UK Muslim leader says Islamophobia survey reveals scale of problem in Britain

A Muslim woman walks past the entrance to the East London Mosque in Whitechapel, east London. (File/AFP)
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Updated 26 January 2022
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UK Muslim leader says Islamophobia survey reveals scale of problem in Britain

  • More than one-in-four people quizzed agreed that “there are areas in Britain that operate under Shariah law”
  • Mohammed: Important to document Islamophobia and share data with policy makers when asking for change

LONDON: A UK Muslim leader said on Tuesday that the findings of a survey on Islamophobia had highlighted “the pervasive nature of the problem” in Britain.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Birmingham, revealed that Islamophobia had passed the so-called dinner table test in being considered suitable for polite conversation and socially acceptable.

Titled, “The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain,” the survey found that Muslims were the UK’s second least-liked group after gypsy and Irish travelers, with 25.9 percent of the British public feeling negative toward Muslims, and 9.9 percent very negative.

Speaking at the report’s launch, Zara Mohammed, the first female secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said Islamophobia was definitely real, contrary to what some people thought, and that it impacted on all aspects of society.

“I think what’s really great about this report and its contribution to the body of evidence is that it shows us not just the pervasive nature of the problem but also that Muslims are some of the least-liked people in the population.

“In my one year so far as the secretary-general of the MCB, what we have seen is unfortunately a very changing landscape for British Muslims and one that is becoming increasingly hostile.

“This is the reality of how Muslims are perceived in everyday Britain, and that is in 2022 as well,” she added.

More than one-in-four people quizzed for the survey, and nearly half of Conservative Party supporters and those who voted to leave the EU, held conspiratorial views that “no-go areas” in the UK existed where Shariah law ruled.

And 26.5 percent of those questioned agreed with the statement that, “there are areas in Britain that operate under Shariah law where non-Muslims are not able to enter,” the study said. Among Conservative Party voters and those who elected to leave the EU, the figure increased to 43.4 percent.

A further 36.3 percent of Brits said they thought that “Islam threatens the British way of life,” and 18.1 percent supported, and 9.5 percent strongly supported, the idea of banning all Muslim migration to the UK.

“British people acknowledge their ignorance of most non-Christian religions, with a majority stating they are ‘not sure’ how Jewish (50.8 percent) and Sikh (62.7 percent) scriptures are taught.

“In the case of Islam, however, people feel more confident making a judgement, with only 40.7 percent being unsure. This is despite the fact that people are much more likely to make the incorrect assumption that Islam is ‘totally’ literalistic. Prejudice toward Islam is not simply ignorance, then, but miseducation and misrecognition,” the study report added.

Mohammed pointed out that Islamophobia had a very real knock-on impact on the everyday lives of Muslims, and she welcomed the academic evidence contained in reports such as the latest one written by Stephen Jones and Amy Unsworth.

She noted that it was important to document the problem and share data with policy makers when asking for change.

“In some ways it empowers Muslim communities to say, ‘don’t think it’s in your heads, actually something needs to be done.’

“The government’s own evidence on hate crime found that 40 percent of all those facing hate crime were Muslims. This is very much a real problem and I’m hoping that on the back of the work that Prof. Jones has done, we will all be able to benefit from it and use it in our campaigns, activism, and conversations.

“Whilst Islamophobia has certainly passed the dinner table test, it’s time for us to be able to move forward and make a real change, and the MCB remains committed to doing that,” Mohammed said.




MP Nusrat Ghani speaks during a session in Parliament in London, Britain. (File/Reuters)

The survey launch has coincided with news headlines about British Muslim Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani’s claims that her faith was given as a reason for her sacking as a government minister in 2020.

She said she was told that her “Muslimness was raised as an issue” at a meeting and that her “Muslim woman minister status was making colleagues feel uncomfortable.”

“It was like being punched in the stomach. I felt humiliated and powerless,” she added.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered a Cabinet Office inquiry into the claims.

On Ghani’s allegations, Mohammed said they “highlighted just how systemic and institutional the problem of Islamophobia is. It hits hard, and it hits deep.”

She added that Islamophobia, “isn’t just in our heads, and just over this weekend we have seen at the heart of politics how this also plays out.

“What is actually being done? What is the approach of decision makers to tackling the problem, if any?”

She said the MCB had been working to push for the adoption of a definition of Islamophobia developed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims.

According to the APPG definition, Islamophobia was rooted in racism and was a type of racism that targeted expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. The definition was widely endorsed throughout Muslim communities, political parties, and civil society.

However, the ruling Conservative Party rejected the APPG definition in 2019 and said it needed “more consideration.”

The late James Brokenshire, Britain’s communities secretary at the time, told the House of Commons that the APPG definition was not in line with the Equality Act 2010, and that two advisers would be appointed to come up with a definition that was.

However, an imam appointed by ministers as a key adviser on Islamophobia, said on Monday he had been ignored by No. 10 and Michael Gove, the UK’s secretary of state for housing, communities, and local government.

Imam Qari Asim, who was asked to help draw up a definition of Islamophobia, told The Times that he had not received replies to emails and letters that he sent to the government over more than two years since he was appointed.


Mali’s army claims arrest of an Daesh group leader

Updated 6 sec ago
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Mali’s army claims arrest of an Daesh group leader

BAMAKO: Mali’s army said Saturday its forces had arrested two men, one of them a leading figure in the Sahel branch of the Daesh group.
The army announced they had also killed several of the group’s fighters during an operation in the north of the country.
A statement from the army said they had arrested “Mahamad Ould Erkehile alias Abu Rakia,” as well as “Abu Hash,” who they said was a leading figure in the group.
They blamed him for coordinating atrocities against people in the Menaka and Gao regions in the northeast of the country, as well as attacks against the army.
Mali has faced profound unrest since 2012 linked both to militants associated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, and to local criminal gangs.
The country’s military rulers have broken ties with former colonial power France and turned, militarily and politically, to Russia.
 


Iran protests Afghan dam project in new water dispute

Updated 04 January 2025
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Iran protests Afghan dam project in new water dispute

  • The dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry said on Friday that an upstream dam being built by neighboring Afghanistan on the Harirud River restricts water flow and could be in violation of bilateral treaties.
Water rights have long been a source of friction in ties between the two countries, which share a more than 900-kilometer (560-mile) border.
Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Tehran’s foreign ministry, voiced on Friday “strong protest and concern over the disproportionate restriction of water entering Iran” due to the Pashdan Dam project.
He said in a statement that the Iranian concerns had been communicated “in contact with relevant Afghan authorities.”
“Exploitation of water resources and basins cannot be carried out without respecting Iran’s rights in accordance with bilateral treaties or applicable customary principles and rules, as well as the important principle of good neighborliness and environmental considerations,” Baqaei added.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, said in a video statement last month that the Pashdan project was “nearing completion and water storage has commenced.”
According to the video, the dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity.
In April, Baradar said the dam was a “vital and strategic project” for Herat province.
The foreign ministry statement on Friday follows remarks by an Iranian water official, similarly criticizing the dam construction.
“The situation has led to social and environmental issues, particularly affecting the drinking water supply for the holy city of Mashhad,” Iran’s second-largest and home to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine near the Afghan border, national water industry spokesman Issa Bozorgzadeh was quoted as saying on Monday by official news agency IRNA.
Harirud River, also known as Hari and Tejen, flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, passing along Iran’s borders with both countries.
In his statement, Baqaei said Iran expects “Afghanistan... to cooperate in continuing the flow of water from border rivers” and to “remove the obstacles created” along their path.
In May 2023, Iran issued a stern warning to Afghan officials over another dam project, on the Helmand River, saying that it violates the water rights of residents of Sistan-Baluchistan, a drought-hit province in southeastern Iran.


Series of Ethiopia earthquakes trigger evacuations

Updated 04 January 2025
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Series of Ethiopia earthquakes trigger evacuations

  • The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region

ADDIS ABABA: Evacuations were underway in Ethiopia Saturday after a series of earthquakes, the strongest of which, a 5.8-magnitude jolt, rocked the remote north of the Horn of Africa nation.
The quakes were centered on the largely rural Afar, Oromia and Amhara regions after months of intense seismic activity.
No casualties have been reported so far.
Ethiopia’s government Communication Service said around 80,000 people were living in the affected regions and the most vulnerable were being moved to temporary shelters.
“The earthquakes are increasing in terms of magnitude and recurrences,” it said in a statement, adding that experts had been dispatched to assess the damage.
The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission said 20,573 people had been evacuated to safer areas in Afar and Oromia, from a tally of over 51,000 “vulnerable” people.
Plans were underway to move more than 8,000 people in Oromia “in the coming days,” the agency said in a statement.
The latest shallow 4.7 magnitude quake hit just before 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT) about 33 kilometers north of Metehara town in Oromia, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center.
The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region.
The crater has stopped releasing plumes of smoke, but nearby residents have left their homes in panic.
Earthquakes are common in Ethiopia due to its location along the Great Rift Valley, one of the world’s most seismically active areas.
Experts have said the tremors and eruptions are being caused by the expansion of tectonic plates under the Great Rift Valley.


Jimmy Carter’s 6-day funeral begins with a motorcade through south Georgia

Updated 04 January 2025
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Jimmy Carter’s 6-day funeral begins with a motorcade through south Georgia

  • A motorcade with Carter’s flag-draped casket is heads to his hometown of Plains
  • The 39th US president died at his home on Dec. 29 at the age of 100

PLAINS, Georgia: Jimmy Carter ‘s long public goodbye began Saturday in south Georgia where the 39th US president’s life began more than 100 years ago.
A motorcade with Carter’s flag-draped casket is heading to his hometown of Plains and past his boyhood home on the way to Atlanta. The procession began at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, where former Secret Service agents who protected the late president served as pallbearers. A mournful train whistle filled the clear air as the pallbearers turned to face the hearse for a final goodbye, their hands on their hearts.
The Carter family, including the former president’s four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, are accompanying their patriarch as his six-day state funeral begins.
The longest-lived US president, Carter died at his home in Plains on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
Families lined the procession route in downtown Plains, near the historic train depot where Carter headquartered his presidential campaign. Some carried bouquets of flowers or wore commemorative pins bearing Carter’s photo.
“We want to pay our respects,” said 12-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock, who was born more than three decades after Carter left the White House in 1981. “He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish.”
It was Shelbrock’s idea to make the trip to Plains from Gainesville, Florida, with his grandmother, Susan Cone, 66, so they could witness the start of Carter’s final journey. Shelbrock said he admires Carter for his humanitarian work building houses and waging peace, and for installing solar panels on the White House.
Carter and his late wife Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, were born in Plains and lived most of their lives in and around the town, with the exceptions of Jimmy’s Navy career and his terms as Georgia governor and president.
The procession will stop in front of Carter’s home on his family farm just outside of Plains. The National Park Service will ring the old farm bell 39 times to honor his place as the 39th president. Carter’s remains then will proceed to Atlanta for a moment of silence in front of the Georgia Capitol and a ceremony at the Carter Presidential Center.
There, he will lie in repose until Tuesday morning, when he will be transported to Washington to lie in state at the US Capitol. His state funeral is Thursday at 10 a.m. at Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains for an invitation-only funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church.
He will be buried near his home, next to Rosalynn Carter.


Gunmen from Nigeria kill five Cameroonian soldiers, MP says

Updated 04 January 2025
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Gunmen from Nigeria kill five Cameroonian soldiers, MP says

YAOUNDE: Gunmen from Nigeria have killed at least five Cameroonian soldiers and wounded several others in the village of Bakinjaw on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria, a member of parliament for the district and a traditional leader said on Saturday.
It is the latest in a series of attempts to seize territory in the area.
Aka Martin Tyoga, MP for the district of Akwaya in southwestern Cameroon, where the incident took place, told Reuters the attack happened early on Friday, when hundreds of armed Fulani herdsmen crossed the border from Taraba state in Nigeria to attack a military post.
He said it was a retaliation after Cameroonian soldiers killed several herdsmen the day before.
Agwa Linus, traditional ruler of Bakinjaw, said the attackers also burnt down his home.
“This is not the first time they are attacking — it’s very unfortunate,” he said.