Muslim leaders demand end to demonization of Muslims

More than 60 Imams, Muslims community leaders and rights activists in the UK have called on the British government to stop demonizing Muslims.

In an open letter to the government, the signatories have accused it of criminalizing Islam in an attempt to deflect attention from crises in the economy and health service.

 “We reject the exploitation of Muslim issues and the 'terror threat' for political capital, in particular in the run up to a general election. Exploiting public fears about security is as dishonourable as exploiting public fears about immigration. Both deflect attention from crises in the economy and health service, but are crude and divisive tactics, where the big parties inevitably try to outdo each other in their nastiness,” the letter reads.

The signatories also slammed criminalization of “legitimate political discourse and criticism of the stance of successive governments towards Muslims” and condemned crackdown on dissenting voices in Muslim community.

“The expedient use of undefined and politically charged words like 'radicalisation' and 'extremism' is unacceptable as it criminalises legitimate political discourse and criticism of the stance of successive governments towards Muslims domestically and abroad. We strongly oppose political proposals to further 'tackle' and 'crack down' on such dissenting voices in the Muslim community despite their disavowal of violence and never having supported terrorist acts.”

Co-founder of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) Arzu Merali is one of the Muslim activists who have signed the letter.

She believes many British politicians use security threat as a pretext to spread Islamophobia.

“And what we have seen is a heightening of anti-Muslim discourse by many politicians and the hyping up the idea of a security threat.  It is very clear now that the idea of Muslim as a security threat is being used as a distraction and an scapegoat,” Merali told Press TV.

"The entire Muslim community, almost all of the Muslim community is very very concerned about the Muslims being demonized, the way that anti-terrorism laws has been introduced which undermine the idea of equality before law and have targeted Muslims in particular for no legitimate reason."

Need for cultural change

The London-based activist believes there needs to be a cultural change in the society to improve the situation.

“This would be a call for people within society who have some understanding, who have some concerns about having a fair and just society whether they are academic, politicians, activists, blogists, whoever that thinks about what is going on, to expose what is going on , to really work in alliance across different groups, not just Muslim groups, to try and get a cultural change in the society, you know, it is not going to be an easy to change the political culture,” Arzu Merali noted.

‘Demonizing Muslims’

Meanwhile, film maker and political analyst Sukant Chandan believes the campaign against Muslims is aimed at distorting the image of Islam.

“On the one hand they are demonizing the Muslims to facilitate their own policy of divide and ruin and rule in the so called Muslim world. So they are basically constructing a perverse construct of Islam and then they are promoting this in the media and also through the promotion of the death squads who are using and abusing the name of Islam and Jihad to facilitate their strategic interest,” Sukant Chandan told Press TV. 

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