Anti-racism Follow

‘We decided unanimously at the branch committee to advertise the assembly among members.

Two smears, forming part of the barrage of attacks on Britain’s Muslims, fell apart last week. Both were splashed over the pages of the Murdoch press. Both proved to be completely baseless.

Around 300 people rallied in Glasgow’s George Square last Saturday to unite against Islamophobia and protest at the wave of racist attacks on Muslims since Jack Straw’s comments about the veil earlier this month.

Racist attacks on Muslims continued this week across the country in the wake of the tide of Islamophobia set off by Jack Straw’s comments on the veil earlier this month.

The government’s attacks on Muslims have led to a series of racist attacks across Britain, but there is also resistance and signs of a new fighting unity between Muslims and non-Muslims.

One of the more distasteful features of the wave of attacks on Muslims has been the sight of feminists lining up to support Jack Straw’s comments against the veil.

Ruth Kelly, New Labour’s communities secretary, told a meeting of council leaders and police chiefs last week that she wants them to target Muslim "hotspots" - schools, universities, mosques and colleges which are supposedly centres of extremism.

This week I’ve been told that women like myself are submissive, oppressed creatures who need rescuing by white, male politicians.

‘The best way to understand the growth of anti-Muslim racism is to see it as an attempt to punish those who are resisting the imperialist policies of our government.

Saturday 28 October will reflect a remembrance rally in Trafalgar Square with a silent vigil along Whitehall to Downing Street for those who have died in custody. Organised by the United Families and Friends Campaign, the annual event provides a constant memory and mirror to British society of those who have died in custody of the police, prison and psychiatric care institutions.

Is it possible to get the question of racism and Islamophobia more wrong than Oldham Labour MP Phil Woolas did last weekend? Muslim women who cover their faces with veils, he told readers of the Sunday Mirror, can be "frightening and intimidating". He added that Muslim veils could increase racial tensions in Britain.

Dr Bano Murtuja told Socialist Worker that she doesn’t normally wear the niqab (face veil), but was wearing it as a protest. "I am disgusted that our MP Jack Straw is pandering to the right wing," she said.