

Fines will range from 1,000 Danish crowns (121.87 pounds) for a first offence to 10,000 crowns for a fourth.

DISCRIMINATORY, CRITICS SAY

Despite its generic wording, the legislation is being widely interpreted as discriminating against Denmark’s Muslims and violating women’s right to freedom of expression and religion.

Critics, noting the tiny number of Muslim women in Denmark who actually wear a niqab, regard the law as largely a sop to increased anti-immigrant sentiment in the Nordic country.

“If the intention of this law was to protect women’s rights, it fails abjectly,” said Fotis Filippou, deputy Europe director of human rights group Amnesty International. “Instead, the law criminalises women for their choice of clothing – making a mockery of the freedoms Denmark purports to uphold.”

Police said none of the veiled protesters would be penalised since certain uses of face veils, such as to exercise freedom of speech as part of a peaceful protest, are exempt from the law.

The justice ministry explained that the ban would focus on women forced by their families to wear veils, though it has been faulted for vagueness in stipulating who would fall foul of it.

Danish Police Union chief Claus Oxfeldt said he would have preferred more comprehensive guidance on how to enforce the ban.

“We need as thorough guidance as possible so we don’t end up in situations where (police officers) don’t 100 per cent know how to act,” he said.

As an example, he was unsure whether Asian tourists wearing anti-pollution masks would be covered by the ban.

France – with the largest Muslim community in the EU – as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria, have all imposed some curbs on face veils in public.

France’s controversial 2011 ban added to a broader sense of alienation felt by many Muslims and some evidence surfaced that it encouraged assaults in the street on women wearing still legal headscarves as well.

We received a report today about an assault on a Niqab wearing female which took place yesterday at around 7 pm on the 2nd of December 2015.

The witness to the assault was on the 333 bus from Tooting and she was travelling towards Elephant and Castle when a white male aged between 50-60 years old made his way towards the exit of the bus and where a woman who was wearing a Niqab was standing. Overweight and scruffily dressed, the white male suddenly assaulted the female and punched her twice in the back as the bus doors opened and he calmly walked off the bus and muttered something to the victim. Individuals on the bus witnessed the assault, yet no-one helped the victim.

Seeing this violence, the witness who reported in this incident asked if the Niqab wearing female was ‘ok’ to which she nodded and she later got off at her stop and walked off into the distance.

Time and time again, women who wear the Niqab have told us that they suffer numerous anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes against them, many of which involve assaults.

Rightfully, as a society, we abhor violence against women, yet, why do some males in our society think that it is appropriate to target, humiliate and harm a female who covers her face and body? Such actions are unacceptable and deserve nothing but our contempt as a society. No individual should be targeted for their identity though assaults against females should rouse us into action since it touches on the core of our values, the protection of women’s rights. The non-action of members of the public on the bus yesterday may well have given the green light to this woman beater that it is acceptable to target Niqab wearing women. It is not acceptable and we need to make that clear to thugs like him.

The post Assault on Niqab Wearing Women Shows the Male Violence Many Suffer appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Anti-Muslim bigotry, it seems, comes in various shapes and guises. From the abuse on the street, through to the attack on a mosque or individual, there are multiple impacts. Yet, we should also ensure that we reflect on anti-Muslim bigotry within the workplace and how power relations can be used to further victimis those who are targeted for this form of bigotry.

A Muslim woman contacted us a few days ago to complain about the way that she was treated at work. This is her experience of suffering abuse and rejection. We have also advised her to seek legal redress on what seems to be, discrimination in employment.

“A six-foot male at my workplace attempted to attack me due to wearing a Hijab. He came at me in full force less than a day after declaring his dislike of me wearing the Hijab at least twice. I stated that I would not remove my Hijab and he ran towards me. Three men pulled him away from me as he shouted and screamed at me, so Alhamdulillah he was not able to remove my Hijab.

This attack was witnessed by all my colleagues who have been supportive but the male is in a relationship with the senior manager-third in the hierarchy of the managers – so they took no action. On 18/09/15 they sacked me. It’s a huge injustice and I feel so upset I cannot explain. I feel like I am losing faith in humanity with the non-action of the employers and they have promoted the racism by sacking me. All the Muslim and non-Muslim colleagues have been supportive and are also in shock at what this man did. But the management has taken no action against him. This man is clearly strong on his own religious beliefs as shown by a big cross he has on his desk and all sorts of books on Jesus and Christianity all over his work desk, but has an intolerance for Islam and a few days ago stated he dislikes Muslims.

Ultimately this is an example of intolerance towards the Hijab and Islamophobia in both that male perpetrator and the employers who supported the individual and who punished the victim, thus encouraging this type of intolerance towards Muslims in society.”

The post Institutional Anti-Muslim Bigotry More Insidious 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 are currently in the process of reconstituting our National Advisory Group on Tell MAMA which will consist of experienced hate crime campaigners, programme organisers, key activists and individuals who represent a range of bodies with links to hate crime work.

As our work goes from strength to strength, we understand that Muslim women experience hate incidents and hate crimes and our work has consistently and methodologically shown this. (See here and here).

We are also keen that women play an active role in the National Advisory Group for Tell MAMA and that their voices, their ideas and their social activism be heard.

With this in mind, we have 5 spaces on the National Advisory Group for Tell MAMA which need to be filled and we are keen on getting applications, particularly from Muslim women. However, if you can show experience in hate crime work or social activism in this area, we would like to hear from you.

Please send your CV with a covering letter outlining your relevant experience, your interest and your history of work in this area. The closing date for applications is Friday the 4th of September at 5 pm.

Covering letters and CV’s can be sent to the Director of TELL MAMA, Fiyaz Mughal, on info@tellmamauk.org.

The post Call for National Advisory Group Members for Tell MAMA appeared first on TELL MAMA.

All of the data that we have accumulated to date shows that at a street level, visible Muslim women are the ones that are predominantly targeted for anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes.

We received this text today from an individual who reported into TELL MAMA and this highlights the kinds of issues that some Hijab and Niqab wearing women go through. This is the anonymised text that was received which shows the threats that some Muslim women get just going about their daily activities.

“My sister and I were waiting in a long queue on the pier at Bournemouth beach to get hot chocolate drink from a shop when this man approached my sister and started doing some strange aggressive hand gestures towards her. The hand gesture was in the form of gun. He came very close to us and said I don’t like, I hate Muslims and what you are wearing. My sister and I was wearing Hijabs. I said to him why are you standing next to us? If you don’t like us them don’t stand next to us and go away.

He eventually moved away but was continually staring at us and made us feel very uncomfortable.

There was a second incident on the same day around 5pm when we went towards our coaches to prepare to board and come back to Birmingham. My niece alerted me that some men drove past in a car and made hand gesture in the form of a gun towards.”

Furthermore, we have received the following pictures from a Muslim woman who wears the Niqab and the Jilbab. These are pictures that she has taken of harassment at a street level from perpetrators. The perpetrator profile also fits the 15-35 white male bracket which shows itself through the data that we collect.

The post Bournemouth Incident Shows Aggression Towards Hijabis appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This is a report that outlines the views of Muslim chaplains, sector leaders and Muslim communities as well as other faith communities on faith leadership. This work was undertaken over a 7 month period and took in a number of key organisations that work with Muslim and other faith communities. This is a unique report that looks at the provision of chaplaincy and pastoral care services within the following sectors: The NHS, Higher and Further Education sectors and the Prison Service.

The report also outlines the growing chaplaincy and pastoral skills base that is growing within Muslim communities and this is a mechanism through which all faiths can support people when they are going through traumatic or turbulent periods in their lives.

The Our Faiths and Our Shared Futures booklet is the culmination of 1 years work with imams, priests and rabbis in Derby. The booklet looks at scriptural narratives that underscore the need for (1) the respect of difference (2) the protection of life (3) countering extremism.

The booklet is made up of the work of many within the City and is a local narrative against division and extremism and against those who want to separate communities. Faith Matters worked with local religious leaders in looking at relevant religious texts in relation to the themes above and also facilitated interfaith meetings. The text was then edited by local young people in Derby and Faith Matters faciliated and supported local Derby young people in putting together the booklet. This is a booklet developed by local residents in Derby to tackle issues of extremism. Truly Big Society in Action!

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