- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
THE Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has submitted a formal complaint to a human rights watchdog to look into claims of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
In its complaint filed with the Equal and Human Rights Commission (EHCR), said previous calls for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia have been largely ignored and no action has been taken on perpetrators.
“We have taken this step after an unprecedented number of cases have been brought to our attention, suggesting a culture within the Conservative Party where Islamophobia is not only widespread, but institutional,” said Harun Rashid Khan, secretary general of the MCB. “We now request the EHRC to look at all the evidence and investigate this matter with great urgency.”
Miqdaad Versi, head of media monitoring for the MCB, said often Islamophobia is “ignited and legitimised by reckless politicians, to serve their own political agendas.”
The MCB has sent more than 20 pages of evidence to the commission, naming Boris Johnson, Bob Blackman, Zac Goldsmith, Michael Fabricant and Philip Hollobone for exhibiting Islamophobic behaviour.
Johnson was criticised for comparing veiled Muslim women to letter boxes and bank robbers, but he was cleared of breaching the Conservative Party’s code of conduct.
Versi added: “It is regrettable that the Conservatives have refused to take our concerns seriously or that of their own Conservative peers. Furthermore, the current Conservative-led government has also decided to reject a definition of Islamophobia as accepted by the MCB and key Muslim stakeholders, which leads us to question, what message do the Conservatives want to send to Muslim communities?”
The MCB complaint comes the same day the EHRC announced it was launching a formal investigation into the Labour Party over allegations of anti-Semitism.
In recent months, a number of Tory members have been suspended for posting Islamophobic comments on social media. However, the party faced backlash for reinstating some councillors who had been suspended over racist posts.
