Media 'contributing to rise of Islamophobia'

Britain could face the threat of two million home-grown Islamic terrorists, says a senior Muslim leader.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, fears that continued negative attitudes towards people of his faith could provoke a vast and angry backlash.

"There are a few bad apples in the Muslim community who are doing terrible acts and we want to root them out," Dr Bari told The Sunday Telegraph.

"But some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they're all terrorists — and that encourages other people to do the same.

"If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists — 700,000 of them in London," he said. "If you attack a whole community, it becomes despondent and aggressive."

Mr Bari was speaking at the East London Mosque, where he is chairman, after a month-long tour of Britain's Muslim communities, during which he said he picked up a mood of "anxiety, frustration and, especially among young people, anger".

His comments come days after Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, said "thousands" of British Muslims were being watched by police and MI5 over suspected terrorist links.

Dr Bari, 52, who has succeeded Sir Iqbal Sacranie as the head of the council, said: "We want to isolate the bad people and put them in the dock. But we all have to work together to do that — police, politicians, the media and the Muslim community."

He did not understand why "the whole of our diverse community" was being targeted. "When the IRA was blowing people up, the entire Catholic population of Britain was not demonised, so why is it happening to the Muslim community?"

The council leader — who took his post two days before a police raid in east London, in which a Muslim man was shot but no charges were brought — said the media had contributed to the demonisation by concentrating on a few extremists and ignoring the law-abiding majority.

He said it was "ridiculous" that moderate Muslims had been accused of not speaking out. "When we speak we are ignored by the media, but when Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri Mohammed say something they are all over the papers."

Mr Bari, a former air force engineer in Bangladesh and now a special needs teacher in east London, said Islamophobia had increased after 9/11, 7/7, last month's arrests over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic aircraft, and the raids last weekend on an Islamic school in East Sussex and a London restaurant. Seventeen people have been charged over the alleged plot and 14 were arrested in last weekend's raids.

Mr Bari criticised calls for security profiling at airports based on ethnicity or religion, saying this "reinforces a negative stereotype". Meanwhile, moderate Muslim anger has been directed at Government policy. Last month, leading Muslims wrote to Tony Blair saying his policy in Iraq and on Israel offered "ammunition to extremists" and put British lives "at increased risk".

Mr Bari, a married father-of four, rejected claims that mosques encouraged the rise of home-grown terrorists, but admitted that they needed "modernising" and he was concerned that many imams did not speak English.

"Some young Muslims are out of control. They are barred from the mosques and ignore their parents."

The more established Muslim communities, such as those from east Africa, were integrating well, but the relatively new communities were struggling with poverty and poor academic achievement. "They need help," he said. "Integration is a two-way process and the dominant, majority culture has to do more."

Islamophobia was also making it hard for Muslims to rise to senior jobs, and unemployment among Muslims was far higher than the national average.

He called for more Muslim representation in the police force, Parliament and other areas of public life. "Young Muslims need role models to show them they can play a part in British society."

"He did not understand why "the whole of our diverse community" was being targeted. "When the IRA was blowing people up, the entire Catholic population of Britain was not demonised, so why is it happening to the Muslim community?" "

As a Christian, I can effectively argue irrefutably from the New Testament against using any form of violence whatsoever to advance the Gospel.

2Co 5:11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

After five years and a pretty vigorous education in the ancient history, beliefs, and contemporary reality of Islam as well as the life of Mohammad (much acquired through Free Republic and resources recommended through the impromptu FR PROP list), I am thoroughly convinced this is impossible with Islam.

Dr Bari needs to face hardcore reality.

We have.

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Until the Muslim community starts to police itself I don't believe a word that any of their "spokesmen/Imams" say.

If they believe in Sharia Law then I want to see them conducting it against their followers. I want to see them cutting the hand off of a thief. Beheading a murderer.

I think this coward is feeding the Brits a line of BS because he thinks the West is "weak". Let us all see how just Sharia Law is and you will then see the West stand up in outrage. When it is shown on the nightly news how women are treated by their religion then you will hear the screams of indignation. When we see what is being taught to six year old males (since females are not to be schooled) as normal, then maybe we will have the courage to say enough!

Sorry, just a moment of personal outrage. Thank You FR for being there.

JMO

It boggles my mind, these statements that are nothing more than the archetype of hypocrisy. The Muslim Miss England said pretty much the same thing -- 'don't think that we're terrorists because we're Muslim or we will become terrorists but only because you thought we were.' What?

People didn't confer the violence of the IRA onto all Catholics because the IRA were clearly the aberration. I may not share all of the Catholics' beliefs, but they are without question a force for Good the more they practice their faith. There is simply no equivalence.

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People didn't confer the violence of the IRA onto all Catholics because the IRA were clearly the aberration.
<<

Additionally, Catholics openly and continually lamented, protested and worked to put an end to the violence.

The tip-off with Muslims is the deafening silence. The violence is so institutionalized that any Muslim who cannot bring himself to accept it dares not to speak in public lest he be found later to have been tortured before he was beheaded.

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