Beyond the Incident: Highest Number of Annual Reports Logged by Tell MAMA Since Launch in 2012

Director of Tell MAMA, Iman Atta OBE says, “We are in deeply worrying times where people are looking for certainty and what they are getting is instability at a political and societal level. This means that at times like this, minority groups are the ones who suffer the anger of those looking to vent their fears, insecurities and concerns.

“We are seeing more aggressive street-based incidents, younger perpetrators, between the ages of 13-18, increased vandalism and international interference by well organised social media accounts playing groups off in the UK. More than ever, we need to come together and redouble our efforts against those who seek to divide and play communities off against each other”.

Key Points

• In 2017 Tell MAMA recorded a total of 1,330 reports. Of these reports, 1,201 were verified as being anti-Muslim or Islamophobic in nature and as having occurred in the UK between January and December 2017. More than two-thirds of verified incidents occurred offline, or on a street-level (70%, n=839), which represents a 30% rise in offline reports when compared to the previous reporting period (n=643). An offline, or street-level, incident means that the incident occurred in-person between a victim (or property) and a perpetrator. There were therefore more street incidents of anti-Muslim hatred reported into Tell MAMA.
• Crimes or incidents that are classified as ‘online’ occurred on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, or on other Internet-based platforms, were verified as having happened within the UK, and account for a third of reports in 2017 (n=362), which represents a 16.3% rise in reports when compared with the previous year (n=311). This small rise can be partially attributed to the way in which ideologically-motivated accounts felt emboldened by major trigger events, (such as terrorist attacks) and broader Islamophobic discourses in the public sphere.
• The ‘online hate’ figure, however, should be viewed as part of a wider trend in our data sets where there has been a marked shift towards more serious offline incidents such as physical attacks, threatening behaviour and abuse more generally, along with a growing awareness of Tell MAMA in Muslim communities, among key stakeholders, and partners, resulting in a greater willingness amongst victims and witnesses to report.
• Tell MAMA has listed in its Annual Report examples of ‘Twitter bots’ that have sought to cause disruption and division in community perceptions and which have actively promoted anti-Muslim hatred. One such Twitter account was @DavidJo52951945 . Responses to the rhetoric on this account, called for violent action against Islamic institutions and on August 30^th 2017, the Times reported that this bot originated from Russia. Furthermore, a Twitter account called @SouthLoneStar, which had amassed some 16,500 followers, was responsible in starting a global trend after the Westminster terrorist attack.

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Prime Minister Theresa May has scolded her former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for saying that Muslim women who wear burqas look like letter boxes or bank robbers.

Johnson, who resigned last month over the way May is negotiating Brexit, wrote in The Daily Telegraph this week that Denmark was wrong to ban the burqa, a head-to-toe cloak which conceals the face with a mesh or is worn in conjunction with the niqab – a face veil that leaves only the eyes exposed.

But Johnson also said the robe was oppressive, ridiculous and made women look like letter boxes and bank robbers, prompting an outcry from other politicians and British Muslim groups.

“I think Boris Johnson used language in describing people’s appearance that has obviously caused offence. It was the wrong language to use. He should not have used it,” May said.

She added that women should be free to wear the burqa if they chose to do so.

Full-face coverings such as niqabs and burqas are a polarising issue across Europe, with some arguing that they symbolise discrimination against women and should be outlawed. The clothing has already been banned in France.

Politicians across Europe are calling for a ban on the Islamic veil but Bosnian Muslim Indira Sinanovic is defying the trend as well as widespread prejudice in her own country, becoming the first fully-veiled woman here to run for public office.

Sinanovic, 37, wears the niqab – a garment that covers the hair and all the face apart from the eyes – and her aim if elected to the council in her central Bosnian hometown of Zavidovici is to battle prejudice and social exclusion.

Bosnia has no laws against the public wearing of the niqab and the burqa, clothes that have come to be associated with a fundamentalist reading of Islam, but a ban on court officials wearing headscarves has made Sinanovic and other activists wary.

“It’s the basic right of every citizen,” said the outspoken mother of two, speaking ahead of Sunday’s election in the office of IML (Islam My Life) Television in the town of Zenica, where she works as a journalist.

“(If elected) I would try to turn attention to the people who live in poverty, to be their voice in the municipal council and push for projects to improve their social status,” she said.

Bosnia has one of Europe’s largest indigenous Muslim populations, a legacy of its centuries-long history as part of the Ottoman Empire, but prejudice against overt displays of religion is widespread and Sinanovic has borne her share of it.

Sinanovic, who wears a long black robe and hides her eyes behind glasses, says she herself has been called names in the street such as “Ninja” or “Terrorist” or has been told “Go to Afghanistan” and “Go to Syria”.

Islam has traditionally been very liberal in multi-ethnic Bosnia, which for nearly 50 years was part of officially atheist Yugoslavia, but attitudes have shifted since the three-year Bosnian war, when Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs fought a war of “ethnic cleansing” that cost 100,000 lives.

Poverty is still widespread 20 years later and Bosnia remains deeply divided between Serbs, Croats and the Muslim Bosniaks.

Arab mujahideen fighters who came to help their Bosniak co-religionists during the war brought more conservative habits with them, as did an influx of Saudi money after the war, much of which financed the building of traditionalist mosques.

Since Jack Straw’s comments exactly a decade ago, the Niqab has been in political debate which at times have become heightened. Currently, there are reports that the Prime Minister is considering a ban on the veil in schools, courts and other public institutions. No doubt, the Niqab will become the subject of much debate over the coming months.

In light of this, very rarely do women who wear the veil have the chance to speak about the impacts of people’s prejudices against them. How many newspaper reports, when reporting on political developments about the Niqab, have then interviewed women who choose to wear the veil. Very few have and in fact, we can’t recollect seeing a Niqab wearer being approached by news outlets when discussing the topic recently.

We want to highlight the other side of the coin – the fact that women who wear the Niqab are subject to prejudice, aggression and open hatred at points. It is also important to note that over the last 4 years of work within Tell MAMA, it is clear that women who wear the Niqab suffer more incidents of anti-Muslim hatred and more aggressive incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, including assault.

These are the words of a Muslim woman who wears the Niqab and who recounted her experiences for us.

“I’m worried about the day my 7 year old daughter suddenly tunes into the daily abuse, realises it’s her mother that these respectable-looking strangers – maybe parents of her schoolfriends during pick-up or drop-off, maybe the people behind us in the supermarket queue – are talking about / to.

“And what do I tell her? I’ve brought her up to believe people of all faiths are equally worthy of respect; the majority of her schoolfriends are Hindu or Christian. How can I explain to her that these people hate me because of the visible clues to my faith – particularly my outfit? Me, who taught my little girl that she should never care what other people thought about her appearance, to be proud of her mixed-race looks and unique dress sense (we’re talking Cinderella ball gown with trackie bottoms, or Batman cape over Hello Kitty dress).

“What if she’s ashamed to be seen with her mother? What if she’s angry with these strangers for hating on her mother, starts believing non-Muslims are abusive bad people who hate Muslims? What if she develops a fear of white strangers instead of her beautiful trademark confidence and friendliness? What if she’s present when the trolley-shoving, the jostling, the swearing, escalates into a more vicious kind of physical violence? There’s only so much verbal abuse and sly jostling/ shoving I can take passively before I turn round and tell them to have some manners.

“I’ve had women my mum’s age making explosion sounds at me and calling me ISIS, men my age telling me I’m disgusting, women younger than me telling me to f*** off back to Saudi. I’ve been called terrorist, dirty scum, f***** freak, Islamic whore, brown c********, Arab f****, Jihadi b*****…… All in front of my 7-year-old daughter. I had a trolley rammed into my belly when I was pregnant; it was after a bunch of skinheads made knife gestures at me that I stopped going out by myself until I gave birth and no longer felt like a walking target as a pregnant niqabi. I’m pretty confident that I could defend myself but I couldn’t risk the life of my unborn baby.

“If I’m out with my husband I get dirty looks and hissed insults at most; people only become audibly abusive or openly confrontational when I’m out without my husband – unfortunately the presence of my little girl doesn’t seem to silence them in the same way.”

The post With the Niqab Being a Political Football, Let’s Listen to the Voice of One Who Wears It appeared first on TELL MAMA.