Exposing the BNP’s anti-Muslim lies

By Shamik Das / @shamikdas

The BNP’s anti-Muslim lies have been exposed in a ground breaking new report, In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda, published by Quilliam, the world’s first counter-terrorism think tank. The report is the first of its kind to forensically take on and take apart the BNP’s anti-Islamic propaganda.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has described Islam as “a wicked, vicious faith” and “a cancer eating away” at freedom and democracy. Quilliam outline that this is a deliberate change of tack for the BNP, which is embarking on a “conscious shift in rhetoric away from a more general racism to something specific.”

The report, published last weekend, details ten myths peddled by the BNP as part of their “systematic demonizing campaign” against Muslims, whom they seek to portray as “inherently violent and backward,” and whose hidden agenda is the “Islamification of Europe.” Among the lies undermined by the report are the BNP’s claim that Islam is “a religion which treats women as second class citizens automatically.” The report quotes Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan Muslim feminist, who says that where sexism exists in the Arab world, “it is neither because of the Qur’an nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with those of the male elite.”

The report also highlights the widespread BNP practice of taking examples of individual Muslims committing crimes and extrapolating such isolated incidents to imply all Muslims are criminals. Examples include Nick Griffin blaming the hard drugs trade on Pakistanis on Newsnight last month; Griffin telling an audience of fellow travellers “gang rape is a phenomenon that comes from the Muslim community” and the “Islamification” of the West had partly “been done by rape”.

Report author Lucy James said:

“Nick Griffin and his party have made a conscious shift in rhetoric away from attacking Britain’s blacks and Jews towards attacking Britain’s Muslims. To do this, they have sought to portray a minority of violent Islamists as being representative of all Muslims. This needs to be challenged by all those who cherish living in a free, liberal and secular society.”