England: Muslims Being Oppressed By White Brits

[Real American]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4765845/


Britain's Muslims
fear 'Islamaphobia'

LONDON - Following afternoon prayers, Hasan Faruq took his daughter by the hand and led her across the green-carpeted interior of the East London Mosque.


 
On the ground floor, a scattering of men remained prostrate, facing Mecca. Upstairs, women prayed.

Playing with 5-year-old Zainab in an adjacent room, Faruq, a secondary school teacher of Bangladeshi decent, spoke of the importance of providing his children with excellent education, and cultural and religious values.

“People are not given the true image of Islam. I want my daughter to have a good education, to have freedom, to go where she wants,” he said.

British Muslims say that al-Qaida and other militant groups do not speak for their faith because violence is rejected in Islam. But, no matter how fiercely imams and community leaders condemn acts of terrorism, they feel that much of society now views all adherents of the religion as suicide bombers in-waiting. “I personally feel really victimized,” said Faruq, 30.

Recalling the recent kidnapping of a 17-year-old Muslim girl in Ilford, northeast London, whose abductor carved a cross into her hand, the father of three young children said, "I often feel full of fear when walking around with my kids.”

Looking like a terrorist?
Britain has been on a heightened state of alert for terrorist attacks over the past couple of months.

“If you suspect it, report it,” read posters in London’s Underground Tube stations, put up immediately following the March 11 attacks on trains in the Spanish capital. Loudspeaker announcements also remind commuters to be vigilant and report any unusual activity to the police.

It means, according to Muslims, that women’s hijabs (headscarves) and men’s beards and caps are viewed by the wider public as the tell-tale markings of a terrorist.

“You walk into anonymous ground (outside the Muslim community), especially in the Tube, and all eyes are on you," Faruq said. "My wife wears a headscarf and there’s no way she’s going on the Tube alone -- there’s been occasions of women’s scarves getting torn off.”

“My friend has taken off his cap since the Spain bombing; it’s kind of unnecessary attention in the Tube, and if you’re carrying a bag along it’s even more difficult,” he said.

The head of London’s metropolitan police force has said that an attack in the British capital is “inevitable." The Madrid bombings, blamed on al-Qaida, and recent seizure of half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used to make a bomb, have only heightened the public’s trepidation.

On Monday, British police announced the arrest of 10 terror suspects during a sweep in Manchester and other northern cities. They were described as of North African and Iraqi Kurdish origin.

Islamaphobia?
Muslim groups argue that the culture of fear, fostered in their view by the government and British media, has resulted in widespread “Islamaphobia.”

Stop Police Terror, a grass-roots organization, alleges that in addition to attacks from the wider public, British Muslims have suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hands of the police who are supposed to protect them.

“The Muslim community in Britain has felt under the spotlight since 9/11; after the Madrid bombings the glare is red hot,” said Inayat Bunglawala, media secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain.

‘This is leading to a reaction from young Muslims who feel they aren't accepted by the wider society -- it's a self-perpetuating cycle.’


— Inayat Bunglawala
Media secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain
 
 
The East London Mosque, which will be the largest mosque in the capital once current construction work is completed, is located in Tower Hamlets, where minority ethnic groups make up 48 percent of the population, according to the latest census figures.

While the borough’s Muslims generally feel comfortable within the largely Asian Muslim community, many fear that by crossing the “borderline” into the wider British arena, their appearances alone can make them targets for attacks.

“You expect police to protect you, but you feel this sense of hopelessness,” said Abu Mumin, a 34-year-old who works in social services.

Feeling vulnerable
While the British Home office states that “no community or religion should be made a scapegoat for the actions of terrorists,” Muslim groups say that Islam has become synonymous with international terrorism.

 
Jennifer Carlile / MSNBC.com
The East London Mosque
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Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, described a recent newspaper headline: “Islamic bomb plot foiled” as a “denigration of the faith...Muslims have done everything to say that terrorists do not speak for the Islamic faith.”

In a recent letter to mosques and Islamic organizations, the council repeated its condemnation of attacks and urged community leaders to work with police against terrorism.

The media secretary added that “rogue preachers like Abu Hamza (who vociferously praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks) receive a gross amount of press.

“The miniscule level of support they receive is magnified by the media — if we focused a story on the States just on the Klu Klux Klan you’d get a distorted impression of the States too,” he said.

Instead of looking toward the police force for protection, the Muslim community is increasingly coming to fear it.

Recently, several hundred Muslims gathered in the Hayes Islamic Center, in west London, for a four-hour Stop Police Terror conference.

As the gathering began, the speaker warned the audience to note where the exit was in case of an attack by white extremists.

Men and women, separated by a wall divide, listened to accounts of how their “brothers and sisters” have been victimized by anti-terror legislation.

 
 
• UNITED KINGDOM: Maps, facts and figures
 
 
“Nobody cares when it’s a Muslim,” said Muddassar Arani, a leading human rights lawyer.

Under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 “a constable may arrest without a warrant a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a terrorist.” Once detained, a suspect can be held for up to 14 days in solitary confinement without being charged.

While Stop Police Terror says it understands the need to arrest suspects believed to be carrying out terrorist activities, it worries that the police force is going on blind "fishing expeditions" within the Muslim community.

Sensitivity
While the Home Office and Metropolitan police declined to discuss what specific evidence or suspicions constitute the need for an arrest, "police are taught to be racially sensitive," said Nick Jordan, press officer for New Scotland Yard, the detective department of London’s metropolitan police force

"They are aware that they need to keep good relations with the Muslim community, 99 percent of which are law abiding,"

Between the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and Jan. 31, 2003, 544 people were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 in Britain. Of these, 98 were charged, and of those, six were convicted, according to Home Office statistics. Muslim groups say virtually all of those arrested were Muslim.

There are an estimated 2 million Muslims within the overall British population of 59 million.

“Many have been arrested, but many have been released without charge,” said Arani, noting how the arrest of an innocent person affects his or her family, and their relations with non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.

Several case studies of purported abuse were presented at the conference, including injuries caused by police dogs set on individuals who had already surrendered, and guns pointed at a 10-year-old boy, who's father was accidentally stopped due to a database error, while police yelled: “We will blow your son’s head off!”

The lawyer also warned that once people have been arrested, even if they aren’t charged, their information can be passed abroad to other governments that may torture them.

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A businessman originally from Fallujah, Iraq, claimed that information the MI5 -- Britain's internal security organization -- gave to the Jordanian government led to his being tortured in Jordan.

It was not possible to confirm the allegation. “We couldn’t comment in any way on information sharing with other countries,” said Peter Wilson, a spokesman for the Home Office.

Upon his return to Britain, the businessman said he was questioned further, released without charge, and told his life would be made “hell” if he didn’t agree to act as an informant.

“We would never discuss informants or intelligence in any way,” Jordan said.

'Where’s your God now?'
Within the Muslim community, feeling embattled and isolated, the allegations are accepted.

And the case of a British citizen known as Ali has become a cause celebre, because of the evidence he has presented.

"Stop Police Terror was started two days after my release. The community was on fire — they saw it as an insult to all Muslims,” said Ali (not his real name), who is of Pakistani decent.

Seated on decorative cushions in his prayer room at his home in South London, Ali recounted the abuses he allegedly suffered at the hands of the police. It was his case that spurred London Muslims to gather together to inform others of their their rights and how to stand up for them.
Ali claims that the injuries seen on his face and ear were the result of abuse by London's metropolitan police force.
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The 29-year-old was arrested in his home on Dec. 2, 2003, by 15 to 20 police officers in riot gear. He says that although he did not resist arrest he was badly beaten while held face down on his bedroom floor, then taken downstairs into his prayer room.

"In cuffs, they made me kneel down in Muslim prayer position. They said: 'Pray to your God now. You're in prayer position. Where's your God now?!'" he said.

He claims that the physical abuse continued in the police van and that he was denied proper medical attention at Charing Cross police station, where he was held in solitary confinement for seven days.

"Britain and the U.S. say we don't do things like this. I was shocked to see that it could happen here," said Adnan Siddiqui, adoctor who found 47 injuries to Ali's body, including bleeding in his left inner ear, and in his urine, which suggested kidney damage. Siddiqui was called in to look at Ali by his lawyer, Muddassar Arani.

Ali said his home was ransacked for potential evidence and that the police tried to "plant on me a map of the local area with a circle around the territorial Army center," which he said he refused to touch for fear of leaving his fingerprints on the document.

He was released from custody without charge and said he still doesn't know why he was arrested.

An investigation into the alleged case of abuse is being carried out by the Metropolitan police and is being overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Jordan, the press officer for New Scotland Yard, would not comment on Ali's allegations but said "inappropriate force is not allowed" during arrests.

'Self-perpetuating cycle'
According to a recent public opinion survey carried out by ICM, sixty-four percent of Britain's Muslims feel that the country's anti-terror laws are used unfairly against them.

And the activist groups believe that the vast majority of the 32,000 "stops and searches" carried out in 2003 by the police were against Muslims and constitute a low level of harassment. The Home Office does not keep statistics on the ethnic background of those stopped by the police.

"This is leading to a reaction from young Muslims who feel they aren't accepted by the wider society -- it's a self-perpetuating cycle," Bunglawala said.

Rogue preachers, who call for violence against Western countries, prey on such disaffected teenagers, he said.

Back at the East London Mosque, Faruq said, "It has a knock-on effect; how you're treated determines how you act."

Looking at his daughter, he added, "I don't want my kids to grow up as victims of their identity."

But, despite worries of a widening gap between Muslim and non-Muslim society, both in Britain and globally, he said doesn't believe in the "clash of civilizations."

"We can all learn to live together," he said.

[Lincoln]

It's fucked up how a few bad apples can spoil the bunch.

[Don Seer]

It's fucked up how a few bad apples can spoil the bunch.

i thought the same thing while reading it.

the cries from non-radical muslims are being heard on tv, but not too well.


on a sidenote... if this were israel we'd be running tanks through their homes.. think about it!

[Don Rizzle]

whilst we allow muslim clerics to preach hate about us in our own country the wider muslim community are going to suffer as a result, it may be unjustified but they all also need to learn self regulation and respect to their fellow man. alot of muslims aren't peaceful people in this country and all too often we hear about that whichs puts the good muslims at risk.

he another article u may find interesting

Muslim peer deserves to die, say Islamic zealots
Gareth Walsh
 
 
 
A LEADING British Muslim politician should be killed for committing “apostasy” by supporting anti-terrorist policies, a Muslim extremist has claimed.
The warning to Lord Ahmed — one of the first Labour peers appointed by Tony Blair and an outspoken critic of fundamentalism — was issued at a meeting of al-Muhajiroun, a radical London-based group.

 
 
The organisation, led by the Syrian-born preacher Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, is alleged to have sent Britons to terrorist training camps and one of its followers attempted a suicide bombing in Israel.

Al-Muhajiroun’s threat was witnessed by an undercover Sunday Times reporter who attended the group’s meetings as a potential convert to Islam.

In his public statements Omar avoids threats of violence against British politicians, but his followers are less guarded. The sessions, although outwardly religious, included statements in support of terrorism, from praise for the September 11 attackers to calls for the violent establishment of a Muslim state in Britain.

The threat against Ahmed, 46, was delivered this month by Abu Saliah, a regular speaker at al-Muhajiroun meetings. He claimed that the peer had “allied himself” with non-Muslims and was guilty of “apostasy” (abandonment of his faith), a crime “punishable by death. No doubt about it”. Saliah stopped short of calling outright for the murder of Ahmed, a businessman from Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

The peer, ennobled in 1998, has tempered his criticism of Islamic extremism with opposition to the Iraq war. He angered some Muslims recently by urging that clerics should be forced to take tests in English language and culture. He said he had expected to become the subject of a fatwa (religious pronouncement), “though not, I should add, one that sentences me to death”.

Al-Muhajiroun recruits in mosques and universities. It also uses a market stall in Whitechapel Road, east London, the heart of the capital’s Bangladeshi community. Targets include white Britons who are confused about their religious beliefs or who have personal problems.

The reporter, white and from a Christian background, was invited to meetings after approaching the stall. He claimed that he had become disillusioned with Christianity and had a theological query about language in the Koran.

Staff at the stall urged the reporter to attend weekly meetings of the Central London Muslim Association, a name used by al-Muhajiroun. The group uses a room at the Weavers Field community centre, a former school in Bethnal Green, east London. The reporter went to three gatherings over the past month.

They attracted between 30 and 40 people, mostly Asian and mostly men but with a small group of women. At meetings, the reporter was assigned to a follower in his early twenties called Azaz to learn of the group’s beliefs.

The speeches consist almost entirely of attacks on the Blair government, British society and moderate Muslims.

Speakers generally used quiet, measured tones. The audience gave murmurs of assent. The style was in sharp contrast to rabble-rousing preachers such as Abu Hamza, the hook-handed cleric from Finsbury Park, north London.

Statements included: o Praise for the killing of American marines in Falluja. o A description of the September 11 attacks as “magnificent”. o Criticism of Muslims who co-operate with police or MI5 by alerting them to terrorists. o A warning that Britain must accept the “black flag of Islam flying over 10 Downing Street” or “live in terror”.

Speeches are recorded on video for distribution to sympathisers. They are punctuated by prayers and rounded off with a question and answer session.

Last week the meeting was able to boast a new convert. The man, a white Briton identified as a reformed alcoholic called Wayne, had been recruited about two months after first attending the Whitechapel stall.

The man, in his late twenties or early thirties and with a ponytail, was wearing traditional Pakistani dress. After reciting the shahada — the pledge of total belief in Allah — he took the Muslim name Osama amid screams of “Allahu akbar” (God is great).

Earlier in the meeting one speaker, a bespectacled civil engineer in his thirties, had claimed that it was only through ignorance that people criticised the September 11 attacks, “when the two planes magnificently went through those buildings”. He also claimed that the use of terrorism by Al-Qaeda had helped to recruit converts. He said: “Why do you think that after 9/11 people started looking at Islam? . . . If you fear something, you seek knowledge about it.”

During the same meeting, the reporter was asked three times whether he, too, was ready to convert but he claimed he was still making up his mind.

Al-Muhajiroun has more than 2,000 Muslims, mainly men in their late teens to thirties from Asian, African or West Indian backgrounds. Despite concern from mainstream mosques, police and MI5, it is a legal group. It has found an audience among disaffected young Muslims, particularly in London, Derby and Luton.

Omar, formerly known as al-Fostock, was born in Aleppo, Syria. He lived in Saudi Arabia but was expelled in 1986 for belonging to the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation party). He claimed asylum in Britain and 10 years later founded al- Muhajiroun, which means “the emigrants” in Arabic. In 1991 he was interviewed by police after allegedly calling for the assassination of John Major.

At the meetings, members of the group rejected their nationality. “We’re not British. Either you are British or you are Muslim. You can’t be both,” said Saliah. “What does ‘British’ mean? ‘British’ means you give your allegiance to the Queen. Is the Queen Muslim? Of course she is not.”

He said of non-Muslims: “We do not take them as friends. We do not take them as allies. So how is it I can go to the British government or the authorities and say, ‘Look, here is our Muslim brother. Take him’. Unfortunately Lord Ahmed released this statement — we know this man. He’s not Muslim, he’s an apostate . . . Apostasy in Islam is a crime which is punishable by death. No doubt about it . . .”

Other speakers at recent meetings included Omar Brooks, 27, a fibre-optics engineer and convert from Christianity. Brooks claimed “all Jews are racist”, said the Blair government would begin to murder Muslims in Britain and praised the killing of Americans in Iraq.

Azaz, the reporter’s religious “minder”, made clear the group’s admiration for Bin Laden, particularly his financial support for the families of fighters. “A lot of people now call their sons Osama because he is the one who has been looking after thousands of families. The soldiers of Allah — he looks after them,” said Azaz.

Ahmed shrugged off the warning against him this weekend. “ I am not afraid of them,” he said. “I am deeply concerned not for myself but the type of incitement that al-Muhajiroun and Abu Hamza are preaching. That is why in the House of Lords about two weeks ago I asked the government to revoke the British citizenship of Hamza and Omar Bakri.”

Omar said this weekend that “great scholars” in Saudi Arabia had also branded the peer an apostate but that he did not agree. He said Ahmed was merely “ignorant”.

FBI had warning

THE FBI received warnings from a jailed Al-Qaeda terrorist in advance of the September 11 attacks that the group was planning operations against US airliners, writes Nick Fielding.

The information was gained by Gregory Scarpa Jr, a jailed mafia mobster. He secretly recorded conversations in a New York prison with Ramzi Yousef, who carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The previously undisclosed information is included in FBI transcripts handed to a congressional inquiry.

Scarpa tried to win favour with the prison authorities by befriending and informing on Yousef. The intelligence gained over 11 months — such as disclosures that terrorists were travelling through Britain to reach America — was given to the FBI, but the operation was shut down before the September 2001 attacks.

Yousef also described how to hide explosives in a shoe heel, a tactic used by Richard Reid, the British Muslim convert arrested on a transatlantic flight in December 2001 as he tried to detonate such a bomb.
 
 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1078161,00.html

[Diabolical]

I dont have any problems with any person of another religion or race but there is this guy at my school who is always going on about his religion(Islam) we just mock him Because he always says stuff about pork and allah and stuff like that eg. suicide bombers being related to Muslim countries, there are people in his year who make a fool of him for lots of reasons, one of them is that he is a muslim but he probably says the same to them and the other is the fact he likes rap and when he isnt talking about Islam he is talking about rap. One stupid thing he does is that he is always saying Westside and throwing up a W but he only listens to Tupac, NWA & Snoop, he doesnt like WSC and has hardly ever heard of Crooked I until i mentioned him, the most hyped west coast artist in years.