The Muslim News

London, (IRNA): Islamophobic attacks in Britain will continue to rise until there is a wholsesale change in attitudes, including new legislation against religious hatred, according to the editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed Versi.

“It will get worse unless something serious is done to curb this,” warned Versi, who has been reporting incidents of attacks and abuse against Muslims for more than 20 years and presented many papers at conferences on the issue.

“Lack of legislation is the problem - we have only small number of cases of racism and anti-Semitism because they are protected by laws and are outlawed,” he said.

In an interview with IRNA, he also suggested that other measures were needed to help stem the waves on attacks on Muslims, including in education to make national curriculums more inclusive and “not Eurocentric” and changes in languages by the media and politicians.

The Muslims News has been recently reporting increasing incidents of Islamophobic attacks in Britain, reaching up to 10 cases or so a month.

“Attacks include arson attacks on mosques, Islamic institutions (like charities). We have also reported violence against students on campuses or near campuses. Muslim women in the hijab or niqab have been attacked - including removing their head scarves or niqab,” Versi said.

He said that there was also much Islamophobic verbal abuse, demonising Muslims with such chants as “Osama bin Ladin;” “You Pakis go home” “Terrorists” and the like. Even Muslim cemeteries and graves had been vandalised, he added.

Despite the scale of attacks and abuse, there are very few reports on the issue by national media.

The Muslim News editor said that even the police refuse to acknowledge many of the cases were religious hate attacks and are left underreported.

Often protection is also not available, he said.

He believed that one of the reasons behind the growing incidence was the way the media reports on the domestic and international terrorism issues by alleging Islam is the problems.

“Images of mosques, women in the hijab and niqab are shown after terrorist attacks or after suspected terrorists are arrested,” Versi said.

“Huge coverage is given when Muslims are arrested under anti terror laws but when most of them are released, very little is reported,” he said.

Earlier this year, The Muslim News celebrated its 20th anniversary as the leading campaigning newspaper for Britain’s two million Muslim community.

The monthly, the largest circulating in the ethnic media, has a readership of over 140,000, reaching the most diverse communities.

Its website - www.muslimnews.co.uk – is updated daily and receives up to 1.5 million hits a month.

Versi, who also covers international events, told IRNA that Islamophobia was not just in the UK but widespread in Europe and blamed the rise as leading to the recent Swiss ban on the building of minarets.

The main perpetrators of the attacks were by “extremist-leaning people” but some of the crimes are being committed by ordinary citizens, he said.

He also cast the blame on xenophobia and ignorance as well as the media and politicians.

“Recent anti-Islam groups have sprung up - led by white extremists who mimic the language already used by politicians and media against Islam and Muslims - like - 'we are against extremists/fundamental Muslims' 'we are against Shariah laws' etc.”

In the current climate, Versi remained very pessimistic about the future, but he also believed that more positive stories about Muslims would help.

To this end, he took a proactive lead in raising the profile of Muslims with the launch in 2000 of the Muslim News Awards for Excellence, which has become annual celebration of unsung Muslim achievement attended by eminent guests such as the prime minister.

“We wanted to do something that would help the community and we found that there was hardly any acknowledgement of British Muslim contributions to society,” he said.

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