On Britain’s possible intervention in Iraq and Syria, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said in a statement on 26 September: “While there may be multiple views about the merits of using our military once again in Iraq, Muslims are united in their revulsion of the terrorist acts carried out by ISIS. As the numerous heartfelt responses from Alan Henning’s colleagues have shown, Muslims abhor the way ISIS has dishonoured Islam’s teachings of peace and tolerance. Far from fulfilling the aspirations of freedom and justice in Syria, they have only made matters worse.
“There will naturally be reticence about our country’s participation in this action and the inevitable repeated scenarios of Muslim civilian casualties from aerial bombardment. We must be mindful that such actions will serve to bolster the message of extremists, who are looking to profit from attacks made against them and radicalising more young people.
“That is why it is important that we be conscious of the humanitarian consequences of airstrikes and the need to uphold the rules of war. The people of Iraq and Syria have suffered enough. Let us not make it worse. It is important to engage all the regional powers and actors in the process of finding a political rather than a military solution, across sectarian and ethnic lines….”
IRAN BLAMES ‘ERRORS’ OF OUTSIDERS FOR RISE OF ISIL
Iran President Hassan Rouhani blamed the rise of the ISIL group and other militants on “certain intelligence agencies” but also said the solution to stopping them must come from the Middle East region itself. “The extremists of the world have found each other and have put out the call, ‘extremists of the world unite’. But are we united against the extremists?” Rouhani asked in a speech to the 193-member United Nations General Assembly on 25 September.
The comments are among the strongest yet by Iran on the meteoric rise of the Sunni militant group and suggest arch-foes Iran and the United States have a shared interest in confronting the threat after decades of enmity. They follow a back-and-forth between Tehran and Washington over what role Iran can play in the emerging U.S.-led campaign against ISIL militants who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.
AUSSIE MUSLIMS THREATENED BY WAVE OF ISLAMOPHOBIA
A fresh wave of Islamophobia has swept through Australia, threatening the country’s Muslim community as they witness a rise in racially-motivated hate crimes, a report said on 24 September. Community leaders have urged Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to condemn Islamophobia in the country, after reports of Muslim women being verbally abused and mosques defaced. A number of Muslim figures in the country have also reportedly received death threats.
On 24 September, Australia’s grand mufti, Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, as well as other religious leaders called on the Muslim community to exercise restraint and reject the ISIL Takfiri cult’s call for Muslims to indiscriminately kill Australians. Observers believe the US and its allies, including Australia, are directly responsible for the rise of Takfiri terrorist groups such as ISIL in the region because of their interventionist policies, particularly in Iraq and Syria, the report added.
LONDON SCHOOL ACCUSED OF ‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’ AFTER BANNING GIRL FROM WEARING NIQAB
Camden School for Girls, one of the most prestigious state schools in London, has come under fire for refusing a Muslim pupil to wear a Niqab – traditional Muslim dress – in the coeducational sixth form. Over 300 people have signed a petition in support of the unnamed student, headed “Stop the Islamophobia”. The petition claims the girl has studied at the school for five years, sitting for GCSEs in the Niqab – a form of dress in which only the eyes are visible.
The petition says: “What someone chooses to wear does not affect anyone else. What we feel most strongly about is that there has been no discussion, no real attempt to find a middle ground, especially with the strong voices of students on this. Why should a personal choice of deciding to wear religious dress affect their education?”
TURKISH WOMAN VICTIM OF ISLAMOPHOBIC ATTACK IN AUSTRIA
A Turkish woman in Austria was attacked on a train in Vienna in what is believed to be an Islamophobic attack, it was reported on 3 September. Zeliha Cicek, 37, said she believes she was targeted on the Vienna metro just because she was wearing a headscarf, and is the third Muslim to have been attacked in Vienna in the last month, a report said.
Cicek, who was talking to her sister on the phone while travelling on the U3 underground train, said she was attacked by a woman who started shouting abuse at her in English. “I calmly told her she could speak to me in German and suddenly she stood up and slapped me in the face. I dropped my phone and it broke, I was so shocked,” she was reported as saying, adding that the woman also attacked an English man who came to separate them.
GÖRMEZ SLAMS POPE’S SILENCE ON ISLAMOPHOBIA
Drawing attention to the rise of Islamophobia and arson attacks targeting mosques in European countries, Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs Mehmet Görmez criticised Pope Francis without citing his name, a report said on 2 September. Görmez said attacks motivated by Islamophobia should be prevented and accused the Pope and Vatican for not contributing enough to reconciliation between members of different religions and said peace cannot be established “only through washing the feet of a young woman or organising a football match or a tournament.”
Speaking at a press conference, Görmez highlighted that the Islamic world is going through an extremely difficult period of time with millions of Muslims under oppression, while numerous organisations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and others act in contradiction to the nature of the religion. He said that around 36 mosques in Germany alone have been attacked in 2013 while Islamophobia around the world is on the rise.
PROMINENT UIGHUR SCHOLAR IN CHINA TO APPEAL LIFE SENTENCE
China’s most prominent advocate for the rights of Muslim Uighur people will appeal against a life prison sentence that drew criticism from western countries, including the United States, his lawyer said on 24 September. A court in the western region of Xinjiang (East Turkestan) sentenced economics professor Ilham Tohti, 44, on separatism charges on 23 September. The United States, the European Union and international rights groups condemned the sentence.
Tohti, who is an ethnic Uighur, is the latest moderate intellectual to be convicted by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration. Tohti, who taught at Beijing’s Minzu University, which specialises in ethnic minority studies, has said he never associated with any terrorist organisation or foreign-based group and “relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request” human rights and legal rights for Uighurs.
EGYPT COURTS JAILS 99 MORSI SUPPORTERS
Two Egyptian courts on 25 September sentenced 99 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi to prison for allegedly committing acts of violence and assaulting policemen during recent demonstrations, reports citing judicial sources have said. The Shubra Criminal Court sentenced four Morsi supporters to ten years in jail each and six others to seven years each, while slapping a minor with a suspended one-year jail term for allegedly committing acts of violence and damaging public property in October last. Once the judges read out the sentences, the ten convicted men chanted slogans against the court and “military rule.”
The verdicts can, however, still be appealed at a higher court within 60 days, a judicial source said. The same court sentenced Abdullah Barakat, a former faculty dean at Al-Azhar University, and Hossam al-Merghani, a Muslim Brotherhood leader from the northern Cairo province of Qalioubiya, to 25 years in prison each for blocking a road in the same province last year.