Press reform campaign group Hacked Off are urging people to write to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to object to the rival Royal Charter proposed by newspaper groups Associated Newspapers, Express Newspapers, Trinity Mirror, News international and Telegraph Media Group.

The rival Charter, put forward last month, falls considerably short of the recommendations proposed by Lord Justice Leveson in his Inquiry report published last November, and contained in the Royal Charter agreed in cross party talks in March.

Among notable concerns for Muslims is the industry’s refusal to entertain a robust third party complaints clause, viable independence of the press regulator, wider consultation on the Code of Practice, and omission on the power of the regulator to ‘direct’ apologies – effectively meaning the press can continue to evade ‘due prominence’ in publishing corrections and apologies.

You can submit a letter to the Secretary of State rejecting the industry’s charter via the Hacked Off website, here.

The US State Department released its annual International Religious Freedoms report yesterday assessing religious freedoms across the globe. The report includes country-by-country studies on demographics of religious communities, legal protections on freedom of religion, legal cases in defence of the right to freedom of religion and societal attitudes to religious diversity as captured in hate crimes with religion as biased motivation.

The report also notes US policy towards that country and its efforts in promoting religious freedoms.

The executive summary notes in relation to Europe and anti-Muslim attitudes:

“Anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions were clearly on the rise, particularly in Europe and Asia.

“Government restrictions, which often coincided with societal animosity, resulted in anti-Muslim actions that affected everyday life for numerous believers. The impact ranged from education, to employment, to personal safety within communities. Government restrictions on religious attire also remained an issue, as Muslim women faced increasing restrictions on head coverings in schools, in public sector employment, and in public spaces. In Belgium, the Constitutional Court ruled that the nation’s 2011 ban on face-covering attire, with no exception for religious garments, did not violate religious freedom. In India, several educational institutions in Mangalore, Karnataka, reportedly banned Muslim girls from wearing headscarves. Since 2009, schools and colleges run by both Hindu and Christian administrations have prevented Muslim female students and teachers from covering their heads, citing a uniform dress code. In contrast, in November, Turkey lifted a ban on female students wearing headscarves in schools that provided religious education.”

The report notes the growing presence of anti-Muslim bigotry around the world, stating:

“While Christians were a leading target of societal discrimination, abuse, and violence in some parts of the world, members of other religions, particularly Muslims, suffered as well.”

On societal attitudes towards members of ‘minority branches of Islam’, the report observes:

“Societal groups targeted members of minority branches of Islam and smaller faith groups, often those considered by the majority to be heretical or “foreign.””

The report a number of countries deemed ‘of particular concern’. These are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

In the country report on the UK, the report cites a single source of information on anti-Muslim hate crimes, Tell MAMA, and includes a single example of an anti-Muslim hate crime, that of the severed pig’s head left outside a mosque in Newbury, Berkshire.

The report makes mention of official statistics on hate crimes in the UK but offers no analysis on the form or accuracy of recording mechanisms. With the Metropolitan Police Service being the only police force to record Islamophobia as a hate crime, official statistics provide no indication of the actual numbers of anti-Muslim hate crimes. This is sharp contrast to racial and anti-Semitic crimes, which are clearly marked as such.

There have been a number of serious anti-Muslim incidents affecting the ‘status of societal respect for religious freedom’ in the UK, including the case of the Alam family who were forced to flee their home in Bingham, Nottinghamshire after vandals hounded them with verbal abuse and left a ham wrapped cross on their doorstep.

You can read our 2012 submission on anti-Muslim hate crimes to the OSCE here.

Introduction

Thirteen years on from the Runnymede report ‘Islamophobia: A Challenge for us All’, the threat to community cohesion and integration posed by hate crimes carried out against British Muslims and a prevailing popular discourse which vilifies and ridicules Islamic beliefs and practices remains ever present, ever potent.

The establishment of the English Defence League (with its regional spin-offs) and the electoral campaigns run by the British National Party in recent years, reminds us that singling out Muslims and other minority groups in Britain continues to animate sections of our society with detrimental consequences for the security and wellbeing of others.

Introduction

There have been a number of events in the UK in 2010 that have contributed both context and background to incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, verbal and physical, as well as instances of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

As in previous years, the security agenda and counter-terrorism policies continue to influence and shape public and political discourse on British Muslims with debates on social, economic and political integration of minorities eclipsed by wider debates on countering radicalisation among young British Muslims.

Politics and the electoral cycle has informed events of 2010 with a general election in May of that year and the first ever challenge to the victory of an elected MP on grounds of election materials that breached the Representation of the People Act 1983.