By M. Sajjad Tharoo

Religious discrimination against Muslims in the UK has been on the rise for many years now, but as yet there is no legislation covering it. Furthermore, the media has been very harsh against Muslims, portraying them as fundamentalists and terrorists, and it appears this has been very effective in swaying public opinion.

Recently, however, Muslims who number more than 2 million in the UK have been pushing the government to change the law so that all members of minority communities are protected. Until now, only Jews and Sikhs from the ethnic minorities are protected by the Race Relations Act 1976, and discriminating against them, such as preventing a Sikh boy from wearing a turban to school or anti-Semitic behaviour against Jews is a criminal offence for which you can prosecuted.

In 1997, the Runnymede Trust published their report entitled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All in which they concluded that an amendment in the law was necessary to prohibit religious hatred, this being a recommendation in line with the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet this high-profile report only went to confirm what Muslims in the UK have known for so long, that they are being discriminated against by the present judicial system, and little has been done since.

However, on February 16, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a non-governmental organisation established in 1997 and based in the UK, published a report entitled Anti-Muslim Discrimination and Hostility in the United Kingdom, 2000 in which they outlined their findings of discrimination against Muslims. For nearly three years, they have been dealing with cases of discrimination and ,in 1998, decided to send out a questionnaire to the Muslim community to survey the extent of the problem.

The report finds Muslims in the UK are facing problems in many areas of their social interactions such as education, employment and the media. In education, Muslim students have been excluded from participating in classes because their political ideas may be different to others, and more importantly cases have been reported in which Muslim women are forbidden to wear hijab and men refused to keep beards, all for no apparent reason. Verbal and violent abuses against Muslims by fellow students are also common.

Many Muslims have suffered in the workplace; either being rejected at interviews because of their religious dress, or being dismissed for expressing a certain religious identity. Muslim employees have also been harassed for praying during approved work breaks, and have suffered psychological and verbal abuse by others.

The IHRC report also suggests that the amount of extremist material inciting hatred against Muslims appears to be increasing, in addition to the incorrect portrayal of Muslims in the media. This was clearly evident during the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 when Muslims were blamed for the bombings, but in the end it turned out that white supremacists were responsible for the deaths of many innocent civilians.

What is so startling in the report are the statistics, which in many cases speak for themselves. In 2000, 45 percemt of those surveyed said that they or a member of their immediate family had experienced discrimination for being a Muslim. When this figure was then separated by gender, 51 percent of females reported discrimination compared to only 36 percent for males. This indicates that gender is a significant factor in experiencing discrimination, and that it is the Muslim women and girls who are suffering most.

The report details how the Race Relations Act 1976 was supposed to protect minorities, but made the 'mistake' of assuming that minorities had to be racial. While the current law in the UK protects two religious minorities on the grounds that they can be defined as a race, Muslims are left to suffer xenophobic harassment and abuse without legal recourse. This problem has escalated to such an extent now that extremist groups are deliberately targeting Muslims in the knowledge that little can be done to prosecute them.

To this day, lawyers use the concept of indirect discrimination when defending Muslim clients; this in effect means that if the litigant is Pakistani, Bengali or Arab, then there is a high probability that the action will be discriminatory on racial and not religious grounds. Thus, the report highlights, if a xenophobe wishes to attack somebody, his safest bet would be to pick on a Muslim rather than a Sikh, and abuse his victim as a Muslim rather than a 'Paki'.

Although the report, and in particular its statistics, may paint a bleak picture of the reality of life for Muslims in the UK, constant pressure from Muslim communities has opened the door towards a change in legislation. From October 2, 2000, the situation is set to improve marginally areas of law where Muslims are as yet unprotected. On this date, the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force, allowing Muslims to rely on Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which will protect against religious discrimination.

This will therefore prevent schools from excluding Muslim students who wish to wear hijab or keep beards, since these would be contrary to two articles of the act. Article 9 gives everyone freedom to practise any religion of their choice, and Article 2 Protocol 1, gives each individual the right to an education. Although the introduction of this act will be an important and positive step for Muslims in the UK, the legislation will not be far-reaching enough, and employers will still be able to continue with their policies of not employing Muslims if they so wished.

Such a law will thus not solve crucial flaws in the UK law, but only expose the hypocrisy which exists today. It is, therefore, now up to the Muslims in the UK to exert pressure on the British government for a change in law or else face more years of discrimination and abuse.

Muslimedia: March 1-15, 2000

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