“The main reason we have Islamophobia is the Counter Terrorism apparatus”

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has recently published lectures from its most recent Islamophobia conference,[1] including the following remarks by Professor David Miller.

He begins with the bold statement,

“The main reason we have Islamophobia is the counterterrorism apparatus. It is not because we have racists in the streets, it is because of the counterterror apparatus. It is that which drives and creates islamophobia. There are other contributory factors towards Islamophobia, but the backbone of Islamophobia in this country and other countries is the counterterrorism apparatus…”

He points out the insistence of some politicians and police chiefs that “Radical Islam is the greatest threat to Britain” which, upon closer inspection and statistical analysis, is simply untrue. This is in addition to the flurry of “attacks” spread across the media; lesser crimes and antisocial behaviour carried out by Muslim perpetrators that are inflated into “terror plots” for the security establishment and Islamophobia industry to create more fear. This feeds into the “apparatus of propaganda” to create a “fake terrorism threat”.

Also read:

Revealed: How British Fearmongers Made Millions

The Prevent duty is also the subject of some remarks since its placing on statutory footing in the 2015 CTS Act, effectively spreading counterterrorism apparatus to all public sector employees.

“It seems to me that the position we are in now a year on from the Counter Terrorism and Security Act is a very worrying one… this is an attempt to margialise and push back against anyone who is a critic of UK foreign policy and indeed anyone who is a critic of the UK domestic Counterterrorism policy, the famous ‘Prevent lobby’…”

This goes to show that the light of facts and statistical analysis is sometimes all one needs to dispel the darkness that is required for inflating the “Islamist terror threat” and anti-Muslim hysteria. Last year we saw a landmark legal challenge against the UK’s Prevent policy,[2] which revealed similar and widespread problems with Prevent.[3]

Also read:

Dr Salman Butt launches legal case against UK Gov

Summary of Our Legal Case Against Prevent

The IHRC conference also featured other lectures, including from the renowned decolonial thinker Professor Ramón Grosfoguel, on Islamophobia as a “Coordinated Global Project” globalised coordination of Islamophobia: