Muslim man degraded by threats of violence and sexual humiliation

February 11, 2019 Article

A Muslim bus driver was assaulted, called a ‘f*cking P*ki’, and, to cause further humiliation, the lone passenger, who refused to leave the vehicle at its designated destination, said he would ejaculate onto a photograph of the driver.

The incident occurred on the evening of February 3.

Speaking to Tell MAMA, the driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, described how the passenger, who boarded the bus in a drunken state and with an open bottle of alcohol, until the driver informed him that he could not continue the journey with the alcohol present. The passenger began to argue with the driver but then smashed the bottle on the concrete outside.

The driver then allowed the man to board despite a lack of funds on their Oyster card, having accepted their pleas that the bus was soon to finish its route.

When the bus arrived at its designated final stop, and the driver requested for the passenger to leave, the man turned aggressive and abusive, swearing at the driver and using his mobile phone to take photographs of him. The man then said he would share the photos with his friends and ‘w**k over them’, and blew kisses at the driver.

He also made crude sexual gestures with his hand towards the driver, in the hope of compounding the sense of humiliation.

The driver was then pushed when attempting to exit his driver’s cabin.

If the driver reduced the physical threat of violence by locking himself in his cabin, after being pushed, it did not, however, remove the threat of verbal abuse and threats, as the man shouted ‘f*cking P*ki’ and ‘you p***y, you’re afraid of the white man’. The perpetrator concluded their racist abuse by adding that he would ‘rip’ the driver’s head off.

The Metropolitan Police were made aware of the abuse during the incident, and, upon learning of this development from the driver, the perpetrator then fled the scene.

Tell MAMA has continued to document how the traditional racial epithet ‘P*ki’ has become a racialised way to target Muslims, irrespective of ethnic background.

Tell MAMA will be writing to the bus company in question to raise concerns about driver safety.

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

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Categories: bus, hate crime, London, News, public transport

Conservative Cllr Mike Franklin suspended over Islamophobic retweets

February 6, 2019 Article

A councillor has been suspended from the Conservative Party after historic retweets of Islamophobic and anti-Muslim content resurfaced.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi provided screenshots of the historic retweets on February 6, 2019.

Tell MAMA’s investigation, however, of Cllr Mike Franklin’s Twitter account, has uncovered further examples of offensive retweets.

Our investigation found that Cllr Franklin, who represents Luton and Wayfield, retweeted a post shared on January 7, 2017, which sought to malign London Mayor Sadiq Khan as being ‘silent’ on terrorism. This is not true.

Credit: Twitter.

The account Cllr Franklin retweeted, @gimblemusk, has written that “If Islam is the answer, could the question be “What’s the most irritating, dull and violent religion on earth?”?”.

Cllr Franklin retweeted and favourited a tweet from a user (@RogerV52) who once wrote “Islam is incompatible with everyone. Where there are Muslims, there is conflict.”

The tweet in question, however, is an Islamophobic image macro which suggests that liberals are embracing Muslims, despite the apparent threat they pose to minorities and women. This image macro, however, is photoshopped, as the protester photographed, was at a 2006 protest which was, in part, organised by the extremist preacher Anjem Choudary, in response to the Danish cartoons.

Credit: Twitter.

But Cllr Franklin does not follow the @RogerV52 account. Nor was he tagged into the original tweet he then retweeted and favourited. Such actions pose more questions about his use of social media.

Similar conduct appeared on Cllr Franklin’s Twitter timeline in 2016, after he retweeted a post which sought to suggest that a small minority of Muslims in the UK and Germany endorse suicide bombing. The source of the polling is not the Pew Research Center, as the data concerns Muslims abroad, which, in actuality, showed a decline in support for suicide bombing.

Credit: Twitter.

The source of this data may stem from polling carried out by the Guardian/ICM in 2004 with sample sizes of just 500 Muslims (we’ve highlighted issues around polling methodologies before). And the Guardian piece, from November 2004, stated that the data was not weighted because “there is no authoritative source of demographic information on the Muslim population.”

Polling Muslims in Britain, after all, is a difficult and expensive task.

Others, like Professor Maria Sobolewska, writing in 2014, highlight how the framing of questions can influence responses. She also found a comparable number of non-Muslims expressed support for suicide bombings in certain contexts.

We’ve seen how bad polling (and the inaccurate interpretation of data) can malign Muslims in the press.

Similar concerns about the social media conduct of Cllr Franklin were raised in 2016, who, at the time, claimed that he was ‘naive’ in his use of Twitter. This new evidence serves to cast further doubt on this historic claim.

Tell MAMA will provide Medway Council and the Conservative Party with our evidence.

We welcome the swift action to suspend this councillor but it remains concerning that action, at a council level (or in the party hierarchy) was not seemingly taken when members of the public had raised complaints beforehand. We will, therefore, raise this concern further in our correspondence.

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Categories: Cllr Mike Franklin, Conservative Party

Member of Young Conservatives said Tommy Robinson was ‘right’

February 4, 2019 Article

The Admin Executive for the Blackpool North and Cleveleys branch of the Young Conservatives praised the far-right extremist Tommy Robinson on Twitter, a Tell MAMA investigation has uncovered.

Jay Daniel, who tweets under the username @Jay_Daniel19, wrote on June 22, 2017, “Say what you like about @TRobinsonNewEra It doesn’t stop him from being right.”

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19

Other tweets from @Jay_Daniel19 to Mr Robinson appear several times in 2017, with the final tweet, a positive reaction GIF from the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, sent on March 19, 2018 – 9 days before Twitter banned Robinson from its platform.

A notable tweet to Robinson contained a quote, removed from its original context, from the 1899 edition of Winston Churchill’s The River War, on June 28, 2017.

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19

Others have chronicled Churchill’s views on Islam and other races. His wartime cabinet, in 1940, also set aside £100,000 to build London Central Mosque, as a thank you to the Muslims who fought alongside the British.

On August 17, 2017, he tweeted a YouTube video from the far-right media outlet Rebel Media, which featured Robinson discussing acid attacks.

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19

 

The personal Facebook account of Mr Daniel had ‘liked’ Tommy Robinson’s official page.

Credit: Facebook

Tell MAMA has uncovered other concerning tweets of an Islamophobic and anti-Muslim nature. Including the claim that “one would struggle to come to the conclusion that Islam doesn’t instruct its followers to commit violence.” Yesterday evening, during a wider discussion, he told a Muslim woman, “Preaching hate is dangerous and your religion relishes in it.”

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19.

Tell MAMA was also made aware of tweets sent from Mr Daniel’s account which concern the racial epithet ‘P*ki’.

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19

During an online discussion yesterday evening, he tweeted, “Well you can’t even call someone from Pakistan a ‘paki’ or a ‘Pakistani’ without being racist these days so I understand your confusion.” When challenged by other users, Mr Daniel added: “As you can see from my picture, I’m not the palest of blokes… occasionally people call me a Mexican or a paki or a nigga… still life moves on.”

Credit: Twitter/@jay_daniel19

The racialisation of Muslims and Islam means that traditional racial epithets, like ‘P*ki’, are directed at Muslims, irrespective of their ethnicity.

As of writing, Mr Daniel has not responded to Tell MAMA’s request for comment and has since removed his Twitter and Facebook accounts from public view.

Questions remain, however, as to the use of the official Blackpool North and Cleveleys Young Conservatives Twitter account to defend Mr Daniel.

A statement from the Blackpool North and Cleveleys Conservatives confirmed that the individual would be expelled from the Conservative Party, adding that local MP Paul Maynard condemns racism in all its forms and that the investigation will be dealth with in a serious manner.

Our investigation will be sent to the Conservative Party to assist in their investigation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories: Conservative Party, News, Tommy Robinson

Muslim woman in niqab denied entry onto bus with her child in London

January 25, 2019 Article

A Muslim woman, who wears the niqab, was told by a bus driver in London, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, with that thing on your face’, after asking the driver if her child could board the bus with her despite losing her Oyster card.

Speaking to Tell MAMA, the Muslim woman, who agreed to remain anonymous, described her anger, and challenged the driver, accusing her of being a ‘racist’, adding that she can indeed speak English. When she asked the driver to repeat her discriminatory statement, but she refused.

She recalled how the driver had attempted to shut the doors of the bus on her, and then refused to provide her with any details.

The woman, however, was able to note down the vehicle registration and time of the incident.

The bus driver, described as being in her 40s, spoke with a European accent.

Tell MAMA will be writing to Transport for London (TfL) on her behalf.

Reports of discrimination to Tell MAMA has risen by 111.76% in just two years, with 34 verified reports of discrimination in 2015, compared to 72 reports in 2017. In the interim reporting period of 2018, Tell MAMA verified 40 reports of discrimination.

Tell MAMA has continued to document the abuse, discrimination, and attacks Muslim women, who wear the niqab experience.

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

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Categories: discrimination, News, Niqab, TFL

Boris Johnson admits he would repeat comments about niqab-wearing Muslim women

January 14, 2019 Article

Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, has admitted that he would repeat his Telegraph comments which compared Muslim women wearing burqas and niqabs “look like letterboxes” and compared them to “bank robbers”, drew comparisons to Donald Trump.

During a phone-in interview on LBC, on January 14, Ghassam, from Lewisham described the moment his niece, who is now sixteen, and wears the niqab, was assaulted on a bus when a man attempted to remove her face veil, and then strangled her mother when she tried to intervene.

Mr Ferrari then asked the former Foreign Secretary: “Do you agree that you brought about an unfortunate rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric?” to which, Boris Johnson replied: “I don’t, and I would be appalled if that were the case.”

Mr Johnson was asked if Ghassam’s niece was either a letterbox or a bank robber, to which, in some confusion, he replied that she was neither, because of her niqab, such a statement again demonstrates how the niqab and burqa, whilst distinct in the practice of veiling, are often seen as interchangeable forms of clothing.

The former Foreign Secretary, expressed, in no uncertain terms, that he disagreed with the notion that politicians should ‘watch their words’, having banged his hand on the desk to emphasise the point. He did, however, admit that he would seek to avoid offence if ‘possible’.

During the exchange, Mr Johnson added that ‘many’ Muslim women had expressed for his Telegraph column, published on August 5, 2018. At Tell MAMA, we saw a temporary spike in reports following its publication.

The Times newspaper highlighted, how, our service saw 21 reports, of which, 14 women wore the hijab, and seven wore the niqab, compared to five reports in the previous week.

On August 9, 2018, we published an article headlined, “Pensioners loudly echo Boris Johnson’s niqab comments in doctor’s surgery”. Days later, on August 15, we highlighted the Islamophobic abuse directed towards two Muslim women in the Exeter area. The two women, who are sisters, were shouted at and called ‘letterbox’ days apart, despite both women wearing the hijab. A Muslim woman, who wears the niqab, was called a ‘post box’ by construction workers, on August 22.

The threats against a Muslim woman last May, who wears the niqab, was fearful that Johnson’s comments would embolden some to make similar threats again.

Given the disproportionate and intersectional impact, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred have on Muslim women, the need for politicians and media outlets to consider how inflammatory coverage and rhetoric can have a negative impact on political discourse is a concern we have continued raise, notably in our annual report for 2017.

An independent panel later cleared Boris Johnson of breaching the Conservative Party code of conduct last month, despite calls from the party hierarchy to apologise, which included the chairman Brandon Lewis and PM Theresa May.

Even before Mr Johnson’s comments, we called on the Conservative Party to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred in June 2018, a position we made clear following the London Mayoral Election in 2016.

 

 

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Categories: Burqa, hate crime, Hate Speech, News, Niqab

James Goddard: Far-right protester called for Islam to be banned and for ‘mass repatriation’

January 9, 2019 Article

James Goddard, the self-styled ‘yellow jacket’ protester and far-right activist, called for Islam to be banned and for its expulsion from Europe, in several hateful online screeds, a Tell MAMA investigation can reveal.

Goddard’s high-profile harassment of journalist Owen Jones, pro-EU activist Femi Oluwole, and the Conservative MP Anna Soubry has received wide condemnation from politicians across party lines, with the Prime Minister Theresa May condemning the “unacceptable and disgraceful treatment” of Soubry in a cabinet meeting.

Before the Facebook ban, however, Tell MAMA became aware of a post from an account of Mr Goddard, in a public Facebook group called “Jacob Rees-Mogg: Supporters’ Group”. The post, which first appeared on December 31, 2017, linked to a MailOnline article about the use of barriers in London for New Year’s Eve celebration. He wrote that this was “proof that as long as Islam exists in the west, then there will never be peace”, and called for a repatriation program to be institutionalised. He ended the Islamophobic post with the hashtags ‘#BanIslam’ and ‘#DefendEurope’.

The Facebook username, ‘Brexiter1989’, was used in a GAB account, which has remained accessible but inactive since late 2017. The profile biography reads: “I oppose Islam and everything that it stands for, as long as Islam exists in the West, there will never be peace.”

A post written a month earlier, in November 2017, echoes the Facebook comment but instead, calls for the Qur’an to be banned, adding: “We need to expel Islam from the West ASAP”. Again, Goddard used the ‘#DefendEurope’ hashtag, along with the hashtag ‘#repatriationistheonlysolution’.

A post which read: “P*ki traitors of any stripe, along with your treasonous officials who enable the ethnic cleansing of the native British people” was reposted to Goddard’s GAB profile, to which, he replied: “All illegals need deporting ASAP. It’s about time the indigenous people of Great Britain, were put first.”

Following the murder of an elderly man and the attempted murder of sixteen other pedestrians in Melbourne, Australia, James Goddard attempted to link the attack to Islam, adding that ‘mass repatriation was the only solution’ and ‘Why does our political class, continue to import barbaric, 3rd world savages?’. Saeed Noori, an Australian citizen, who was born in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in December 2018 but was not charged with any terrorism offences.

In December 2017, Goddard wrote to Jayda Fransen, the then deputy leader of the far-right group Britain First on GAB, “Although I don’t agree with the way you go about things, I have to say you’re effective and brutally honest. As you were, OCS”. The initialism ‘OCS’ is a reference to ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, rhetoric appropriated by Britain First. Goddard had reposted a comment from the leader of Britain First, Paul Golding when he first joined GAB.

Goddard also wrote that: “Multiculturalism has destroyed Western Europe, unless we start a mass repatriation program, we’ll all be living under the barbaric Sharia Law.” This post gained fourteen positive upvotes and two reposts on GAB.

He called for the East London Mosque to be shut down ‘along with every other Mosque, that currently besmirches our great country.’

His Christmas wishlist for 2017, included the banning of Islam in the West, and the imprisonment of Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the ‘other globalists’, a rhetorical sleight of hand which some have argued is an antisemitic dog whistle.

Credit: GAB.

The Twitter account of James Goddard, which remains active as of writing, again used the term globalist on December 31, 2018.

As with others, the far-right conspiracy-logic of so-called Islamic appeasement by governments in the UK and abroad permeates through much of his social media content. This mistrust of institutions and the pursuit of alternative truths reflects what Michael Barkun argues in a Culture of Conspiracy, is a form of ‘stigmatised’ knowledge. This form of knowledge, Barkun argues, seeks to validate alternative forms of ‘truth’ outside of mainstream institutions, which are considered corrupt or untrustworthy. He has referred to Theresa May as a ‘nasty Islamic appeasing Dhimmi’, which borrows from the conspiracy-logic of ‘Eurabia’.

Goddard spoke at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally earlier this year.

Jason Farrell, the Home editor for Sky News, described meeting Goddard at a Democratic Football Lads Alliance march.

A racist post on GAB concerned the author and journalist Afua Hirsch, where Goddard wrote, “If you don’t like it, then kindly find the nearest exit and F**K Off, back to Bongo Land”.

He’s also expressed a desire to see the ‘transgenders’, Dianne Abbott, ‘Sadick Khan’, and the Muslim populations of Great Britain and the United States deported to Afghanistan. All groups and individuals he labelled as ‘parasites’.

Other conspiracy theories, of a white nationalist persuasion, have appeared on the personal Twitter account of James Goddard. On August 28, 2018, he tweeted: “Coming from a rat like yourself. Oh please. I speak the truth, like I’ve said many times, we must address the issues in our country. Terrorism, grooming gangs and cultural Marxism. We must tackle these to preserve our country!”.

Credit: Twitter/@JGoddard230616

The conspiracy of ‘cultural Marxism’ was coined “by American thinkers, most of them white nationalists, to explain the rise of political correctness and anti-racist beliefs as well as the advent of multiculturalism”. Others have pointed to the antisemitic underpinnings of the theory. This theory appeared was woven into the manifesto of the far-right terrorist Anders Breivik. It was a stalwart of the politics of the neo-fascist British National Party.

Questions now remain if Twitter will follow Facebook in removing Goddard from their platform.

Speaker Jon Bercow has called for a change in policing policy, following the harassment of parliamentarians, in what he described as a “form of fascism”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories: GAB, James Goddard, News

Pro-Nazi, racist, and Islamophobic graffiti spotted in Birmingham

January 7, 2019 Article

Racist and Islamophobic graffiti targeting Muslims and black communities have appeared on a wall in the Erdington area of Birmingham over the weekend.

The racialised graffiti, which incorporated Nazi-appropriated iconography, referred to Muslims and ‘P*kis’ as paedophiles and rapists, and that ‘blacks are cowards with knives + beat women’.

Concerns about the graffiti first appeared on social media on January 6.

The image of the racist and Islamophobic graffiti was posted online on January 6. Credit: Twitter.

The Nazi iconography is likely a reference to the wolfsangel (wolf’s hook) ­– an ancient runic symbol used to ward off wolves, which, throughout history, has also appeared on the coat of arms of various German towns and cities, including Idar-Oberstein. The imagery has appeared in illustrated editions of the 1910 novel Der Wehrwolf by the German journalist Hermann Löns (1866-1914). For Professor Klaus Neumann, author of Shifting Memories: The Nazi Past in the New Germany, Löns’s poems and stories were popular with the far-right due to its illustration of the Blut und Boden ideology (Blood and Soil). This ideology, popularised in the nineteenth century, grew in popularity following WWI, focused on German identity of genealogy/descent and territory/land, according to Dr Rebecca Futo Kennedy. This ideology underpinned the Nazi agricultural policy.

The Nazis continued to valorise and celebrate the life and works of Hermann Löns, invoking his works in warfare and the popular imagination, leading Der Wehrwolf to become a German bestseller by 1945. Others have questioned this influence.

The Wolfsangel symbol, under the Nazis, became synonymous with the notorious 2nd SS Panzer Division, the “Das Reich”, who, in the days following the Normandy landings, killed 672 people, mainly women and children, in a war crime which involved forcing 450 women and children into a church before burning it to the ground in occupied France. The surviving men were shot dead. The 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division used this symbol in its divisional insignia, committed war crimes in Greece in 1944.

A further clue about the nature of the runes in the graffiti owes to the phrase “Sons of the Reich”, which is misspelt and faded, is also the title of a book history of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, written by Major-General Michael Reynolds.

Tell MAMA has continued to document several examples of how this language around CSE targets and harms Muslims. The rhetoric continues to appear online, as noted in our interim report for the first six months of 2018.

Academics have argued that the racial epithet ‘P*ki’ is used to group Muslim men more broadly as sexual deviants, or, to frame such serious crimes through a narrow racial lens, which the Child Sexual Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has cautioned against in previous reports. And, researchers added, in 2011 that, “It is likely that the sexual exploitation of victims of a minority ethnic background are under-represented in the data.”

A report from The Children’s Society, published last year, explored the impacts of CSE among South Asian girls in the West Midlands, found that “young South Asian women – like many other young people from different backgrounds – are unfortunately targeted for exploitation by those within and outside of their communities. However, their presenting rates are likely to be even lower due to a range of barriers to disclosure and reporting.”  One such barrier concerned the additional trauma beyond the abuse itself, as the burden of silence to protect bodily and family honour added further strain to the mental health of victims.

West Midlands Police have been made aware of the graffiti.

In 2017, vandalism was the third most common Islamophobic incident category reported to Tell MAMA, up 56 per cent from the previous reporting year, with 81 reports (10 per cent).

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

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Categories: Birmingham, CSE, graffiti, grooming, News

Tell MAMA and GMB launch an Anti-discrimination Self-Help Guide For the Workplace

January 4, 2019 Article

Click to view

We are proud to launch this document with the GMB branch of Yorkshire and North Derbyshire.

The booklet, entitled, the ‘Anti-Discrimination tool-kit’ is a guide for the workplace and is a self-empowerment tool-kit for people who suffer discrimination at work. This may take the form of verbal abuse, holding individuals and communities to account for actions taken by co-religionists and when attempts are made to remove or reduce personal religious obligations that some may undertake by wearing religious symbols that identify their faith.

We know through the work of Tell MAMA, that about 1 in 10 cases that are reported into Tell MAMA, involve work based discrimination and when there are terrorist attacks, we have substantive evidence that discussions at work and behaviour by colleagues may dehumanise, marginalise and discriminate against others at work. This tool-kit document therefore seeks to self-empower people who suffer such incidents and issues at work.

We are proud to work with a branch of the GMB union and we value the role of unions in empowering and informing employees and staff about their rights. We hope that this booklet assists individuals in knowing their rights at work and the legislative protections that are in place around discrimination at work. Tell MAMA will continue to support individuals who have suffered discrimination and anti-Muslim hatred in the workplace.

 

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Categories: Anti-Muslim hate at work, Discrimination at work, GMB, News, Rights at work, Union

Neo-Nazi sticker found near mosque removed by cyclist in Regent’s Park

December 20, 2018 Article

A cyclist removed a sticker on a lamppost which promoted the neo-Nazi group the British Movement, which had appeared a ‘short walk’ from Regent’s Park mosque in London.

The incident occurred on December 19.

Speaking to Tell MAMA, the cyclist, who wishes to remain anonymous, described how, when cycling laps around Regent’s Park, had chanced upon the sticker, which, in their estimation, was a ‘5 to 10-minute walk’ from the mosque.

Tell MAMA has documented similar examples of where stickers, promoting neo-Nazi and far-right groups, were found nationwide.

In 2017, there were 11 verified reports of hate speech, and 28 reports of anti-Muslim literature reported to Tell MAMA.

The Metropolitan Police have been made aware of the incident.

You can get advice through our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

 

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Categories: hate crime, Neo-Nazi, News, sticker

Anti-burqa sign spotted on shop window

December 18, 2018 Article

A member of the public has expressed their outrage over a discriminatory sign outside of a local convenience store which called for the removal of the burqa before entry.

The sign, which reads, “All hoodies, burkas and motorcycle helmets must be removed before entering the shop”, was spotted in the North Warwickshire area last week.

The witness, who wishes to remain anonymous, informed Tell MAMA that the sign had been there for ‘several weeks’ but no complaints, to their knowledge, have been lodged.

This sign may contravene the Equality Act 2010, which stipulates that indirect forms of discrimination, which concern the actions of a service provider, who, in applying a rule for all its customers disadvantages people because of their identity (protected characteristic), according to the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Harassment, be it in written or verbal forms, targeted at a protected characteristic of an individual or group, would also be unlawful if covered by the Equality Act, including when receiving goods or services, per the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

There are, however, exceptions in the law, if there are genuine, proportional, necessary, and legitimate reasons behind the discrimination.

Tell MAMA has observed a rise in reports of discrimination since 2015, with an increase by 111.76% in just two years, with 34 verified reports of discrimination in 2015, compared to 72 reports in 2017, with 40 verified reports of discrimination in the first six months of 2018.

In partnership with the GMB trade union, Tell MAMA has produced an anti-discrimination toolkit to address discriminatory behaviours and practices in the workplace.

Examples of such discriminatory actions include school staff informing two Muslim women, wear the niqab, to remove their niqabs when attending school open days with their children for ‘security reasons’. A clear example of how ‘othering’ can result in viewing Muslims through the lens of ‘securitisation’.

The burqa, often confused with the niqab, due in part to a reliance on stock imagery in the parts of the media, is worn by small minorities of Muslim women in parts of Europe, but legislation in several countries, including France and the Netherlands has placed restrictions on wearing such clothing in public. The United Nations Human Rights Committee found that France had violated the human rights of two Muslim by fining them for wearing the niqab in public in October. We believe in the fundamental right to practise religious beliefs, suffice that they are not actively harmful to others, free from bigotry, hatred, or violence. This freedom extends to the right to wear religious clothing, the right to speak openly about your beliefs or to partake in religious worship.

Tell MAMA saw a sharp and temporary spike in reports from Muslim women, who wear either the hijab or niqab, following the comments from the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson concerning the niqab. In one example, a Muslim woman, who wears the niqab, was called a ‘postbox’, as another Muslim woman was told she should ‘be shot’ because of her niqab.

You can get advice through our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

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Categories: Burqa, discrimination, News, Niqab