Philippine Ulema Eye National Body

CAIRO — Eyeing a more robust role in peacemaking in the largely Catholic country, hundreds of Filipino Muslim scholars have joined hands to launch a national body to unite Muslim groups in the Philippines, reported the Manila Bulletin newspaper on Friday, January 29.

“Through the historic summit, the National Ulema Conference of the Philippines (NUCP) nears the goal of organizing a truly national network of ulema and aleemat (women) organizations,” NUCP interim chairman Dr. Aboulkhair Tarason said.

Scholars from nearly 200 Muslim groups met at the weekend to discuss the creation of a national network of Ulema in the country.

Tarason said the new body would help energize Muslims to work together to achieve peace in the country.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's biggest Muslim group, has been struggling for an independent state in the mineral-rich southern region of Mindanao for some three decades now.

More than 120,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in the late 1960s.

Mindanao, the birthplace of Islam in the Philippines, is home to more than 5 million Muslims.

Muslims make up nearly 8 percent of the total populace in Catholic Philippines, which Islam reached in the 13th century about 200 years before Christianity.

Uniting Model

Filipino Muslim scholars are seen making progress towards uniting their ranks.

“The first year of the Ulema summit formalized the formation of the organization as hundreds of Ulema organizations gathered together,” said Professor Moner Bajunaid, NUCP secretary general.

The following year saw the drafting of the Muslim body’s constitution and by-laws and the election of a board of trustees.

“This year, we will formalize the composition of our board which will lead for two years,” he said.

Scholars hope that launching a national Ulema network would united Muslims in the country.

“They are important in the Muslim community because they are being looked at as models being the learned and religious Islamic scholars.”

“They can mobilize people and influence the lives of the Muslim community as they lead prayers in mosques and people come to them for advice.”

Rape Stalks Haiti Quake Survivors

CAIRO – Let alone their ongoing suffering since the disaster, Haiti earthquake survivors are gripped by fears of criminals preying on their camps.

"With the blackout that's befallen the Haitian capital, bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents," said national police chief Mario Andresol, reported the Telegraph on Friday, January 29.

"We have more than 7,000 detainees in the streets who escaped from the National Penitentiary the evening of the earthquake.

“.. It took us five years to apprehend them. Today they are running wild," he said.

Haiti was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12, killing thousands and left more than one million homeless.

While thousands of criminals have escaped prisons, the quake has also crippled Haiti’s 8,000-strong police force.

"We lost 70 police officers, nearly 500 are still missing and 400 were wounded," Andresol said at a temporary office standing in for the capital's police headquarters, which collapsed in the quake.

Though there are no figures about the number of crimes committed since the quake, women’s organization have documented a number of cases.

Rachelle Dolce, who is living in a makeshift camp on the Petionville Club Golf Course, recalls an assault outside her tent.

"I heard a fight outside, and I saw panties on the ground," she said.

"I started to shout a lot, and they left."

Panic

Once night befalls, panic grips Haiti quake survivors.

"At night, people take things," Omen Cola told Agence France-Presse (AFP) at the Champ de Mars tent camp.

"But I don't have a problem. I don't have anything to steal," she added, while washing a blouse in basin made from a cut-off plastic container.

The chaos left by Haiti’s quake has raised fears that vulnerable children could fall prey to human traffickers.

The UN said last week that a number have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti.

Fending for themselves, the panicked Haitians gather their belongings into a pile at night and sleeping beside them to guard against theft.

In corners of the sprawling camp, youths were banding together to protect their possessions -- bags of clothes, chickens, car batteries -- and to collect garbage into piles to be burned.

But this raised fears, too, that the bands might fight among themselves.

Tina Irisia recalls when a group of youths shouted that a tsunami was on the way.

When residents fled, the youths stole whatever they could get their hands on.

"I don't feel safe,” said the 45-year-old.

“But I don't have anywhere else to go."

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Britain ignores anti-Muslim hatred: MCB

CAIRO — Many of Britain's sizable two-million-strong Muslim minority are dispirited by their government's failure to tackle surging anti-Islam hostilities in the European country and want to see divisive action being taken to address that.

"Amongst many British Muslim communities, there is a growing disenchantment at the lacklustre response from our political leaders to speak out against anti-Muslim hatred," Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), wrote in a letter to the Home Secretary and posted on the group's website.

He accused politicians of either keeping their silence or riding the bandwagon of the anti-Islam trend.

"Whether this exists in explicit form through the actions of far-right groups, or implicitly with hysterical headlines in our media, the policy response to any of these has been far from satisfactory."

Anti-Muslim march by the far-right English Defence League (EDL) last Saturday in Stoke-on-Trent city, Staffordshire, turned violent.

Over 17 people were arrested and at least four police officers injured after scuffles between the protesters and police.

The protest coincided with a meeting by hundreds of British Muslim leaders in Birmingham to discuss the growing anti-Muslim hatred trend.

The meeting urged fellow British Muslims, estimated at nearly two million, to cooperate with authorities to help tackle this issue.

It urged them to join coalitions with people of all faiths and none to seek strong law enforcement measures against those who indulge in violence and intimidation and in spreading the poison of hatred on faith or racial grounds.

* Surging

The umbrella MCB, which groups around 500 affiliated national, regional and local organizations, mosques, charities and schools, said the past year witnessed a growing trend of anti-Muslim hysteria and hatred.

"In 2009 alone, scores of Muslim institutions, centers and persons have been targeted in violent attacks."

Scotland Yard warned last July that far-right extremists were plotting terrorist attacks to stoke racial tensions in the European country.

In August, a Scottish racist threatened to kill Muslims until all mosques in the country are demolished.

Abdul Bari, the Muslim community leader, urged the Home Secretary to take divisive action to face this trend ahead of the coming elections.

"We ask you to take leadership in this matter, especially in a year where divisive elements may well flourish in the run-up to the next general election."

Last November, local councils across Britain raised the alarm that the government was too much focused on combating radicalization among Muslims while ignoring the growing threat of far-right extremism.

"Their inaction is facilitated by the insatiable appetite of a hysterical media, keen to paint a picture of a British Muslim community that is somehow foreign, suspect and disloyal," said the MCB.

"British Muslims are none of these."

Source: IslamOnline

UK politicians, media fuel anti-Muslim hatred

CAIRO – With Muslims often portrayed as “terrorists” who are seeking to “Islamize” the country, a British study is accusing politicians and media of fuelling hatred and assaults against London’s Muslims, reported the Guardian on Thursday, January 28.

"The constant assault on Muslims from certain politicians, and above all in the mainstream media, has created an atmosphere where hate crimes, ranging from casual abuse to arson and even murder, are bound to occur and are even in a sense encouraged by mainstream society," journalist Peter Oborne writes in the report’s forward.

The report, by the University of Exeter’s European Muslim research center, said politicians and media are to blame for the surging hate crimes against London Muslims.

"The report provides prima facie and empirical evidence to demonstrate that assailants of Muslims are invariably motivated by a negative view of Muslims they have acquired from either mainstream or extremist nationalist reports or commentaries in the media."

It cites the book Londonistan written by a Daily Mail writer as an example of the media role in fuelling anti-Muslim sentiments.

"Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London as Londonistan and Muslim Londoners as terrorists, sympathisers and subversives in sections of the media appear to provide the motivation for a significant number of anti-Muslim hate crimes."


The umbrella Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on Wednesday accused the government of failure to tackle the surging anti-Muslim hatred, saying politicians either keep their silence or ride the bandwagon of anti-Islam trend.
A recent government-commissioned study has also found that a torrent of negative and imbalance stories in the British media demonize Muslims and their faith by portraying them as the enemy within.

British Muslims, estimated at two million, have also taken full brunt of anti-terror laws since the 7/7 attacks.

They have repeatedly complained of maltreatment by police for no apparent reason other than being Muslim.

* Rightist Assaults

The report, based on interviews with witnesses to and victims of hate crimes, notes a link between the media and anti-Muslim assaults by rightists, such as the British National Party (BNP).

"An experienced BNP activist in London explains that he believes that most BNP supporters simply followed the lead set by their favourite tabloid commentators that they read every day,” it says.

"When these commentators singled out Muslims as threats to security and social cohesion, he says that it was perfectly natural for BNP supporters to adopt the same thinking."

The BNP, a far-right and whites-only political party, is notorious for attacks against immigrants and Muslims.

BNP leader Nick Griffin had earlier described Islam as a “wicked and vicious faith”.

The report said that Muslims are the focus of assaults by rightists and gangs other than any ethnic or religious groups.

"Interviewees with long experience of extremist nationalist street violence in London are unequivocal in their assessment that Muslim Londoners are now a prime target for serious violence and intimidation in the way that Londoners from minority ethnic communities once were.

"Similarly, interviewees with experience of London street gangs that have no connection or affinity with extremist nationalist politics are adamant that Muslims have become prime targets for serious attacks.

"In addition, well-informed interviewees are clear that the main perpetrators of low-level anti-Muslim hate crimes are not gangs but rather simply individuals from a wide range of backgrounds who feel licensed to abuse, assault and intimidate Muslims in terms that mirror elements of mainstream media and political comment that became commonplace during the last decade."

London Muslims are being targeted by gangs in “punishment” over members turning to embrace Islam, notes the report.

"Often, they know someone who has left their scene and become a devout Muslim.

"That is like a defection. And whether they do or don't, they say they know this or that terrorist who used to be a great person till he joined the Muslims."

It said gang members believe Muslim values “oppose everything these kids aspire for”.

“Flash cars, nightclubs, expensive clothes, jewellery, drugs, alcohol, casual sex, glamour, dancing, music ...".

In 2004, a young British Muslim assaulted by a gang of youths while going to prayers in London, leaving him with brain-damaged.

The report, to be followed by another this summer covering Britain’s Muslims, called for utmost efforts to tackle the anti-Muslim hatred.

"Anti-Muslim hate crimes have not been afforded the same priority attention [that] government and police have invested in racist hate crimes."

Source: IslamOnline