A conference in London about Islamophobia has issued a warning to the British regime that state-sanctioned Islamophobia leads to hate crime on the streets.
Yet delegates warned that the government is closing its ears to this reality, and is hyping up the “terror threat” to the UK and marginalising anyone who is critical of its foreign policy or counter-terrorism strategies.
The annual conference, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, took place yesterday and was attended by activists from Britain, Europe and the United States.
Arzu Merali, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said that British is becoming a police state.
She said: “We’ve gathered here to talk about the environment of hate and how it impacts Muslims but also how this is a wider issue and is culminating in the creation of a police state that we’ve sleep walked into. Islamophobia is obviously the current issue that we are talking about but ultimately every type of racism is now being instrumentalised to create a society where nobody is free.”
And Bath University’s David Miller said Muslims were being systematically targeted by the state.
He said: “The key thing that causes Islamophobia in this country is the counter terrorism apparatus, it’s the counter terrorism strategies that result in systematic disadvantage for Muslims. So if you’re a Pakistani male in this country you are 150 times more likely to be stopped when going into or out of the country. 86 per cent of people who are referred to the government’s de-radicalisation programme are Muslim, 14 per cent are non Muslims. 123 out of 124 people in jail in this country for terrorism are Muslims.”
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Figures show that Islamophobic hate crimes are on the rise in the UK. These range from murders to violence against individuals and mosques being attacked.
Meanwhile, media hatred directed against Muslims is also a huge cause for concern.
However, delegates at the conference sought to put Islamophobia in a global context. France was called the most Islamophobic country in Europe. And Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election, as well as the pro Brexit vote in Britain, was called a victory for the far-right.
