The coronavirus hysteria may be wildly overblown, but the idea that authorities in shattered, staggering, dhimmi Britain, of all places, are targeting Muslims in particular with lockdown measures is beyond absurd. Still, where there is no “Islamophobia,” some must be invented, so as to preserve the victimhood narrative that leads to so many perks.
“‘I smell Islamophobia’: British Muslims decry lockdown imposed hours before Eid,” by Rayhan Uddin, Middle East Eye, July 31, 2020:
A local coronavirus lockdown in the north of England announced by the UK government late on Thursday night, hours before the festival of Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday, has caused outrage among British Muslims.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted a thread just after 9pm announcing that households in Manchester and surrounding areas could not meet other families indoors, citing an increasing rate of coronavirus transmission in the area.
“Based on the data, we decided that in Greater Manchester, parts of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire we need to take immediate action to keep people safe”, Hancock wrote.
The health secretary said that the spread was due to households meeting and not abiding by social distancing.
“From midnight tonight, people from different households will not be allowed to meet each other indoors in these areas,” he announced.
“We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of Covid across Europe and are determined to do whatever is necessary to keep people safe.”
The announcement was met with fierce criticism on social media, with many linking the timing with Eid al-Adha, which began on Friday.
One user said that she “smelled Islamophobia” in the decision.
Several towns and cities now under lockdown, including Oldham, Bolton and Bradford, have high proportions of Muslims according to the most recent UK census.
“It may well be the right decision but the timing is really poor,” Furqan Naeem, a community organiser for Citizens UK in Greater Manchester told Middle East Eye.
“Thousands of families would have made plans to be with each other, and some probably would have been in bed asleep when the government announced its message late last night,” Naeem said.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, said that announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter was “a new low for the government’s communications during this crisis”.
Several critics pointed out that a similar decision would likely not have been made had it been Christmas Eve.
“With the first day of Eid being today, for Muslims in the affected areas, it is like being told they cannot visit family and friends for Christmas on Christmas Eve itself,” Harun Khan, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a statement on Friday.
“The UK government has failed to provide clarity on the shockingly short notice and the reasoning behind the new rules that British Muslims deserve – any such clarification would be most welcome,” Khan said.
Muslims in the north of England noted the contradiction that while they were not allowed to meet family members inside households, restaurants and pubs were still open.
Syed Rahi, a geography student from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, said he couldn’t understand the decision.
“I can’t get my head around it. No one can see me in my house, but they can see me in another enclosed area like a pub or restaurant,” he told MEE.
“If we’re going to do a lockdown, it should be a proper lockdown. Close the shops, close the pubs, don’t just isolate a minority group and make us seem like we’re causing a second wave.”…
CogitoErgoSum says
Looks like a man’s home is NOT his castle … it belongs to the government and can sometimes be used as a dungeon. I have to say I’m in agreement with the Muslims on this but it’s not the Muslims being targeted, it’s all the poor peasants who may be endangering the health of their overlords.
James Lincoln says
CogitoErgoSum says,
“Looks like a man’s home is NOT his castle … it belongs to the government”
That’s actually a true statement.
Try NOT paying your property taxes – and see what happens…
Ray Jarman says
++++++++1 CogitoErgoSum & James, Both of you have great points and just ask Mark and Patricia McCloskey who actually defended their home from a mob of rioters about their home being their castle.
Peter Buckley says
“Islamophobia”: Jole word of the century.
Even muslims themselves, supposedly the victims of “it”, object to it:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/maajid-nawaz/maajid-nawaz-wants-the-word-islamophobia-scrapped/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alkCxTHWa_I&feature=emb_logo
Imam Mohammad Tahwidi: “Islamophobia does not exist.”
Also many ex-muslims exposing the word “Islamophobia” here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTECBfbUGMI
Journalists who use the word need to be asked why they are using a word which offends muslims,
Journalists need to publicly grilled (preferably by someone with a brain) on what they mean by “Islamophobia”. The results would be hilarious….
Antiislamicman says
That means they can’t smell a thing as this so called Islamophobia does not exist.
More Islamic nonsense as usual.
Savvy Kafir says
It’s the religion of perpetual outrage, as Michelle Malkin refers to it. I think all these miffed Muslims would be much more at home in the Islamic sh*t-hole societies they (or their parents or grandparents) came from. And we should insist they return there.
Eva says
AMEN!!!!
Send them back!!!
tim gallagher says
I agree, Savvy Kafir. Muslims never stop complaining. they are nothing but trouble. In Australia, a fool of a Health Minister in the State of New South Wales, gave a mosque in Auburn, a suburb of Sydney with a large population of Muslims, permission to have 400 people attend the mosque for this Eid celebration a week or so back. They agreed to divide the mob up into smaller groups and keep up the social distancing. The main thing I thought, apart from how pathetic it was for the minister to give the Muslims rights that weren’t allowed to other groups was, now why would the Muslims make a request to be allowed this special dispensation that other groups didn’t ask for. Because they are always pains in the arse. Probably because of their supremacist view of themselves, they think that they don’t have to follow the rules everyone else is following. As you say, always outraged and always asking for special treatment. Complete pains in arse and nothing but trouble when compared to other groups of people. Buddhists or Christians wouldn’t ask for this type of special treatment.
J Morgan says
My son graduated high school with no ceremony or party or prom. He is starting college and won’t get to meet any of the other kids. There is a lot of sacrificing going on during this Pandemic. Why do the Muslims feel this lock-down is affecting them only?
gravenimage says
So true.
James Lincoln says
My guess is that “islamophobia” has the smell of freshly cooked bacon.
Can’t have that…
FYI says
To paraphrase Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore from the movie Apocalypse Now.
“You smell that?Do you smell that?
BACON,son.
Nothing else in the world smells like that.
I love the smell of BACON in the morning.
That smell,you know that BACON smell?
It smells like {sniff}…V-I-C-T-O-R-Y”
Ren says
Islamophobia smells so good.
gravenimage says
‘I smell Islamophobia’: Muslims in UK seethe and whine over lockdown imposed hours before Eid al-Adha
………………..
What crap–the lockdown also affected celebrations of Passover and Easter.
Jayell says
OK, so if the UK authorities do what they normally seem to do and turn a blind eye, or try to cover up, every illegal or antisocial act committed by muslims, they would then allow these muslims to hold their mass gatherings during Eid. Then, logically, these muslims would contract the virus (as as happened in Leicester) and a disproportionate number of them might die as a result. So, since these deaths – specifically of muslims – would have occurred as a result of a ‘natural’ course of events, would this then count as an ‘islamophobic’ act by Allah?
By the way, Gravenimage is absolutely correct, as usual. Passover and Easter celebrations were indeed cancelled because of the virus, but our muslim ‘friends’ wouldn’t have noticed or bothered about themselves about the completely irrelevant affairs of mere infidels.
gravenimage says
+1
Idol and Icon says
Official UK statistics state that minorities are about twice as likely to break social distancing and lockdown laws as are whites. Point?
Rob R (Brit stuck in Britainistan) says
I seethe all the time about what ISISlam is doing to my country.
A better headline would have been “Muslims see Islamophobia where there is none”.
Dawne Swift says
All of the areas in the UK (yes, ALL) which have had to be put into local lockdown because the infection is again becoming rampant, are areas where there are large Muslim populations. Night after night in the MSM news programmes they try to explain it away by “multi generational households”, “poverty”, “BAME communities being more susceptible”. This is total nonsense and everybody knows it.
The Muslim population here just does not believe that it has to adhere to the laws of the UK. And when they are reined in slightly – e,g, by this renewed lockdown – it’s “Islamophobia”. Actually in these areas Muslims are in a minority, so all of the other people living there – whites, Hindus, whoever – are all penalised because of the supreme arrogance of Muslims.