Islamophobia Watch

Reports of a number of attacks on mosques tonight following the murder in Woolwich, London, of a serving British soldier. Early reports are of incidents in Gillingham, Kent, and Braintree, Essex.

 

Letter sent to the Muslim Association in Greece from Golden Dawn threatening to "slaughter like chickens" any Muslims who do not leave the country by 30th June.

 

Allison Pearson has a piece in the Daily Telegraph which is a carbon copy of the EDL / far right propaganda in relation to the conviction of a gang in Oxford on horrific sex attack charges. 

There is video footage here of an incident on Edgeware Road, London, involving Anjem Choudary and his supporters. The Muslim Council Of Britain (MCB) has issued a statement condemning the attack and calling for unity against sectarian division. We have documented Choudary on his journey from useful clown for the islamophobic media to dangerous provocateur in our posts here.

A hate crime victim has spoken out on behalf of a Muslim community whose mosque was smeared in dog faeces and pork meat.
Report by Nick Gill 

On 18 April, three days after a bombing killed three and left many more wounded at the Boston marathon, a figure unknown to most Americans stepped suddenly into the national spotlight.
Max Blumenthal writing for Electronic Intifada 

Superintendent Mark Payne from West Midlands Police says 75-year-old Mohammed Saleem Chaudhry was stabbed as he returned from evening prayers last night at his mosque in Small Heath in Birmingham.

Daily Telegraph news story 

The graves of a cemetery in the Val-de-Marne suburb of the French capital were found destroyed on Sunday.  It is reported that the marble headstones were broken and ornaments thrown about. 

The graves of a cemetery in the Val-de-Marne suburb of the French capital were found destroyed on Sunday. It is reported that the marble headstones were broken and ornaments thrown about. 
Press TV report 

Terrorism is the vilest crime because it robs people not only of their lives, but also of their safety and freedom.
Mohamed Ghilan

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told a conservative radio program this week that the Obama administration “bungled” the investigation of the Boston bombing due to internal guidance from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Think Progress article 

Before we knew anything about the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, we knew that he "recently became a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day." This piece of information was placed in the lead of an Associated Press article published as the police were still on the hunt for Tsarnaev's younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar.
Deanna Othman 

"The Tsarnaev brothers’ criminal and perverse actions do not speak for me or the overwhelming majority of Muslims. I am not compelled to apologize for them or explain their actions. Muslims are not a monolithic, Borg-like collective, who possess a shared consciousness, specializing in counterterrorism knowledge with a telepathic understanding of the perverse mind-set of radicals in their “community.
"This is like asking Republican Christians to apologize for Timothy McVeigh or expecting young white males to explain why individuals like Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner and James Holmes used assault rifles to unleash terror on innocent civilians."
Wajahat Ali in Salon 

“None of our staff or board ever recall coming across these two suspects,” the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center tells BuzzFeed

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said hate incidents in Massachusetts and New York occurred following the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon.
CAIR press release 

A man racially abused a Muslim woman and demanded she took off her hijab before putting a kitchen knife to her throat. David Norris, 39, approached Farduja Jama who was with her eight-year-old son in Morton Street, Barton Hill at 9am. ​Drunken Norris, who was brandishing a six-inch knife told her: "Take the hijab off. This is England, you are not allowed. Take the hijab off before I stab you."

Reported by the Bristol Post

 

Wajahat Ali writing in Salon;

Muslims must always prove beyond an unreasonable doubt that we are patriotic, and outraged over things we didn't do

Ahram Online investigates recent reports that thousands of vulnerable Syrian refugee women are being married off to Egyptian men as cheap brides.

Black and North African railway workers were banned from working at Paris's Gare du Nord when the President of Israel visited France over fears they might be Muslim, it has emerged.
UK Daily Telegraph report 

Pamela Geller has not reacted well to Rabbi Michael White and Rabbi Jerome Davidson's article in the The Jewish Week, Hate Speech Has No Place in a Synagogue. On Twitter she wrote; "pasty-faced quislings --(rebuttal to come)". We'll carry that rebutal when it comes but Geller is clearly now under attack from the constituency she has relied on until now.

"In March 2013, a 19 year-old Tunisian activist by the name of Amina posted topless photographs of herself on Femen’s Facebook page. In one photo, “my body is my own and not the source of anyone’s honor” is written on her chest. In another image, Amina is holding up her middle fingers with “fuck your morals” written on her chest."
Femen Strikes in Tunisia – the Case of Amina
Sara Salem on Tahrir-ICN

Muslim women send message to Femen - Counter-protest launched against 'Topless Jihad Day'.
Aljazeera Storify piece

Muslim Women Shockingly Not Grateful for Topless European Ladies Trying To ‘Save’ Them
By Callie Beusman on jezebel.com