anti-Muslim – Faith Matters

Two arrested over wartime killing of 78 civilians

Faith Matters — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 15:15:18 +0000

Two people have been detained in Bosnia on suspicion of taking part in the killing of at least 78 civilians during the 1992-95 war.

The two men were apprehended in Banja Luka, the main town in the Bosnian Serb-run part of the country, according to the prosecutor’s office.

They are suspected of crimes against humanity over the June 1992 killings in the north-western village of Velagici.

Bosnian Serbs slaughtered imprisoned Bosniak civilians, who are mainly Muslims, outside the school building with automatic weapons.

The victims’ bodies were later driven away in trucks and dumped in a mass grave that was exhumed in 1996.

More than 100,000 people died during the war in Bosnia, which erupted when Bosnian Serbs rebelled over the country’s independence from the former Yugoslavia and moved to carve up a mini-state of their own, expelling Bosniaks and Croats from the territory.

Pegida – A Snapshot into their Protectionist World of German Culture & Ardent Xenophobia

Faith Matters — Sun, 19 May 2019 18:49:13 +0000

In 2016, intelligence services estimated that there were just over 23,000 right-wing extremists in Germany. A myriad of groups networking covertly, utilizing social media to extreme effect, was sowing major social discord. Germany has in modern times been regarded by the rest as immune to the reach of the far-right, partly out of collective shame for Nazism. The country had seen where hate led and would not saunter down that path again.

DOWNLOAD THE PEGIDA REPORT HERE

Pegida – The Rise of the Far Right in Germany

But today, the country exists as a hotbed of far-right extremism. The proliferation of populist, racist movements has caught many within its political class off guard. One such group is Pegida.

The movement caught on fire in late 2014 through to early 2015, whipping up mass anger around immigration. The organisation threatened Germany’s long held social cohesion, fracturing it in the backwaters of east Germany where anti-immigration attitudes had been rapidly bubbling for a while. Pegida’s aim was to force into the national conversation the concept of a national cultural identity being threatened by refugees and asylum seekers. It was dangerous, but for a while, it was effective. The group came to influence the political system, and particularly, the part Alternative for Germany (AfD). This report will look into their tumultuous history, their peak moments, setbacks, controversies and structural reasons for why they were as popular as they were.

Concerns raised over event sponsored by far-right Polish radio host

Faith Matters — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 14:03:14 +0000

Members of the Polish community have expressed concerns about the antisemitic and anti-Muslim views of a radio host who is sponsoring a cultural event on January 27 in London.

Piotr Szlachtowicz, who hosts the online radio show ‘The Nowy Polski Show’, has described Islam as a ‘murderous ideology’, a ‘Nazi ideology’, and ranted about the so-called ‘Islamisation’ of Luton.

When describing a visit to the high-street retailer Primark, he remarked: “I felt like I was in Asia, women with covered faces, white people were a minority.”

Translations of his speeches were provided to Faith Matters as part of our ongoing research into far-right elements among Polish communities here in the UK, and in Poland.

His radio show has broadcasted shows titled “Why do Jews Hate the Poles!?”, “Jews started a war against Poland and Poles!”, and “How Jews spit in Poland’s face!”.

On January 29, 2018, Szlachtowicz interviewed the disgraced former priest Jacek Międlar, in a show titled “Jews have taken their masks off”. Międlar has on two occasions, attempted to enter the UK to speak at far-events but was detained at the airport and denied entry on both occasions due to his racist, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic views. Further examples of his hateful views appear in the Faith Matters report The Changing Face of Hate in Poland: From Antisemitism to Anti-Muslim Racism.

It was during his appearance on The Nowy Polski Show that Miedlar claimed: “The Talmud, a fundamental book for Jews, is a book of hate, racism and xenophobia and, as a Christian, it is my mission to educate people that we are threatened by hate and exploitation.”

Międlar then added, “I thought I was going to the UK, not to Israel”, and that Border Force officers were, in fact, ‘Jewish Special Branch’.

Szlachtowic’s radio show sponsored an event in Slough which listed Jacek Międlar as a keynote speaker, another speaker listed was Leszek Żebrowski, a controversial historian who has links to the neo-fascist National Radical Camp (ONR) group in Poland.

Nor is Szlachtowicz above indulging antisemitic conspiracy thinking. When he appeared on the online far-right media outlet wRealu24, on April 30, 2018, he said: “I was initially very sceptical about claims that Jews are taking over Poland or that they are actually ruling Poland.

“Although I was aware that after World War II the communist Secret Service comprised mostly of people of Jewish origin, but those claims were not convincing to me and I didn’t even feel like debating them.

But to be honest, the thing that woke me up was the speech of Ambassador Azari and then the wave of orchestrated hate campaigns about Poles allegedly being responsible for the Holocaust, etc. So, I think we’re done and dusted now.”

The host of this wRealu24 show is Marcin Rola, who appeared in an investigation by Newsnight last year which found that the Polish Embassy in London had part-funded an event that gave a platform to far-right extremists.

Watch as @BBCNawalMaghafi confronts Polish far-right journalist Marcin Rola about hate speech #newsnight pic.twitter.com/g6791oFhjK

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 25, 2018

Rola has made several hateful comments about Islam and Muslims, including “in Islam, paedophilia is their daily bread”.

He was photographed with Szlachtowicz in Leeds last June. Both men appear together in a photograph shared on Rola’s Facebook page on November 15, 2018.

The conspiracy thinking of Szlachtowicz also extends to Muslims. In December 2017, he wrote: “Muslim community leaders speak about love and peace officially, but it has been proven beyond any doubt that it’s just a cover. In a few significant places, Muslims have already taken power. There are really large areas outside London where they democratically enforce their laws and way of life on others.”

He also claimed, “Terrorist attacks are not incidental, it’s a planned war aimed at destabilising the UK and showing the non-Muslim part of society that Muslims are taking over and their rules will soon reign in the whole of the country.” He added, “soon the Islamic crescent will hang over all of the UK.”

On the Facebook page of Piotr Szlachtowicz, Faith Matters found pro-Tommy Robinson content.

And, among the names on his friend’s list, includes Kristof Jastrzembski, secretary of Komitet Obrony Polski UK, or the Committee for Defence of Poland UK, which has campaigned for the release of the notorious Polish white supremacist, Janusz Waluś, who murdered an anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa in 1993 in hopes of triggering a race war.

Regarding the far-right terrorist Darren Osborne, Szlachtowicz opined: “I try to understand a normal Brit who has been hearing for months that Islamist murders of innocent people couldn’t be named for what they were. Media and politicians have been denying reality in the name of political correctness, trying to explain the motivation of terrorists instead of condemning the guilty.

This state of affairs had to affect indigenous Brits. Their frustration grows and the government’s helplessness and political correctness breed this kind of situations. Someone is depriving Brits of their own country, telling them they have to accept it.”

Other examples of hate speech shown to Faith Matters includes Szlachtowicz referring to refugees as, “a horde of savages who think they are entitled to everything and can’t be punished for any crime”.

Faith Matters is indebted to members of the Polish community for their translations, and working to expose far-right extremists, Facebook pages like Wszyscy Równi UK, are countering such messages online.

Convicted Bomb-Maker Had Pictures of Muslims on Dartboard & Images of Barack Obama

Faith Matters — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 13:36:42 +0000

A bomb-maker who had a dartboard featuring images of Barack Obama, the Duchess of Cambridge and Cheryl Tweedy has been jailed for five years.

Matthew Glynn, 37, had an arsenal of weapons including Samurai swords, axes and knives at his home in Horfield, Bristol. He kept a viable improvised explosive device (IED) – which posed a threat to life – underneath his bed. More than 6kg of explosive powders, as well as other chemical used for bomb making, were stashed in his property.

Glynn also bought a Wolverine-style weapon with four sharp blades, described as “horrific” by police.

Bristol Crown Court heard a colleague tipped off police after visiting Glynn at his home in July.

Rachel Drake, prosecuting, said: “He went straight to the defendant’s bedroom and saw a vast array of weapons. “He also saw a dartboard with pictures of Muslim people upon it and Mr Glynn said he had a dart board of ‘people I hate’.

“Mr Glynn gave a tour of his weapons, describing their origin and use.

“The following day at work, Mr Glynn joked that he had had him sat on a bomb when he had been sat on the bed.”

The colleague, James Grogan, did not believe Glynn at first but later reported the claim to police. Officers attended at Howdens Joinery, where Glynn worked, on July 23 and he insisted it had been a joke. But when police asked to check his home, Glynn said he was worried about his collection of swords and axes.

He then asked officers: “If I do have something, will it be classed as a terror incident?”

Mr Grogan described Glynn as being an anxious man who demonstrated “racist and homophobic views”.

The area around Glynn’s home was evacuated while explosives experts examined what was inside. Glynn’s bed was x-rayed and a bomb, containing explosives, ball bearings and nails, was discovered. Ms Drake said experts concluded the device “would have posed a threat to life” if it had been detonated.

There were pots containing more than 6kg of explosives at Glynn’s home, as well as other handmade devices. One was a tennis ball filled with explosive powder, which could have been used as a grenade.

Glynn also possessed books, leaflets and notes detailing how to make bombs and throw knives, the court heard. “It was an extremely large arsenal,” Ms Drake said.

“In interview, he said it was his intention at some point to go to an open space to ignite them to see what damage they could do.” She said he did not have an explanation for the dartboard of people he hated found at his home and denied he still held views expressed on Facebook.

“The Facebook pages demonstrate an element of Islamophobia and general racial hated,” Ms Drake told the court.

One posts suggested school trips to mosques should be banned, while another called for the death penalty for serial killers, paedophiles and terrorists.

Ramin Pakrooh, representing Glynn, questioned why his client’s Facebook postings had been raised in court.

“There’s a number of views expressed within his Facebook page such as views on immigration,” Mr Pakrooh said.

“That is absolutely a matter for him and is absolutely not for this court to censure these views unless these views have resulted in him breaking the law.”

Mr Pakrooh said Glynn “objected” to his dartboard being referred to as a “Muslim board” by prosecutors.

The board featured images of Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Cheryl Tweedy, the Duchess of Cambridge and a Somali boy.

“It was a board for people he hated,” Mr Pakrooh said. “I don’t think any of the images on that board have escaped having darts thrown at them.”

Glynn had been collecting weapons for about 20 years and treated them as a “hobby”, his barrister said. The court heard Glynn had no previous convictions. He admitted five charges under the Explosive Substances Act 1883 at a hearing in October.

Sentencing Glynn to five years in prison, Judge Peter Blair QC, the Recorder of Bristol, said the defendant had expressed “hated of others”. He described his Facebook postings as “haphazard and irregular”.

“The really concerning elements of this case were the two bombs which were seized,” the judge said.

“One of them had ball bearings and nails in it and the other had ball bearings on it.”

German groups mobilise against rise of anti-Muslim Far Right party

Faith Matters — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 16:15:45 +0000

German civil rights groups are mobilising against the newly elected far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and other more hardline groups, vowing to avert the even stronger rightward lurch seen in neighbouring countries.

Thousands of protesters are expected in the eastern city of Dresden on Saturday when the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement celebrates its third anniversary.

PEGIDA – Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – has seen dwindling crowds since early 2015, with the AfD absorbing some of its supporters. The AfD won almost 13 percent of the vote in the Sept. 24 national election, making it the third largest party in the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, and the first far-right party to win seats in more than half a century.

Exit polls showed that 60 percent of AfD voters cast a “protest vote”, with many angry at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to allow in over a million mainly Muslim migrants.

Experts say the party’s rise is also part of a global trend that has brought right-leaning parties or leaders to power in Poland, Hungary, and most recently, Austria.

Germany’s mainstream parties have said they will not work with the AfD at a national level, but activists say they must stake out clear resistance to AfD comments on Islam and other issues in the parliament, and 14 out of 16 state legislatures.

“We’ve seen a strong and growing movement of people resisting the AfD in recent months in big cities, in small towns, and now we need that movement on a national scale,” said Nora Berneis of Aufstehen gegen Rassismus, or Standing up against Racism.

The group is planning a large protest in the northern city of Hanover on Dec. 2 when the AfD meets for a party conference.

The party has drawn sharp criticism from a German journalists’ group for seeking data on the ethnic backgrounds and political views of journalists who want to cover the conference.

CIVIC EDUCATION

Christoph Schott, with the global activist group Avaaz, said more than 500,000 people had signed an open letter to the AfD, rejecting the party’s “xenophobic” and “racist” messages.

The AfD rails against what it calls the “Islamisation of Europe” and denies it is racist.

Beginning with Allied “re-education” efforts after World War Two, Germany has developed an intense civic education programme.

The government doubled funding for projects aimed at combating right-wing, left-wing and Islamist extremism to over 100 million euros in 2017 alone. Some credit such policies with keeping support for far-right parties lower than in neighbouring countries.

But Axel Ruppert with the European Network against Racism said the AfD’s aggressive rhetoric was pressing the boundaries of “acceptable” discourse and hate crimes were rising.

Police data showed a 14-percent rise in right-wing extremist violent acts in 2016, and anti-Semitic crimes rose 4 percent to 681 in the first eight months of 2017.

The AfD’s entry into parliament has triggered a long-overdue dialogue about what went wrong during the unification of eastern and western Germany in 1990, said Michaela Glaser with the German Youth Institute, a non-profit research association.

“One silver lining … may be that things that were hidden before have become visible. And only if something has been articulated can it be addressed,” she said.

‘This is America’ air traveler says guilty of yanking Muslim’s scarf

Tell Mama — Fri, 13 May 2016 22:18:30 +0000

Individual Pleads Guilty to Islamophobic Assault on Muslim Woman Wearing the Hijab

A North Carolina man admitted on Friday that he ripped off a Muslim woman’s head scarf during a flight to New Mexico last December after saying, “Take it off! This is America!”

Gill Payne, 37, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in New Mexico to one count of using force to intentionally obstruct the woman from freely exercising her religious beliefs, prosecutors said.

“No matter one’s faith, all Americans are entitled to peacefully exercise their religious beliefs free from discrimination and violence,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

An attorney for Payne did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Payne admitted that on a flight last December, he approached the aisle where the Muslim woman was seated shortly before landing in Albuquerque, and stopped next to her seat, Prosecutors said.

Payne then told the woman, a stranger identified in court documents as K.A., to take off her hijab, saying something to the effect of “Take it off! This is America!” prosecutors said.

Payne then grabbed the back of the hijab and “pulled it all the way off,” leaving her head exposed.

“As a result, K.A. felt violated and quickly pulled the hijab back up and covered her head again,” prosecutors said in a statement.

A sentencing hearing for Payne has not yet been set, prosecutors said.

The guilty plea comes in the wake of a number of anti-Muslim incidents in the United States.

Earlier this week, a Muslim advocacy group said a California student was embarrassed and distressed after her name was incorrectly listed as Isis, the abbreviated name of the Islamic militant group.

In late April, a New Jersey school board member resigned after drawing fire over anti-Muslim Facebook posts, including one saying, “America needs to get rid of people like you.”

In the wake of deadly attacks by Islamist militants in Paris and California last year, Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican White House nominee, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

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Such Abuse Against Sadiq Khan is Unacceptable and We Must Collectively Counter It

Tell Mama — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 02:03:26 +0000

As we run into the last week of campaigning for the London Mayoral election, it seems that far right extremist groups like Liberty GB and their coterie of haters have decided to play on the Muslim heritage of Labour candidate Sadiq Khan. We have highlighted Liberty GB before and more information can be found here.

We have also highlighted key activists in Liberty GB like Paul Weston. Yet, Liberty GB seems to want to reach the bottom of the league in its campaigning effort and by lacing campaigns with anti-Muslim prejudice and bigotry. The following post on their Facebook page should be parodied, given the abysmal focus on one aspect of the identity of Labour MP and mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan.

Furthermore, the kinds of abhorrent comments that are posted on the Facebook page of Liberty GB show the kind of audience that is attracted to them. We hope that the British public respond by parodying groups like Liberty GB whose aim seems to attract supporters who generally think the worst of Muslims. The least we all can do is make clear that their messages of prejudice are unacceptable, inflammatory and downright vile. Not so much Liberty GB as the gross abuse of all of our liberties and freedoms.

The post Such Abuse Against Sadiq Khan is Unacceptable & We Must Collectively Counter It appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Arabic-speaker removed from California flight seeks apology

Tell Mama — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 02:55:05 +0000

A California university student who was taken off a Southwest Airlines flight after another passenger heard him speaking Arabic was traumatized and he wants an apology, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said on Monday.

The incident unfolded as Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a 26-year-old University of California Berkeley student, was waiting for his April 6 flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Oakland to take off.

Makhzoomi, an Iraqi refugee, said he had called his uncle in Baghdad after taking his seat when he noticed a fellow passenger staring at him, said Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area office, and media reports. The woman reported him to Southwest staff and Makhzoomi was escorted off the plane.

“As I understand it, the whole thing was incredibly traumatizing,” Billoo said.

Makhzoomi contacted the council after the incident, Billoo said.

After he was removed from the flight, the student was searched by drug-sniffing dogs and subjected to a physical search, Billoo said. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Makhzoomi before releasing him without charges, an FBI spokeswoman said.

Southwest said in a statement that its employees had acted within protocol in response to another Arabic-speaking passenger’s report of what were perceived to be threatening comments.

“It was the content of the passenger’s conversation, not the language used, that prompted the report leading to our investigation,” the airline said.

Makhzoomi’s unused ticket was refunded. The statement said Southwest did not tolerate discrimination and had attempted to reach Makhzoomi several times.

After his release, Makhzoomi took a Delta Air Lines flight to Northern California and wants an apology from Southwest, said Billoo, who described the incident as a case of “flying while Muslim.”

“He’s concerned that it could happen again to him or to others, and we’re worried this is a pattern,” Billoo said.

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US Muslim Women Strike Back Against Hate Crimes

Tell Mama — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 12:20:52 +0000

With women now thought to be the targets in 80 percent of anti-Muslim hate crimes reported in the U.S., one group is helping Muslim-American women in hijab protect themselves against their attackers, with their bare hands. Mana Rabiee reports.

At five-foot two, Rana Abdelhamid looks diminutive — but the Egyptian-American native of Queens, New York is a Shotokan karate black belt.The human rights activist teaches self-defense workshops for Muslim women across the U.S. Rana Abdelhamid stated:

“They’re able to get out there and they have a broader toolkit of skills they can leverage if they are experiencing violence, that they can choose to use, that they can protect themselves or to get out of situations.”

Situations like the one she found herself in at the age of 16, when a man tried to pull off her head scarf. It was then she decided she wanted to help other Muslim women to protect themselves.

Muslim American groups say the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. has tripled since the Paris attacks and the San Bernardino shootings.

And they say 80 percent of the victims are women, largely because the same hijab Muslim women wear for modesty makes them more visible, turning them into what Abdelhamid calls “walking targets”. She stated:

“They feel like people are staring at them. They feel ashamed… You can be attacked at any point you can be pushed off of, you know, off of a subway ledge. All these different things that go through these young women’s minds, as something that increases their vulnerability and increases their sense of fear.”

Muslim advocacy groups put a lot of the blame for this uptick in bias crimes against their community on the anti-Muslim rhetoric that’s crept into the U.S. presidential campaign.

Ibrahim Hooper is spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the Sates. He stated:

“Even after 9/11 Islamophobia was there but it was on the fringe of society. Now thanks to Donald Trump and Ben Carson and others Islamophobia is firmly in the mainstream where these people who attack Muslims on the local level they view it as almost their patriotic duty based on their this kind of extremist, bigoted rhetoric.”

Women like Kristin Garrity Sekerci, say they sense this increased anti-Muslim sentiment in their everyday lives. She went onto say:

“You stand out. And yeah it’s not fair, but it’s the reality and you have to equip yourself to be able to face that.”

They learn the physical techniques to neutralize an attacker – but something else, too. The psychological impact of feeling less vulnerable. Hind Essayegh, a student, went onto comment that,

“You just feel this rush of adrenaline in your body and you just want to conquer the world. It’s really empowering.”

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Video Shows the Bigotry That Women Who Wear The Niqab Have to Face

Tell Mama — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 14:31:36 +0000

The following video – posted by a Muslim female named Umm Aqsa, once again shows a male questioning why a female chooses to wear the abaya and the Niqab (face veil). The video highlights how a simple trip for shopping turns into a tirade about the identity and clothing of the Muslim female.

We have said before that anti-Muslim bigotry crosses race and religions. In this instance, the perpetrator is a black male and can be seen in the video. We have also listed the comments of Umm Aqsa underneath the video to highlight her thoughts, but we must also add that she subsequently has received lots of positive messages from the public supporting her and this needs to be highlighted. When we highlight such issues, it is important to remember that there are lots of people who reject such bigotry and lots who believe that Muslims are fellow citizens. This is always important to remember.

Comments from the Facebook Page of Umm Aqsa

I can not believe what I had to endure today. Honestly couldn’t believe it. Thank you to the uncle and brother who came in and had a go at the man.

I was minding my own business so I had to pop into the shop down in Shepherds Bush to grab something. As I entered, this guy who I’ve seen around the area decided to call me ‘ batman’ he even sang the theme tune to his little girls and told them to guess if I’m a man or a women. He told his girls that people like me don’t speak English etc.
I tried to hold it all in but I couldn’t after everything he was saying. I told him he is ignorant and that his kids will be ignorant also if he doesn’t change his way and attitude . He kept going on so i decided to record him and he was aware of this. How ironic he called me ISIS
Please keep in mind his daughters are scared and crying! !

Respect to the uncle and brother who stepped in.

Anyways long story short I left the shop and entered another shop next door to pick up my mum’s stuff and my friend rang me. Whilst I am explaining what happened a lady in that shop was listening to my conversation and she told me that he’s a foolish man to have said that. I hanged up on my friend and decided to speak to her further . Honestly as much as she also had his mentality and thinks that all women wearing ‘that’ (niqab) don’t speak English or don’t want to interact with others, she was open-minded and listened to what I had to say. She understood and we had a grown up conversation and she was very surprised how the niqab was my choice and how I speak English etc . Even though that made me laugh she said something so stupid. She told me she gets scared when she gets on a train and sees a man with a beard. Lol I laughed and told her does she get even more scared if he’s a Muslim man and it’s not the beard she’s cared of. Come on let’s be real beards are in fashion. What she was saying was mind-boggling.
I mean she said something that made me think. She said how ISIS is winning and turning us against each other ‘ us and them mentality’ she said that’s sad and I agree but at the same time what she was saying was horrific even though she said it so nicely lol.

Boy I had an eventful end to my day. Off to have a nice hot cuppa herbal tea

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