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Islamic Human Rights Commission
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15 July 2004

Press Release: BNP Fascists Must be Banned

IHRC today calls on the British government to officially ban the British National Party. For several years now, the BNP has been consistent in its racist and Islamophobic agenda. The BBC has now uncovered further evidence of this racism in the form of BNP members confessing to physically assaulting Muslims and openly desiring to kill Muslims and attack mosques.

Images such as that of the chairman of the BNP, Nick Griffin, standing before a man dressed in a Crusader outfit carrying a banner declaring “Islam out of Britain” at a BNP rally, are reminiscent of the Islamophobic hysteria which swept through the former Yugoslavia under Slobodan Milosevic in the late 80s and 90s. Such hate-filled propaganda lead to the ethnic cleansing of both the Muslims of Bosnia and later the Muslims of Kosovo.

Milosevic, like Adolf Hitler, rose to power in a democratic system on a campaign of hatred and demonization of minorities. Both used their rights to freedom of speech to preach hatred of and ultimately genocide of Muslims, Jews and othersy. If there is to be infringement on freedom of speech, it must equally applicable to all, be it Sheikh Faisal, Abu Hamza, or Nick Griffin.

Chairman of the IHRC, Massoud Shadjareh stated:

“If the BNP has made similar comments about Judaism or the Jewish community even once, the government and the media would have rightly taken immediate action. It is symptomatic of the level of institutional Islamophobia in the UK that the government is reluctant to extend the Race Relations Act to prohibit discrimination against Muslims, as it prohibits it against Jews and Sikhs.”

For more information please contact, (+44) 20 8904 4222 or (+44) 7958 522 196 or info@ihrc.org.

Islamic Human Rights Commission
PO Box 598
Wembley
HA9 7XH
United Kingdom

Telephone (+44) 20 8904 4222
Fax (+44) 20 8904 5183
Email: info@ihrc.org
Web: www.ihrc.org