A humiliating experience opened my eyes to discrimination that has become common in post-9/11 America under the pretext of safety and security
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Posted by kaptainmirza in ISLAM=PEACE & BROTHERHOOD AMONG MANKIND, ISLAMOPHOBES, Islamophobia & Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes in France on May 12th, 2017
The centrist Emmanuel Macron was elected French president by defeating the ultra-nationalist and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential election, held on Sunday (May 7, 2017). Macron of the independent En Marche party won 23.75 percent votes and Le Pen of France’s National Front party won 21.53 percent votes.
The election victory of Macron has been hailed by his supporters and the ongoing President of France François Hollande, including various leaders and politicians of the Western World, especially Europe. The US President Donald Trump also congratulated the president-elect Emmanuel Macron and said, “I look very much forward to working with him”
His emphatic victory has brought huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain’s vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s election as US president.
In his victory speech, the president-elect Macron said that he would unite a divided and fractured France. He stated, “I will work to recreate the link between Europe and its peoples, between Europe and citizens.” Macron added that the world was watching and “waiting for us to defend the spirit of the Enlightenment, threatened in so many places”.
While, Macron who favours globalization, sees France’s way forward in boosting the competitiveness of an open economy.
The far-right candidate Le Pen had vowed to defend France against the forces of globalization and declared that now was the time to free the French population from arrogant elite. On April 24, this year, Le Pen had continued to emphasize the anti-immigrant and anti-globalization views and she denounced the efforts of the mainstream parties to keep her out of the presidency. She continued hostility to the European Union, NATO and wanted to shield French workers by closing borders, quitting the EU’s common currency, the euro, radically loosening the bloc and scrapping trade deals.
It is notable that three days before the first round of France’s presidential elections, held on Sunday (April 23, 2017), a French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on April 20, 2017 when a gunman wielding a machine gun leapt out of a car and opened fire on the Champs-Elysees, Paris’s most famous boulevard. Via its Amaq news agency, the Islamic State group (Also known as Daesh, ISIS, ISIL) claimed that the attack was carried out by “Abu Yousuf al-Baljiki (the Belgian) and he is one of the Islamic State’s fighters.”
French President Francois Hollande said that he was convinced the “cowardly killing” on the Champs Elysees boulevard was an act of terrorism.
Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old French national who was shot dead by the police was identified as the attacker. Prosecutors said that a note defending ISIS fell out of his pocket, although there was no previous evidence of radicalization.
After the shooting, the three main candidates canceled campaign events and instead made televised statements in which they competed to talk tough on security and vowed a crackdown on ISIS.
The incident brought issues of terrorism, the French Muslims, security, and immigration back to the forefront of the campaign. Marine Le Pen demanded the closure of all Islamist mosques, repeating her call for Europe’s partly open borders to be closed. Le Pen also called Macron “weak” on terrorism and ISIS, as terror incident of Champs-Élysées had drawn renewed attention.
The fact of the matter is that the French president-elect Emmanuel Macron will maintain the US-led status quo in the world and will further advance the Israeli agenda against Russia, China, Syria, Pakistan etc, and the Muslims, while further advancing the international forces of globalization, controlled by the wealthy Jews and the elite class at the cost of small countries and the poor class.
In this regard, Gil Hoffman, under the Caption “Emmanuel Macron’s Israeli Ties”, Gil Hoffman and Michael Wilner, under the title Macron Fights for France’s Jewish Vote had already pointed out Macron’s connections with Israel by writing in Jerusalem Post.
In this respect, Haaretz an Israeli newspaper (www.haaretz.com) reported on April, 23 and 24, 2017, “In a race…Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker, and economy minister…received slightly more votes than Le Pen…Speaking on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Moshe Kantor described Le Pen as “dangerous” and added that “the 48-year-old National Front leader recently made comments against the historic record of the Holocaust which makes her no less dangerous than her Holocaust-denying father who she has tried to hide…Le Pen recently called for banning the wearing of the kippah in public and for making it illegal for French nationals to also have an Israeli passport.”
Therefore, three days before France’s presidential elections, shooting at Champs-Elysees-Paris-famous Boulevard was conducted by the Israeli secret agency Mossad through ISIS to ensure the victory of the pro-Israeli Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the election.
It is mentionable that Macron did not mention, as to how he will eliminate ISIS, while all other candidates have vowed to destroy the ISIS. It further creates doubt about her Israeli links.
Unlike several of his opponents on the left and right, Macron has avoided making pronouncements against Muslim dress codes and discriminatory laws which are, in fact, being applied against the Muslims in France.
Regarding France’s Presidential election and the French Muslims, The Washington Post, under the caption, “Anti-Muslim rhetoric permeates French presidential election campaign”, wrote on April 18, 2017, “For some, the French presidential election will alter the course of a troubled nation steeped in economic and social turmoil…In a country that remains under an official “state of emergency” following an unprecedented spate of terrorist violence in the past two years, the election also has become a referendum on Muslims and their place in what is probably Europe’s most anxious multicultural society. Before the election’s first round of voting Sunday, each of the five leading contenders—from across the ideological spectrum—has felt compelled to address an apparently pressing “Muslim question” about what to do with the country’s largest religious minority. Marine Le Pen…has made her answer crystal clear. In February, in the same speech, she decried “Islamist globalization,” which she called an “ideology that wants to bring France to its knees…While Le Pen’s diverse array of opponents do not all share her extremity…each seems to agree that, when it comes to Muslims, something needs to be done…“I want strict administrative control of the Muslim faith,” announced François Fillon, the now-disgraced mainstream conservative candidate, in a January campaign speech. By contrast, Emmanuel Macron, the popular independent candidate, has spoken frequently of what he considers the urgent need to “help Muslims restructure the Islam of France.” The far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has condemned Islamophobia, ultimately wants to stamp out “all communitarianism” and has reiterated what he calls the “urgent” need to “put an end to the misappropriation of public funds attributed to private denominational education…With many of the devastating terrorist attacks perpetrated by French or European passport-holding militants affiliated with or inspired by the Islamic State, public opinion has grown increasingly suspicious of the Muslim population that has existed in this country for centuries… Despite the intricate diversity of that population, there is widespread anxiety that if either Le Pen or Fillon is elected, things could get significantly worse. Both candidates probably would move quickly to advance crackdowns on veils, mosques and Muslim community organizations in the name of state secularism… Few French Muslims see a candidate in the running who would change a status quo that many views as unsustainable… Hakim El Karoui, the author of a widely circulated 2016 report on Islam in France…a Paris-based think tank said, said, “the strict anti-terrorist stance adopted by the Socialist administration of President François Hollande—who famously persecuted the “burkini” last summer has undercut the desire among French Muslims to support the left in the 2017 election…The right has always been against Muslims and immigrants….Chief among the concerns many Muslims harbor is from the so-called state of emergency…Since its imposition, French authorities have been permitted to carry out upward of 4,000 warrantless searches on French homes, and likewise, have placed more than 700 people under house arrest. But many Muslims say they have been targeted unlawfully. According to France’s Collective Against Islamophobia (in French, CCIF), an advocacy organization committed to fighting discrimination, more than 400 French Muslims reported having their homes searched for no clear reason in 2016. Approximately 100 of those also were placed under house arrest, while nearly 30 were asked to leave the country.”
Nevertheless, a majority of the Muslims in France and other Islamic country have shown pleasure over Macron’s election triumph, because, they considered him better for the French Muslims than the fanatic Le Pen. However, it is wishful thinking of the Muslims who do not know the secret strategy of the US and Israel and their anti-Muslim war.
Remember that when Barack Obama won the presidential election on November 4, 2008; a wave of wishful thinking prevailed over the Muslims, including the Islamic countries that he is Muslim and would protect the interests of the Muslims. Since his campaign for the US Senate in 2004 and during the presidential election, his political opponents raised questions about his citizenship. Some said that Obama secretly practices Islam.
These claims in the public expanded during Obama’s pre-presidency and according to the Pew Research Center, 17% of Americans believed him to be a Muslim in a 2012 poll.
A wave of jubilation had been noted all over the world on January 20, 2009, when American President Barack Obama took the oath. His first address had indicated a positive change in the US foreign policy. In this respect, most of the political experts had hoped that he would rectify the blunders, committed by his predecessor in the name of the phony war on terror.
Addressing a crowd at Cairo University on June 9, 2009, while speaking optimistically in relation to the issues of Muslims like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, President Obama had said, “To the Muslim World, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect”, and “based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition.” Several times during the hour-long speech, members of the audience shouted, “We love you.”
A majority of the Muslims hoped that President Obama would resolve the issues which were affecting the Islamic World.
Similarly, while accusing President Bush’s policies in South Asia and recognizing interrelationship between war on terror in Afghanistan and dispute of Kashmir, Obama had stated on September 25, 2008, that if elected, he would encourage India and Pakistan to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and resolve the Kashmir problem to reduce nuclear dangers in South Asia—so that Islamabad could fully concentrate on fighting terrorism.
Quite contrary to his commitments, Obama not only set aside the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, but also the Kashmir issue. Instead, during his first visit to New Delhi, on November 6, 2010 President Obama announced the measures, America would take regarding removal of Indian space and defence companies from a restricted “entities list”, and supported Indian demand for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, including membership of four key global nuclear nonproliferation regimes.
Ignoring the solution of Kashmir dispute which like Syria, remains a nuclear flashpoint between Pakistan and India, America started backing Indian hegemony in Asia to counterbalance the presumed threat of China.
And as part of the double standards, while preferring New Delhi at the cost of Pakistan—despite, Indian violations of various international agreements and its refusal to sign Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), CTBT and Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Washington signed a pact of nuclear civil technology with New Delhi in 2008. During President Obama’s visit to India, on January 25, 2016, the US and India announced a breakthrough on the pact which would allow American companies to supply New Delhi with civilian nuclear technology.
Following his predecessor’s fake global war on terror and his anti-Muslim policies in its worst form, President Obama who created ISIL used it and Al-Qaeda, including their affiliated outfits through CIA and Israeli Mossad to secure the illegitimate interests of Israel. If the double game of President Bush (The Senior) and George W. Bush franchised Al-Qaeda on a global level, President Obama’s dual policy franchised both Al-Qaeda and ISIS as part of the anti-Muslim campaign and left no stone unturned in advancing the agenda of the Zionists, Israeli lobbies, and the neoconservatives.
However, the September 11 tragedy was fully manipulated by Israel who had joined the Bush’s anti-war terrorism enterprise so as to target Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan in particular and other Muslim countries in general. For this purpose, extremist Jews also got the services of some radical Hindus to continue their anti-Muslim campaign. In this connection, by availing the international phenomena of terrorism, Indo-Israeli lobbies which are collectively working in America and other European countries have been exploiting the double standards of the US-led West regarding terrorism and human rights vis-à-vis China, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen etc.
Overtly, like Bush, President Obama had repeatedly stated that Muslims are moderate and Islam is a religion of peace, but covertly, he followed the agenda of the Bush to secure the Zionist-shaped policies.
Learning no lesson from the US and NATO’s longest war in Afghanistan, facing defeatism in that country, Obama continued state terrorism and extrajudicial killings of the Muslims through illegitimate drone attacks, CIA-torture cells, sectarian divide and violence on the basis of Shia and Sunni—assisting undemocratic forces such as the return of a military strongman in Egypt by toppling the elected government, and like Iraq, his policies created more collapsed states such as Libya, Syria, Yemen etc., which opened the door for Al-Qaeda and ISIL activists, coupled with total failure to convince Tel Aviv to abandon “settlements,” or to end delaying tactics in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the perennial humiliations of the Palestinians.
Since September 30, 2015, various unexpected developments had frustrated Israel and America. In this respect, Russian successful airstrikes on the ISIS targets in the northern Syria and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, its coalition with Iran, Iraq, the Syrian army, the National Defense Forces (NDF) and Lebanon-based Hezbollah in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, retreat of the CIA-supported rebels and mercenaries after their failure to topple the Assad government, proving links of Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front and ISIS with America and Israel, Putin’s clear-cut statement, indicating the Zionist regime in the US and Israel for their “phony war on ISIS” surprised the Israel-led America and some European countries who wanted to oust the Assad regime.
As a matter of fact, the agents of Mossad who are in collaboration with the CIA sympathizers, Syrian rebel groups and the ISIL militants arranged terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, San Bernardino, Nice, Munich, London, St. Petersburg (Metro train) and in Stockholm. While, a gunman who went by the nickname Black Jesus was identied—39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad, making militant comments on social media killed three white men in downtown Fresno, California, on April 18, 2017, and fired at another before he was taken into custody while shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” as the Fresno police stated.
All these were false flag terror attacks, as the US and Israel wanted to obtain their covert aims against Russia and the Muslims. Mossad had also provided the US President Donald Trump with an opportunity to exploit various terror assaults to win the US presidential election and to reunite America and Europe, as a rift was created between America and its Western allies, especially Europe on a number of issues, including NATO.
And, President Donald Trump had left no stone unturned in implementing anti-Muslim policies, while speaking openly against the Muslims and Syrian immigrants.
Earlier, taking note of various developments and some other ones such as reluctance of NATO countries to support America’s fake global war on terror, acceptance of Syrian refugees by the European countries, especially Germany and the EU rule to boycott goods produced in Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Israeli Mossad which was in collaboration with the vulnerable CIA operatives arranged terror attacks in Paris on the night of November 13, 2016. As part of the double game, these terror assaults were conducted by these secret agencies, particularly Mossad which was in connivance with the ISIS terrorists who used the home-grown terrorists of France.
French President Francois Hollande who declared an emergency in the country had said, “It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh against France…France would act with “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat.”
Israel succeeded in its sinister designs, Europe was put on high alert and Paris attacks were being taken as assaults on the whole continent. Afterward, France started airstrikes on the ISIS targets in Syria.
ISIS which is being driven out of its areas of territorial control in Iraq and Syria by the Russian-led coalition and the so-called Western-assisted alliance has hundreds of French-speaking fighters, which have claimed responsibility for several terrorism-related assaults.
France which has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.
In France, around five million Muslims are living—roughly 7.5 percent of the population—the largest share of any country in Europe.
At least two million Muslims have French citizenship. The Muslim community is made up of immigrants from Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and a small population from South Asia
Historically, the immigration started in 1960-70s and consisted mainly of “economic migrants,” who filled the blue collared jobs which the native French did not want. However, their second and third generation is educated but ostracized from the mainstream French society.
Muslims came to France following France’s colonization of North Africa. The current relationship between the French state and its Muslim population is based upon discrimination, because Muslims are being considered as an underclass—was conditioned by the twin legacies of imperial history and economic exploitation.
Unlike other colonies, Algeria was officially considered a part of France, meaning that Algerian Muslims could come freely to France to live. Once there, however, they faced systematic and often brutal repression.
Antagonism with a subject Muslim population is written into France’s political structure: the current constitution—which established the Fifth Republic — was designed to resolve the state crisis provoked by Muslim resistance to colonialism.
When General De Gaulle called for constitutional reform in 1958, he did so precisely in order to shore up presidential authority, weakened by the upheavals of the Algerian war of independence.
There are also some other purposes behind the creation of xenophobia against the Muslims in France.
Firms sometimes made prayer rooms available to their employees, a startling difference from today, when the private sector is collaborating with the state to eradicate manifestations of Islam in every sphere outside the home.
French perceptions of Muslims and Islam changed significantly over the past decade. Since 9/11, a number of terrorist attacks in Europe and in France, in particular, led to an increase in debates, such as “Clash of Civilizations”, “Islamisation of Europe” and the “Islam problem.” It has thus resulted in dividing the French society between “us” and “them.”
In the pretext of the fear of Muslims and Islam, growing in Europe, France has enacted a number of laws to maintain the so-called “secularism” of the French society. In this context, the controversial ban on the traditional veil, worn by Muslim women is notable. France has banned the traditional veil in public areas, considering it to be a symbol of “oppression” against women. Consequently, women, wearing veils cannot enter universities, banks, hospitals, offices etc., thus making it difficult for Muslim women to avail public facilities.
Headscarves and other religious traditional dresses have been banned in schools. This has, mainly, affected Muslim children, while, proposals for discontinuation of substitute for pork and “Halal” (Permitted in Islam) food in school cafeterias are also being voiced.
Many Muslims, however, find these laws part of discrimination, which has further broadened the divide between the Muslim community and the Christians.
Besides, the Muslim youth is facing discrimination in employment opportunities. In this regard, “Muslim Diaspora” is twice more likely to work in factories than the rest of French force. They are also underrepresented in executive positions.
It is noteworthy that another false flag terror operation-the Charlie Hebdo incident has also put Muslim population under greater scrutiny. Violence against Muslims increased twofold after the incident. As regards the incident, on January 7, 2015, two Islamic militants attacked the office of French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and killed 13 people on January 9, 2015, two brothers namely Said and Cherif Kouachi suspected for the incident were killed in a shootout with Police—in a hostage-taking situation, at a signage company in Dammartinen-Goele where some people were also targeted. Thus, the gunmen killed total 17 persons. Mossad manipulated the anti-Muslim approach of France and indirectly used these Algerian Muslims for the terror attack through ISIS. Afterward, Mossad’s connections with Charlie Hebdo episode had been proved by many senior writers, analysts and social media bloggers—a video titled “Did Mossad Do Charlie Hebdo” prepared/uploaded by www.brothernathanaelchanne.com is worth watching. In fact, besides creating differences between Christians and Muslims, Zionist groups and Mossad used the episode to punish France on recognizing a Palestinian state and to desist other EU countries to avoid such approach on Palestinians. However, the magazine had continued to print anti-Muslim publications, under the pretext of freedom of speech, thus creating resentment in the Muslim community. Similarly, one of the most confrontational debated books of 2015 has been, “Submission” by Michel Houellebecq, which portrays France being ruled under Islamic law by 2022. The book thrives on the paranoia of the European society towards Islam and Muslims.
As part of discrimination, radicalized Muslim inmates are detained separately from the rest of the inmates. The second and third generation Muslim youth which has been brought up and educated in France is faced with an “identity crisis,” despite being a French Muslim in a society which is unwilling to accept them as truly French. This lack of identity which has been exploited by the Mossad and some CIA agents forced a number of the French citizens (Muslims) to fight in Syria against the Assad regime.
As regards the discriminatory treatment with the Muslims, Under the title, “French police abuse Muslims under emergency laws-Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report physical and psychological abuse as raids target Muslim minority”, Aljazeera multimedia network wrote on February 4, 2016, “France has carried out abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrests against Muslims under its current state of emergency…stigmatizing those targeted, including children and the elderly…Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International published separate research…pointing to cases where excessive force had been used, leading to human rights violations including violence…Those targeted said the police burst into homes, restaurants, or mosques; broke people’s belongings; threw Qurans on the floor; terrified children; and placed restrictions on people’s movements so severely that they lost jobs and income, or suffered physically…ISIL’s claim[For terror attacks] triggered a backlash not just in France, but across Europe and elsewhere- as Muslim communities were collectively punished…France has a responsibility to ensure public safety and try to prevent further attacks, but the police have used their new emergency powers in abusive, discriminatory, and unjustified ways, said Izza Leghtas, Western Europe researcher at HRW, calling for an immediate end to warrantless searches and house arrests…This abuse has traumatized [Muslims] families and tarnished reputations, leaving targets feeling like second-class citizens…In one house raid, HRW said, police broke four of a disabled man’s teeth before they realized he was not the person they were looking for…In another case, a single mother’s children were transferred to foster care following a raid…Freedom, equality and fraternity have been badly damaged in the weeks since the November attacks.”
On August 29, 2016, Nick Riemer, under the caption, “The Roots of Islamophobia in France” wrote on the website https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/burkini-ban-islamophobia-valls-france-secularism-islam/, “Children have watched as their parents are dragged from their beds by heavily armed police…Mosques have been violently ransacked by the police. Worshippers are humiliated and degraded, including through the use of police dogs. Around twenty mosques have simply been closed, and more will soon be shuttered. Political organizations with Muslim links have also been threatened with closure; demonstrations, including, including pro-Palestinian ones…Muslims appealing for asylum find themselves even more vulnerable than residents. The government delivers anti-Islamic broadsides while destroying refugee camps in Calais and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the French have blessed the European Union’s deal with Turkey on refugees, under which Syrian refugees arriving by boat on Greek islands are deported to Turkey. In pursuing these policies, French politicians have knowingly ignored the fact that long-standing and state-sponsored Islamophobia, combined with military activity in Muslim countries, has only encouraged extremism. The political classes have refused to recognize how their economic and social policies fuel the alienation that drives people to join groups like ISIS. A ferocious escalation of Islamophobic propaganda from all quarters of French culture and politics accompanies these measures. According to Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed, the construction of the ‘Muslim problem’ over recent years constitutes one of the main vectors for French and even European elites’ unification” across the political spectrum.”
A website http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays/muslim-and-french-2084594508 pointed out on August 8, 2016 “Laïcité went from being a constitutional principle to becoming an ideological weapon used to justify the social death sentence against Muslims in France…Several primary school children were either physically assaulted by their teachers or school principal…such a story did not move the minister of education, Mrs. Najat Vallaud Belkacem, who not only refused to condemn the school personnel’s violence against a child but further stated that they had acted according to the procedures in place. This cynical position was confirmed a few weeks later when the international media turned its attention to a new witch hunt against Muslim students…Western Muslims, and particularly French Muslims whose country has become the laboratory of Islamophobia…are the clear indicator of how well our democracies are doing. The recent drift toward authoritarian regimes, the rise of fascist discourse in not only US politics but also in most of Europe, the acceptance of regimes of exception like the current state of emergency in France, pre-emptive prosecution in the US or the capacity for the UK government to deport a person or stripping citizenships while people are abroad should worry us; not because they are applied against people we may disagree with but because we leave it to the state to decide alone without any accountability and look away when minorities are being put under increasing pressure. But once you create a precedent, you seldom go back. In the case of France, a concept keeps steering violent debate about Muslims.Laïcité is a constitutional principle granting the French state’s religious neutrality and that there is no official religion in France. Proclaimed in 1905, it put a clear separation between the state and the church. Laïcité was seldom debated until Muslim immigrants who were once invisible sociological subjects reduced to mere statistics became a visible part of French society.”
Recall, just after the September 11 tragedy inside the United States, chauvinism and extremism were deliberately developed among the Americans through media and statements of high officials of the Bush Administration. President Bush used the words, “crusade against the evil-doers”, adding to the perception that the ongoing ‘different war’ against terrorism is actually a war against the Muslim countries. Inside the US, suddenly, every Muslim found himself divested of his nationality. Arrests, detentions, and harassment of the Muslims by the CIA and the FBI were other steps which still continue. Israeli atrocities on the Palestinians were brushed aside.
Learning no lesson from the drastic aftermath and the implications of the post-9/11 tragedy, some irresponsible politicians, rulers, writers and think-tanks of the Western countries, especially Europe, including their media are repeating similar anti-Muslim chauvinism which has, particularly, been accelerated in France after the Paris attacks of November 13, 2016, and those occurred afterwards. They have been misguiding their general public by creating prejudice against the Muslims.
They are propagating the so-called threat of Islamophobia. In one way or the other, the Muslims are being persecuted in the US and other Western countries, particularly in Europe. Especially, France shows the anti-Muslim phenomenon of the post 9/11 tragedy in its worst form.
In this regard, scholars of international affairs agree that “foreign affairs are too foreign” to the citizens of a country. Renowned scholar Prof. Hoslti opines that “issues and situations” have “influence on public opinion” which in turn “influences the objectives and actions.”
So, the fault cannot be laid on the general masses, a majority of whom does not have much time to go in-depth. Hence, they are swayed by emotions, stereotypes, and prejudices created by the political leaders who keep on manipulating any crisis for their own self-interests with the sole aim of getting their sympathies to increase their vote bank. There are equal strong pressures from religious and nationalist forces in wake of global war on terror which is dividing the world along religious lines.
Nonetheless, owing to the irresponsible approach of the Western leaders, far right-wing parties and “Stop Islam” movement in the West, especially in Europe are becoming popular by largely attracting their people. Amid a migrant crisis, sluggish economic growth and growing disillusionment with the European Union, right-wing parties in a growing number of European countries have made electoral gains. The right-wing parties range across a wide policy spectrum, from populist and nationalist to far-right neofascist.
But, some other developments such as criticism of the controversial Turkish-EU refugee deal by a number of human rights groups, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), after the referendum (Brexit) on June 24, 2016, prospects of Scotland and some other countries for separation from the EU, and the divide between the elite class which run multinational companies with the direct or indirect control of the Jews and the general masses who are suffering from multiple problems in wake of differences on the refugee crisis, Syrian war, Greece’s weak economy, violent protests and strikes against the labour laws in France in 2016 in favour of the employers at the cost of the employs etc.—the chances of European Union’s disintegration which will give a greater blow to the US-Europe alliance against Russia the “Stop NATO protests” in Europe were quite opposite to the Israeli secret interests.
Besides revival of the fake global war on terror, Israeli-led America also got the support of its Western allies (NATO) against Russia in relation to Syrian civil war, and as part of the double game and secret strategy, American jet fighters and those of its Western coalition started targeting the ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
Notably, backing out from his earlier statements, American President Trump has changed his policy regarding Europe and NATO. In this connection, he stated on April 13, 2017, that US relations with Russia may be at “an all-time low” and declared a new-found faith in NATO, suggesting the alliance was “no longer obsolete”. Besides, the White House said on May 21, this year, that US President Donald Trump will attend a summit of leaders of NATO nations on May 25 in Brussels.
Undoubtedly, international terrorism is the by-product of the US-led Western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the proxy war being waged in Syria.
We may conclude that despite the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election of France, discrimination against the Muslim will continue in France in particular and other Western countries in general.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Email: [email protected]
Courtesy Veterans Today
Posted by Azahir in Donald Trump Islamophobe, Hate, Hate Speech, ISLAM MESSAGE OF PEACE, Islam-A Deen or Road-map of Life in Modern World, ISLAM=PEACE & BROTHERHOOD AMONG MANKIND, ISLAMOPHOBES, Islamophobia in America, Our PathFinder & Polaris Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Racism, State Sponsored Islamophobic Hate Speech, Ummah, فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ on February 22nd, 2017
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. One day, Karima Bennoune found herself wondering whether she could protect her father with a paring knife. She tells the stories of individual Muslims struggling against fundamentalism and terrorism.
Karima Bennoune is a professor of international law at the University of California–Davis School of Law. She grew up in Algeria and the United States and now lives in northern California.
She has published widely in many leading academic journals, as well as in the Guardian, The New York Times, Comment is Free, the website of Al Jazeera English, The Nation. The topic of her most recent publication ‘Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here’ is a very personal one for her. Her father Mahfoud Bennoune was an outspoken professor at the University of Algiers, and faced death threats during the 1990s, but continued speaking out against fundamentalism and terrorism. In writing this book, Karima set out to meet people who are today doing what her father did back then, to try to garner for them greater international support than Algerian democrats received during the 1990s.
She has served as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and on the board of directors of Amnesty International USA. Currently, she sits on the Board of the Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. She has also been a consultant on human rights issues for the International Council on Human Rights Policy, the Soros Foundation, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Her human rights field missions have included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, Lebanon, Pakistan, South Korea, southern Thailand, and Tunisia.
She traveled to Algeria in February 2011 to serve as an observer at pro-democracy protests with the support of the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, writing a series of articles about these events for the Guardian. In October 2011, she volunteered as an election observer during the Tunisian constituent assembly elections with Gender Concerns International.
At TEDxExeter 2014 our speakers and performers connected us with other worlds. Our talks exposed corruption in big business, shared effective approaches to tackling social inequality and gave a voice to those whose human rights are under threat. We explored the impact of fast changing technologies on all our lives. We journeyed through fire and forest to frozen landscapes. We were challenged to consider worlds of extremes, cutting edge controversies and risky opportunities.
Video Production Chromatrope (http://chromatrope.co.uk/)
Production Manager Andy Robertson (http://www.youtube.com/familygamertv)
About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbWmBUONtFY
Muslim Americans are widely seen as victims of discrimination, but also viewed by a slim majority as members of a religion that encourages violence, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released Friday. Americans who know a Muslim, meanwhile, are more likely to view adherents of the religion favorably.
Those results come in the midst of a spate of either suspected or confirmed anti-Muslim hate crimes. The shooting of three Muslims in Chapel Hill on Feb. 10 by a killer with murky motives crystallized the moment of fear.
A full 73 percent of Americans believe Muslims face a great deal or a fair amount of discrimination. That total outstrips both African-Americans, whom 63 percent of Americans see as victims of bias, and Mexican-Americans, who are viewed as targets of discrimination by 60 percent.
The general feeling that discrimination exists is further underlined by questions about the motives of alleged Chapel Hill shooter Craig Stephen Hicks. Police initially said the killings appeared to have stemmed from a parking dispute, but also added that they were looking into whether religion was a factor. Authorities have not charged Hicks with a hate crime. However, 45 percent of Americans said Hicks should be charged with a hate crime, compared with 18 percent who believe he should not.
Those supportive-sounding numbers are offset by Americans’ other views on Muslims. Many Americans seem to have adopted the views of Bill Maher and Mike Huckabee.
A majority — 52 percent — of Americans said Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence. Suspicion of Islam was much higher among Republicans (74 percent) than Democrats (41 percent).
“There’s just a lack of access to Muslims, and because of this lack of real-world contact, a number of conservative media sources have biased opinions,” said Robert McCaw, government affairs manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Theologically Islam is no more violent or less violent than Christianity or any other monotheistic religion,” he said. “I think one stereotype is true: that Muslims are being highly discriminated against. So that’s an experience which people have experienced firsthand.”
Knowing a Muslim does seem to alter a person’s impression of members of the religion. A majority (53 percent) of Americans who personally know a Muslim disagree with the idea that the religion is more likely to encourage violence. Americans who know Muslims are also significantly more likely to view them as patriotic.
The Economist/YouGov online poll surveyed 1,000 respondents from Feb. 14 to 16 with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.
Courtesy: URL: Huffington Post
Posted by Brave_Heart in Donald Trump Islamophobe on January 31st, 2017
The Huffington Post tracked Islamophobia in the U.S. throughout 2016.
After the 2015 terror attack in Paris, when Donald Trump and other GOP presidential candidates were ratcheting up their anti-Muslim political speech, we started a running list of Islamophobic acts. Sadly, in less than two months, the list became so long the webpage often wouldn’t load.
This made us recognize the very real surge in anti-Muslim incidents sweeping the nation — a surge many wanted to deny was happening at all. (Think Fox News host Eric Bolling saying he “hadn’t heard of any” anti-Muslim hate crimes.)
So we developed The Islamophobia Project, and committed to tracking anti-Muslim violence, vandalism, discrimination, public policy and political speechjam throughout 2016.
CAIR-St Louis
America, 2016. A man with a gun screams at a Muslim family near St. Louis. “You Muslim?” he allegedly said. “All of you should die.”
The timing of the incidents we collected helped reveal patterns. We discovered that Trump supporters attacked, harassed, or plotted to kill Muslims at least 13 times during the election cycle, proving a potential link between Trump’s rhetoric and the actions of supporters. We documented apparent surges in anti-Muslim incidents during Muslim holidays.
It’s now been a year, and our project is a sad and seemingly endless scroll through nearly 400 stories of Muslims in America being attacked, threatened, scapegoated, and profiled, seeing their places of worship vandalized and their faith denigrated.
An email address we set up as a source for tips — islamophobia@huffingtonpost. com — generated hundreds of responses. Many people expressed gratitude for the project. One email led to a story about a Muslim Army veteran who found the word “terrorist” written on his locker. Mostly, we received anti-Muslim hate mail.
Our reporters and editors were attacked on anti-Muslim hate group sites and trolled relentlessly on Twitter ― signs that the project was making waves.
And, if you scroll through the tracker to March 10, 2016, you’ll read about the then-frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary saying: “I think Islam hates us.”
So much cynicism and misinformation was packed into those five words. That Trump could say them and go on to get elected president of the United States underscores just how successfully Muslims have been designated the “other” in this country.
When a group is an “other,” it’s easier to attack them, or to strip them of their civil rights. Our tracker documented this time and again.
But in another sense, Islamophobia isn’t something that can ever be tracked comprehensively. There’s too much of it, and not every instance becomes a headline.
It’s ubiquitous in the daily lives of Muslim Americans. It’s when a Muslim mom tells her daughter to maybe not wear the hijab today. It’s a Muslim father having to explain to his children that no, they’re citizens, they can’t be deported. It’s how almost every Muslim in a movie is depicted as a terrorist, and it’s why cable news channels only ask Muslims if they condemn terrorism.
With the rise of Trump, the silver lining is that now, more people seem to be paying attention to anti-Muslim hate. Media organizations are covering the subject more robustly. The nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica has launched its own project, called “Documenting Hate,” and The New York Times has started a weekly column on the subject called, “This Week in Hate.”
This year, we won’t be updating the Islamophobia Tracker. The story is so much bigger than a dataset now. But we will continue telling stories of hate and extremism. And we will pay close attention to the new presidential administration that seems hell-bent on vilifying Muslims and persecuting them.
Having tracked hate for a year, we’re able to see that people who disparaged Muslim Americans are mostly reading from the same old script. It’s possible even to look at our project as a kind of how-to guide for anti-Muslim bigotry ― a list of six “rules” of Islamophobia in America.
And if we’re going to help protect our Muslim neighbors, coworkers, friends and family, these are six “rules” that desperately need to be dismantled and destroyed.
Rule 1: Muslims are not American.
Mark Wilson via Getty Images
“Go back to your country,” a man screamed at worshipers leaving a Connecticut mosque. “C**t, you don’t belong in this country. Go back to your f****** country,” another man shouted at a Muslim woman and her family in Ohio.
“Get the hell out of the country you bitch-ass Muslims,” a woman screamed at a Muslim mother and daughter in Maryland. “You’re not even from here, motherf*****! F*** you and your family, you terrorist!” a man yelled at a Moroccan Uber driver in Queens, New York.
“Get out of America, bitches,” a woman in Brooklyn, New York, screamed at two Muslim women pushing their babies in strollers. “This is America — you shouldn’t be different from us.”
And when pundits and politicians decried San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem, they were quick to baselessly blame this alleged act of unAmerican-ness on the influence of Kaepernick’s Muslim girlfriend.
Muslims just can’t be from here, the thinking goes ― even though Muslims fight in our military and die in our wars, and even though a United States without Muslims has never existed.
Rule 2: All Muslims are terrorists.
A hate-filled voicemail left at the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“You’re a terrorist,” a woman yelled at a Muslim woman inside a New Mexico grocery store.
“We don’t want niggers and terrorists here. #Trump,” read a note taped to the door of a Muslim family’s home in Iowa.
Mohamed Abbas, a 32-year-old Iraq War veteran and American citizen with PTSD who happens to be Muslim, found “terrorist” written on his locker inside a California Marine Corps base.
“When you say the word ‘Islam’ to Mike Goodman, it means ‘terrorist,’” Goodman, a member of a Massachusetts town commission, said of himself. “When you say ‘Muslim,’ it means a person. Islam is nothing but full of terrorists.”
That’s just not true, Mike.
A Texas anti-Muslim militia group dips bullets in pig’s blood. Why? To send Muslims “straight to hell.”
In Florida, a man allegedly trashed a mosque with a machete before leaving bacon on the front doorstep. At mosques in Nebraska and Las Vegas, men wrapped bacon around mosque door handles. In Raeford, North Carolina, a man carrying a handgun left packages of bacon at the mosque and threatened to kill worshippers.
In Philadelphia, someone left a severed pig’s head outside a mosque. And outside a mosque in Lawton, Oklahoma, someone dumped a whole pig carcass.
And then there’s Trump, who in 2016 was fond of telling an apocryphal story of how a U.S. general killed Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
Like Judaism, Islam generally prohibits its followers from eating pork. While these pork-based acts of hate are undoubtedly meant as insults, the perpetrators also seem to ascribe mythical or inhuman qualities to Muslims, as if pork could magically fend them off, or send them straight to hell. As one anti-Muslim activist told comedian Samantha Bee on her show this year: “A pig head to Muslims is like a crucifix to a vampire.”
Muslims, of course, don’t believe this. Most don’t eat pork ― and that’s about the extent of it. As one Muslim HuffPost employee put it recently after reading about the pig carcass in Oklahoma: “I swear I need to spread a rumor that Muslims don’t eat cupcakes.”
Rule 4: All brown people are potentially Muslim, and are therefore potentially terrorists.
Courtesy of the Jabara family
Khalid Jabara, an Arab-American Christian, was fatally shot by a neighbor who often called the Jabaras “dirty Arabs,” “Aye-rabs” and “Mooslems.”
Simran Jeet Singh was running in the New York City Marathon when he said someone called him a “dirty Muslim.” Harmann Singh said a man called him a “f****** Muslim” inside a Cambridge, Massachusetts, store. “You’re trying to blow up this country, I should (expletive) kill you right now, you know,” Balmeet Singh said a man told him outside a California burger restaurant.
All three Singhs, who are not related, wear turbans and are Sikh, not Muslim. Sikhs are commonly perceived as Muslims in the U.S., and are targeted in anti-Muslim hate crimes, even though Sikhism and Islam are completely different religions ― not that it should matter.
In Oklahoma in August, a 61-year-old ex-convict named Stanley Majors allegedly shot and killed a 37-year-old man named Khalid Jabara outside his home. Majors reportedly had harassed the Jabara family for years. He called the Jabaras “dirty Arabs,” “Aye-rabs” and “Mooslems.” The Jabaras are Christian immigrants from Lebanon.
This phenomenon is sometimes called the “racialization of Islam,” and it helps explain why nearly 30 percent of Americans, including possibly Trump, still think the country’s first black president is secretly a Muslim.
Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser and an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, saying that Islam isn’t a religion.
Islam “is an ideology posing as a religion. Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘Sharia’ law,” Republican New Hampshire state Rep. Ken Weyler wrote in testimony submitted to the state House.
In Pennsylvania, a school board member said that Islam is “not a religion” and is “not only godless, but pagan.” In Virginia, a member of the Republican State Central Committee tweeted that Islam is a “death cult organized by Satan” and “is not a religion of peace but an ideolgy (sic).”
And in Utah, the state’s third-largest political party called for outlawing Islam altogether, arguing that because it’s not a religion, it’s not protected under the First Amendment.
Merriam-Webster defines Islam as “the religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his prophet.” It is practiced by 1.6 billion people and is the world’s second-largest religion, after Christianity. It is no more inherently violent or peaceful than any other religion.
Rule 6: There’s a secret Muslim plot to take over and/or destroy the United States and/or Western civilization from within.
Richard Ellis/Getty Images
Frank Gaffney, an advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, has long pushed the “civilization jihad” conspiracy theory. In a press release for a bill that could destroy American Muslim groups, Cruz cited “civilization jihad.”
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson warned of a “civilizational jihad” against the U.S., wherein “jihadists” who “disguise themselves as moderate Muslims” would “infiltrate, multiply and take positions of power” in order to “replace our Judeo-Christian values with Islam.”
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann described the influx of Muslim migrants and refugees into Europe and the U.S. as a “planned invasion” meant to destroy “western Christendom.” It’s part of a “civilization jihad,” the tea party Minnesota congresswoman explained, aimed at “Islamizing” the West.
The news site The Hill published an article by Frank Gaffney, an adviser to presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in which Gaffney wrote that Muslims in the U.S. have a “civilization jihad” aimed at “destroying Western civilization.” This Muslim conspiracy, he explained, uses “stealthy, subversive means like influence operations to penetrate and subvert our government and civil society institutions.”
The idea of a “civilization jihad” is a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. But it’s also a popular one that has contributed to this country’s dim view of Muslims. A recent survey revealed that Americans think there are 54 million Muslims in America. There are only about 3 million.
“If you’re promoting anti-Muslim bigotry and your theory is that a small percentage of the population is going to take over, it doesn’t work very well,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told HuffPost recently. “You have to create the impression that there’s a flood of Muslims taking over America.”
Reference
Preview YouTube video Armed and Vigilant: In Fear of a Muslim Uprising in Texas
Armed and Vigilant: In Fear of a Muslim Uprising in Texas
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A recent news report documented the removal of two Muslim women working for the federal government from an American Airline flight. On its surface, the airline staff appeared to be upholding safety regulations, but in reality, they were engaging in discriminatory practices. I know this to be true because I was one of the two women. We were removed from the plane for doing nothing more than requesting water and asking why we were still aboard an idling plane for more than five hours.
Although the incident was humiliating it was also eye-opening. Until it happened to me, neither my friend nor I had realised how common this trend had become. Passengers are removed from an aircraft for benign reasons such as asking for a beverage, a child harness, speaking a foreign language, changing or upgrading seats, taking pictures, making videos, or questioning a long delay. It isn’t just about what happened to me – increasingly Muslims are a part of a cycle of discrimination that targets them due to their appearance.
American Airlines states that they prohibit “discrimination of any kind” and ensure that their “policies require that we treat all our customers in a fair and courteous manner and discrimination due to race, ethnicity, religion, or skin colour is not tolerated”. However, this was not reflected in the treatment that I and other passengers received.
Shan Anand, a young, turbaned, Sikh man along with three of his Muslim friends were removed from an American Airlines flight travelling from Toronto to New York earlier this year. When I asked Shan why he thought he and his friends were removed from the flight he said: “We know why it happened, right? There were four of us, three are Muslim and I am Sikh.” When Shan and his friends asked American Airlines why they were removed, they were told: “There were inconsistencies of their behaviour travelling as a group.” But the explanation made no sense to Shan – he was travelling in a group of six with two Latinos, three South Asians and one Arab, yet only the South Asians and Arab were removed. Shan and his travel companions were told that “the crew felt unsafe”.
“Unsafe”: a trigger word commonly used as an excuse by airlines under the pretext of ensuring safety and security post-9/11. Nearly all Muslims have at some point been subject to secondary security screening selection, but being thrown off a plane was an entirely new level of humiliation for me.
Measuring discrimination
Khurram Ali, the former civil rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s (CAIR’s) New Jersey chapter, explains that the pilot of an aircraft is given a list of those passengers that are marked with the infamous SSSS on their boarding pass. The SSSS or *S* indicates someone needs to be scrutinised a bit further by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And although it is unknown if airline attendants have access to the names labelled SSSS by TSA on domestic flights, they do have access to their respective airline computer reservation system, which details passenger name and detailed information.
Although there is no published criteria used to select passengers for “random selection” or “suspicion”, Ali says: “It is happening to more and more people who are considered visibly Muslim.” Ali documented 27 airline discrimination complaint cases with three of those being “pulled off” or airline removal cases for CAIR’s New Jersey chapter during his short tenure. But as he pointed out, those numbers come nowhere near the amount being documented by CAIR on a national level.
CAIR has been fairly thorough in its documentation of discrimination against American Muslims, however, it is still in the process of aggregating data regarding Muslim airline passengers being “pulled off” planes. Corey Saylor, CAIR’s director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia, acknowledged that they “are seeing more airline cases”. But in regards to statistics, Saylor stated: “We do not have stats as of yet. We are working on it.”
The only cases the public is aware of are those documented in the media. I counted nine airline passenger removal cases involving American Muslims published in the media over the past 13 months. But if that isn’t indicative enough, just look at trending hashtags on social media like #FlyingWhileMuslim to understand and confirm the reality of rising discrimination.
The official reasons for removal of these passengers are all in relation to safety and security concerns. But there is no mistaking this trend toward discrimination of Muslims.. Here are a few examples:
Many instances have gone undocumented due to fear of victims being further targeted, labelled troublemakers and being put on a “no-fly” list. The silent acceptance of these incidents has enabled airlines to dismiss the arbitrary treatment of select passengers as compliance with airline security regulations post-9/11. This policy is not effective and ultimately makes Americans feel marginalised in our own country.
Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, or Mark for those that have trouble pronouncing his name, recalls his experience with Southwest Airlines as “tearful and humiliating”. Makhzoomi came to America after his father was executed in Iraq by Saddam Hussain: “I experienced dictatorship in Iraq and now I am experiencing it in the freest country in the world.”
The discrimination Khairuldeen faced in Oakland, California, was anything but subtle. Khairuldeen detailed how he was removed from the aircraft, questioned by airline representatives and security, cornered against a wall, searched, sniffed by dogs in public and later interrogated privately by the FBI. Southwest Airlines representative and the authorities that removed him from the plane berated him for having spoken Arabic aboard the aircraft. Khairuldeen recalled the Southwest Airlines representative, stating: “Why would you speak that language knowing the environment in an airport?”
Khairuldeen said: “I was excited because we were talking about my upcoming graduation from UC Berkley, saying ‘inshallah’. You know, we use this word 30 to 40 times in any given conversation.” The rest of Khairuldeen’s conversation revolved around what they served for dinner at an event he attended which hosted the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon. “I was telling my uncle that they served us chicken, mash potatoes and spinach for dinner at the event,” said Makhzoomi. Yet the authorities that escorted him and claimed to understand Arabic, accused him of “discussing martyrdom” in his telephone conversation.
An atmosphere of fear
Cenk Uygur, political commentator and co-founder of the Young Turks, believes that this issue goes beyond discrimination towards Muslims in particular. Uygur was also kicked off of an American Airlines flight but he doesn’t believe it was because of religion. “Was it religious? In my case, I don’t think it was racially motivated.” Uygur believes that the root of the matter boils down to power and compared airline attendant behaviour toward Muslims since 9/11 to police officers abusing their authority and using excessive force on African Americans. “After 9/11 airlines/flight attendants have taken up the ‘I can do whatever I want attitude’ in the name of security,” Uygur says. “In my opinion, the core of the problem is flight attendants are given unlimited power and they tend to abuse it. They tend to use their power on those they perceive to be powerless. And unfortunately, in America, the darker the skin colour the more powerless you are. And many Muslims tend to fit in that category.”
He adds: “By the way, it’s much harder on women because they are more visibly Muslim and they often bear the brunt of the burden of Islamophobia or discrimination.
“Donald Trump has given people permission to be Islamophobic and told them that it’s okay to discriminate against Muslims. Trump basically says, ‘If I become president I will systematically discriminate against them [Muslims],’” Uygur says.
Likewise, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi attributed the recent rise in discrimination towards Muslims to Donald Trump, saying, “Trump is using ‘Islamophobia’ to rise to political power.”
Trump’s statements have fostered and further instigated an atmosphere of fear and prejudice towards the estimated 6-7 million Muslims in America.
I’m an American and being labelled a safety threat is unacceptable in a country founded on tolerance and freedom.
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