Muslims Targeted ‘Like Jews of Europe’


London: Britain’s first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims in the UK, saying that many feel targeted like “the Jews of Europe”, The Independent reported on Friday.
Shahid Malik, who was appointed as a minister in the Department for International Development by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last summer, said it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority, according to the British newspaper.
Malik made clear that he was not equating the situation with the Holocaust but warned that many British Muslims now felt like “aliens in their own country”. He said he himself had been the target of a string of racist incidents.
The MP said the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media was a key example of how his co-religionists were being alienated from the mainstream.
He remarked, “It’s almost as if you don’t have to check your facts when it comes to certain people, and you can just run with those stories.”

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
© 2004 pakistanlink.com . All Rights Reserved.