Event: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam
Recent events from the Middle East have placed the Muslim community in Britain in the public eye once more with their every word and action coming under microscopic scrutiny by the media and politicians. This is only the latest chapter in an ideological attack that has been ongoing for significantly longer.
Whereas the attacks on Islamic concepts of war, political governance and the unity of Muslim lands are nothing new, they have now increased on an unprecedented scale in the wake of the rise of ISIS and its declaration of a Caliphate. The matter is not about supporting or opposing the version of a Caliphate as demonstrated by ISIS but rather the criminalisation of Islamic political thought and ideology. The concepts of jihad, shariah and khilafah are not the exclusive possession of ISIS but core Islamic doctrines subscribed to by almost one third's of the world's population. It is telling that the government's treatment of ISIS is similar to its treatment of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut Tahrir, and the Taliban, despite the enormous differences of belief and methodology between the groups.
The Islamophobic nature of the criminalisation of those who believe in fighting in Syria against Assad is underlined by the lack of concern for British Jews who fight in the Israeli Occupation Forces, particularly at times where they are engaged in war crimes and other atrocities, such as the recent attack on Gaza.
On the flips side, Muslims who wish to aid their brothers and sisters through the provision of humanitarian aid via aid convoys are having their homes raided, being harassed by the security services and are effectively being accused of engaging in terrorism. Charities are having their bank accounts closed without explanation and are coming under investigation by the Charity Commission simply for being involved in crisis zones like Gaza and Syria. Witch-hunts such as the Trojan Horse hoax and the mass hysteria over issues of the niqab, halal food and conservative Muslim values demonstrate that the criminalisation is spreading beyond Middle Eastern politics. Individuals and organisations within the Muslim community who have been speaking out against these policies are now under attack. They have had their organisation, business and bank accounts arbitrarily closed. Even their children's bank accounts have been closed. They are maligned in the media as terrorist sympathisers, extremists and jihadists. Some have even been imprisoned.
The common element across all these cases is that those targeted cared for the oppressed and for those who are suffering. They have been criminalised because they cared.
Join CAGE at this series of events around the country to unite the Muslim communities against this criminalisation of our faith, our beliefs, our mosques and organisations, and our leaders. The following regional events will take place with the large conference taking place on 20 September at the Waterlily in London.
Sunday 14 September - 6pm
Pakistani Community Centre, Park Hall, London Road, Reading RG1 2PA
Jamal Harwood
Dr Adnan Siddiqui
Dr Uthman Lateef
Anas al-Tikriti
Taji Mustafa
Wednesday 17 September - 7pm
East Pearl Banqueting Centre, Longsight, Manchester
Ibrahim Hewitt
Abdullah Andalusi
Jahangir Mohammed
Friday 19 September - 6.30pm
Muslim Student House (the Daar), Moseley, Birmingham
Dr Uthman Lateef
Ismail Adam Patel
Abdullah Andalusi
Dr Abdul Wahid
Fahad Ansari
When the French Interior minister Gérald Darmanin declared, “never at any given time, is Allāh superior to the Republic.” he was echoing an emerged consensus in French political life – Islam has to be chastened and suppressed if Muslims are to be tolerated in the country.
For France’s some six million Muslims, his intemperate remarks only served to underscore an intolerance to which the sizeable yet marginalised minority community have become accustomed. The political establishment, left and right, perceives Muslims and their continued adherence to Islam as not only a danger to the republic but also an affront to French secularism known as laïcité, a fundamentalist separation of religion from the society that undergirds the republic.
As the state turns the screw on all Muslims through the passing of new draconian legislation, its experiment will serve as a blueprint for other European countries.
At the centre of this offensive against the Muslim community is the so-called “anti-separatism” bill, given the Orwellian sounding name, the law “to reinforce the principles of the Republic and the fight against separatism”.
The draft legislation has this past month passed both houses of the legislature – Senate amendments are currently being considered by a joint committee.
The provisions of the bill, crafted to incorporate all religions – lest it be challenged on discriminatory grounds – is nonetheless directly aimed at coercing French Muslims into adopting the ideological dogma of the state. Home- schooling will be banned and there will be an introduction of a child ID system for all over three years old, to track students in the educational system.
This serves to prevent those parents that have chosen to educate their children at home, seeking to navigate around the already harsh restrictions on hijab wearing and a muscular liberalism that restricts all forms of religious observance in educational settings.
The bill increases the administrative powers of the state to shut down ‘extremist’ faith schools.
As Rayan Freschi, a French legal jurist argues, this gives legal cover to what has already been the practice of the state for many years, the use of schools inspectorates to close Muslim schools down on minor infractions.
It is what has become known as a wider unstated policy of “systematic obstruction”, employed by successive governments to undermine Muslim civil society institutions, such as mosques, schools and charities by using existing provisions to make it impossible to remain open, often setting onerous fines or temporary closures to act as a disincentive against community initiatives.
The bill helps the state to more directly control what is being said in mosques, banning sermons that stray into politics or criticise, for example, French interventions in the Sahel and the Middle East.
Religious leaders and organisations that receive public funds and tax exemptions would have to sign up to a ‘charter of principles’, explicitly declaring their allegiance to the French Republic.
Possibly the most egregious aspect of the bill came via an amendment in the Senate last month, proposing to in effect ban the hijab in public for all under the age of 18.
This measure, tabled by the French right, if not rejected by the joint committee, would deny Muslim girls the right to wear the hijab anywhere in public. The wording of the clause talks of banning “signs or clothing” in public spaces that “ostensibly manifest a religious affiliation” or “that would signify the inferiority of women to men.”
Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party opposed the amendment together with much of the left in the senate, citing its unsubtle wording.
Until now, the bill has steered clear of mentioning Islam directly, instead focussing on the façade that it represents an equal treatment of religion. By including the religious symbol clause, it removes any pretence and does what everyone knows the bill is aimed at doing – further obstructing observant Muslims from practising their faith.
The amendment would also ban hijab-wearing mothers from accompanying their children on school trips.
One left-leaning Senator Mari-Noëlle Lienemann explained her vote against the amendment by saying that she wanted to “find legislation that outlaws the veil for minors,” but that “we cannot make a mistake in choosing which method to use”.
A former Socialist Party minister, J-P. Chevènement who headed the government’s Fondation de l’islam declared, “The veil (hijab) is for many women an identity claim. This symbol means that marriage is only possible with a Muslim. This is a manifestation of separatism.”
Like much of the political establishment in France, the progressive left subscribes to the aim of systematically obstructing Muslims, but differ on the means.
[Macron Le Pen poster]
In 2004 it was the Socialist Party that banned the hijab in schools and in 2010, President Sarkozy from the centre-right The Republicans banned the niqab using terrorism laws.
Darmanin absurdly declared the amendment would harm “religious pluralism” in France, yet in the months before tabling the bill he talked of his horror of halal-only food aisles in supermarkets and in an interview in La Voix du Nord floated the idea that Muslim women who refused medical treatment from male doctors could face heavy fines or even jail sentences.
What is going on in France is nothing short of an inquisition. Even a charitable reading of the legislation would surmise it is aimed at all Muslims who observe Islam in their lives.
Its objective is to remove the usual organising capacities in Islamic communities that help foster a commitment to faith and at the same time forcibly convert young Muslims to embrace more stridently the commitments of the secular liberal republic.
Recently, Darmanin had to reprimand two “overzealous” police officers when they asked a group of topless sunbathers to cover up on a beach, tweeting “it was wrong that the women were warned about their clothing” and “freedom is something precious”, yet the same respect is not afforded to Muslim women, who face a daily barrage of racist slurs, discrimination and suspicion.
Some commentators have rightly pointed out that Macron’s poor handling of the Covid crisis and the ‘Yellow Vest’ movement has harmed his prospect for re-election, citing the surge of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in the polls.
Le Pen broke through to the second round in the last presidential election, a first for the French far-right.
In a televised debate between Darmanin and Le Pen, the interior minister accused her of “going soft on Islam” because she had reservations about the separatism bill. In reality, the prospect of Le Pen winning may remain slight, but she is making ground in the polls.
A second-round runoff may be closer this time than 2017 and Macron knows that to neutralise the non-committed right in the electorate he has to outdo Le Pen and show a greater disdain towards Islam.
Yet to dismiss his position as merely posturing ahead of a general election would be naïve. The French state has embarked upon the systematic dismantling of the religion of Islam as practised by the majority of Muslims in the country.
It is an acknowledgement that the 1905 law that explicitly removed religion from the public square has failed to diminish Muslim observance, resistant to attempts to secularise the faith.
Many in French society see Islam to be a regressive religion and, like attempts in colonial Algeria, nothing short of forcibly eradicating a religious culture can be entertained.
Echoing its colonial past, there is a particular obsession with ‘liberating’ the Muslim woman, yet what is apparent is Muslim women, what they think and feel, is noticeably absent from the public discourse.
This unsavoury direction of travel was underscored by an incendiary open letter in April written by a group of ex-generals who claimed “Islamism and the hordes of the banlieue” – the impoverished immigrant suburbs that surround French cities – was a recipe for “civil war”.
In the absence of political and public pressure at home, Emmanuel Macron has a free hand to treat the Muslim community with the disdain that he has shown.
Notwithstanding, recent protests and boycotts of French products after the cartoon controversy shows that external pressure works if it is sustained. In the absence of meaningful international condemnation of France, a collective Muslim civil society effort to put pressure on the French government can temper the fundamentalism of the French state.
Macron was rattled late last year after the boycott started, having to appear on Al Jazeera to allay concerns.
He also took umbrage at an article in the Financial Times – now removed – written by a Muslim journalist about him. Instead he penned his own op-ed, replete with erroneous slurs of Muslim girls as young as three forced to wear full-face veils; claims that have yet to be corroborated.
Only coordinated civil society action can stop what Islamic scholar Dr Yasir Qadhi calls a template of suppression to be borrowed soon by governments across Europe.
Distrubing but come to think about it not really surprising. Zios and the British elite are once again working together to regain control and to create a new 'approved' narrative of whats going on in Palestine. Standard good cop bad cop routine. First they will try to subvert protests with the usual fake concern for peace and harmony between people.
When that doesnt work they will slander and intimidate with the 'antisemitism' and/or 'extremism' label. Note these are the same forces that undermined Jeremy Corbyn leadership of the Labour party with their endless accusations of antisemitism.
British schoolchildren face punishment for wearing Palestine flags and keffiyehs
Students said they were threatened with detention, expulsion and barred from taking exams due to their pro-Palestine activism
Schoolchildren in the UK are being punished for their pro-Palestine activism on school premises, with some being disciplined for wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags.
Several students who spoke to Middle East Eye said they were threatened with detention, expulsion and being blocked from taking their exams if they continued protesting for Palestinian rights on school premises.
The forms of activism being penalised by schools include displaying the Palestinian flag on face masks or their hands and putting up posters designed by students to educate their peers on the Israel-Palestinian issue.
Every student and teacher who spoke to MEE requested anonymity as they feared possible repercussions from their school for speaking out.
Pupils who spoke to MEE attended schools in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Rochdale and different areas of London.
Jay, a student from Allerton Grange School in Leeds, said she was motivated to put up posters after attending demonstrations and reading stories about child deaths in Gaza.
Taking inspiration from last year's Black Lives Matter protests (BLM) and her school's awareness campaigns on LGBT rights and mental health, Jay assumed Allerton George would encourage discussion on Palestine.
But when students put up posters around the school in communal areas without permission, teachers quickly took them down.
"The teachers went as far as ripping the Palestine posters into pieces and scrunching them up in our faces," Jay told MEE.
"When we asked why they took down the posters, the teachers said they didn't have to justify it to us and were given clear instructions to take down these posters as they were seen as sending antisemitic messages."
Jay stressed the messages on the posters were not antisemitic and said: "End Israeli Apartheid, End illegal Occupation and Free Palestine".
She added: "They took our lanyards from us because they had the Palestine flag.
"When we asked them why it was okay to wear BLM or LGBTQ+ flags on our lanyards but not Palestine, they couldn't give us an answer and later said as a political cause, it caused distress to others.”
Students from Allerton Grange later posted a video of headteacher Mike Roper describing the Palestinian flag as a "call to arms" and "symbol of antisemitism". Roper has since apologised after facing protests outside the school.
Jay said the school had refused to take down the Israeli flag displayed in the library after seeing the Palestine flag taken down.
Allerton George had not responded to MEE's requests for comment at the time of this article's publication.
Some teachers from other schools who spoke to MEE also confirmed that students were placed in detention for putting up posters in support of Palestine.
Like Jay, Sam from West London put up posters in his school for Palestine on their class boards and wore badges to raise awareness about Palestine.
When Sam came back to school in September, he noted how his school made an active attempt to hold discussion groups on the themes of BLM and racism in society.
"We put up small Palestinian flags and posters on our class poster boards wearing badges that read 'Free Palestine', drawing Palestine flags on our hands and wearing keffiyehs to spread awareness and pique student interest," Sam told MEE.
"The posters were torn down and binned, the students were told to remove their badges at the threat of suspension from school and all 'flags and symbols' were removed from sight at the threat of detention."
Sam added that students were threatened with being withdrawn from their GCSE exams if they refused to delete a video of senior staff taking down posters or wore a Palestine badge.
Aisha faced a similar situation as Sam did at Brampton Manor Academy in Newham, east London, where she says she was punished for wearing a Free Palestine badge in her school.
She said her teachers banned students from protesting and threatened them with detention if they continued putting them up.
Brampton Manor Academy, a state school that has received praise for sending dozens of students to Oxford and Cambridge University, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of this article's publication.
Students fear speaking out
Several students from other parts of the UK also expressed their disappointment at how their schools reacted towards their activism following the BLM protests.
Letters given to MEE that were sent to teachers and parents by Redbridge Council and a school in Birmingham told them that schools are "apolitical" bodies and could not allow students to participate in Palestine protests despite holding discussions for BLM and selling poppies to students.
Ilyas Nagdee, an activist who campaigns against the Prevent strategy, said children and their parents had contacted him about schools clamping down on pro-Palestine activism.
His call-out on Twitter to help students facing issues at school for their Palestine protests was retweeted 1,300 times at the time of writing.
Since then, Nagdee has received nearly a hundred requests for help, with many students afraid to speak out publicly.
"The cases we have received span the entire length of the country with hotspots where there are sizeable Muslim communities. The sanctions applied are wide in range, from young people being spoken to in class or given lunchtime isolation all the way to exclusions," said Nagdee.
"We are also receiving a growing number of concerned parents who are contacting us due to fear their child has fallen into the clutches of Prevent or fearful of visits from the police.
"This particularly seems to be the case with younger children who were subject to inappropriate questioning without the knowledge or consent of the parents."
Shereen Fernandez, a lecturer at Queen Mary University in London who specialises in Prevent in schools, believes the school reaction to Palestine protests is a direct result of the Prevent strategy telling teachers that campaigning for Palestine is associated with extremism.
Prevent is a strand of the British government's counter-terrorism strategy that aims to “safeguard and support those vulnerable to radicalisation, to stop them from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism”.
It was publicly launched in the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings and was initially targeted squarely at Muslim communities, prompting continuing complaints of discrimination and concerns that the programme was being used to collect intelligence.
"What we are seeing now is a product of years of Prevent trying to micro-manage political conversations and debates among young children and adults on issues it deems contentious and what it perceives as deviating from the prescribed norm," Fernandez told MEE.
"Although Prevent will maintain that schools are 'safe spaces', that is not the case, as teachers will be anxious about approaching ‘controversial’ topics like Palestine because of its alleged association to extremism as indicated in the training material."
"Symbols of solidarity such as wearing a badge supporting Palestine has been enough to refer students in the past to Prevent."
In 2016, MEE revealed that the UK government told teachers in schools, colleges and universities to monitor Muslim students who display an interest in Palestine as being susceptible to terrorism.
And in 2014, Rahmaan Mohammadi, a 17-year-old student from Luton, was reportedly referred to Prevent and visited by the police after he organised a Palestine fundraiser at his school.
A teacher from Mayfield school in the London area of Ilford said the school's reaction to pro-Palestine protests was "confusing", adding that colleagues perceive "pro-Palestine activism as racism".
"Schools are adamant on toeing this apolitical line and punished children for wearing Palestine badges or drawing them on their hand," said the teacher who wished to remain anonymous.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if Prevent is involved in constructing that line for schools across the country, and I'd say issues like BLM and poppies are allowed because they are considered neutral enough for schools to talk about."
Mayfield School had not responded to MEE's requests for comment by the time of this article's publication.
Nagdee, the activist, said that many parents who spoke to him said they feared their children would be referred to Prevent because of their campaigning.
'Biased' assemblies
Following the protests, many schools across the UK held assemblies to address student concerns on raising awareness.
But students who spoke to MEE said the assemblies fuelled further anger among students.
Images posted online showed students protesting at Judgemeadow Community College in Leicester after it was perceived to minimise Palestinian suffering.
It remains unclear whether students in the video were punished for protesting.
Sam noted how his teacher described the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians as similar to a "messy bedroom" and disputed the phrasing of tensions as a "conflict".
"To address the discomfort many students felt about censorship of student voices, they organised an assembly on the concept of 'conflict' where the events in Palestine was compared to a 'messy bedroom where a rebellious child and their parent had differing opinions on how it should be dealt with," said Sam.
"It just felt patronising and demeaning to us all."
The Department for Education did not respond to MEE's requests for comment at the time of this article's publication.
Blurb
Dr Layla Aitlhadj, director of Prevent Watch, praises Muslim pupils who have protested for Palestine in schools. She also gives practical advice to parents whose children may have been disciplined by teachers.
Muslim groups in Austria fear attacks after government publishes map of mosques
Austria’s government is facing backlash for launching an “Islam Map” website that shows the locations of more than 600 mosques and Muslim associations across the country.
The map is intended to “fight political ideologies, not religion,” Integration Minister Susanne Raab said Thursday. But critics fear that it could lead to hate crimes and argue that it stigmatizes Muslims.
“Imagine if we had a Judaism map or a Christianity map in Austria,” Muslim Austrians Initiative chairman Tarafa Baghajati told broadcaster ORF.
Officials categorize the map as a tool in the fight against “political Islam,” a broad term that Austria’s government uses to refer to any Islamist movement that strives to restructure society according to religious ideals that contradict democratic principles. But the organizations listed include cultural centers for Bosnian and Albanian immigrants, youth organizations and sports clubs — often with no evidence of any links to extremism.
“We want to use this information to create transparency and not just look at where laws are being violated,” Raab said Thursday, according to Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung. “There is no general suspicion of Muslim organizations.”
Critics say that the map will, in fact, lead people to be suspicious of Muslim groups. While most of the institutions could easily be found with a quick Google search, Adis Serifovic, the chairman of Muslim Youth Austria, told ORF that it also includes youth organizations with private addresses and presents an “enormous security risk.” The group plans to sue over the potential breach of privacy.
Many Muslims living in Austria are of Turkish descent, and Turkey’s foreign ministry on Friday declared the map “xenophobic, racist and anti-Islamic.”
Although the project was initially described as a joint effort between the University of Vienna and the Austrian government’s Documentation Center for Political Islam, university officials have since distanced themselves and demanded that the school’s logo be removed.
Reports of anti-Muslim attacks in Austria have been on the rise since an Islamic State sympathizer killed four people in a November mass shooting in Vienna. Numerous Austrian politicians and advocacy groups have raised concerns that the map will further endanger Muslims, and the bishop of Germany’s Evangelical Lutheran church, Michael Chalupka, has called for it to be taken down.
The controversy has also led to tensions between the governing Austrian People’s Party, which was behind the map, and their coalition partners in the Green Party.
“This project is the opposite of what integration policy and dialogue should look like,” Green Party spokeswoman Faika El-Nagashi told Der Standard.
Solutions Not Sides: Promoting the ‘two sides’ narrative on Palestine in schools
Roshan Muhammed Salih says Muslim parents should complain to their schools if they platform Solution Not Sides, a government-backed organisation promoting the misleading “two sides” narrative on the Palestine-Israel issue in British schools.
Many Muslim parents have expressed concern about the activities of Solution Not Sides (SNS) in the light of the recent horrific Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, Al-Aqsa and Gaza.
The organisation has its origins in an NGO with links to Israel and has received government funding and promotional support to deliver its message of “both sides have suffered” to tens of thousands of British schoolchildren, often in Muslim majority areas.
Pro-Israel Education Secretary Gavin Williamson promoted the organisation recently while warning schools not to tolerate antisemitism. The organisation is also backed by Zionist organisations such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
I even recently received a picture of Usama Hassan (ex Quilliam Foundation) delivering a Solution Not Sides presentation in a school a few years ago.
In the light of the above it is my view that this organisation spreads a dangerously false narrative about the Palestine issue which should instead be presented as a struggle for freedom against ethnic cleansing, land theft, occupation, racism and Apartheid.
What is SNS?
Since 2010 SNS has been delivering an education programme in “schools, universities and community groups,” intended “to counter extreme narratives on Israel-Palestine” among young people aged 15 to 25.
Instead of talking about the overwhelmingly one-sided violence and dispossession perpetrated by the Israelis against the Palestinians, SNS focuses on the language of “both sides.”
A key part of its discourse is the framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a battle of “moderate majorities” versus “extremists.” Its goal is to show students “that the conflict is complex and that the majority of citizens in the region on both sides just want peace.”
Nowhere is Israel portrayed as a powerful, brutal occupier and the Palestinians as stateless, occupied victims.
On its website SNS says: “Solutions Not Sides aims to tackle Antisemitism, Islamophobia and polarisation around the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the UK.
“The non-partisan programme has been formulated with the input of both Israelis and Palestinians as well as senior members of Jewish and Muslim communities, and is designed to prepare students to make a positive, solutions-focused contribution to debates on Israel-Palestine.
“We use critical thinking tools and open & safe-space discussion with the aim of shifting attitudes away from supporting one side against the other, and towards seeking a solution for the human beings involved.
“Solutions Not Sides has delivered conflict resolution training, provided educational workshops, and facilitated discussion on the conflict in the UK since 2010, engaging thousands of young people in the process. Not simply pro-Israel or pro-Palestine; above all, pro-solution.”
Origins, funding and targeting Muslims
SNS has its origins in an NGO with links to Israel called One Voice which focuses on “leveraging … the centrist mainstream [within the Israeli and Palestinian publics] who support resolution of the conflict through a negotiated and mutually acceptable two-state solution.”
Its founder is Sharon Booth who used to be employed by the Ministry of Defence. And Mohammed Ali Amla is SNS’s Director of Bridge Building, leading on youth empowerment, strategic partnership development and community collaborations.
SNS has attracted significant amounts of funding from the British government. In 2016-17, it received £50,000 of taxpayers’ money for its education programme, and in 2017-18, the size of the grant doubled to £100,000.
In 2020, it received public funding to focus its work in areas with high Muslim populations: Hackney, Haringey, Hackney, Barnet, Camden, Brent, Redbridge, and Newham in London, and outside London in Bradford, Birmingham, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Kirklees.
In a document titled “Solutions not Sides Business Plan,” the organisation’s “target areas” are defined as “the areas [of Britain] with the largest populations of Jews and/or Muslims.”
But in a report on a tour of the British Midlands in spring 2017, SNS stated that the “majority” of targeted students came “from Muslim backgrounds,” adding that “to our knowledge, we did not work with any Jewish students” on account of the region’s “very small Jewish population.”
The report added that “the Midlands continues to be a target area for SNS where we encounter some troubling views regarding violence and zero-sum narratives.”
What you can do?
There is a good chance that SNS may be invited to to your school after the latest assault on Palestinians to work with staff and students.
But given its background and message I believe it is inappropriate to ask SNS to provide a narrative in a school that has a significant Muslim intake.
Parents have a right to withdraw their children from any classes, sessions or assemblies run by SNS, although this provision would not be covered by the RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) as apsects of PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) having been made compulsory in September 2020.
But you can:
Spread the word about SNS
Write to your headteacher and ask him/her to withdraw the invitation to SNS
Withdraw your consent for your child to attend any session run by SNS
Demand that your school appoint appropriate resources/trainers to address this issue impartially
France’s Macron Pushes Controls on Religion to Pressure Mosques
He demands mosques endorse nation’s secular values, seeks power to close houses of worship if any members provoke violence or incite hatred
President Emmanuel Macron is redrawing the line that separates religion and state, in a battle to force Islamic organizations into the mold of French secularism.
In recent months, his administration has ousted the leadership of a mosque after temporarily closing it and poring over its finances. Another mosque gave up millions in subsidies after the government pressured local officials over the funding. A dozen other mosques have faced orders to close temporarily for safety or fire-code violations.
The government has taken these actions as a precursor to a much broader push to rein in the independence of mosques and other religious organizations across France. Mr. Macron has submitted a bill to Parliament, called the Law Reinforcing Respect of the Principles of the Republic, that would empower the government to permanently close houses of worship and dissolve religious organizations, without court order, if it finds that any of their members are provoking violence or inciting hatred.
In addition, the bill would allow temporary closure of any religious group that spreads ideas that incite hatred or violence. Religious organizations would have to obtain government permits every five years to continue operating, and have their accounts certified annually if they receive foreign funding.
The bill will be debated next week in the National Assembly, where Mr. Macron’s majority is expected to pass it by the end of the year. It applies to all houses of worship, including churches and synagogues, but the government’s actions are aimed at mosques and Islamic organizations.
Religious leaders say the government’s push oversteps the religion-state divide created under a landmark 1905 law. That act forged laïcité, France’s strict secularism, by barring religious groups from receiving state aid, with few exceptions, and excluding clergy from government posts. It also established freedom of conscience and freedom to practice religion, within the bounds of “public order.”
“We’re giving too much power to the administration,” said Chems-Eddine Hafiz, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s No. 2 official, told French television that the legislation “threatens the balance that was found over the course of the past century.”
Mr. Macron says he is defending France against what he calls Islamist separatism, which he describes as a political and religious project to create a parallel society where religious laws take precedence over civil ones.
Its adherents, he says, use intimidation and violence to pressure teachers, health workers and other civil servants to deviate from the French republic’s values, fueling years of attacks on French soil.
“Terrorists who commit these acts are doing it in the name of this ideology,” Mr. Macron told reporters in January. “We’ve seen there’s continuity between this phenomenon and a fundamentalism that is less and less peaceful, that legitimizes a break with the republic.”
The government is pressuring mosques to sign a “charter of principles” attesting to their compliance with France’s republican values. Some Muslim leaders have been reluctant to sign, saying the document defines the scope of religious practice too narrowly, and have seen their organizations targeted by the government.
French officials say they are holding mosques to a charter that was written by prominent Muslim leaders at the request of Mr. Macron. People involved in the drafting process, however, said that his interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, played a pivotal role in shaping the charter, closely supervising a small group of Muslim leaders he tapped to write it and barring any changes from other leaders, who were then expected to sign it.
A spokesman for Mr. Darmanin said he met with Muslim leaders to help facilitate discussions.
Mohammed Moussaoui, Chairman of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, or CFCM, says the fight against Islamist separatism is a priority for Muslim leaders but he disputes that mosques are spreading it. “Radicalization takes place primarily in the digital space, not in places of worship,” he said.
France has gone further than any other Western country in confronting radical currents within Islam. In some German states, local authorities have signed agreements with Muslim groups in which they reject violence and discrimination. Austria has banned foreign funding for places of worship.
In France, the question of Islam’s influence on society has become the defining issue of next year’s presidential election. At times, the Macron government has pointed to its push to regulate mosques as a sign it can outflank Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigrant National Rally party and his main rival, on the issue.
Ms. Le Pen has tried to paint Mr. Macron as soft on Islamism, an imprecise and contentious term that some politicians in France use to generally describe a political or social movement that seeks to organize society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.
During a recent debate with Mr. Darmanin, the interior minister, Ms. Le Pen criticized Mr. Macron’s bill as an attack on religious freedom that blurs the lines between Islam and Islamism. “Islamism is an ideology, a totalitarian ideology, and we can certainly separate it from the religion,” she said.
“You need to take your vitamins. You’re not tough enough,” Mr. Darmanin said, leaving Ms. Le Pen with a stunned expression. “Madame Le Pen won’t name the enemy. You are softer than we can be.”
Mr. Macron’s party faces runoffs in regional elections on Sunday after falling far behind conservative candidates and the National Rally in the first round of voting, which saw a high level of abstentions.
M’hammed Henniche, who attends a mosque in the working-class Paris suburb of Pantin, was at home last October when a mosque volunteer sent him a video over WhatsApp. It showed a man railing against his daughter’s middle-school teacher for showing lewd cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class. Islamic teachings forbid depictions of the Prophet. The man in the video said the teacher had told Muslim students to leave the classroom before the cartoons were displayed—a claim French prosecutors would later determine was false.
The volunteer wanted permission to share the video on the mosque’s Facebook page. The notion that Muslim students were being singled out struck a chord with Mr. Henniche. As chairman of the mosque, he gave the go-ahead.
After the video was shared, a comment from someone police haven’t publicly identified appeared on the mosque’s page identifying the teacher and giving the address of his school. A week later, the teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded on his way home. Police suspected that the mosque’s Facebook page led the attacker to Mr. Paty. Police shot and killed the assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, minutes after the attack.
The government temporarily shut the Pantin mosque, invoking a law passed in the wake of 2015 terror attacks that included the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, and coordinated attacks by Islamic State militants that killed 130 people across the Paris region. The law empowers the government to close a mosque for six months to counter acts of terrorism.
“The news came as a bombshell,” said Fatima Lyazami, a 68-year-old local resident who often prays at the Pantin mosque.
For Mr. Macron, the beheading of a teacher was an assault on everything the French republic stands for. During a tribute at the foot of the illuminated 17th-century facade of the Sorbonne University, he cast the teacher as a symbol of France’s enlightenment values and the fight against Islamists. “We will not give up caricatures, drawings, even if others back down,” he said.
In November, Mr. Macron met inside the Élysée Palace with leaders of the CFCM, representing France’s highly divided Muslim population.
Some of those gathered in the gilded chamber oversaw mosques funded by Algeria and Morocco, former colonies that maintain close ties with Paris. Others represented Muslims who had emigrated more recently from Turkey, where tensions with France were on the rise.
Mr. Macron said he wanted the leaders to write a charter to reassure the country that they, as representatives of French Muslims, supported France’s secular and republican values. He said he was worried that mistrust of Muslims was growing across France.
He sought to reassure the group the government wasn’t overstepping its bounds. “Listen, we are not here to tell you who is or who isn’t a practicing Muslim,” he said.
Mr. Macron tapped Mr. Darmanin to coordinate negotiations among Muslim leaders to draft the charter. Mr. Moussaoui, the Muslim council’s chairman, said Mr. Darmanin responded to the group’s initial draft with a request to shorten much of it, but on one part wanted more detail: the rejection of the use of Islam for political aims.
Debate ensued within the Muslim council over what constituted political activity by mosques. The Algeria-funded Grand Mosque of Paris supported a broad rebuke of any interference in political matters. But Millî Görüş, a group representing Turkey’s Muslim diaspora, worried that the charter would act as a muzzle for Muslims wanting to participate in political debates in France and their country of origin.Several leaders noted that some of the issues that animate French politics, such as the ban on civil servants wearing Muslim headscarves at work, collided with Islamic teachings.
Mr. Darmanin summoned Mr. Moussaoui and his two CFCM deputies, Mr. Hafiz and Ibrahim Alci, leader of the Coordinating Committee for Turkish Muslims in France. The group spent hours in the interior minister’s office working on a new draft, Mr. Hafiz said, with the minister dipping out for an official lunch. When he returned, the group read through the text and finalized it.
Mr. Hafiz recalled the minister’s parting words to the three, who were now under instruction to solicit signatures from the other Muslim leaders. “We’re not changing a comma of this text.” The spokesman for Mr. Darmanin declined to comment when asked about that line.
The new version, titled the “Charter of Principles for Islam of France,” required signatories to reject all forms of “political Islam.” It defined that as movements such as Salafism—a school of Sunni Islam that teaches strict interpretation of Shariah law—as well as ideologies linked to national and transnational organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
The text described as defamatory any attempt by Muslims to accuse the state of racism or claim victimhood. It rejected any use of mosques for “the dissemination of nationalist speeches defending foreign regimes and supporting foreign policies hostile to France, our country and our French compatriots.”
Any group that violated the charter, it said, would face ejection from “all representative bodies of Islam of France.”
The next day, Mr. Moussaoui showed the new draft to other CFCM leaders. After hours of debate, he said, he delivered an ultimatum: Take it or leave it.
“There was total incomprehension and stupefaction,” said Fatih Sarikir, president of the French chapter of Millî Görüş.
He objected to several points, from the definition of political Islam to the rejection of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Millî Görüş and two other groups would later issue a point-by-point rebuttal of the charter, including saying that Islamic teachings consider homosexuality a sin.
When Mr. Moussaoui called Mr. Macron’s office that evening, a presidential aide told him Mr. Macron wanted to organize a signing ceremony the next day with all of the leaders present. Mr. Moussaoui said some weren’t ready to sign.
On Jan. 18, the ceremony went ahead, without Mr. Sarikir and leaders of two other groups.
Leaders who refused to sign, a close adviser to Mr. Macron said in an interview at the time, exposed their groups to “doubts about their attachment to the republic.”
“So we will be very, very attentive to their operations, in terms of control, surveillance, sermon analysis and financing,” the aide said.
In March, the city council of Strasbourg voted to earmark 2.5 million euros ($3 million) to help Millî Görüş finish building a monumental mosque in eastern France near the German border. The group had spent years raising funds for the €32 million project. Massive concrete walls were already erected.
The project was eligible for subsidies because Strasbourg is in Alsace-Moselle, a borderland that was under Prussian rule in 1905 when France adopted its law on laïcité. A concordat Napoléon Bonaparte and the Vatican reached in 1801 remains in force there, permitting Strasbourg to subsidize religious groups.
After the city council vote, Mr. Darmanin posted a Twitter message accusing Strasbourg Mayor Jeanne Barseghian of financing a mosque backed by a group that “refuses to sign the charter of principles of Islam of France and that defended political Islam.”
He later told French radio: “The goal is to make it so the enemies of the republic—those opposed to the values of the republic—can’t continue living in France.”
The comments set off a firestorm. Ms. Barseghian requested a security detail after receiving threats. One poll showed that 78% of respondents across France supported abrogation of the 1801 concordat in Alsace-Moselle.
Mr. Macron weighed in, from a summit in Brussels. “When you have associations that admit they are not capable of adhering to the values of the republic, that’s a problem,” he said, adding that some local authorities were perhaps too accommodating.
Ms. Barseghian said the French government hadn’t given her any warning, before the city council vote, that Millî Görüş presented a threat to republican values. She said her final approval for the subsidy would depend on Millî Görüş providing a transparent report on how it was funding the rest of the project. She also demanded it endorse the Charter of Principles.
Millî Görüş withdrew its application for the subsidy. “We had become a source of tension, something we never wanted,” Mr. Sarikir said.
Three hundred miles away in Paris, the government’s order to close the mosque of Pantin, housed in a former gymnasium owned by the town, was running up against its six-month limit. No one at the mosque had been charged in connection with the teacher’s beheading, but French authorities used the closure to pressure the mosque into making deep changes.
They insisted the mosque oust one imam, saying his sermons were inspired by visits to a Salafist website and his children attended a clandestine Islamic school. The imam declined to comment. Authorities ordered the mosque to appoint women to the board of its governing association.
Mr. Henniche, its president, complied, replacing the imam with someone who practices a more moderate form of Islam. He agreed to broader oversight of the mosque’s Facebook page. But there was one demand Mr. Henniche opposed: his own resignation.
When he resisted, the government sent him a letter withdrawing his association’s license to operate. The city of Pantin also stepped in, threatening to cancel a lease on land where Mr. Henniche’s association planned to build a new mosque, for which Mr. Henniche had already collected €700,000 from residents.
Mr. Henniche resigned. The mosque was allowed to reopen in April after its new leaders included the Charter of Principles in the mosque’s statutes, according to the government and Mr. Henniche who remains a member of the mosque’s governing association.
ECJ rules hijab can be banned in workplaces “under certain conditions”
In a major blow to the inalienable right of Muslim women to freely practice their religion, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – Europe’s highest court – has ruled that private companies have the prerogative to introduce a ban of the hijab in their workplaces. According to the Court, curtailment of religious freedom can in fact be upheld if the companies have a genuine need to present a “neutral image”.
“A prohibition on wearing any visible form of expression of political, philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace may be justified by the employer’s need to present a neutral image or to prevent social disputes.”
The Luxembourg-based court came to its decision after deliberating on the interrelated cases of two German Muslim women, who had been suspended from their jobs for donning the Islamic headscarf. One of the two women is a special needs carer at a Hamburg childcare centre, while the other is a cashier at the German drugstore chain Müller. While the two women previously did not don the hijab when they first began their respective roles, they later made the decision to do so. Unfortunately, this change in attire was met with hostility from their employers.
The recent ruling has in effect reasserted a 2017 decision rendered by the ECJ, which had been widely criticised for being discriminatory against a number of faith groups. Maryam H’madoun, a member of the Open Society Justice Initiative, expressed her sheer disillusionment with the decision. H’madoun said that the 2017 ruling will facilitate discrimination against people who wish to practise their faith by wearing specific forms of clothing.
“It will lead to Muslim women being discriminated in the workplace, but also Jewish men who wear kippas, Sikh men who wear turbans, people who wear crosses. It affects all of them, but disproportionately Muslim women.”
Antagonism and a lack of religious sensitivity vis-à-vis Muslims has plagued a number of European countries in recent years. The foremost example is the state of France, which in 2004 passed an ultra-secularist law which banned the display of any religious symbols in schools. In France, this statute has caused religious attire such as hijabs and crosses being banned in public places.
In a 2013 Guardian piece, 37-year-old Yetto Souiriy, who is a mother of five, recounted her negative experiences surrounding the topic of the hijab. Souiriy had been barred from attending her son’s school trips in the commune of Montreuil, due to her status as an observant Muslim who wore the hijab.
“France is not like it used to be. When I was a child, there wasn’t a problem. I was born here. I was accepted…France now seems to be stoking a kind of anger against Muslims. You hear of women having their headscarves pulled off at the market. Even parents at my child’s school look at me differently since I was excluded from trips. I had a lot of hope for the left in France, but in terms of discrimination, nothing has changed. Even in shops, I’ve had people say: ‘Take off your headscarf. You’re only wearing it to be aggressive.'”
With the Thursday judgment handed down by the ECJ, the national courts of Germany and other EU nations will now have to decide whether discrimination has occurred in the cases of the two German Muslim women. This opens the door to the misuse of legislation, and will likely have detrimental consequences for followers of several religious groups. This is because the court ruling does not only affect Muslims, but also Sikhs and Jews. It is a sign of the EU’s encroaching approach against religion specifically and freedom of expression in general. The disappointing ruling will likely be once again welcomed by extreme groups, such as Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and France’s National Rally (formerly known as the National Front).
Indeed, following the 2017 ECJ ruling, the then Berlin leader of the rightwing AfD political party Georg Pazderski made the following chilling remark:
“The ECJ’s ruling sends out the right signal, especially for Germany…Of course companies have to be allowed to ban the wearing of headscarves.”
The ECJ Hijab Ban: A Call For Calm And A Call To Action
I was 14 years old when France banned religious symbols in schools and hospitals. After seeing a documentary about how this affected French Muslim girls, I decided this would be the right topic for my year 9 English talk. I was passionate and persuasive and my entire non-Muslim class agreed that the French law was discriminatory.
I didn’t wear hijab until the age of 19 but I somehow felt personally affected by the French law. It was clear to me then as it is now that this was a law intended to target Muslims, most evident by Jaques Chirac’s comments that the hijab is, for the French, “a kind of aggression that is difficult to accept”. In the documentary I saw a French Muslim school girl trying to compromise with her teachers by wearing a black bandana to cover her hair instead of a full hijab. Yet she was told that it still looked too Islamic. They finally accepted a tiny pink bandana that barely covered her hair. I recall how uncomfortable she appeared, self-consciously tugging at the sides of her scarf and I remember thinking how farcical this whole thing was.
That was 2004. Now, we’re seeing headlines such as “European Companies May Ban the Hijab at Workplaces” and those feelings of injustice resurface. Banning hijabi women from any workplace would be outrageous and there is no justification for it. The truth is however that most of these recent headlines are misleading and intended as clickbait. Therefore, we need to have a closer look at the European Court of Justice ruling.
Direct vs Indirect Discrimination
First, it is important to clarify difference between direct and indirect discrimination in the workplace. If a Muslim is treated less favourably at work because they are Muslim, that is direct discrimination. But if the workplace has a policy that applies to everyone but puts a Muslim at a disadvantage, that would be indirect discrimination.
The ECJ held that banning employees from wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief at work is not direct discrimination so long as the ban is applied in a “general and undifferentiated” way.
The ECJ also held that where such a ban indirectly discriminates, an employer can justify this if they can demonstrate a “genuine business need” for a policy of political, philosophical or religious “neutrality” with regard to its customers or users, in order to take account of their “legitimate wishes”.
Two cases were brought to the ECJ in which German women were suspended for wearing a hijab to work. It was accepted that this had an indirect discriminatory effect but the court had to decide whether this was justified by the employer’s desire for religious neutrality. The court held that while it is fine for an employer to desire religious neutrality, a mere desire is not enough to justify indirect discrimination.
A policy of “neutrality”
To justify an indirectly discriminatory policy, an employer must demonstrate that it had a genuine need for the policy. And to establish this need, the employer must consider the rights and legitimate wishes of customers or users, for example, parents who wish to have their children looked after in a religiously neutral environment. The ECJ noted two further conditions for objective justification which are:
The policy of neutrality is applied in a manner which is consistent and systematic and;
the policy must be limited to what is strictly necessary, taking into account the actual scale and severity of the negative effects of not having such a policy
Clearly the ECJ ruling is not simply a green light for employers to ban the hijab as many headlines seem to suggest.
It is also worth noting that this ruling is actually much less troubling than the French hijab ban of 2004. How? Because that was a ban on conspicuous religious symbols. That meant that Christians could still wear a small cross and Sikhs could still wear a small hair net instead of a turban – so in reality the ban served to discriminate primarily on Muslims.
But this ECJ ruling differs because it says that if an employer wants to ban religious symbols, it needs to ban all of them – not only the obvious ones and therefore the discriminatory effect is certainly not as serious as France’s Laïcité-inspired version. In any case, since the UK has left the EU, this judgement is not binding on UK courts and tribunals.
Should British Muslims worry?
Any discriminatory policy that affects Muslims around the world should trouble all Muslims regardless of where they live. We should all be concerned about the niqab-ban in several European countries and the increased securitisation of French Muslims. Not just because these laws can trickle down towards us in future, but because we have religious obligation of brotherhood and solidarity with our fellow Muslims wherever they may be.
That said, this decision can still affect British Muslims living and working in the UK. S.6(2), of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018 states that UK courts and tribunals may ‘have regard’ to ECJ judgements ‘so far as it is relevant to any matter before the court or tribunal’. With this in mind, British Muslims do have a valid cause for concern.
Hijab: just religious symbol?
Legal matters aside however, it is troubling that the hijab is being considered merely as a religious symbol and that this simplistic view is largely left unchallenged. It is important that we distinguish the Muslim headscarf from other religious symbols. The hijab means different things for different Muslim women. Some may wear it simply as an outward symbol of their faith or a cultural custom and they might even have no issue with removing it. Some might wear it day to day but remove it on weddings or on a night out. But in my own experience, most hijabi women cover their hair as an observation of their faith, which they believe is a command of Islam.
This command is one standard of modesty – the normative Islamic standard. While removing the hijab might be a simple task for one woman, it will be unthinkable for another. For many Muslim women, including myself, the hijab is our clothing and asking us to remove our clothing is only justified if there is a genuine medical need.
A slippery slope
So an employer wants religious or political neutrality – but does the hijab really get in the way of this? A hijabi schoolteacher might be religious, secular or politically left or right wing. Hijabis are diverse and a simple cloth worn on the head in no way compromises neutrality. Furthermore, how far can an employer go in his desire for an appearance of neutrality in his company? What about Muslim names – do they affect the appearance of neutrality in the same way as a hijab supposedly does? Or should Muslim women adopt more respectable-sounding work names to go with their new hijabless personas such as Ana or Helga?
The point is that the western perception of neutrality is not always one that everyone can get behind. Many Black British people have experienced a similar issue trying to explain to their employers and headteachers that their afros or braids are not a statement or symbol but simply their natural hair. Only last year the Halo Code was launched to ask schools and companies to commit to recognising natural hairstyles. This was necessary because many employers expect Black people to conform to white norms without realising the implications of it and how damaging these expectations can be.
Similarly, our employers need to be educated about the very real, negative effects removing our hijabs can have. That it is not just a simple case of removing a piece of cloth from our heads. The only way in which this can be achieved is by hijabi women coming together, organising ourselves and explaining with a unified voice what the hijab really means to us.
Imam in France fired over verses recited during Eid prayers
An imam of a mosque in France’s Loire region was fired after verses and hadiths he recited during his Eid al-Adha prayer sermon were considered “contrary to the values of the Republic” by Interior Minister Gerald Darmain.
Mmadi Ahamada, the imam of the Great Mosque of Saint-Chamond, who is of Comoros origin, shared a hadith and Surah Ahzab verses addressing the wives of the Prophet Muhammad in his sermon.
After Isabelle Surply, a member of the Municipal Council of the Republican Party, shared a video of the sermon online, Darmanin asked the Loire Governor's Office to dismiss the imam and ensure that his residence permit is not renewed, on the grounds that "he finds these statements unacceptable" and "sees them against gender equality."
Speaking to the Le Progres website, Ahamada said some of the statements and verses in the sermon were taken and used out of context.
"Our girls do not have to stay at home; they become doctors, engineers or pilots," he added.
In a message on social media, the mosque administration announced that the imam had been dismissed.
The Loire Governorate said that they are working on not renewing the imam's residence permit.
Another imam sacked in Hauts-de-Seine
Imam Mahdi, whose criticism of the dressing style of some Muslim women in a sermon he gave on June 4 at the Gennevilliers Mosque in the province of Hauts-de-Seine was also terminated by Darmanin's order.
The interior minister also asked the governor to intervene and to suspend the mosque's activities if a similar sermon is repeated, using the new tools allowed by a law "to strengthen respect for the principles of the Republic," which rights groups say risks discrimination.
After a meeting of the Hauts-de-Seine Governorate last week, the imam was dismissed.
'Imams dismissed at my request'
Darmanin announced on Friday that the duties of the imams were terminated.
"On my request, two imams who gave unacceptable sermons in Hauts-de-Seine and Loire were dismissed. We will fight tirelessly against those who oppose the rules and values of the Republic," he said on Twitter.
According to Le Figaro newspaper, the Interior Ministry has targeted the Roubaix Mosque, which is claimed to have not allowed women since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The administration of the northern province was waiting for an explanation from the mosque administration on the subject, according to the newspaper.
Hatred toward Islam
On Late Friday, Lawyer Sefen Guez, a human rights advocate, criticized the French interior minister for targeting imams and for asking the governor to dismiss the imam.
"The Saint-Chamond Mosque has confirmed what everyone knew: imams are appointed by governors in France," he said on Twitter.
Media expert Sylvain Tirreau accused Darmanin of having hatred toward Islam and said the interior minister did not give up on his attempts against Muslims.
Meanwhile, a petition campaign was launched in France to support Mmadi Ahamada.
Step 1: to conduct a nationwide criminalization of a minority, you need an ideology and propaganda. That's the job of @SG_CIPDR, in charge of threatening unapproved Muslims and labelling any dissenting voice as "political islam"/"enemy of the Republic". (no Starwars pun intended)
Step 2: you need to get rid of any organization that opposes or disagrees with your political agenda. That's why associations like Baraka City or CCIF were dissolved and that's why the Observatory of laïcité was dismantled, just for not being islamophobic enough, according to gvt
Step 3: you need to frame Muslims as a problem, by hammering the idea that any problem in the country can be "islamized". Security, gender equality, preservation of French "culture"... Any topic can be linked to islam, with the help of tabloids and a few complacent neocon media.
Step 4: Now it's time to dismiss international voices. Any comment on the situation of Muslims in France is dismissed as "uninformed". Observers are met with "you cannot understand the *universalist* French model", like if there was a cultural exception that could justify racism
Step 5: Same treatment for international journalists. Their editor in chief are lobbied to modify or take down the articles, when Macron doesn't pick up the phone himself to call the journalist, putting them under pressure to write something more "nuanced". Journalistic freedom.
Now back to France and the everyday condition of Muslims. French elite apparently have a thing for Muslim women. Appart from being the top query on FR porn websites, they're a constant target for debates on TV, most of the time without them. A French obsession, some would argue.
Muslim women wearing a burkini, Muslim women infiltrating academia, Muslim women challenging fashion, Muslim women trying to influence children during school outing, Muslim women illustrating articles on criminality... seems like Muslim women should ask permission for breathing.
So what's new with the government program against Muslims ?
Step 6: The massive use of administrations and informal reporting for surveillance of Muslims, from education to health or social services. What UK has tried to do with PREVENT, France is taking it to a whole new level.
Step 7: The "prefets" (local police constables, at a local level) now have a mandate to ideologically assess Muslim organizations and, if they are deemed "ennemies of the Republic" (without ANY definition), to trigger investigations, using health/urbanism/security to close them.
Step 8: At the national level, the minister of interior is destroying any sense of agency for Muslim communities, when it comes to organizing their work. The government forced Muslim orgs to sign a "charter of values" and, if they declined, they were... "ennemies of the Republic"
Step 9: Ideological control. The government has teams listening to what imams/Muslims say. If they say something the government doesn't like, the president of the mosque is summoned and asked to fire the imam. That's why Minister Darmanin was so proud today. He had 2 imams fired.
Step 10: Political control. If Muslims say there's islamophobia in France, they're "ennemies of the Republic". If they do charity work at the mosque, it's "political islam". If they try to get involved, they're "infiltrating" the system. If they don't, they're "communautarists".
Clearly, we're past all red lines and the reasons the government is getting away with it, are that
1) many international observers don't always take the time to study the facts in details
2) France is actively lobbying any international org who pays attention
This has to change.
For further reference, you can read this article, with the sources and data for every single fact I mentioned in the thread, as well as the reports by equality bodies (referenced in the article):
middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-fr…
Also, this great analysis by @amnesty, covering the way France has weaponized its "values" against Muslim communities, at the expense of everyone's freedoms.
Easy to have a go at the French but the situation for Muslims in the UK is slowly deteriorating. This is disturbing given British history. All this guff about 'security' is a cover for the UK establishment to try to subvert interfere dictate to shape a Muslim community for their own interests.
Protect Duty: Counter-terror officers could be involved in running of mosques
The government is planning to impose new rules on mosques and madrassahs which would subject them to inspections and would oblige them to report suspected terrorist activities.
The plans, which would see counter-terror officers involved in the running of mosques for the first time, come under the new Protect Duty which the government says is intended to protect public places – including mosques – from attacks.
Within the scope of the proposed Protect Duty, the owners and operators of public venues and large organisations would be required to use information provided by the government (including the police) to consider terrorist threats to the public and staff.
An inspection would be introduced to ensure that the Protect Duty is being implemented, and if guidance and support is not considered enforcement actions could be taken.
In case of non-compliance a new offence is proposed for the organisations that fail to take actions to reduce the potential impact of attacks. The proposal includes an enforcement regime with penalties.
The government has held a consultation on the proposals which ended in July and they say they have received over a 1,200 responses.
The government is partnering with Faith Associates through its Mosque Security Project to implement the scheme. At the moment there is no date for legislation to be introduced.
Legal expert Nasir Hafezi has produced a video on this subject which he encourages mosques leaders to watch.
He says advantages of the scheme include that worshippers will be kept safe in the face of threats, and mosques may receive additional funding.
On the other hand, he says the arguments against include:
Mosques and mosque leaders may face fines, prison sentences or even closure
The state may target mosques through unfair inspections
Mosques and congregation members may not welcome counter-terror involvement in mosques
The securitisation of mosques may have a chilling effect on freedom of speech
The involvement of the state in mosques is a slippery slope. Where will it end?
Nasir Rafiq said: “While the consultation is open or closed if you’re a manager at a place of worship read the consultation document. Raise awareness of the Protect Duty among your faith community and its likely impacts and changes that are likely needed to be made.
“Find out what other faith leaders think about the Protect Duty including with those who facilitate meetings with government. Make your views known in writing to the government and whether the Protect Duty should apply to places of worship or whether it should be exempt from places of worship. Read the bill (the proposed law) when it’s published and again make your views known to government.”
In late 2020, following a spate of violence by men claiming to act in the name of Islam, the French Republic embarked upon a severe crackdown on its Muslim communities. Not content with security measures, the Interior Minister expressed his horror at seeing halal food in supermarkets, President Macron excoriated gender segregation, linking conservative religious practice to “Islamism,” and his government moved to shut down the organisation that documented anti-Muslim discrimination in France.
Such happenings were symptomatic of France’s brand of secularism, laïcité; it was a significant indicator of how the United Kingdom is changing, then, to witness the British establishment’s response to events across the Channel.
Monarchical Britain has long differed from republican France with regards to questions of secularism and religious liberty, but few condemnations of Macron’s measures came forth from the British commentariat. Instead, government ministers Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien publicly praised the French government’s actions, and now-cabinet minister Sajid Javid penned an incoherent article for the Telegraph praising Macron and warning against allowing “woke activists” to inhibit the fight against “Islamist extremism.” Liam Duffy, a researcher in the field of British “counter-extremism,” also lauded Macron’s approach—while none of his colleagues spoke in disagreement. The bestselling historian Tom Holland, meanwhile, wrote passionately that it is France’s privilege to “serve, more than any other country, as the very embodiment of the West”.
The respectable British stance on France’s secular militancy is intriguing, for it serves as a sign of how Britain’s once-cherished tradition of religious liberty is no longer esteemed by its ruling elite. In order to understand the extent of British secularism’s transformation in recent years, we must look back to the late eighteenth century, and the British response to the upheaval in France of the old order.
It was in 1789 that the French Revolution erupted. The Bastille was stormed, the Ancien Régime toppled, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen adopted by the National Assembly. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité," declared Robespierre the following year as blood filled the streets. King Louis’s head rolled in 1793. In England, disgust was almost ubiquitous. Even those English reformers who had initially cheered on the Revolution watched in horror at what it had turned into, for their radical tradition was fundamentally different from that of Robespierre. They proclaimed adherence to an imagined vision of the old Anglo-Saxon liberties and valorized the constitutionalism of the 1688 Revolution, which had reached a compromise with the monarchy rather than abolishing it. From Cumberland and Westmorland in the North came a public declaration signed by 19,322 people expressing disgust with events in France: “We abhor monarchical tyranny. We still more abhor republican tyranny.“
“The Contrast,” Thomas Rowlandson’s famous print produced in 1792, contrasts the supposed ideals of the French Revolution with ostensibly British ones. French liberty, it announced, meant “atheism, perjury, rebellion, treason, anarchy and misery.” British liberty, by contrast, signified “religion, morality, loyalty, obedience to the laws, national prosperity and happiness.” This was, of course, propaganda intended to rebuke those who sympathised with French revolutionaries, but it demonstrates the significant difference in how religion was being treated by the two states. By “atheism” Rowlandson was referring to the French Revolution’s violent subjugation of Catholicism, seen as part of the Ancien Régime.
French secularism was intimately tied to republicanism, representing an anticlerical effort by the state to completely dominate religion (Jews, too, were expected to disregard the mosaic law). Secularism in Britain’s constitutional monarchy, by contrast, was not at all antagonistic towards the dominant religious authority; Anglicanism was the state religion, and the monarch served as head of the Church. Though tolerance of Catholics and Protestant Dissenters was limited, the position that Anglicanism was afforded in the public sphere set British secularism firmly apart from its French counterpart.
In the writings of Edmund Burke, the preeminent conservative thinker of the Anglosphere, we see a perfect articulation of English secularism’s potential for tolerance. He vehemently condemned the French Revolution, sensing in it a spirit of wild anti-religious destruction; secularism for Burke entailed “the consecration of the state by a state religious establishment". But he defended religious freedom, supporting freedom of worship for Dissenters and attacking the anti-Catholic legislation imposed on his native Ireland. Toleration, he argued, was desirable, for the Church was "built up with the strong and stable matter of the gospel of liberty".
Burke also campaigned extensively against the British East India Company’s exploits in the Indian subcontintent. Britain was becoming a multicultural empire, and Burke advocated for the preservation of India’s long-standing religious traditions and cultural formations. His vision may have been disregarded by the colonialists, but it is significant to note that the conservative figure was an early and passionate advocate for British imperial multiculturalism and religious freedom.
In Britain, secularism developed over the next century and a half, with religious toleration gradually increasing (an important moment, for example, was the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829). In France, meanwhile, secularisation had a different trajectory, culminating in the Law of 1905 which decisively separated church from state and aimed at eliminating the clergy’s influence in the lives of the populace. After the Second World War, moreover, the situation began to change even more dramatically, as unprecedented numbers of colonized Asians and Africans began arriving on British and French shores, bringing with them new religious traditions. Ever since then, religious freedom in an increasingly diverse Britain has been more expansive than its French counterpart, especially given France’s escalating attempts over the past few decades to use legislation to privatize and subjugate the growing tradition of Islam in the way that Catholicism and Judaism had previously been repressed.
France has banned the hijab for schoolgirls and the face veil wholesale; Britain has not. France is stripping parents of the right to choose homeschooling in an attempt to increase state control over the education of children; there is no imminent prospect of the same happening in Britain. In the French Republic, the government will not so much as collect data based on religion, while British politicians take photos at places of worship and routinely wish religious minorities well on their holidays.
Religious liberty for French Muslims has nearly vanished with Macron’s recent demand that mosques sign a “Charter of Principles” for French Islam, which would declare the religion an entirely private affair, to be banished from the public sphere. A believer’s religious convictions govern their entire worldview; to have to keep their values consigned to the home is to lose any semblance of genuine freedom of worship. France is essentially issuing an ultimatum to its most religious minority: publicly accept the majority’s social values or lose any possibility of a respectable life in this country. What, then, explains the enthusiasm shown by so many British conservative commentators, counter-extremism practitioners, and government ministers for Macron’s crackdown on French Islam? The answer lies in the significant erosion of religious freedom that has occurred in Britain over the past decade, an erosion carried out largely through incursions into British Muslim civil society.
"Multiculturalism has failed,” declared then-Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011, firing the starting pistol for what the British government calls “muscular liberalism,” a startling departure from established British norms. The belief—contradicted by sociological data—supporting this agenda was that Muslims were constituting a self-segregated nation within a nation. Alongside it came the conviction that too many Muslims rejected liberal values, threatening law and order. “When,” Boris Johnson once asked, “is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s mediaeval ass?” The watershed moment was the “Trojan Horse” hysteria in 2014, wherein the mainstream media induced a nationwide panic concerning a supposed Islamic plot to take over Birmingham state schools. The case collapsed and the plot was exposed as non-existent, but the damage was done. The government soon unveiled a significant ramping up of its Prevent “counter-extremism” agenda.
A statutory duty in the public sector, Prevent came to demand adherence to a set of “British” (in reality, liberal) values; “extremism” now constitutes vocal or active opposition to these values. Ofsted, the British state’s education watchdog, launched an inquisition into schools, with inspectors questioning young Muslims on their religious beliefs and adherence to liberal principles. Muslim schoolgirls across the country have been interrogated as to why they wear the hijab, and in 2018 the head of Ofsted—seemingly channelling the spirit of laïcité—defended a school’s decision to ban it outright.
The education system has been further transformed by Prevent in recent years. The Department of Education recommends that Relationships and Sex Education “meets the needs of pupils and parents and reflects the community they serve.” Yet, as John Holmwood has shown, the Prevent agenda proudly eschews such diplomacy: when Muslim parents protested their lack of consultation regarding a Prevent-related curriculum in 2019, they were roundly condemned as extremists and bigots by the political establishment. Muslim children, bien pensant opinion now holds, are to be protected by the state from the religious values of their parents.
This is liberalism of a coercive, statist bent, one that threatens the freedoms of all traditional religious believers, even if has thus far focused on Muslims. Liberal toleration was not conceived of by its original proponents as an end in itself, but rather as an instrument for facilitating a marketplace of ideas: it was from this marketplace that liberal values would supposedly emerge triumphant. Today, in an increasingly irreligious Britain, liberals see traditional religion as disrupting that process; the government's response is increasingly to intervene in the marketplace in favour of liberal values. The state's imposition of its own conception of Britishness on the populace, then, is not an attempt to express what Britons have in common. It is the vaunting of the establishment's own particular sentiments and values, and a marginalisation of anyone who dissents from the current secular liberal orthodoxy.
Britain, we might conclude, has disregarded its traditional conception of the importance of religion to the nation in a way that is rapidly collapsing the difference between British and French forms of secularism. Edmund Burke would likely be horrified to witness the current state of religious liberty in Britain, as well as the reticence of most self-described conservatives to protect it. Whenever any of the Equality Act’s protected characteristics (such as race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation) are seen to come into conflict with each other, it is religious freedom that is jettisoned. In the absence of a broad coalition being formed to counteract this trend, the current onslaught on religious liberty is likely to continue.
Where might such a coalition be found in a post-Christian, largely non-religious Britain? Those within the conservative establishment, whose concerns are secular, have more in common with Macron than with Burke, while the liberal-left is generally untroubled by attacks on religious freedom. Even the Church of England has proven itself willing to defer to the demands of coercive liberalism. The Muslim community cannot mount a campaign alone. As the country slides towards a more militant secularism, the question we must urgently pose is this: who will defend religious liberty in Britain?
CAGE launches legal challenge over ban on schools debating Israel’s ‘right to exist’
Advocacy group CAGE has issued judicial review proceedings in the High Court challenging the Education Secretary’s instructions prohibiting schools from engaging with organisations that reject Israel’s “right to exist.”
CAGE says that international law contains no such right to prohibit people and groups from questioning a state’s legitimacy, and that the prohibition is a serious violation of academic freedom and freedom of expression.
On May 28, shortly after Israel had bombarded Gaza, Gavin Williamson told headteachers: “Schools should not present materials in a politically biased one-sided way and should always avoid working with organisations that promote antisemitic or discriminatory views.
“Schools should be particularly wary of potential bias in resources which claim to present the conflict in a balanced manner schools and should not work with or use materials from organisations that publicly reject Israel’s right to exist.”
The government has also accepted the IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism which says that contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life could include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
But CAGE says the notion of Israel’s “right to exist” is a partisan political view that the Education Secretary is prohibited from promoting in any way under the 1996 Education Act.
The legal challenge has been supported by expert opinions provided by eminent international law jurist Professor John Dugard and Professor Avi Shlaim, emeritus fellow at Oxford University.
A number of Palestinian civil society organisations including the Palestinian Return Centre, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, the British Palestinian Policy Council and Al Haq, have also provided evidence in support of the judicial review.
International law jurist Professor John Dugard said: “In order to assert its legitimacy as a state and the legality of its creation it (Israel) asserts its ‘right to exist.’ This assertion is not made in the exercise of any right recognised by international law. It is simply a political appeal designed to justify the morality and legality of Israel’s creation and existence as a state. To exclude this subject from debate would be a serious violation of academic freedom and freedom of expression.”
Professor Avi Shlaim, emeritus fellow at Oxford University said: ”Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is not a legal right but an ideological and emotionally loaded catch phrase that served to divert attention from mounting international opposition to its illegal occupation.”
Muhammad Rabbani, Managing Director of CAGE, said: “For too long, the political phrase ‘Israel’ right to exist’ has been used as a weapon to silence any debate about the legitimacy of its creation, the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced by its creation and the apartheid nature of the Israeli state. Our children should not be prevented by the Education Secretary from having access to organisations and material that provide a balanced view of these issues.”
And Fahad Ansari, solicitor and director of Riverway Law, who is instructed in this challenge, said: “The evidence filed in support of the challenge clearly demonstrates that the Education Secretary breached the Education Act 1996 by imposing his own partisan political view on school pupils. While he is entitled to hold the view that Israel has a right to exist, he cannot legally deny discussion about the legality of its creation and its current legitimacy. Schools should be safe spaces for healthy debate, not institutions of political indoctrination.”
Its no big secret that the British government is engaged in a mass 'persuasion' campaign with Muslims being the primary target. One method was the Trojan Hoax.
Finally the truth is out about the Trojan Horse hoax is coming out. From the NYT of all places.
An unlikely duo chases down the origins of a mysterious letter that caused a national scandal.
The Trojan Horse Affair
A strange letter appears on a city councillor’s desk in Birmingham, England, laying out an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate the city’s schools. The plot has a code name: Operation Trojan Horse. The story soon explodes in the news and kicks off a national panic. By the time it all dies down, the government has launched multiple investigations, beefed up the country’s counterterrorism policy, revamped schools and banned people from education for the rest of their lives.
To Hamza Syed, who is watching the scandal unfold in his city, the whole thing seemed … off. Because through all the official inquiries and heated speeches in Parliament, no one has ever bothered to answer a basic question: Who wrote the letter? And why? The night before Hamza is to start journalism school, he has a chance meeting in Birmingham with the reporter Brian Reed, the host of the hit podcast S-Town. Together they team up to investigate: Who wrote the Trojan Horse letter? They quickly discover that it’s a question people in power do not want them asking.
From Serial Productions and The New York Times comes The Trojan Horse Affair: a mystery in eight parts.
Blurb
Today we have two special guests - Prof. John Holmwood and the now quite infamous gentleman, Tahir Alam - that guy who was singled out by the government, Birmingham City Council and the whole Educational establishment for being an Extremist Islamic Trojan horse in the heart of the Birmingham Education system.
Recently the New York Times have done a deep expose into the scandal of the Trojan Horse affair and that these allegations were wholly untrue and marked a man and his colleagues who had transformed failing schools into outstanding schools. The plot is sinister - some of the players have been unearthed from the shadows through the investigation - and we are left wondering how deep does Islamophobia run in the establishment. The story is worthy of a Hollywood production and it would be no surprise that one day in the coming decades it will become just that.
So, we welcome you to Tahir Alam - the man at the centre of this whole story.
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Blurb
In this intense episode of the Blood Brothers Podcast, Dilly and Aki Hussain speak with senior lecturer and criminologist at Liverpool John Moores University, Dr Rizwaan Sabir, about his new book, 'The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State'.
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