A preview of forthcoming activities at IHRC and highlights of recent ones
AUTHOR EVENING
IHRC will be holding an author evening on Thursday 25 April, with Dr Sadek Hamid and Professor Tahir Abbas to discuss their book ‘Political Muslims: Understanding Youth Resistance in a Global Context.’
The aftermath of the events of 9/11 heightened media, academic and public interest in Islam and Muslims around the world and often focused on the increasing population of young Muslims and generating anxieties about religious radicalism, Islamism and conflicts in multicultural societies. Few studies, however, have been explored how a new generation of Muslims are reshaping their societies in positive ways. In their edited international comparative volume Political Muslims, Tahir Abbas and Sadek Hamid offer cutting edge perspectives on Muslim youth, presenting them as agents of creative social transformation and as active participants in cultural and community organizations that practice resistance and to negotiate change by offering a series of case studies that cross the globe, contributors capture the experiences of being young and Muslim in ten countries—the United States, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir.
WHEN: Thursday 25 April 2019, 6.30pm
WHERE: IHRC Bookshop, 202 Preston Road, Wembley, HA9 8PA
The book will available to purchase online and in-store and the event will be streamed LIVE on the IHRC Facebook page and on IHRC.TV
EVENT REPORTS
A number of event reports have now been added to the website. These include:
UN side panel meeting on Sheikh Zakzaky
IHRC convened a side panel meeting highlighting the case of the imprisoned leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 18 September 2018. The Sheikh and his wife continue to be held in violation of a court order demanding their release from detention by the state security services. They have been held largely incommunicado since the Zaria Massacre of December 2015 in which Zakzaky was shot along with his wife, Zeenah, and arrested during an orgy of violence against the Islamic Movement of Nigeria which resulted in the masacre of 1000 supporters of the movement.
A video of the event is now available at
Side Panel Meeting on how sanctions can amount to war crimes
IHRC also convened a side panel meeting to discuss the impact of international sanctions on human rights at the 39th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The meeting, held on 19 September 2018, focused on how punitive sanctions to effect regime change can in fact amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
A video and more information about the event is available at
The Rohingya
In July 2016 Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari joined us to discuss his book ‘The Rohingya Crisis – A People Facing Extinction’ and the larger crisis that is facing the persecuted community. Widely-known as the world’s most persecuted minority group, the Rohingya in Myanmar are now facing extinction. In this concise but powerfully argued book, he brings to light the scale and barbarity of their suffering and argues that the international community, through the UN, must ensure their full repatriation with full citizen rights to their homeland.
To watch the video and get more information visit
A video is also available of Lauren Booth’s visit to the IHRC Bookshop to discuss her memoir ‘Finding Peace in the Holy Land’ on 4 October 2018. Booth is a half-sister of Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
IHRC in the Media
The case of “Isis bride” Shamima Begum was widely discussed in the mainstream media. Here are two debates in which IHRC participated.
After a shooting range in the UK used Shamima Begum’s picture for target practice. Andre Walker and Raza Kazim, spokesperson for Islamic Human Rights Commission, debated the issue on RT
IHRC Chair Massoud Shadjareh and Dr. Myriam Francois of SOAS were among the guests discussing the controversial decision to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze on 20 February 2019.
POETRY
This section features a moving new poem by Narjis Khan, a tribute to the steadfastness of the Palestinians fighting for freedom and a confirmation of the justness of their cause.
COMMENT
In January this year the Tony Blair Institute published a report “Narratives of Division” that sought to “name and shame” Muslim organisations that it claimed fell into the (problematic) category of “non-violent extremism”.
Its publication could not have been any more timely since just weeks earlier IHRC published a briefing analysing how the label “extremism” was being used to elbow Muslim organisations out of policymaking. This critique exposes the document’s Islamophobic assumptions and flaws as well as the suspect funding that underpins the work of the Tony Blair Institute
BOOKSHOP
IHRC Bookshop is offering 10% off all purchases for the month of Rajab. The code is READY4RAJAB.
New books include Amrit Wilson’s “Finding A Voice: Asian Women in Britain”. Forty years after its first publication, this path-breaking book, is being republished with a remarkable new chapter titled ‘In conversation with Finding a Voice: 40 years on’ in which younger South Asian women write about their own lives and struggles weaving them around those portrayed in the book.
We also stock ‘It’s Not About the Burqa’ by Mariam Khan, an anthology in which seventeen Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex, and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country.
