Vol. 80/No. 39 October 17, 2016
Rulers scapegoating provokes attacks on Muslims
This campaign has spurred an increase in harassment and assaults on Muslims and those who oppose anti-Muslim attacks and bigotry.
In the late evening of Sept. 26 two explosive devices detonated in Dresden, Germany, outside a mosque and a congress center. No one was hurt, but the imam, his wife and their two children were inside the building. Six bottles filled with explosive gas were found.
This came on the heels of an arson attempt on a Turkish-run mosque in Hessen. The head of the Turkish parliament’s human rights committee called on Berlin to provide security for Muslims in Germany after an investigation recorded some 300 attacks against mosques, most of them Turkish-run, between 2001 and 2014.
On Sept. 10, the Finnish Resistance Movement, a small rightist thug outfit that calls itself national socialist, organized an anti-immigrant action in Finland’s capital Helsinki. When 28-year-old Jimi Karttunen walked by, he turned and spit in the direction of the demonstration. A well-known leader for the group kicked him in the chest and Karttunen fell to the ground, hitting his head. A week later he died from the injuries.
In response 15,000 people rallied in the streets of Helsinki Sept. 24 under the slogan “Peli Poikki!” (Enough is enough!). Thousands more protested in four other Finnish cities.
The fatal assault on Karttunen followed violence at similar actions by the Finnish Resistance Movement in other cities over the past year. Another group, the Soldiers of Odin, patrols the streets in some Finnish cities, saying they are looking for suspicious people from the Middle East.
In 2015, some 33,000 people — a tenfold average increase from previous years — applied for asylum in Finland, a country with a population of 5.5 million. More than three-quarters came from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Attacks on mosques in the U.S. increased sharply in 2015 over the previous four years and are on track to be at least as high this year, according to a 2016 report “Confronting Fear” distributed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The attacks include assassinations, arson and physical assaults, as well as threats and harassment. A number involve local authorities across the country blocking Muslims from building mosques and community centers.
The report details 55 attacks between this January and mid-September. In Houston in July, three masked attackers ambushed, stabbed and shot Dr. Arslan Tajammul as he was about to enter a mosque. In August Imam Maulama Akonjee and his associate Thara Uddin were killed near a mosque in Queens, New York.
In Titusville, Florida, a man wielding a machete broke cameras, lights and windows in a mosque and left three pounds of bacon at the front door. The Islamic Center in Omaha, Nebraska, received an email after the March terrorist attacks in Brussels, saying that “we think it’s now time to fight back starting with you. believe it. see you in hell.”
The report also documents self-declared “Muslim-free” business establishments that have cropped up in several states, bringing to mind similar signs from past U.S. history, like “Whites Only,” “No Dogs, No Jews” and “Irish Need Not Apply.”
The Socialist Workers Party has joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other opponents of discrimination and thuggery to protest such attacks. When town officials moved to bar the congregation of Atlanta-area Masjid Attaqwa from building a mosque and cemetery in Newton County, Georgia, SWP senatorial candidate Sam Manuel condemned the attack at an August town meeting of 300.
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