BELFAST,
January 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Racist attacks
against the 4,000-strong Muslim community in Northern Ireland have
been on the rise since the September attacks on the US, a leading
Muslim academic has said.
“Since
9/11, the Muslim community in Northern Ireland has felt that they are
in the spotlight – that they have got to be careful,” Javaid
Rehman, a law professor at the University of Ulster's Magee campus, as
quoted as saying by the Scotsman newspaper.
He
regretted that hate crimes against Muslims in Northern Ireland have
been worse than in any other place worldwide, the BBC News Online
reported Thursday, January 27.
In
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Muslims in several world countries,
particularly in the West, complained of being discriminated against
simply because of their faith.
A
May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded
that Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the US have taken the
brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Islamophobia
Rehman,
a member of the International Law Association's Committee on Islamic
Law and International Law, lamented that “Islamophobia is a worrying
development not just in Great Britain but also in Northern Ireland.”
Praising
people in Northern Ireland as “loving” and warm, he said they
“must be careful not to adopt wrong notions about Muslims, and to
consider that community’s sensitivities.”
He
cited attacks of violence “against Asian communities and problems
about giving planning permission for mosques.”
According
to the Irish police statistics, there were 226 racist incidents in
2003, many targeting Pakistani families, including pregnant women.
Many
Muslim families have fled their homes in Country Armagh under the yoke
of such racist attacks.
Rehman
regretted the lack of any effective response to prejudice against
Northern Ireland’s Muslim community.
“That
is what Asians and Muslims, in particular, feel. They feel that they
need some protection and understanding.”
A
survey by the University of Ulster showed significant levels of racism
and anti-traveler prejudice among the Irish citizens.
Two-thirds
of the polled said they would not work with members of the traveling
community, more than half would not accept travelers as neighbors and
more than a third said they would not like to work with Asian,
Afro-Caribbean or Chinese people.
