Boris Johnson burqa comments sparked rise in hate crime, says leading British Muslim
\nnews agency
\nLONDON
\nBritain\u2019s top Muslim lobbying group has said that the next prime minister needs to seriously tackle the \u201csystemic\u201d Islamophobia in the Conservative Party after \u201can alarming radio silence\u201d from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is standing down on Sept. 5.
\nZara Mohammed, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that Johnson should have apologized to the Muslim community in his resignation speech last week, warning that there have been \u201cno concrete steps\u201d taken to deal with Islamophobia in the Tory party.
\nMohammed told Metro.co.uk that the MCB had recorded more than 300 instances of Islamophobia in the party since 2019, adding that the next prime minister \u201cmust represent everybody and they have to make sure that they do that fairly.\u201d
\nShe said: \u201cWe\u2019d like to see these new candidates actually take this issue seriously, because it is quite deep-seated.
\n\u201cWe found over 300 cases, as well as senior members of the party themselves complaining about the problem.\u201d
\nRecent controversies in the party include Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani reporting that her \u201cMuslimness\u201d was raised when she was fired as transport minister.
\nMark Spencer, MP, said that he spoke to Ghani, but rejected the accusations as \u201ccompletely false and I consider them to be defamatory.\u201d
\nA report into the situation is still unpublished six months after the alleged event, adding to the pressure that the party is facing following a 2021 review into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, which found that anti-Muslim sentiment existed and criticizing the Tories for inadequately investigating allegations.
\nIt did not find that the party was institutionally Islamophobic, a finding which the MCB and other groups slammed as a whitewash.
\nMohammed said: \u201cThere has to be a commitment to zero tolerance on Islamophobia \u2014 a party pledge that there will be action where there are Islamophobic comments, whether that is dismissal, whether that is disciplinary.
\n\u201cThere needs to be a real strong voice from leadership saying \u2018this is totally unacceptable and this does not reflect the views of the Conservative Party\u2019.\u201d
\nMohammed did not comment on the Tory leadership candidates, saying that they \u201call have their positives and negatives.\u201d
\nSajid Javid, the former health secretary who dropped out of the race after the first ballot, attracted attention in the 2019 race for the leadership when he called for the independent investigation that concluded in 2021. But so far, no comments have been made on the issue in this year\u2019s leadership elections. Mohammed pointed to Johnson\u2019s infamous comments when he compared women in burqas to \u201cletterboxes and bank robbers.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve yet to see any apology on that,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the impact that had on Muslim women was real.
\n\u201cWe did see a spike in hate crime, particularly against Muslim women who did wear the burqa or the veil after that, and even a confidence in racists and bigots feeling that they were entitled to say such things or do things like that.\u201d
\n\u201cI think is a time for us to see a leadership that is inclusive, that is willing to work with Muslim communities and all communities.
\n\u201cWe want to see that across the political spectrum, but certainly in the Conservatives with the leadership election coming up.
\n\u201cCan we get a politics that we can be proud of, as opposed to embarrassed of?\u201d
\nA UK government spokesperson said: \u201cWe take a zero tolerance approach to anti-Muslim hatred in any form and will continue to combat discrimination and intolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boris Johnson burqa comments sparked rise in hate crime, says leading British Muslim news agency LONDON Britain\u2019s top Muslim lobbying group has said that the next prime minister needs to seriously tackle the \u201csystemic\u201d Islamophobia in the Conservative Party after \u201can alarming radio silence\u201d from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is standing down on Sept. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-271752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n