Scottish Cross-Party Group With Ties To Global Muslim Brotherhood Demands Action Against Islamophobia, Withdrawal Of Anti-Terrorism Legislation

Aus­tralian media is report­ing a Scot­tish par­lia­men­tary Cross-Par­ty Group has pub­lished an inquiry into the nature and extent of Islam­o­pho­bia in Scot­land, demand­ing far-reach­ing polit­i­cal action to mit­i­gate its alleged effects. Accord­ing to an arti­cle by The Con­ver­sa­tion detail­ing the inquiry’s findings:

July 21, 2021 The report high­lights that Mus­lim women are most like­ly to suf­fer from dis­crim­i­na­tion. The major­i­ty of respon­dents believe that Islam­o­pho­bia is get­ting worse in Scot­land, with Glas­gow show­ing the high­est lev­els. Main­stream print and broad­cast media were seen to pro­mote Islam­o­pho­bia by the major­i­ty of the study’s respon­dents. Social media was also cit­ed as an are­na where Islam­o­pho­bic atti­tudes are cir­cu­lat­ed in Scot­land. How­ev­er, Islam­o­pho­bia in Scot­land is most often expe­ri­enced on the street in the form of ver­bal abuse.

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A list of 45 pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions in the report includes work­ing to increase pub­lic fund­ing of research and projects that adopt an inter­sec­tion­al approach to Islam­o­pho­bia and to with­draw anti-ter­ror­ism leg­is­la­tion such as the “Pre­vent” strat­e­gy, often a tar­get of UK Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups. The report fur­ther rec­om­mends local author­i­ties, police offi­cers, teach­ers, and jour­nal­ists reg­u­lar­ly engage in train­ing about Islam­o­pho­bia using media guide­lines, includ­ing those pro­duced by the report’s authors. The coali­tion also demands the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment work towards adopt­ing a for­mal def­i­n­i­tion of Islam­o­pho­bia, review­ing all leg­is­la­tion rel­e­vant to the issue, and requir­ing all edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions to estab­lish spaces for “prayer and reflection.“

The orig­i­nal doc­u­ment was pub­lished in late June 2021 by the Scot­tish Cross-Par­ty Group on Tack­ling Islam­o­pho­bia (CPGTI), an infor­mal coali­tion of mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment and oth­er indi­vid­u­als and inter­est groups work­ing on the issues of Islam­o­pho­bia and anti-Mus­lim hatred. Cross-Par­ty Groups can­not for­mal­ly raise issues in Par­lia­ment and do not receive finan­cial or staffing sup­port, but their mem­bers must fol­low the rules in the Parliament’s Code of Con­duct. Since its found­ing in 2018, the CPGTI has been chaired by recent­ly-elect­ed Scot­tish Labour Par­ty leader Anas Sarwar.

The CPGTI’s 45 cur­rent mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions include groups that are known to have ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in the Unit­ed King­dom and an NGO sup­port­ive of the Iran­ian regime:

• Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain (MCB)

• Mus­lim Coun­cil of Scot­land, which was list­ed as an affil­i­ate of the MCB and where MCB Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Zara Mohammed acts as Head of Media & Communications.

• Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion, a UK-based NGO that has been cen­tral to orga­niz­ing the events of the Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day, an event his­tor­i­cal­ly char­ac­ter­ized by anti-Semitism.

The inquiry also used writ­ten sub­mis­sions by CAGE, a UK Islam­ic advo­ca­cy group tied to the British Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and whose senior lead­ers have advo­cat­ed sup­port­ing vio­lent jihad over­seas. Anoth­er con­trib­u­tor to the report was Mus­lim Engage­ment and Devel­op­ment (MEND), a UK Islam­ic NGO close to the UK MB.

In March 2021, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that a Bel­gian NGO with close ties to the GMB had launched an EU-fund­ed report on such counter-ter­ror­ism poli­cies, demand­ing the EU refrain from using “vague and gen­er­al labels” such as Jihadism, Islamism, and polit­i­cal Islam, argu­ing that their ana­lyt­i­cal val­ue was out­weighed by their stig­ma­tiz­ing impact. Report­ing by the GIOR on the GMB and British/European pol­i­tics has also included:

• A May 2021 report that a Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth group Eid recep­tion includ­ed high-lev­el Euro­pean officials.

• A May 2021 report that Irish and Israeli MPs were part of an “Israeli Apartheid” round­table by UK Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups.

• A July 2021 report that a British Con­ser­v­a­tive MP joined for­mer Mor­si Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials at a Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood con­fer­ence on Egypt.

• A July 2021 report that a Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth group called on the Euro­pean Court Of Jus­tice to revise a judg­ment allow­ing ban of reli­gious sym­bols in workplaces.