Muslims in Britain brace themselves for more stringent anti-terror laws that will target their community, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif "War has come to our city streets. Blood is flowing. The time for action has come. Words are not enough," read the statement on the British National Party's (BNP) web site, posted hours after the London bombings took place. "It is now time," the statement continued, "The British people have been given back the power to protect themselves from those who have been allowed to enter our country and start wars against us and our way of life." Such was the response from Britain's far right party which, not surprisingly, tried to extract political advantage from the death and suffering that was visited on London last Thursday. It was, therefore, expected that a backlash targeting the Muslim community and institutions took place despite the many calls for unity and vigilance issued by Britain's prominent religious figures and by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Hours after the bombings took place, a vicious wave of attacks on Islam and Muslims was unleashed, not just in Britain, but across Europe and even in New Zealand, where a number of mosques were severely vandalised. In Britain, BNP sympathisers seemed to have acted upon their party's call to duty. Abusive and racist text messages and e- mails soon found their way to several Muslim organisations in Britain. The Muslim Safety Forum (MSF), a group formed to assist the Muslim community cope with the calamity, was flooded with at least 30,000 hate mails and death threats during the first few hours following the attacks. Petrol bomb attacks were reported on mosques in Leeds and Birkenhead. A mosque in Merton was vandalised with anti- Islam graffiti. A fourth attack was reported on the Tower Hamlet Mosque. In one single day, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) received at least 30 complaints of harassment, including an attack on a handicapped veiled woman. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly after the attacks, some British Muslims spoke of "a climate of fear" in the country which may lead to a surge in the attacks in the coming days. "I don't feel safe any more," said Nahla Al-Geyoushi, who works as a senior editor in a publishing house. "Every time I go out I prepare myself for the worst and I thank God when it goes by peacefully. There are already reports of abuse against the Muslim community and I know there is still more to come," Al-Geyoushi said. While the initial response from police departments and British politicians was careful to dismiss any direct link between Islam and the terrorist attacks, some analysts, politicians and former police chiefs, however, made explicit remarks which many Muslims deemed racist, and that could endanger the safety of the Muslim population in Britain. One such remark was made by John Stevens, a former chief of London Police, who claimed in an article in the News of the World newspaper that "there are at least three thousand British Muslims who were trained by Al-Qaeda." According to Mohamed Abul-Kalam, a member of the MSF, the forum has been working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that the policing of the terrorist attacks and the investigation do not adversely affect the safety and security of the Muslim community in London. "Unlike previous times when Islamophobia crimes used to go unnoticed, this time the police response has been robust in tackling the reported hate crimes," Abul-Kalam said. "We hope the police will maintain the high level of cooperation with the Muslim community that we saw during the first days following the attacks," Abul-Kalam told the Weekly from London. He, nonetheless, was cautious not to exaggerate the impact of such cooperation because "there is growing concern that it might slip and that the community will be the target of more arrests," said Abul- Kalam. The forum was among several other organisations which have circulated a message to Muslims living in Britain instructing them how to deal with possible racist attacks. A telephone hotline called "Muslim line" was established for individuals to report hate crimes. According to British government statistics, there are 1.6 million Muslims living in the UK, a great number of whom are located in London and its suburbs. Since the 11 September 2001 attacks, Muslim communities in Europe and the US have been paying a heavy price. Their religion has been demonised, countless arrests have been made without due process in the name of fighting terror groups, and anti- terrorism legislation has been adopted, which has resulted in the curtailment of many civil liberties. It was precisely such legal efforts which Britain's Muslims thought targeted their community in the first place. Islamic figures speaking to the Weekly expressed concern that the British government might take advantage of the event to pass new legislation that will restrict the rights of Muslims. "We try to convince those in the government who want to rush with new legislation that any such move will not make Britain any safer," Azzam Al-Tamimi, director of the London-based Islamic Political Thought Institute, told the Weekly. "What will keep the danger away is for Britain to change its foreign policy. Those who think the attacks had nothing to do with Iraq are in denial," Tamimi added. During the past four years, Muslims have been the main target of a number of anti-terrorism laws because, according to Al-Tamimi, the assumption is that terrorists will come from among the ranks of the Muslim community. The scale of damage done to Britain's Muslims as a result of these laws has been immeasurable, says Tamimi. "There are some elements in the British government who insist on creating a climate of fear against anything Islamic and this paves the way for such anti Muslim legislation. We fear that Muslims will continue to pay the heaviest price under the guise of fighting terrorism," Tamimi added. For many Muslims, Blair's soothing words of being "proud of the Muslim contribution before last Thursday and after it" will ring hollow in light of the rush to impose ever more laws which they believe paint them as potential terrorists. Consequently, the majority of Muslims are left with a deep sense of frustration since they are constantly pressured to respond individually to the bombings, or are expected to be apologetic for the actions of an extremist few. "Every time there is an attack by Al-Qaeda," says one British muslim, "we are expected to condemn it but no matter how vociferously we do it, we are still painted as perpetrators."
