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UK Muslims Say They’re Victims Of Prejudice, Ignorance & Fear
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UK Police scuffle with Muslims demonstrating against striking Afghanistan
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LONDON,
Aug 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Almost a year after
hijacked airliners ploughed into the World Trade Center in New York
and the Pentagon in Washington Britain's 1.8 million Muslims are still
feeling the backlash.
"September
11 changed a lot of things -- life is not the same for us," says
the Muslim man who, holding his young son by the hand, has arrived for
midday prayers at Tooting mosque in south London, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
They
say they are the victims of prejudice, ignorance and fear. In
the days following the September 11 deadly attacks, vandals smashed in
windows at the Tooting mosque and Islamic Center.
In
the high street nearby, an attacker tore a Muslim woman's hijab, or
scarf, off her head. "You feared people might attack you,
attack your children, attack Muslim women. You had to be vigilant all
the time", says Abdul Razak Osman, a member of the Tooting
mosque's committee.
As
a muezzin calls worshippers to prayer, Osman adds: "You still
have to be on your guard, although it's calmed down, thank God. But
you never know when something might happen.
"When people look at Islam they think terrorism. But we are
ordinary people." As the imam cries "Allah
Akbar" (God is Greatest) 100 or so men in the mosque kneel and
touch the floor with their foreheads.
Some
have white beards and are dressed in flowing robes, while a number of
younger men are in jeans and, outside the mosque, are
indistinguishable from the crowds on the streets of south London.
"The
word Islam means peace," insists Iqbal Sacranie, chairman of the
Tooting mosque's board of trustees, who is also secretary general of
the Muslim Council of Great Britain, an umbrella group for 380
organizations.
An
ICM survey for the Guardian daily earlier this summer found
deteriorating relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain
since September 11. One in three Muslims had experienced
hostility because of their religion, while 69 percent felt excluded
from British
life, the poll found, said AFP.
"Over
the last 12 months there has been quite a considerable increase in the
number of hostilities and violence against Muslims," says
Sacranie. "A taxi driver was stabbed and very seriously
injured. Women have suffered verbal abuse, grafitti have been daubed
on mosques."
The
British
government has been at pains to publicly stress that Islam is a
peaceful religion and that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan following
the September 11 attacks was directed at "terrorists", not
against Muslims.
"But
on the ground some of the actions taken in Britain, particularly by
the security forces arresting people under the Terrorism Act ... have
left ordinary Muslims with elements of fear," Sacranie says.
"After
two or three weeks you often find these people (arrested under the
Terrorism Act) have been released, but the damage has been
caused," according to Sacranie.
Last
December the U.K. government introduced an emergency law allowing
foreign terror suspects to be held without charge or trial. Nine
people are still being detained under the new measures.
Muslims
in the U.S. share the sentiments of being discriminated against with
those in the U.K. after the September 11 attacks.
Nearly
57 percent of American Muslims polled recently by an Islamic
organization in the U.S., say they have experienced bias or
discrimination since the deadly September 11 attacks and 87 percent
say know of a fellow Muslim who experienced discrimination.
On
the other hand, the poll, conducted in late July and Early August
2002, by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), included 945 individuals and said that more than three-in-four
American Muslims (79 percent) also experienced kindness or support
from friends or colleagues of other faiths.
That
kindness often took the form of verbal reassurances, support during
the anti-Muslim backlash following the attacks and even offers to help
guard local mosques, said the report published Wednesday, August 21,
on CAIR’s website.
The
most frequent forms of bias experienced by the respondents were verbal
abuse, religious or ethnic profiling and workplace discrimination.
The
poll also showed 48 percent of the respondents saying that their lives
changed for the worse in the year following the attacks and the 16
percent who said their lives changed for the better often cited a
deepened knowledge of Islam made necessary by requests to explain
their faith to others.
The
report said that nearly 67 percent of respondents said the media have
grown more biased against Islam and Muslims and 45 percent of
respondents said that Fox was the most biased and that PBS, BBC and
ABC were worthy of praise for their coverage.
There
are an estimated seven million Muslims in America and some 1.2 billion
worldwide. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in America.
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