The 2015 London Islamophobia Conference was entitled Islamophobia: The Changing Face of Racism. IHRC and Scotland against Criminalising Communities (SACC) co-organised a London and an Edinburgh event this year.

Find links to the videos, reports and other material for both conferences here. 

The conference in 2014, Institutional Islamophobia, focused on analysing institutional and structural forms of prejudice and hatred, and the engineering of (a) compliant minority/ies.

This year the London conference discussed how Islamophobia has evolved from and replaced biological racism from the colonial period. They also placed Islamophobia within the wider xenophobic narrative currently on the rise in Europe. Furthermore, the conferences developed a discussion around ways we can articulate why Islamophobia is racism and how we can utilise this to fight against the rise of racism in Britain and Europe. 

London Speakers: Arzu Merali, Azeezat Johnson, Hatem Bazian, Katy Sian, Les Levidow, Malia Bouattia, Ramon Grosfoguel, Roshan Muhammed Salih.

Edinburgh Speakers: Moazzam Begg (former Guantanamo prisoner), Salman Sayyid (author of  Recalling the Caliphate), Craig Murray (former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan), Nicola Fisher (Stop the War Coalition Scotland), Abed Choudhury (IHRC), Abdul Ahad Hussain (FOSIS Scotland), Ade Johnson (Justice for Sheku Bayoh Campaign), Charlotte Ahmed (UAF Scotland), Douglas Chalmers (President, UCU Scotland),  Samena Dean (MWAE).

London Conference supporting organisations included: African & Caribbean Diversity;

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities; Decolonising Our Minds Society; NUS Black Students; Lewisham Islamic Centre; Intifada Street; The Muslim Directory

Edinburgh conference supporting organisations: Muslim Council of Scotland, the Stop the War Coalition Scotland, CAGE, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) Scotland,  Unite Against Fascism Scotland (UAF) Scotland, the Muslim Women’s Association of Edinburgh (MWAE) , Amina Muslim Women’s Resource Centre (MWRC) , UAF Edinburgh, Revolutionary Communist Group Scotland – Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (RCG-FRFI), Edinburgh Stop the War Coalition, RISE Scotland’s Left Alliance.