Fears Labour’s Islamophobia definition could silence women’s rights campaigners - Baroness Falkner

[IwantToRetire]

Labour's Islamophobia definition could be used to silence women’s rights campaigners, the recent head of the equalities watchdog has warned.

Baroness Falkner said the new definition could be weaponised against those who “dare” say that Muslim women are being suppressed.

The new definition – which has not yet been published by Communities Secretary Steve Reed – has been criticised by Tories as a route to a “de facto blasphemy law”.

Criticising the plans, Baroness Falkner told Sky News: “If they’re going to bring in yet another area where, for example, anyone who’s defending women’s rights is going to be accused by those ethnic minority men of Islamophobia, if they dare say something about how Muslim women are suppressed.

“I’m a Muslim woman myself. I know all about this.

“I know the community.”

NB source is the Sun! Link for full article https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37562911/labour-islamophobia-definition-silence-womens-rights/

It’s not ‘generalising stereotypical behaviour’ it’s being to be able to call out unacceptable behaviour regardless of who’s doing it.

The definition of Islamophobia adopted by the Labour Party proscribes ‘targeting expressions of Muslimness’.

We know that there are various practices that British society finds abhorrent - forced or child marriage, FGM and first cousin marriage being among them.

We want to be able to criticise those practices even if they are deemed to be ‘expressions of Muslimness’

As with most things, they need to put in the hard yards and attempt to understand the underlying reasons. And that should be a genuine attempt, not one intended to placate or to patronise. But that's hard, and it's easier to legislate it away.

I would also question if hate incidents are increasing, or are they more reported or more acted upon. It's easier to go arrest someone because of a social media post then it is to deal with theft. That's an easy charge and an easy stat.

However, if it is increasing, we need to look at why. Is it actually Islamophobia or is it wider racism or xenophobia? Is it regionalised? Has something sparked this increase, if so, what?

Well spotted.

We cannot have laws that prevent anyone from calling out unacceptable behaviour against women, whether it’s perpetrated by Muslim men or not.

I’m not seeing any Christian leaders calling for ‘Christianophobia’ laws to make it unlawful to call out their bad behaviour, are you?

The problem is that Islamophobia like all hate speech are in the eye of the beholder. We have to look at the situation in the round.
We know transphobia has been used to attack women's rights and any dissent from the TRA orthodoxy.
We also need to look at the behaviour of Islamists who support terrorist groups and take an aggressively oppressive view of women's place in society.
There is no need for special laws. A mosque is attacked prosecute the perpetrators.
A Muslim attacks a man for burning the Quaran prosecute him and sentence him approprately.
This won't help peaceful Muslims but will aid and abet Islamists.

Well, I’m asking you.

I think those women should lead the voices around what is acceptable to them, don't you?

The Labour Party have an All Party Parliamentary Group working on this and has adopted the following as part of their definition already:

There is no single agreed definition of Islamophobia, albeit various civic, social, legal and political sources have attempted to define it. One definition is the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslim’s definition (APPG). The APPG defines Islamophobia as:
“… rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.
The Labour Party adopted the APPG definition and its examples in March 2019 as an important statement of principle and solidarity. The NEC reaffirms that position in this Code of Conduct.

This is an extremely broad definition and almost certainly will stop work in preventing forced/child marriage and FGM among other things (FGM is not totally exclusive to Islam but widely and majority practised by some types of Muslims).

We should be very concerned at how much power this small minority already have. Muslims are 6% of the UK population and not all Muslims want the grooming gangs inquiry to be scuppered, laws on first cousin marriage to be scuppered and our freedom of speech to call these things out to be severely curtailed, but a proportion of that 6% do.

So somewhat less than 6% of the population already have significant power over our government.

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have already made significant promises to the Muslim community on this.

labour.org.uk/resources/labours-islamophobia-policy/

Why are you separating out Muslim women?

Some Muslim men behave badly towards non Muslim women as well you know. We want to be able to call them out.

Di you think Muslim women deserve the same human rights and protection by the law as all other women? Or not?

Try reading the Labour Party’s own website and see how far they’ve already got with this before you dismiss it as ‘manufactured outrage’. I know it’s tempting to believe our government are not giving away significant power to a proportion of the 6% of Muslims in the UK but they are. We just need people to open their eyes and stop pretending it’s nit happening b

Among other criteria, they want to stop us ‘targeting expressions of Muslimness’. (Further text a few posts back).

labour.org.uk/resources/labours-islamophobia-policy/

I think we should ensure that our ideas of what is oppressive doesn't remove the agency of Muslim women.

How many Muslim friends do you have?

So somewhat less than 6% of the population already have significant power over our government.

They dont have power over the Government. That's just silly.

If the Government is choosing to respond to the reports of Islamaphobia, that isn't the community having power, its about the Government acting to defend a minority.

Its these sort of Tommy Robinson Farage rubbish that makes it impossibe to have a sane discussion.

What is going on in your head?

This issue has been longstanding, nothing has been done because it will have negative consequences despite all the lobbying in favour. Now Labour is in power I fear they will capitulate to placate their base. The more fuss made now the better.

I agree with Sara Khan when she was Lead Commissioner for Countering Exteremism.

Sara Khan explained unequivocally in response to the proposed definition of Islamophobia: “This failure to recognise that Muslims can be abused, attacked, even killed, by other Muslims because of their “Muslimness’ is a blind spot in our public debate and detrimental to the well-being of British Muslims and those of Muslim heritage.”
Therefore, this relentless campaign around defining Islamophobia appears to be an effort to give privilege to a particularly vocal and extremely conservative section of Muslim communities who seek impunity in leveling allegations of “Islamophobia” at dissidents who are liable to be punished either by blatant smears at best or by extrajudicial execution at worst.

Conspicuously, the proposed definition of Islamophobia would likely increase hostility towards progressive people many folds, especially after they have criticized the term islamophobia for its misuse.

The Government is acting to try to appease a voter base. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is done to defend anything but their own position of power and their financial backers. It is beyond naive to think otherwise.

You have patronised and minimised a response by dismissing it as Farage rubbish. That is what prevents a good faith, sane discussion. That is why Reform are growing, because they seem to be the only people willing to at least pretend to listen to communities that have been abandoned for years. I don't like not support Reform, but they are filling a void and after seemingly managing to engage previously disenfranchised groups. Dismissing them just pushes them further away.

Well thanks, but I dont actually have an opinion.

I think generally the ability to have an informed discussion about anything in the UK is nearly impossible, not just because of twitter etc., but the MSM screaming headlines.

And have no doubt that some of these have contributed to some people thinking Islam is a thread, but they are just likely to say insult or even attack someone preceiving them to be Muslim, when they probably aren't.

And I also think that the situation in Gaza has led some to then say that the attack on Israeli on 7th October was Muslims attacking Jewish people, rather than saying a militant terrorist group not representative of Islam and Muslims as a whole, as then the fig leaf to then feel legitimate to making sweeping statements about Islam and Muslims.

A bit like saying because some groups in Africa who say they are acting on their interpreation of Christianity to carry out acts of violence means all christians are violent thugs.

Usually groups or even armies who attack saying it based on their religion are just men looking for a justification for being violent, and want to pillage and rape.

And quite honestly the combination of the numpties who are our politicians whipped up and bullied by the "gotcha" media have about as much ability to address the issue as a 6 year old.

A bit like finding a 6 year old is running the most powerful country in the world and can stand and be filmed for tv and not challenged and say all Somalis are bad people.

but because of the increase in Islamaphobia.

If we haven’t got an official definition of Islamophobia, how are they identifying and reporting these claimed instances of Islamophobia’?

Or are they just counting everything and anything experienced by Muslims as ‘Islamophobia’ and then saying ‘oh look, increasing Islamophobia, we must change the law to stop it’.

Straight out of the trans activists playbook.

The Government is acting to try to appease a voter base.

6%?

I'm genuinely confused. All recent reporting has said Labour appear to be scrapping the plans to introduce a new definition of Islamophobia. That doesn't seem to have changed?

Its the same with all hate crimes. It is about the "victim" who says I experience as whatever hate it is.

Just as you can have a man saying he is terrified by the Gaza Marches because he is Jewish, whilst at the same time there are contingents of different Jewish groups and individuals.

With no particular sympathy for the police, they should never have been put in this position. Added to which some police do use it to follow a personal agenda. Look at how some police forces so willingly took up accusations of transphobia.

I'm confused. I thought you were praising Kishwar Faulkner's courage.
But it is quite something that in the face of Labour thinking they are leading the world in tackling Islamaphobia Falkner is prepared to say she can see it being used by men to attack women.

Now you're just back on the Tommy Robinson red herring.

For a minority Muslims seem to be doing ok to me in the political power and influence department.

As said upthread, in the newspaper article about a recent poll it goes through the various definitions Labour has had pre and post Government and the APPG definition which is I think the one rejected.

Obviously.

Do you think forced/child marriage, FGM, first cousin marriage or grooming and raping white girls is oppressive to women?

I have several Muslim friends. One was excommunicated by her family because she wanted to live a normal life. Is that oppressive enough for you?

You might have missed my question above. Here it is:

Do you think Muslim women deserve the same human rights and protection by the law as all other women? Or not?

I think you are getting desperate now.

Some Muslims, like some women are doing okay. But in the population as whole they are not. As women we would never allow that because some women that the majority white patriarchal society allows to have power, then all women have power.

And its farcical to say 6% of the population has power over the Government is out of the Robinson Farage play book.

Sure, why not? I said a base, not an entire base. It helps if that voting bloc have money, influence and the ability to organise as well. Which they do, clearly.

Labour aren't doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They see a political advantage here.

Labour aren't interested in protecting women's rights, they have made that perfectly clear following the FWS SC ruling.

I don't understand a word of that.
Were you praising Kishwar Faulkner or not?
You brought up Tommy Robinson not me.
Last time I looked we have a sectarian party The Muslim Vote in parliament. The influence of Muslims in Labour councils over grooming gangs and policing etc is obvious. The behaviour of some Muslim men during the general election was intimidating in a way I've not seen before.

As Sara Khan pointed out many moderate Muslims including women are suffering abuse by other Muslims and we need to support and protect them.

Wow! That’s rather rude. No matter, I’ll tell you what’s in my head, thanks for asking.

Have you noticed how eager our government are to appease this proportion of the 6%?

So far, on their behalf, the PM has refused to supprt the Private Members bill to ban first cousin marriage. Many of his MPs agreed with that. Repeated first cousin marriage causes a possible 5000-7000 severely disabled babies to be born per year and costs the NHS significant amounts. Any criticism of the practice is strongly discouraged in the NHS.

Jess Phillips was appointed to lead the grooming gangs inquiry despite a clear conflict of interest with her constituency at 45% Muslim (obviously many Muslims are as disgusted at the grooming hands as we are but a worrying number think it’s perfectly acceptable). She has deliberately derailed the inquiry already and taken the focus away from the specific problem presented by Pakistani Muslim men and their specific MO. This morning it was reported on the news that despite the inquiry being called months ago, the government haven’t even contacted police forces to order them to preserve grooming gangs evidence. Apparently significant amounts has ‘disappeared’ already. 23 laptops ‘went missing’.

Despite warnings from other countries, as PP mentions above, the government have refused to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and appears to be talking to them informally. These talks will not involved them being told ‘no’.

Our PM has personally promised Muslims that there will be an Islamophobia law. If you see the extremely broad definition the Labour Party have already adopted to see the direction of travel.

The government are turning a blind eye to sharia courts (we have the highest number in Europe), and animal cruelty in the name of halal slaughter. There are areas of the country where people are harassed with impunity by Muslims for bringing their dogs (some Muslim groups hate dogs, a council area in Wales even proposed officially banning dogs altogether) There are areas where the 5am call to prayer is broadcast regardless of whether non Muslim residents are happy about it.

There are a number of Muslins in positions of great power, how many of them are allowing their faith and beliefs to get in the way of balancing the interests of ALL British?