We have listed the key terms related to Islamophobic language and the following snapshot shows the top 22 categories of terms. What this allows us to do is to look at whether national or international incidents change the language of Islamophobia and there are some basic observations that can be made.

Clearly the hashtag #EDL comes up quite high showing a predominance of people who have affiliations or are partial to the messages of the English Defence League. This term would have been written on-line in tweets or on social media statements that were sent to us by victims who thought that they were anti-Muslim in nature. What is also interesting to note is the high predominance of the racist term ‘Paki’, showing that race is sometimes associated with Islamophobic language and this throws up questions around how cases may be classified by local police forces, if language is presented to officers by the victim which demonstrates racially and religiously prejudicial terms. The other element that needs to be noted is that the Hijab, (the female religious head-covering), is mentioned in statements, followed by a heavy predominance of statements around paedophilia or grooming. In fact, if the terms related to paedophilia can be categorised into ‘sexual abuse,’ it seems that this category has become the overwhelming lens through which Islamophobic language is now framed. Sexual deviancy is therefore wrapped up in the language that is associated to anti-Muslim prejudiced incidents.

Tha language of anti-Muslim prejudice is something that we will continue to track and document, though what is clear is that whilst many Muslims previously suggested that ‘terrorist’ was a term that was targeted at Muslims post 9/11, it may well be that the language of hate has changed and is now based on issues of grooming, abuse against Prophet Muhammad and the attempt to characterise him as someone who was malevolent or in some way sexually deviant. This, the twisted narrative from Far Right groups goes, means that Muslims are inherently sexually deviant and hence they groom girls. We say within TELL MAMA, that apart from this narrative being farcical and reflective of twisted imaginations, it does say something about how language is used to dehumanize, bestialize and criminalize all Muslims, rather than focus on those small numbers of individuals who unfortunately come from all sections of communities and who prey on vulnerable young people. It is the latter we should be countering, as well as the twisted language of hate, whether Islamophobic, anti-Semitic or anti-gay in nature.

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We are therefore honoured to place the following statement from Nick Jode, an ex-EDL supporter on our site. Nick can also be found on Twitter (@nickjode73). This is his statement:

“For 3 years I was a supporter of the English Defence League until 2012. I was not a ”member” as there is no membership and I decided to stop supporting the EDL in late 2012 as I felt their agenda was different from mine. A few days ago six men pleaded guilty to charges of having the intention of blowing up an EDL march in Dewsbury which would have resorted to the murder and maiming of many people in attendance. I condemn any such violence towards anyone and these men should be sentenced within our law. But I feel it is also important to point out that the time has now come for all sides to put down their hate they have within themselves. The people who were to carry out this crime were Islamic jihadists who do not speak for every Muslim in the UK and beyond and it is now time to stop the hate. I hope someone takes notice of this as the only thing that may happen is the death of someone which I do not want to see.”

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Anyway, thanks Tommy, for confirming that we were right and that you were interviewed. Nice one pal! So we were slightly aghast when Tommy Robinson paid us another compliment after making out that our work was having a minimal effect. Whilst we are not keen on Tommy’s compliments, what is heartening to see is that imitation is the best form of flattery. Seeing as we have been effective in countering the hate of the EDL and more importantly, in getting prosecutions of their sympathisers who think it is fine to promote anti-Muslim hate on-line, the Far Right EDL have tried to set up their own helpline. (We desperately are trying to hold back the tears of laughter – poor souls, they know how effective we are; it clearly seems to have affected their judgement). So, today,  Tommy tweets this out to his 11,000 plus followers, (01/05/13).

There is one slight thing though. The Far Right ‘helpline’ which is a Twitter account may not know the implications of what they have placed in this tweet below. Only time will tell and we will no doubt keep you informed.

So, if you have suffered anti-Muslim prejudice or in fact, any form of prejudice, make sure you report it in preferably to the Police or to reputable third pary hate crime reporting organisations like TELL MAMA, CST (the Community Security Trust) or Stop Hate UK.

TELL MAMA can assist on anti-Muslim hate incidents and it is key to report in activities and ensure that the perpetrator be caught sooner rather than later. In the meantime, the best thing that the Far Right can do is to waste their time emulating us. They may want to flatter us, but we are ‘not for turning.’

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Although one sometimes sees the phrase ‘militant atheists’ bandied around, in practice you are unlikely to be troubled by anyone using violent means to further their godless agenda.

However it is of course the case that regimes have sometimes used violence and intimidation to promote atheism.  During the Cultural Revolution in China places of worship were burned down in an attempt to eliminate religion completely. In the Soviet Union, although the degree of repression, varied over the decades, violence was often employed in order to clamp down on religion. In 1937 alone it is thought that 85,000 Orthodox priests were killed by the state.

Happily the atheists you may encounter either in the real or virtual world are unlikely to be quite so bloodthirsty. But there are certainly different atheist schools of thought, and it’s useful to be able to distinguish between some of these.

The most vocal and visible of these is New Atheism.  New atheists are intent on actively criticising and countering belief itself, as well as the abuses and injustices which they perceive to be the direct consequence of religion. The best known New Atheist is of course Richard Dawkins.  It’s very important to note that he is opposed to all religion and doesn’t, as so many do, just pick on Islam.  However as this site is concerned with anti-Muslim bigotry, I’ll focus on his attitude towards Islam here.

This is quite usefully summed up, I think, by two recent tweets. Here’s the first:

“Yes, bigoted prejudice against Muslims exists, and is deplorable. That doesn’t mean all criticism of Islam is bigoted prejudice.”

That seems fair enough.  But I’m less sure about this.:

“Only fools think criticism of Islam=”Islamophobia”. But there are enough fools to ensure “Islamophobia” accusation is effective propaganda.”

In my opinion accusations of Islamophobia are sometimes weaponised to silence dissent and smear the motives of those with reasoned concerns about particular people or events.  However some charges of Islamophobia seem fully justified – this is most clearly the case when the term ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’ could work just as well, although I don’t think it is possible to completely separate criticism of Muslims from criticism of Islam, even though I don’t think any ideology should be immune from scrutiny or mockery.

The permeability of the boundary between criticism of Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry is perhaps reflected in the fact Richard Dawkins chose to retweet this.

“RT @J_P_70: @RichardDawkins I was going to the Maldives, but cancelled trip. Going to Cancun instead. No muslims there I hope! #maldives #fuckyou #islam …)”

Now, he did apologise and I genuinely don’t think the tweet accurately reflects his own views, but I can’t blame Muslims, and others, for taking offence. And to take offence certainly does not (necessarily) equate to wanting to silence or censor his views.  He and others like him are legitimate, if abrasive, voices in this complex debate. However he certainly doesn’t speak for me.

What other atheists might you encounter?  Probably, for the most part, people who never think it necessary to refer to their lack of faith online, even when discussing a topic connected to religion. Moving over this phlegmatic middle ground – and a lot of atheists belong here – you eventually arrive at those atheists whom Newer atheists like to call accommodationists.

Chris Stedman is typical of this increasingly vocal group.  He is the author of a book called Faitheism which charts his own loss of (Christian) faith, and his continuing efforts to find common ground with people from all religions.  Recently he co-wrote this article with Qasim Rashid, making a case for atheists to come together with Muslims to campaign for human rights and freedom of conscience and expression:

“Civility also builds trust. By engaging in respectful discourse, we ensure two things. First, that even the most sensitive questions about the other’s beliefs can be asked—as they should be—without censorship. Thus, we do not avoid important or difficult questions out of fear of “offending” the other. Second, regardless of whether we agree on an issue, we emerge with significantly more appreciation for one another and significantly less ignorance. In the end, that knowledge is of priceless benefit.”

There is incivility on both sides of the divide – whether it’s dehumanising anti-kuffar bigotry or sneers at sky fairies, and disparaging comments about theists’ intelligence. Sometimes context may affect how you respond to sharp words. I can quite see why an ex-Muslim, who may have faced abuse, threats or ostracism, would not be greatly enamoured of Islam and would want to express that view pretty forcibly.  Conversely, a Muslim, after dealing with a string of abusive EDL comments on Twitter, may not be ideally placed to spot that the snarky secularist who has just appeared in her time line actually has a very different agenda.

I’m a fervent secularist, but (despite sharing Kenan Malik’s concerns about multiculturalism as political process) I don’t favour the kind of secularism that shades into state atheism and seeks to impose illiberal restrictions on religion in the public sphere.  Intolerant, hateful or extreme groups, individuals and ideas should be challenged without regard for religious sensibilities, yet as far as I’m concerned religion is only a problem – when it’s a problem.  On a pragmatic note, I don’t think either atheists or theists are going to disappear any time soon, except via repressive or violent means, so, like Chris Stedman, I think it’s well worth us all trying to find some common ground.

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You would think that Tommy Robinson would be a bit more careful regarding his hate tweets after this experience. Well, you would think so, but with an ego the size of the grand canyon, the slight matter of the law seems to slip by the mind of this self-proclaimed leader of the motley English Defence League. Take for example, this tweet he put out a few days ago on the 2nd of April:

So let’s take this statement. There is a vast amount of academic information which shows how the Nazis used terms to associate Jews with vermin, with disease and infestation. Well, hey ho, the EDL leader who states that he is not racist seems to regurgitate the very same sick narratives, though mention this to him and you are likely to receive a Twitter rant blaming Muslims for all of the ills with this country. The EDL continue to try and maintain the old facade that they are not racist. “Islam is not a race they say.” Well, such prejudiced hate filled geniuses seem to give life to the narratives of hate that were used to marginalise and isolate out Jews in the 1930′s and we all know where that ended up. We also know that they are no friends of Jewish communities and scratch the surface of Far Right groups and out pops the age old anti-Semitism that is entwined in their DNA.

Whilst we clearly do not believe that a Holocaust will take place again, nonetheless, the poison of the EDL and other extreme Far Right groups must be checked. They not only feed off the extremism of their counterparts such as groups like Al Muhajiroun, they also help to radicalise others and provide cover for more extreme Far Right groups to operate within. Last week for example, we spoke to an ex-Far Right campaigner who walked away from an extreme Far Right group and who has started to piece his life together. Courageously, he talked to us about how the EDL were used as cover for more extreme groups to operate under and this cover was perfect for undertaking recruitment and criminality. His life was shattered by the extremist poison that was injected into him and his last words on the phone to us were, “I have done so many bad things, all I want to do is some good.”

Lastly, in our previous posting we raised the case of George Milnes, the Huddersfield based EDL sympathiser who has gone onto harass both us in TELL MAMA and a number of individuals across the country. Well, it seems George Milnes likes popping up wherever there are hate promoters. Take for example, the above tweet from Tommy Robinson. A glance at the retweeters shows George Milnes, (second from the left) and his ‘commando’ picture which he feels reflects his Twitter account @CommandoPirate. Looks like Milnes has become another groupie to the leader of the EDL. George – you might want to stop leaving so many electronic traces of yourself on-line. Either way, Bedfordshire Police will be receiving a copy of the tweet from Tommy.

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George initially came to the attention of TELL MAMA in late 2012 when he was reported in by a member of the public and after numerous reports from TELL MAMA to a police force within England, it transpired that members of the relevant police force did not think that his comments were prosecutable. In fact, one officer regarded them (and we quote directly), “as sick and offensive ‘jokes’ posted to a social media web-site.” Let us review what those sick and offensive ‘jokes’ were that this officer did not think were criminally liable. We have listed some examples we directly sent to the officer in question and which we will evidence with his superiors:

Tweet from Captain G. Scrotum @captainscr0tum – which was evidenced to be George Milnes

Within this tweet alone, George uses the classic Islamophobic term of ‘muzrats.’ Used by the English Defence League and other Far Right groups, it is very reminiscent of the language used by the Nazis in the 1930′s when they referred to Jewish groups as vermin. Today, according to George, Muslims are the new vermin. Furthermore, according to George, (who adores the EDL), he tags the background of the tweet with a ‘joke,’ the same joke which the officer thinks is non prosecutable. It reads, “Why do Muslim women wear Burkas? Because they will be raped if they don’t.” This ‘joke’ suggests that Muslim men are rapists and no doubt George is ever the social scientist. Indeed, a quick look at the tag-line of George’s new Twitter account, @CommandoPirate, lists a George from Huddersfield who is an, “English Patriot. #England #EDL #IDF #ProIsrael #AntiIslam.” What we are pretty sure of is that many Israelis would feel sickened by the support from someone like Milnes.

Anyway, we thought we would delve further into the tweets sent to the police officer and which he regarded as ‘jokes.’ Here is another one of them from Milnes:

The tweet in question sent to the officer shows Milnes stating:

“When I say I hate Pakis, I don’t mean Sikhs, Hindus or any other culture. I mean Muslims, Pakistani Muslims. You left gob shites #EDL.” Milnes also confirms on Twitter that he called TELL MAMA and he subsequently went onto abuse case officers within the project. It would also be safe to say that Milnes’s own actions show an avid EDL keyboard warrior moving into the world of criminality by harassing organisations such as TELL MAMA.

However, the catalogue of hate continued on. Here are further tweets from Milnes:

Here George Milnes admits calling TELL MAMA and this tweet can be used for evidential purposes since it is within the 6 month investigative period when the tweet was first written. When  we informed the relevant police officer that we wanted to bring in this evidence, we systematically failed to get a response back on the Twitter evidence despite numerous e-mails categorically asking for options to do so. Now, even though Milnes is not the sharpest ace in a pack of cards, we thought that he could remember how many times he called us. Turns out according to this tweet that it was plenty of times:

In the meantime Milnes was becoming more bolder in his actions. Here are some more conversations and tweets:

Here is George having a conversation with another EDL wannabee with a graphic in the background stating, “BBQ pork restaurant is safest. No Muslims inside.” The implication here is clear. That having no Muslims in a business or organisation is the safest thing and that pork material ensures that safety. According to his evolving mind, pork is kryptonite for Muslims. And then there is this tweet suggesting, once again, that Muslims are rapists.

The list goes on with the final straw being the following conversation between George’s new Twitter account, @CommandoPirate, and a Twitter account that we have reported in, namely, @Sahira_the_twat. Earlier today, the latter Twitter account sent us these Tweets:

And here is George having a chat with his new racist pal, once again being Islamophobic by suggesting here that TELL MAMA are the, ‘Muslim bin bag crew,’ (for ‘bin bag’ read Muslim women who wear the abaya, or the black covering for religious purposes).

Now, over the last 5 to 6 months, we have regularly fed in the harassment from George Milnes we have received and we have been a witness to his ongoing harassment of an elderly woman and a young Muslim female, a 15 year old who was subjected to sexual innuendo and further targeted hate and harassment. Hate crime practitioners are clear that if action is not taken early on with abusers, they will continue to target their actions against victims which get worse over time. George Milnes is a classical example of this. A young man who literally believes that he can say and do anything he wants, irrespective of the consequences. Take this with a police force that literally is unable to piece the bigger picture together and where a serving officer regards Milnes’s ‘jokes‘ as just that and you have an environment which emboldens the perpetrator. No doubt, the relevant force will be receiving this article and since no action has yet been taken with regard to Milnes, we thought that we would inform the public about this menace of a young man who deserves to spend some quality time at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

If you have suffered at the hands of George Milnes from Huddersfield, do get in touch with us on info@tellmamauk.org 

The post The Case of EDL Sympathiser (George Milnes) & His Widening Net of Abuse appeared first on TELL MAMA - Supporting victims of anti-Muslim prejudice.

We are also aware that Muslims who have suffered street based incidents have been looking for an ‘app’ that they could report through. With this in mind, we have developed the TELL MAMA reporting in application which was launched by iTunes today. The application can be downloaded from iTunes here.

We will respond to reports that come in with a phone call to the victim and we will also be able to geo-locate where the incident has taken place if reported in immediately and within the vicinity of the location where the incident took place. We would advise that you download the application so that it can provide you with added re-assurance, that you are not alone!

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Recently, there was furore linked to the cartoon by the Guardian cartoonist, Gerald Scarfe, who depicted Binyamin Netanyahu as cementing a wall with blood and where Palestinian bodies were entraped within. The Community Security Trust objected to the cartoon since it played to the Blood Libel caricatures that have been circulating globally for hundreds, if not over a thousand years. The CST and many Jewish individuals and groups rightly objected to the cartoon saying that it conjured up feelings of hate towards all Jews by association, whether overt or covert, to the disgraceful Blood Libel stereotypes.

Now, we are in no way suggesting that the cartoon printed today by Peter Brookes is on a par with the strong feelings that Gerald Scarfe’s cartoon brought up. We acknowledge that the cartoons are inherently different in their nature and they also conjure up different responses. However, what we strongly believe, is that both cartoons are similar in the manner in which they seem to caricature certain communities. Take in this case the assumption that all migrants are Muslims. The characteristic beard, the prayer cap, the ‘Pakistani’ or Muslim attire and the Asian look of the individual all seem to place him within the sphere of someone from Pakistan or Bangladesh, given that the individual is clearly a Muslim. So by implication, the majority of migrants are Muslims from the sub-continent.

Findings from the Migration Observatory in Oxford University list the following facts:
- “That India, Poland, Ireland and Pakistan are the top 4 countries of birth for the foreign born, followed by German and Bangladesh. Poland is the top country of citizenship of foreign nationals.”
- ONS statistics also highlight the following: “The most common non-UK countries of birth for usual residents of England and Wales in 2011 were India, Poland and Pakistan. Poland showed by far the largest percentage increase in the top ten countries of birth, with a nine-fold rise over the last decade and following its accession to the EU in 2004.”

India has over 200 million Muslims in the country and is not a Muslim majority country. Yet, if the majority of the migrancy is from India, why is the Muslim man getting excrement on his head? Are we saying that it is acceptable to play to the dog whistle populism of associating migrants to those somewhat ‘dark, hairy, religious’ individuals called Muslims.

It seems that the Times has stooped to a low in publishing this cartoon which is factualy inaccurate and deeply offensive. Whilst being offensive is protected as a right to free speech, being factually inaccurate is unacceptable in an information rich society. Shame on the Times!

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That same morning, prominent atheist writer Richard Dawkins – pursuing a theme on Islam that seems to have occupied his mind of late – stated that:

‘Decent, nice, liberal people must stop being so terrified of being thought “Islamophobic” and stand up for decent, nice, liberal values’.

This does not seem like a very controversial statement. Generally, people don’t want to align themselves with indecent, mean, and oppressive people, and so the statement already seems fairly reasonable. Dawkins is not alone in making these sorts of claims, and many in the ‘New Atheist’ movement and beyond subscribe to similar conflicts between a decent, Western, liberalism and the Islamic ‘other’. Indeed, standing up for what you believe in, in the face of social opposition, is widely regarded as a social and moral virtue.

Nonetheless, when we look at the sorts of sentiments, statements, and harassment being reported in to Tell MAMA as incidences of ‘Islamophobia’ or ‘anti-Muslim prejudice’, we can see that these are far from the actions of ‘decent, nice, liberal people’. Although there are many examples of individual harassment and hate incidents directed against Muslims, we will restrict ourselves here to Twitter and other social media settings, since that was where Dawkin’s comment was raised.

A significant proportion of hate incidents (74%) take place online, via email or social media sites, and take place extremely regularly. Anyone who raises their head above the digital parapet to discuss issues of politics and religion (and more than a few who just mind their own business) is at risk of quickly becoming the subject of extraordinarily vile rhetoric. Here is a typical sample of twitter abuse that is daily reported to our caseworkers, often by non-Muslim twitter users who are concerned and offended by this sort of language:

‘Fucking bastards time we killed 2 or 3 of the cunts kids just to let them feel the pain burn the koran’

‘Go down there and kick the shit out of this cunt then burn the koran after you have wiped your dogs arse with it’

‘All Muslims dont only fuck allah but goats & donkeys too!’

‘I forgot they luv to rape camels & babies too! So report me for that too fuckheads!!’

‘Maybe the OB don’t but everyone else in the country knows, “Where there’s a Muslim there’s a child rape” EDL’

‘and your a threat to my country and my culture, and we’ll fight you to the last bullet, street by street if we have to.’

One particularly offensive image disseminated online shows a woman wearing a ‘chastity belt’ made of bacon, over the heading ‘Stop Mohammed from raping little girls’ (one rehosting of this image received a staggering 277,000 views worldwide).  These sorts of images and words can cause deep-seated trauma, and are weapons to be deployed in an ongoing cultural dispute against ‘Mohammed’ and Muslims in general, clothed in the same sort of ‘internet meme’ format used to share jokes about TV shows and funny cat pictures. The combination of rape culture, paedophilic language, anti-Muslim prejudice, and ‘banter’ combines to form a toxic online environment that is very far removed from the ‘decent, nice, liberal values’ that many prominent critics of Islam espouse.

In many cases, these are hate crimes, attempts to use language and extremist rhetoric to stir up hatred against another person, or even call for violence against them. Under British law, any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a personal characteristic – disability, gender identity, race, religion (or lack of it) and sexual orientation are hate crimes – and these would certainly count as hate crimes. In logging them and reporting them to the police, Tell MAMA is merely following current legal directives on hate crime. (We must add that there is a distinction between hate crimes and hate incidents which are listed below and TELL MAMA works just like other third party hate crime monitoring projects.)

Some of these cases, however, aren’t hate crimes under British law, but instead represent ‘hate incidents’ – incidents’ – attacks and harassment that might not be classified as hate crime, but still contribute to a broader climate of hate and stigmatise vulnerable minorities.  Such a distinction is drawn by several UK Police forces, by Tell MAMA, and by the organisation primarily responsible for reporting on anti-Semitic hate crime, the Community Security Trust. These are still logged and reported on to the police, but are often marked ‘intelligence only’, meaning that no direct action will be taken on them – they help to give both Tell MAMA and the Police a sense of general anti-Muslim trends in British society, and the ability to map their development, which is extremely helpful in preventive and community cohesion work. We don’t just submit anything that comes along, either – our team of case-workers carefully handles each report as it comes in, to determine whether or not it can be verified and justified as an anti-Muslim incident (or whether, for example, it is more properly filed as a racially motivated incident or hate crime). They communicate with victims, not only helping to clarify the attacks, but also referring them onto any appropriate support groups, such as Victim Support and the Neighbourhood Watch.

As such, it’s unhelpful at best, and disingenuous at worst, to consider Tell MAMA an organisation obsessed with restricting free speech and terrorising prominent public figures into silence whenever they dare criticise Islam. Instead, it operates using careful procedures to determine the credibility of reports of already criminal speech that tries to stir up religious hatred and violence, and in other cases maps and catalogues existing non-criminal but still hate-filled material, in order to provide a useful portrait of this kind of prejudice in Britain. People may (unfortunately) still spread hateful speech online and offline, and exercise their freedom of expression to do so, but this doesn’t mean that what they say can’t be catalogued and analysed, and used to highlight the need for increased religious literacy and cultural cohesion. Free speech – subject to hate crime laws designed to protect other human rights is essential in our society, but people shouldn’t expect it to insulate them from the comments and critique that follow it.

Naturally, Dawkins, his supporters, and the broader movement of self-identified ‘liberal, nice, decent people’ may yet defend themselves as critics of Islam who do not adopt the violent extremist attitudes of EDL members. Many of them may well be decent people though it is important that they realise that their actions may feed into the rhetoric of hate organisations like the EDL. Sometimes, the language and comments used may well be perceived by Muslims as being identical to groups like the EDL and whilst they are coming from different places, the impact and perceptions on Muslim individuals may be the same – whether from the liberal or political left or whether from the Far Right. Any form of speech that lumps groups of individuals together and abuses them collectively is unacceptable in a tolerant, diverse, and equal society. Furthermore, these ‘decent, nice and liberal people’ need to understand that some in society attack Islam to undermine and dehumanise Muslims. Some genuinely believe that by attacking Islam, they are having no impact on the perception of Muslims by others. It is therefore not a simple issue and saying that hating and attacking Islam does not impact or affect Muslims in our communities is naive. Whilst we defend their right to speak, we also raise the fact that their comments and actions may have impacts which can be perceived as hate speech, as well as direct impacts on community tensions. In the end such community tensions can and do impact on the lives of decent, law-abiding Muslims going about their everyday business. Here are some examples.

Tell MAMA is therefore not an overarching group plotting to steal away the freedom of speech of British people, but an organisation devoted to mapping and reporting hate crime and incidents, and supporting a particularly marginalised community in Britain.

Tell MAMA and other groups – beyond anti-Muslim attacks

Another related criticism that has often been raised is that projects like Tell MAMA are exclusive, only focusing on Muslim concerns and operating with a callous disregard for non-Muslim concerns, an accusation that reinforces the sense of otherness and distinctness that the ‘nice, decent, liberal people vs. Muslims’ division relies on. It’s important to answer this complaint – Does Tell MAMA focus on Muslim issues to the exclusion of other instances of oppression and prejudice?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Tell MAMA is just one of a number of initiatives run by Faith Matters, an interfaith and conflict resolution organisation founded in 2005. Other projects run by the organisation include a ‘Faith Ambassadors’ project, aiming to bring young people from all faiths together, and give them leadership skills and interfaith training to encourage mutual trust and understanding between communities; and a conflict resolution project between Sikh and Muslim communities in West London, as well as a number of workshops and conferences on countering extremism of all stripes. These, and a range of other projects, reflect a deep concern with community cohesion, youth, and inter-faith relations. Faith Matters’ Pakistan branch is currently engaged in a project using a unique technological approach to reach out to young people from both Christian and Muslim backgrounds to promote interfaith harmony in an increasingly volatile region. Our project managers work towards peace and tolerance between faith communities and speak out against all kinds of faith violence. Tuesday’s blog condemned the recent violence against Christian communities in Lahore.

In addition, Tell MAMA does not stand alone in the anti-hate field, but works in solidarity with other organisations opposing violent prejudice throughout British sociey. During the planning phases of Tell MAMA, we sought advice from the Community Security Trust, a similar organisation with decades of experience monitoring and reporting hate crime against Britain’s Jewish community, a connection that continues into the present day. The project has an ongoing relationship with the Christian Muslim Forum, and one of the organisation’s patrons – the Revd. Mark Oakley – is also the Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s Cathedral. (Tell MAMA shares information with Stonewall, and Imaan, an organisation for LGBT Muslims). They face a particularly difficult situation, with discrimination and harassment from both within and outside the Muslim community, and we welcome reports dealing with this. Tell MAMA may log and focus on hate incidents and crimes directed against Muslims – that is its job, and over-stretching itself would hurt its effective operation – but it will report any hate crime or incident on to the police, be it intra-community or inter-community.

While writers like Dawkins may object that all this work focuses on religious concerns, and does not address atheism, there’s a clue in the name ‘Faith Matters’ that might explain why. Whatever one’s opinions on religious faith are, it’s difficult to deny that it plays an enormous part of people’s identity, and that in order to engage in peacebuilding and community cohesion, it’s necessary to engage with it and build these bridges between faith communities.

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A five-year old girl sent flying from the bonnet of a car, left unconscious in the road by a hit-and-run driver. A pregnant woman watching her husband being beaten up by her neighbour’s boyfriend, her children terrorised by constant abuse. A family forced from their home in Nottinghamshire, a cross wrapped in ham on their doorstep the last straw. Or the young woman who had faeces thrust onto her Hijab as she was walking in a south London street, only to be embarrased and emotionally scarred for life for wearing a headscarf.

All these and more are just some of the 632 (and rising) cases reported during the first year of ‘Tell MAMA’, the UK’s national anti-Muslim hate crime project. We suspect that these are just a fraction of the total number of anti-Muslim incidents affecting ordinary Muslims up and down the country.

Our work within TELL MAMA reveals a disturbing picture of low-level anti-Muslim harassment: incidents in the workplace, in the street, between neighbours and particularly online, which may not always hit the headlines but can have a devastating effect on peoples’ lives. From the internet, to the workplace, the street and even houses of worship, too often Muslim women and men are becoming the target of vicious, sometimes violent, abuse.

With rising racial and Islamophobic attitudes recorded time-and-again by surveys – the latest being results released last week by Matthew Goodwin and YouGov – we are calling in particular, on the police to do more to tackle this shameful wave of fear and prejudice which has direct implications for peace and security within all communities. Whilst we acknowledge the resource cuts that have taken place within the police forces, we also understand that cuts do not necessarily mean that the quality of service provision to victims in general should decrease. Indeed, this has been something that the Home Secretary has re-iterated and we call on local forces to ensure that victims of hate crimes are kept informed on cases and that hate crime become a central plank for Police and Crime Commissioners over the next few days as they set their policing plans into action. What is also likely is that as we move into a period of unprecedented resource deficits, those who seek to foment extreme and hateful views in our communities may well try and gain traction as people feel the financial pressures blowing across Europe.

Findings

Our project reveals some disturbing findings. The majority of Muslims being physically attacked, harassed or intimidated because of their faith are women, according to MAMA’s figures – and those doing it are white men increasingly likely to be linked to far-right groups.

Three-quarters (74%) of incidents reported to MAMA took place over social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc), but there have also been attacks on mosque buildings, against pregnant women and ‘visible’ hijab (veil) wearers, even children and pensioners in their 80s.

In one incident recorded in Nottinghamshire, a family was forced from its home; in another, a five-year-old girl was run over. High-profile figures such as journalist Jemima Khan have also been subject to online threats picked up and reported to the police by MAMA. Extreme violence featured in 23 of the cases.

The majority of those physically attacked on the street were Muslim women, wearing either the hijab (covering their head out of religious beliefs) or niqab (full face covering). Over half (58%) of cases involved female victims. These street based incidents seemed mostly ‘random’ in nature, according to victims, and often took place where interactions with others were common: at schools, using a taxi service, etc.

In one case reported to us, a pregnant woman and her husband were assaulted, leaving their children in terror. In south London, a Somali lady had dog faeces placed on her head by a white youth, which she only noticed after entering a local shop. Even when challenged, the male perpetrators tended to justify their actions by claiming that the women (their victims) were “oppressed, ignorant and abused”. Such vile attacks leave their victims feeling vulnerable and with a lasting sense of fear. These awful incidents must stop, and they must stop now.

Visibly-identified far-right British National Party (BNP) or English Defence League (EDL) members were linked to over half (54%) of all incidents. Our work has led to the arrests of 21 far-right EDL supporters, with over 40 incidents reported against EDL leader ‘Tommy Robinson’ alone. Eighteen prosecutions have taken place, although we would like the police and CPS to do much more in this area, (only two police forces – the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police – record Islamophobia as part of their crime statistics).

Background

So what is going on? More and more research is appearing which suggests we’ve underestimated the scale of Islamophobia. As academic Matthew Goodwin and YouGov revealed a few days ago (in research about the English Defence League and the ‘counter-jihad’ movement), just 23% of people said that Islam was NOT a threat to Western civilisation. A mere 24% thought Muslims were compatible with the British way of life (with nearly half of people disagreeing that Muslims were compatible). Perhaps most disturbingly, nearly half of people polled thought there would be a clash of civilisations between Muslims and other Britons.

In a powerful indictment in October 2010, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, posted a blog about how European Muslims are stigmatised by populist rhetoric. “European countries appear to face another crisis beyond budget deficits – the disintegration of human value. One symptom is the increasing expression of intolerance towards Muslims. Opinion polls in several European countries reflect fear, suspicion and negative opinions of Muslims and Islamic culture,” he wrote.

Amnesty International has shared this concern. In its April 2012 report “Choice and prejudice: discrimination against Muslims in Europe”, it exposed the impact of discrimination on Muslims. Marco Perolini, Amnesty’s expert on discrimination, said: “Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf. Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam. Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes.”

Now here in the UK the Association of Chief Police Officers has, for the first time, started to disaggregate the hate crimes reported to police in 2011. And early indications are that 50 to 60% of reported religious hate crimes were anti-Muslim, according to a speech Baroness Warsi the Communities and Faith minister gave at MAMA’s inaugural dinner in January.

“That’s why,” she said, “last year, Eric Pickles and I wrote to every mosque registered with the Charity Commission asking them to help to record anti-Muslim incidents.”

Wider Myth busting

There is no conflict between being ‘British’ and being ‘Muslim’. A full 83% of Muslims said they were proud to be British, compared to 79% of Britons overall. But recent history shows us what happens if we allow our fears to run unchecked. Demonisation of ‘the Other’, misguided beliefs that Muslims are somehow a monolithic block, unchecked lies that Islam is a violent religion or that British Muslims wish to abuse white girls, must be challenged.

Speaking more specifically, the issue of far-right activism and ‘broadband extremism’ needs to be brought into the domain of the Home Office rather than the Department for Communities and Local Government, which works on the ‘softer’ end of issues affecting communities. A major policy shift is needed here.

And the police need to change, too. All-too-frequently they fail to take victim statements from the cases we’ve seen; fail to appreciate the terrifying effects of these incidents upon women and vulnerable children. Few police forces even bother to record Islamophobia as part of their reporting systems. More training is needed at a time when police are facing budget cuts; we need more leadership too from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which, unhelpfully, has talked about fewer rather than more social media prosecutions.

The Muslim community must show some leadership here as well, of course, and make sure it is engaging through its leaders with wider society. Muslims must not tolerate those who call for intolerance or hatred towards secular Britons or other faiths. But this is something we all of us bear responsibility for, and we all of us must take our lead before the situation escalates out of control.

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