UK EVENT: Human Rights and Israel at 60

2008 sees the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of Israel. This conference discusses the conflicting paths of these projects.

Date: Sunday 4 May 2008
Venue: Islamic Centre of England, 140 Maida Vale, London, W9 1QB
Time: 11 a.m. – 6 pm

Themes to be discussed include: Self-determination, rights to life, land, property and water, freedom of movement.

Speakers include:

Michael Warschawski (Alternative Information Center)
Yehudit Keshet (Checkpoint Watch)
Daud Abdullah (Palestinian Return Centre)
Jennifer Loewenstein (University of Wisconsin)
Michael Bailey (Oxfam)
Meir Margalit (Israeli committee against House Demolitions)
Nearest Tube: Kilburn Park Station on the Bakerloo Line
National Rail: Kilburn High Rd Station
Bus Routes: 98, 16 and 32
On street parking available

All welcome. Entrance is free. Parent and child room, with relay, available. Lunch and refreshments provided.

Organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission
For more information, please contact 020 8904 4222, conference@ihrc.org

JOIN THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE. JOIN IHRC.

info@ihrc.org

More information, including poster / flyer available at:
http://www.ihrc.org.uk/080504/

The Wrong Shoes, or Or Notes on Muslim Representation in Europe

20 April 2007

Dedicated to Nick Park, Wallace & Gromit and all Muslim organisations and associations.

Slightly less painful than giving birth and only slightly less stupid than getting into a cab alone in Sofia and driving to the mountains (not to be done by a woman travelling alone in any country) is walking any distance in a pair of 4 inch heeled shoes.

Pre-middle age has seen me breaking, in the last two years, my lifelong habit of not wearing any shoes in which I could not run away from a racist, a rapist, a drunk and more recently an Islamophobe. My sad fashionista 30 something years are roundly condemned by my flat and dowdy 20s. The flat soled decade was vindicated by my physiotherapist Ali, who in his ‘Manage your pain because the NHS no longer cares’ occupational therapy class a few years back, berated all women who wore heels as exacerbating our bad backs.

These lessons in minor chiropractic and osteopathy came back to me as I walked from Augustinehof Hotel to the Heinrich Böll Stiftung for a roundtable discussion on “Muslim Representation.” A ten minute walk turned into The Odyssey as I walked in lonely agony along central Berlin streets – beautiful streets with galleries and cafes and restoration work to some of the city’s more historic and somewhat decrepit architecture. These were streets in the heart of the German capital, minutes away from its new train station – a feat of such architectural and social significance that even I had seen something about it on the Europhobic British news. Yet I was the only non-white face, walking down a street parallel to one known to be a meeting place of cross cultural experience – Indian and Chinese restaurants sat along side a Turkish convenience store (Turkish by ownership rather than content) and various bars and eateries.

Hobbling along under the dual torture of crippling footwear and kilos of BMEG* reports in my rucksack and obligatory WH Smith carrier bag (travelling gear of the hapless British tourist), I was overtaken by a green hijab clad convert (who, I jealously noted, wore sensible brown pumps). She turned out to be Carla, a participant at the same event from Austria, whose foot pragmatism ensured that she left the same hotel as me much later and arrived at the venue (having got lost) still much earlier. She was to talk about the ‘successful’ model in Austria of Muslim representation – the creation of a single contact partner organisation for government to negotiate with – something that I was about to lambaste as inappropriate and unrepresentative based on the British experience. My networking and social skills are pretty poor as they are – this looked like it was going to be another event where I left with less friends than I turned up with.

I spoke second, and it wasn’t to criticise the Austrian example as I had little inkling of what goes on there, aside from the issues aired by other participants about the one body failing to represent Shias and others. However my history of Muslim organisation from circa 1992, was not on my part to be some sort of stinging retribution of the MCB – a further spat in the internecine warfare that characterised relations between Muslim organisations in the near past. A relevant example was IHRC’s campaign in support of journalist Faisal Bodi after his critique of the one contact partner myth in the UK in The Guardian, led to a letter from Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) media secretary Inayat Bunglawalla calling for his removal as a contributor. In retrospect such spats seem quite healthy, but whilst contemporary can seem painful.

The critique I presented in Berlin was of the more generalised idea and that never ending trend of aspiration amongst Muslim organisations to become the “sole voice” of Muslims in a minority situation – situations that are increasingly characterised in Europe by ethnic, generational and sectarian diversity. Being the “sole voice” is an aspiration in the British experience or experiences of the last 10 -15 years has shown to be an expectation by government not for true representation, but for exactly the unrealistic, inevitably unrepresentative, opportunistic and cynical reasons.

Interestingly, Carla pointed out a historical plus point in the Muslim – Austrian history i.e. the recognition of Islam by law in 1912. To start off my presentation I had to clarify that in the UK, Muslims are not recognised either as National Minority nor under the Race Relations Act 1976 (our most comprehensive legislation to protect minorities, which cover the Jewish, Sikh and to a lesser extent Rastafarian communities). Although new laws against religious discrimination in the workplace had been enacted since end 2003 in order to meet the demand of an EU directive, there had been no government commitment to ensure this legislation had any meaning in practice. There is no legal aid available for victims, and legal costs are generally prohibitive. Unions and employers have been provided little if any training to understand the issues or responsibilities involved in eradicating discrimination based on faith.

It is against this backdrop that the New Labour government has set up a clash of civilisations between it and its claim to represent broader British society, against what it now deems an irksome and no longer inclined to vote for them, and vilifies publicly as violent and terroristic to its core. In that clash, old friends – Muslim associations and organisations to sometimes be so closely linked to the Labour project as to be sometimes indistinguishable from it have been maligned and sidelined, and old foes and those with simply no representative basis have been reinvented as moderates have been promoted as true spokespeople by a government obsessed with socially engineering not a single contact partner but a single form of Islam that Muslims in the UK should and must adhere to.

So, back to 1992, and my presentation, and an attempt, whilst I can’t pretend to be unbiased, at being neutral. 1992 saw the establishment of the now defunct, Muslim Parliament of Great Britain (MPGB), an organisation that spoke (loudly) at government, and which was maliciously described in the press at that time as seeking to segregate Muslims. This was a lie dealt with in the inaugural speech by the MPGB’s then leader, the inspirational, controversial and much missed late Dr. Kalim Siddiqui. “We are for integration,” he boldly stated, “on our [i.e. Muslims’] own terms.”

Running parallel to MPGB was UKIAC (the United Kingdom Islamic Action Committee), that has been looked on in retrospect as a lobby group pressing on Muslim issues particularly measures to protect against religious discrimination and vilification. The understanding is that circa the mid 1990s, the erstwhile Home Secretary and later Tory party leader, Michael Howard, offered those around UKIAC that the government would negotiate with a single Muslim body and that one should be organised. I cannot verify this, but of true it forms an even more salutary lesson for Muslims in minority situations, given that many UKIAC associated figures became part of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) set up in 1997, which was seen by the community as aspiring (rightly or wrongly) to that single body status. MCB is now in that unenviable category of demonised groups that the British government seeks to marginalise, occasionally with the ironic put down that it is unrepresentative – a fact that did not deter it until very recently as proclaiming as exactly the opposite in an attempt to shut out other Muslim organisations from consultation on the basis that THE Muslim representative body already sat next to government.

As I then stated I have found myself recently transformed from critic of the MCB to its defender – it has been maligned for doing the same thing it always did, with government approval. Whatever my differences of which there are many with the roads – ideological and empirical - taken by MCB over the last decade, it is shocking that they have been treated in this manner – a manner then aped by the mainstream press, resulting in e.g. the recent admonition by the tabloid press that in their guidelines for schools, the MCB had made Taliban style demands on the government. The same guidelines were not just endorsed but praised by the Chief Inspector of Schools. As a representative of about 40% of Muslim organisations – the MCB could at least argue that it represented a substantial part of Muslim civil society. To be replaced by the newly created and in vogue Sufi Council of Britain as doyennes of moderation and representation is at best bizarre, particularly as the constituency for the latter seems to consist of government ministers (maybe even 40% of them) and no-one else.

So what are the problems of the single contact partner model. I give my humble thoughts on why such a model, based on the last 10 -15 years of the UK experience this would be a bad way to go.

1. One body only, puts the minority (whomsoever they are) in a position of weakness. Previously thought as a solid way forward – a uniting around one voice concept that demands acceptance by government. Actually, as we have seen it just means it can be easily discarded by discarded when it no longer wants it, needs it or when it may have stopped articulating only those concerns that government is willing to negotiate on or accommodate.

2. The grassroots i.e. not Muslim civil society, whether member associations or not of the single body, but everyday Muslims in whose name representative bodies are supposed to speak, perceive that weakness, and therefore the single body lacks support at the grassroots level.

3. This strengthens the alienation of Muslim grassroots from Muslim civil society – something that mirrors societal dislocation in general from civil society i.e. NGOs, organisations, activists and so on, but (impressionistically) is more acute amongst Muslims.

4. Sectarian and internecine rivalry always, always becomes an issue in the constitution of any single body. Whether its based on schools of thought or lines of thought within schools of thought, or ethnic or just political rivalries, single bodies that usually comprise of voluntary committees, are more prone to being by dint of these problems less about representation and more about (internalised) politics.

5. Trying to have only the one organisation, never works, and instead strengthens government or institutions attempts to minimalise hassle or more sinisterly control agendas through the gatekeeping process. Gatekeeping is where the doors of power are guarded effectively by a department of officer in whose favour access to the influence lie. One of the better examples of consultation vis Muslims in the UK in recent years has been with the Mayor of London whose association with the Muslim Association of Britain and subsequently the British Muslim Inititiave and their various affiliates has shown an engagement with organisations that hold political positions on Iraq and Palestine that resonate better with Muslim constituencies in the UK. How far this is an attempt by the Mayor to be more interested in the representative views of Muslims an dhow far this is simply reflecting his own views on the issues has been mooted. Further the same charges of gatekeeping have been levied at his office over what is still a somewhat exclusive arrangement.

The argument that gatekeeping is about practically carries some weight, but as we have seen with the government example, there is as much and more significant ideological gatekeeping as there is bureaucratic gatekeeping. Either way the idea of representation is illusory.

6. The expectation that a single body, can be representative is (i) simply unrealistic and (ii) lends itself to the politicisation of that body towards “single issues” or to marginalised and external agendas e.g. over the issue of forced marriage. A further example is that of the Board of Deputies of British Jews which has been castigated as ‘pro-Israel’ and unrepresentative of British Jewry by many prominent Jews now seeking to establish another organisation.


What, if any, solutions are there to this situation if a single body – no matter how large its membership or constituency is, is still not able to speak authoritatively on behalf of Muslims or the minority in question?

Government and institutions need to speak to minorities where they are at. It’s that simple. It’s no use pretending that there is some likeminded majority hidden by overbearing civil society and that the lone voice you find to mirror you somehow echoes that. That is the current British experience in extremis. Then of course that means you need to consult more and wider. As details about Operation Contest emerged in 2005, in which the government proposed to socially engineer a differently minded Muslim youth than the one they felt would happen left to its own trajectory, the government simply will not let well enough alone. Muslims, in their opinion need to moulded and this needs to stop and stop right away.

Why?

Just as with the single body solution, it is counterproductive, but more importantly it is a moral question that requires a definitive answer. It is not the place of governments to determine what a minority is, nor create the minority it wants through interference, use of fear tactics, favouritism and manipulation.

Given the reasons why a single body option would be problematic for a minority, a cynic could argue that they would be the very reasons why a government would choose that route. Superficially they are seen as engaging with the community, and a majority that have little or no exposure to the minority will see it either as good measure or indeed excessive capitulation. Resonant of the days of the Raj, a government could using this method, divide and rule. If the single body cannot deliver it can be replaced by another. There is no recognised clamour at the gall and injustice of such a move.

Are there any bad reasons then for government to do this? Assuming for one moment that (some) governments may have varying degrees of ethical intent, they may actually be concerned that their one contact partner, does not have grassroots validity. It will additionally mean that it will have no effect and ultimately legitimacy amongst the people, they are supposed to be helping government serve. By encouraging one organisation over others, only increases factionalism - again maybe that serves the more cynical interests of government, however in the long run that undermines social cohesion and effective integration. Finally and more practically still is the fact that increasingly larger groups of disaffected people cannot reached. Disaffected people in this narrative are not terrorist to be feared – they are however voters and activists. Something government still need to be wary of, even in the UK.

IHRC’s research on British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government regarding political representation is telling, and I have dealt with it elsewhere (e.g. the article Citizen Ali in New Politics ) , but the normative issues I have outlined above form a large part of the narrative that was unveiled by this research. Muslims in the UK want to participate and they see mainstream political representation, particularly in parliament as the way forward. They are sceptical about the current state of Muslim representation whether at the level of civil society or in parliament. In fact many see the representation of Muslims in parliament as nominal and without any real power. If in its effort to negotiate with a minority, a government cannot or will not understand or respect that minority’s commitment to democratic processes and wishes instead to fix a model of representation on it that it would not subscribe to for other citizens, then we need to look at that model as, at best, inappropriate.

No offence to anyone, but it is time to rethink the single contact partner model, not export it elsewhere.

Muslims in 21st Century Britain: Assimilation or Extermination?

A powerful response to Tony Blair's August 2005 speech on Muslims by my colleague Fahad Ansari, first published in The Link magazine.
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The Twenty First Century was supposed to herald in a new era of freedom, liberty and human rights throughout the world. World leaders and politicians swore that the mistakes and atrocities of the Twentieth Century would never be repeated and that a new epoch of tolerance and co-existence would exist irrespective of differences in race, gender or creed.

For Muslims living in Twenty-First Century Britain, the reality is a far bitterer pill to swallow. Since the introduction of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the events of September 11 2001, Muslims in Britain have found themselves under severe persecution by the British Government, Police Force and other state institutions. Draconian anti-terrorism measures such as internment without charge, control orders and house arrest are normally associated with Burma and Zimbabwe. Daily stop and search of tens of thousands of Muslims and hundreds of arrests of innocent Muslims have effectively demonised the Muslim community in Britain as “the enemy within”. This, in turn with wholly irresponsible media coverage, has lead to a rapidly increasing level of resentment and intolerance of the community by the wider society, inevitably assisting the huge upsurge in Islamophobic attacks in Britain, particularly in the wake of the London bombings.

Prime Minister Blair’s recent proposals of 5 August 2005 will achieve nothing but further alienation and marginalisation of the British Muslim community.

Extremism

Blair’s proposals are targeted at those he describes as “extremists” and their various networks: “extremist websites”, “extremist bookshops”, “extremist centres”, “extremist organisations” and “extremist places of worship”. While no precise definition of extremism is given, in Blair’s speech at the Labour Party national conference of 16 July 2005 he outlined what he called the “barbaric ideas” of Muslim extremists:

“They demand the elimination of Israel; the withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries, irrespective of the wishes of people and government; the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations.”

Given their widespread currency within the mainstream media, it is important to carefully examine more closely these ideas being labelled as “extremist”.

a) Elimination of Israel

The idea that Israel should be eliminated is portrayed as a violent and hate-filled desire, yet in practical effect this type of accusation has been used by pro-Israeli activists and advisors against anyone, including many Muslims who seek and / or struggle for the liberation of Palestine, many of whom advocate a one-state solution, be it as one secular Palestine, a bi-national Israeli state or indeed a theocratic state or some other form of religious state including khilafah and religious democracy. The solution of the Palestinian problem is warranted by both human conscience and the dictates of international law, and is a passion shared by most Muslims. This in no way means the elimination of Jews or the Jewish people, yet increasingly this charge has been used by Zionist activists against all those who would seek justice in the Middle East from whichever background they hail. The one-state solution idea is shared not just by many Muslims but also by numerous academics, journalists and international lawyers from a variety of faith and non-faith backgrounds.

It is alarming that what was once the extreme rhetoric of the most extreme right-wing Zionist groups and advocates is now being espoused by the British Prime Minister. Labelling Muslims in this way not only demonises them further in the public psyche but condemns a very legitimate and normative aspiration for liberation as unacceptable.

b) The Withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries

No Muslim group, not even al-Qaida itself, demands that all Westerners be removed from Muslim countries. What the majority of Muslims in Britain and across the world do demand is that all foreign occupying troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan and that American military bases in Saudi Arabia be removed. Again, not an extremist idea but a requirement of international law. Mr Blair’s claims that such demands are made “irrespective of the wishes of the people and Government” is particularly absurd as these very people are forced to live under authoritarian dictatorial regimes where freedom of political expression is denied.

c) The establishment of shariah law in the Arab world en route to one Caliphate of all Muslim nations

The establishment of Islamic law or shariah – which has many different guises – in the Arab world is a wholly legitimate. Although Western governments and many of their citizens may disagree with some elements of Islamic law, respect for democracy dictates that those who yearn for Islamic law in their countries should be entitled to campaign for it. The same applies to the goal of uniting all Muslim nations under one Caliphate. How does this differ from the process that created the United States of America or the European Union? By condemning the desire of Muslims to have one legitimately elected leader, where does that leave the Pope’s position across the Catholic world?

It appears very clear that when Mr Blair condemns extremism, in reality he is condemning opposing oppression, criticism of British and American foreign policy and all forms of political Islam.

Deporting Extremists

With this in mind, it becomes very disturbing to hear Mr Blair speak of deporting foreign nationals who have any active engagement with extremist websites, bookshops, centres, networks and particular organisations of concern. There has been a very longstanding and admirable policy of academic freedom within the Muslim world meaning Islamic bookstores stock publications from a variety of writers who may hold opposing viewpoints on specific matters. Jihad and politics are integral parts of Islam and to attempt to silence bookstores, websites and organisations who speak of such issues is nothing less than an attempt to curtail freedom of speech and freedom of education.

Mr Blair later in his speech refers to the proposed new power to order the closure of places of worship that are used as centres for fomenting extremism. Once again, it is to be assumed from Mr Blair’s definition of extremism that any criticism of foreign policy or discussion of political Islam in a mosque could result in it being shut down. This removal of politics from the mosque will only result in such topics being forced underground.

Condoning or Glorifying Terrorism

Justice is an extremely important aspect of Islam and striving against injustice and oppression is a duty upon all Muslims, irrespective of the faith of the parties involved. Consequently, Muslims constantly and consistently campaign for the rights of oppressed people around the world, from Palestine to Kashmir, from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Chechnya to Burma and from Sudan to Afghanistan and make daily prayers to aid the resistance movements in those places. Muslims recognise the legitimate rights of oppressed people to use force where necessary to fight oppression. For this to be an offence is of great.

By specifically stating that this law will be applied to terrorism anywhere and not just in the UK, Mr Blair is making an offence to support action regarded as legitimate under international law. It is assumed that the definition of terrorism used in the Terrorism Act 2000 would also be adopted here. This definition is extremely broad and vague and potentially outlaws any form of political activism. This proposed offence is a further attempt to stifle support for legitimate resistance movements around the world.

Extension of detention without charge of terror suspects

The proposal to extend the maximum period of pre-charge detention from 14 days to 3 months is to be condemned outright. Already since 9-11, almost 800 people have been arrested under anti-terror legislation, the vast majority of them being Muslims. Of these, just over 100 have actually been charged with any offence with only 3 Muslims convicted. In addition, tens of thousands of innocent Muslims have been regularly stopped and searched in the streets. Figures released by the Home Office in July 2004 revealed a 302 per cent rise in the number of Asian people being stopped and searched by police. The Home Office report, Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System, showed that Asians suffered the highest increases in stop and searches under the Terrorism Act 2000 powers, rising from 744 in 2001-02 to 2,989 in 2002-03. Although the religion of those stopped is not recorded, the majority of these Asians come from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities who are predominantly Muslim in faith. A recent report from the Metropolitan Police Authority stated that the current stop and search practice has create deeper racial tensions and has severed valuable sources of community information and criminal intelligence.

Proscription

The most frightening statement by Mr Blair was that the government would proscribe Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the successor organisation of Al Muhajiroun and that it would also attempt to widen the grounds of proscription. Although Hizb-ut-Tahrir has frequently clashed with other members of the Muslim community on various issues, it is a non-violent organisation which has routinely condemned violence and terrorism.

What is of particular concern is the grounds for such proscription and whether these will constitute the criteria for future proscription in any new anti-terror bill. If Hizb-ut-Tahrir is being proscribed for speaking out against British foreign policy, then what of the 2 million British people who marched against the Iraq invasion? If Hizb-ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed for criticising despotic rulers throughout the Muslim world, then how will the Government deal with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs who routinely condemn these regimes? If it is for calling for the uniting of Muslim lands under one Caliphate that Hizb-ut-Tahrir is being proscribed, then how will the Government deal with all the other Muslims in Britain who share this belief? If the Government is prepared to ban an organisation that preaches non-violence, how will it respond to groups that recognise the legitimate right of oppressed people to use force in self-defence against aggression? There is not one instance in British history of a non-violent group ever being proscribed. Even Sinn Féin, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, was never proscribed. To proscribe Hizb-ut-Tahrir is to follow the tradition of dictatorial regimes throughout the world which do not tolerate political dissent and proscribe non-violent organisations with alternative viewpoints.

List of Foreign Imams to be Banned from Britain

Such a move is unhelpful and likely to cause even more alienation and resentment as it will be perceived as censorship; the Muslim community will be prohibited from listening to Imams who may criticise British foreign policy or call for political unity among Muslims. In drawing up such a list, Mr Blair is unclear on whether he intends to consult with British Muslim leaders or with leaders of Muslim countries Neither is satisfactory. Blair consultations with so-called British Muslim leaders have so far been nothing more than a rubber-stamping process involving hand-selected ‘yes-men’ who do not represent the Muslim community. The leaders of Muslim countries, on the other hand, are by and large despotic rulers and dictators who have stifled all political dissent in their own countries.

Conclusion

It is with great alarm that the Muslim community in Britain is viewing these latest proposals of the Government to assimilate it into the wider society. Basic Islamic principles and values of both a personal and political nature are being demonised and stigmatised to such an extent that the very definition of the word ‘Islam’ is at stake. Such an ostensible loathing for ‘the Other’ must not be seen as assimilation but extermination in the same way it was seen in Nazi Europe, Rwanda and the Balkans.

Aliens in their own country

An opinion piece by the IHRC Chair, Massoud Shadjareh from the Thursday April 1, 2004 edition of The Guardian.

Seyf's a smart-looking guy, Mediterranean looking. If you're clued up about these things you'd guess he's of Turkish origin. Buying milk at his local supermarket he and his American flatmate of Pakistani origin were approached by a loud, white English shopper, who yelled in the middle of the dairy aisle: "Are you terrorists?"

This was an example of what passes as humour in Middle England at the moment. Before she burst out laughing and carried on what turned into a tirade, other shoppers stood by, nervously looking for staff and indicating that the two Muslim lads might be trouble.

Forget about the latest arrests around London. Forget about police profiling of Muslims (and of that there's plenty) - the general public now categorises all things Muslim as terror-orientated. Why? It's easy to blame victims of prejudice for their demonisation - it's a practice with a long pedigree. But the unending calls on Muslims, from rightwing shock jocks to former archbishops of Canterbury, to condemn terrorism reveal a level of conditionality that no other community has been asked to bear.
Throw into this mix the continuous police raids and arrests since 9/11 under various pieces of anti-terrorist legislation, the fanfare of media attention when Muslims of various origins are arrested and the deafening silence when most (some 450 out of 540) are released. Add the recent analysis of stop and search figures that shows a disproportionately high number of the 32,100 people who were stopped and searched in the last year (or more accurately 71,100 people when you take into account the misreporting of some police forces, according to Statewatch) were of Asian origin. Do not forget to include Islamophobic media coverage of an increasingly anti-Muslim "war on terror", and stir. The result?

British non-Muslims are scared of Muslims; they're angry with them and they're paranoid about the threat they perceive from Muslims ready to blow them up. British Muslims are scared of the backlash against them from non-Muslims. They're also paranoid about their safety from wider society, the security services and the other Muslims that they are told are out there waiting to blow everybody up.

At either end of this polarisation we are seeing a level of alienation that bodes ill for British society. For the Muslim part, their sense of grievance has to be taken on board by the government, its institutions and the media in a meaningful way. It's taken two years of lobbying the Met about stereotyping, but at last, yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke's statement to the press was at pains to make clear that the arrests and their focus should not cast aspersions on the Muslim community. Yet every breaking news story carried the label "Islamic terrorists" and the addition of the description "British of Pakistani origin". It may sell today's papers but it is ultimately crass vilification.

It is also at the heart of the growing anger among Muslim youth. Born and bred British, their citizenship is always conditional. When Kriss Akabussi won athletics medals he wasn't referred to as a British Christian of Nigerian origin. Yet Muslims are always alien by description - their religion and ethnicity used in reporting further edges them to the boundaries of society.

This isn't even a post-9/11 concern. After the Oldham riots in 2001, we heard that long-term unemployment or poor career opportunities, fuelled by racism and Islamophobia, in turn fuelled pain and anger among the young. Three years on, professional affluent Muslims, whose lives had seen little, if any, of the social deprivation and societal exclusion that the Cantle report identified, can tell of discrimination and hatred levelled against them.

They see an older Muslim leadership panic under the strain of negativity. While younger organisations such as the London Muslim Coalition called on mosques to pray for peace for all in the wake of the horror of Madrid, the Muslim Council of Britain called on mosques to report any suspicions they had about anything. It's the difference between being a part of society, however marginalised, and perpetuating the idea that you are an unruly guest, your stay determined by different conditions than for everyone else. You don't have to be disaffected youth to see the anomalies and feel the isolation.

For all the Muslim communities' faults - and we, like all other communities and individuals, have many - our empathy, often inspired by our faith, with the deprived and oppressed is not one of them. To want an end to injustice against Palestinians doesn't make you a terrorist, opposing the war against Iraq or calling on Russia to withdraw from Chechnya doesn't make you an extremist of any class. Yet when British Muslims participate in demonstrations and leafleting - against their government's participation in occupations of Muslim lands - this is seen as more evidence of inherent detachment from British mores and, worse still, attachment to potential, if not actual, terrorist causes.

The late Sulayman Zain ul-Abedin, who was the first to be tried and found not guilty of offences under the Terrorism Act of 2000, found his reading material used as "evidence" against him. In a letter to some mosques last year the Charity Commission is alleged to have asked some not to allow prayers to be recited for Palestine as this was "political". So, as a British Muslim you can't act on what you believe in, however just; you mustn't read about it and you can't even pray for it.

Seyf is a volunteer at our offices. Formerly a journalist in Turkey, he is seeking asylum, having been tortured by police for his views on Turkish foreign policy. Some of his colleagues are serving sentences for possessing reading material deemed seditious. Civil society can only save Britain from becoming a country that people seek asylum from, when its institutions and its media realise that the alienation of Muslims and many others is neither self-imposed or imported from abroad.

· Massoud Shadjareh is chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission

They hate women, don't they?

From The Guardian Friday June 21, 2002.

"It must be terrible having to wear all that," a friend of mine was told last December as she attended a meeting to discuss the future of Afghanistan, particularly its women - "all that" being some baggy clothing and a headscarf.

"Not particularly," she retorted, putting an abrupt end both to the conversation and to the prospect of building bridges between Muslim and secular feminists.

My friend is the founder of an NGO dedicated to penal reform. A convert to Islam, she is as British and as white as the participant who so earnestly assumed she was a victim of the Taliban and in need of liberation. No doubt the woman meant well, but no amount of good intentions justifies the way that she, like many others, berates Islam for embodying all things anti-women. This misconception predates the Rushdie era - indeed, so oppressed were we deemed to be in the 80s that even an illicit affair with Ricky Butcher in EastEnders provided an avenue of liberation.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission receives case after case of employers and educators using this image of the downtrodden Muslim woman to excuse discrimination. Muslim women are denied many opportunities on the assumption that they will - if not on a whim then by force - get married, or have many children. Or they face the horrendous dilemma of having to choose between employment and their Islamic garb.

Muslim women have become an absolute symbol of oppression, and distorted images of them permeate news coverage. While Daisy Cutters began to thunder down on Afghans last year, journalists from across the political spectrum - from Boris Johnson in the Telegraph to Polly Toynbee on these pages - maintained that it was Islam that oppressed Afghan women. Beware Muslims, they screamed in their unlikely unanimity. They hate women, don't they?

As soon as they turn their attentions to Islam, commentators become missionaries. Muslim women must be saved from a religion that reviles, objectifies and veils them. Everything is proof of this. Afghan women had to wear the head-to-toe burka (although it turns out they did not); were not allowed to work (although they did); and could not vote (nor could men under Mullah Omar's regime).

Even an Iranian (yes, Iranian) movie has become part of the iconography of the campaign to rescue the Afghan and, by extension, Islamic woman. Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar has been held up as a critique of Islam and its treatment of women. The fact that it may actually be an appraisal of the Taliban's prejudices is a subtlety grasped only by a few. It is almost impossible to find a mainstream critique of the horror of the Taliban that is not itself an Islamophobic diatribe. Muslims, who could provide such a critique, are left out of the debate. Their reactions might as well not exist.

The cartoonish realisation of long-held prejudices in the Taliban's Afghanistan has given succour to an anti-Islamic clamour that the experiences of "western" and "Muslim" women are utterly distinct. While western women are assumed to have, or at least be approaching, equality with men, Muslim women are simply the victims of terror and oppression. So unfettered are western women in this scenario that they are what, according to Johnson, "Islamic terrorists" are really afraid of.

But this language of liberation disguises an exclusionary discourse. Conversions in the west are increasing and more women than men opt for the faith. Perhaps, the argument goes, they are not able to see how oppressive their choice is. Donning the headscarf as a means of negotiating modernity invites contempt for Muslim women's non-conformity to a single vision of female emancipation. "No letters please from British women who have taken the veil and claim it's liberating," Polly Toynbee wrote not so long ago. "It is their right in a tolerant society to wear anything, including rubber fetishes." Either insane or masochistic, the motives and beliefs of Muslim women are voiced by everybody except themselves.

The polarisation and misrepresentation works both ways, however. Marginalised Muslims have accused liberal society of objectifying, reviling and unveiling women. Western society, they charge, is pornographic, voyeuristic and exploitative. The gender pay gap is shocking. None of this would happen in a truly Islamic society. Women's financial independence and property rights are absolute in Islam. No woman is considered a commodity and pornographers would face punishments.

While the gap between Muslims and the west is widening the most striking feature of each other's critiques of their treatment of women is the lack of dissimilarity. Violence, workplace discrimination, educational opportunity and a desire for basic respect from men are universal issues.

Whether we are western, Muslim, both or neither, we must wake up to the possibility that what we see as problematic for women is much the same whoever and wherever we are. Plastered over billboards, or banished from view, women are subjugated by patriarchy. Demeaning Islam excludes the voices of Islamic women and that liberates no one.