Headlines:
• British Muslim School Children Suffering a Backlash of Abuse Following Paris Attacks
• Anti-Muslim Acts Have Soared in France Since Paris Attacks
• European Union Looks to Respond to Threat of Radical Islam
• Richest 1% Will Own More than All the Rest by 2016 – Oxfam
British Muslim School Children Suffering a Backlash of Abuse Following Paris Attacks
Muslim pupils across Britain are suffering a backlash of bullying and abuse following the Charlie Hebdo massacre amid a broad rise in Islamophobia in schools which the Government is failing to tackle, campaigners have told The Independent. The sole UK charity monitoring anti-Muslim hate crime said it had recorded a “significant” increase in incidents in schools in the wake of the killings in Paris with both parents and teachers reporting verbal and physical attacks against Muslim students. In one case, a teenage Muslim pupil at a school in Oxfordshire was this week allegedly slapped and called a “terrorist” by classmates after a teacher raised the murders of 12 people at the French magazine in a classroom discussion and suggested Muslims should be “challenged” by the display of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The boy told his parents he did not wish to return to school. Teachers unions and anti-racism groups told The Independent they have recorded an increase in Islamophobic incidents in schools with the 400,000 Muslim pupils in British schools increasingly likely to be taunted as “terrorists”, “paedophiles” or “immigrants”. The NASUWT, the teaching union, said the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment is causing “uncertainty and fear” in schools. Tell MAMA, which monitors anti-Muslim hate crime in Britain, said it had logged 112 reports of physical and verbal violence in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings, including nine incidents which related specifically to schools in locations from West Yorkshire to East Sussex.[Source: The Independent].
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says:
لَّقَدْ سَمِعَ اللَّـهُ قَوْلَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّـهَ فَقِيرٌ وَنَحْنُ أَغْنِيَاءُ ۘ سَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَالُوا وَقَتْلَهُمُ الْأَنبِيَاءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ وَنَقُولُ ذُوقُوا عَذَابَ الْحَرِيقِ
“Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse. Indeed We have made plain to you the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses) if you understand.”
(Al-i-Imran: 118)
Anti-Muslim Acts Have Soared in France Since Paris Attacks
At least as many anti-Muslim acts have taken place in France since the Jan. 7-9 attacks on the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper and a Jewish supermarket than for all of last year, a leading Muslim group said Friday. The French Council for the Muslim Religion said its recent study found that 128 anti-Muslim actions or threats were recorded in France, not including Paris, from Jan. 7 through Jan. 20, in comparison to 133 in all of France, including Paris, in 2014. Not all the acts included in the study were reported to police. The attacks began on Jan. 7 with the killing of 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a publication that frequently lampooned religion. Since the attacks, mosques have been damaged by a grenade, gunshots and repeated vandalism, and stores owned by Muslims have been burned, the French Council for the Muslim Religion said in its report. At least one person was assaulted and hospitalized, said Abdallah Zekri of the National Observatory Against Islamophobia, which worked with the council to produce the study. The groups say the actual number of incidents may be even higher than the study indicates. “These figures do not reflect reality, as many Muslims don’t want to systematically file a complaint when they are victims of xenophobic acts, convinced that there will be no follow-up, which is unfortunately often the case,” Agence France-Presse quoted the observatory as saying. The release of the council’s figures came a day after the government promised to focus on healing social and religious fractures in French society by starting with schools. Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called schools the “essential link” in transmitting French values to those in the country’s notorious big-city suburbs, called “banlieues,” which house many of France’s poorest — especially minorities with immigrant roots, including many Muslims from former French colonies. [Source: Al-Jazeera].
The French leadership has done much to secure Jewish places of worship and provide protection to the Jewish people. In contrast, the French state has stood by as a mute spectator as bigots from all walks of life take it upon themselves to hurt Muslims living in France. So much for the unity Hollande talked about.
European Union Looks to Respond to Threat of Radical Islam
EU foreign ministers on Monday discussed setting up a new network of European security agents abroad as they sought a united response to the threat from militant Islamists following the attacks in Paris on Jan. 7. The meeting aimed to lay the groundwork for an EU leaders summit on Feb. 12-13 in Brussels which will cement the bloc’s strategy to deal with young European Muslims heading to Middle East war zones or returning radicalised from the region. One idea is to place European security officials in EU overseas missions to collect and share information on the terrorism threat. “It is a matter of having people on the ground that can liaise at the same level with security agents in the countries where we have delegations,” EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini told a news conference. Priorities also include a crackdown on arms trafficking, support for police in the Middle East and North Africa, stopping EU citizens leaving to fight abroad and curbing radical Islam on the Internet to prevent them bringing violence back home. [Source: Reuters]
There is no mention of the root causes, which is the West’s continuous intervention and wars in Muslim lands. Unless the West withdraws from Muslim lands the situation for both Muslims and non-Muslims is destined to get worse.
Richest 1% Will Own More than All the Rest by 2016 – Oxfam
The combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked, Oxfam warned ahead of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. The international agency, whose Executive Director Winnie Byanyima will co-chair the Davos event, warned that the explosion in inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when 1 in 9 people do not have enough to eat and more than a billion people still live on less than $1.25-a-day. Byanyima will use her position at Davos to call for urgent action to stem this rising tide of inequality, starting with a crackdown on tax dodging by corporations, and to push for progress towards a global deal on climate change. “Wealth: Having it all and wanting more”, a research paper published by Oxfam, shows that the richest 1 per cent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 per cent in 2009 to 48 per cent in 2014 and at this rate will be more than 50 per cent in 2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7m per adult in 2014. Of the remaining 52 per cent of global wealth, almost all (46 per cent) is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population. The other 80 per cent share just 5.5 per cent and had an average wealth of $3,851 per adult – that’s 1/700th of the average wealth of the 1 per cent. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “Do we really want to live in a world where the one per cent own more than the rest of us combined? The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast. “In the past 12 months we have seen world leaders from President Obama to Christine Lagarde talk more about tackling extreme inequality but we are still waiting for many of them to walk the walk. It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world. “Business as usual for the elite isn’t a cost free option – failure to tackle inequality will set the fight against poverty back decades. The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality – they get a smaller share of the economic pie and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around.” [Source: Oxfam]
These of the fruits of capitalism— where the poor are robbed of their wealth and the rich get ever richer. Only Islam under the rule of the Caliphate can ensure equality of wealth is shared between citizens of the state. Allah سبحانه وتعالى says:
كَيْ لَا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَيْنَ الْأَغْنِيَاءِ مِنكُمْ ۚ وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانتَهُوا ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّـهَ ۖ إِنَّ اللَّـهَ شَدِيدُ الْعِقَابِ
“In order that it may not (merely) make a circuit between the wealthy among you. So take what the Messenger assigns to you, and deny yourselves that which he withholds from you. And fear Allah, for Allah is strict in Punishment.”
(Surah Al-Hashr: 7)