HATRED TOWARD MUSLIMS BEGAN THE NIGHT OF THE ATTACKS
French organization has gathered 50 cases of state abuse
Doors have been busted open in the middle of the night; mosques raided during prayers; SWAT teams have charged into packed restaurants with automatic weapons at the ready.
France’s state of emergency, declared the night of the Paris terrorist attacks, has allowed French police to conduct warrantless searches and detain people without charge — extraordinary powers that have been used to target the Muslim community, religious leaders say.
In the past four weeks, more than 2,000 police raids have been carried out and reports of excessive property damage and violence have proliferated.
Yasser Louati is a spokesman for the Collective against Islamophobia in France. He spoke with the Star by phone from Paris. The interview has been translated from French and edited for length and clarity.
Q: Your organization claims the state of emergency has unfairly targeted Muslims. What evidence do you have?
A: The raids have disproportionately targeted people of Islamic faith with overt brutality. We’ve collected evidence of 50 cases of abuse — and these are just the ones we know about — where police hurled racist abuse at families, women were assaulted and one even miscarried. When raids are conducted on erroneous intelligence — 90 per cent of the raids have found nothing — why humiliate people? This is a government response that’s no more than a show of force. But the threat isn’t Muslims, it is terrorists.
Q: Has there been more racism since the attacks?
A: The hate began the night of the attacks. Even before the attacks were finished, we already had death threats against Muslims and calls for revenge. Veiled women have been assaulted in front of their children — verbally, with fists and even with a box cutter. It wasn’t like this in January (after the Charlie Hebdo attack), when we had a few hours of respite.
The other thing that has dramatically changed is the government’s silence. In January, the president, the prime minister, the interior minister, they all came out in solidarity with Muslims. But today, when faced with hateful speech, they’re not condemning it.
Q: Do you see a link between this racist backlash and the anti-immigrant National Front’s historic results in last weekend’s regional elections?
A: (National Front leader) Marine Le Pen’s ideas have been parroted by the media for a decade. Other political parties have adopted her policies. So the result of the election isn’t surprising. The National Front has consistently progressed, starting in certain cities and culminating in their best result ever in the last presidential election. Their extremist ideas have become banal. The attacks certainly played a role in exacerbating the tensions and fears in French society, but Marine Le Pen’s success is due to a bigger movement supported by the press and the wider political class.
Q: Speaking of the press, you appeared on CNN a few days after the attacks in an interview that has since gone viral. Do you feel the journalists treated you fairly?
A: I only barely remember the interview. It was two days after the attacks, and I hadn’t slept yet. But since then, I’ve watched the video and it’s unreal. What really shocked me was not so much the questions, other than the one that started: “There were eight of them, so the Muslim community must have known something.” When I listen to the question again, I think these people are crazy. To say that Muslims are supposed to take over intelligence gathering from the French government when our community has difficulty accessing work, education and housing — you’ve got to be kidding.
But what was really scandalous is what they said after my interview was over. “The word responsibility comes to mind,” said one. “You can’t shirk that.” The two CNN hosts want- ed me to take responsibility for the attacks, even when it was Muslims who were attacked. It’s as if I said to them: George Bush invaded Iraq and it’s his fault we have terrorist groups in France, will you take responsibility for that?
Q: This attitude, do you see it as reflecting a bigger problem of Islamophobia, not only in France but across the western world?
A: We saw what Donald Trump said this week about banning Muslim immigration to the U.S. All I have to say is, will he ban the rich Saudis too? I don’t think so. It’s just demagoguery. Donald Trump doesn’t have policy, he only has punchlines.
Regarding the growing Islamophobia in the West, it’s real but it’s not due to the presence of Muslims. We’ve fabricated a Muslim problem in our society. We refuse to see Muslims as full-fledged citizens. We see them as Muslim, therefore an “other,” a foreigner. Muslims have been citizens of France for four generations and we continue to treat them as second class.
And you have to see where this comes from. It’s politicians who have failed to address people’s needs for decades. They say: “The problem isn’t us, despite the incompetence, the failure to run the country, the unemployment and the deficits. No, no, Muslims are the problem.”