{"id":235509,"date":"2025-10-31T07:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T07:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/235509\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T07:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T07:39:09","slug":"head-of-uk-governments-anti-islamophobia-partner-refused-service-in-shop-for-being-muslim-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/235509\/","title":{"rendered":"Head of UK government\u2019s anti-Islamophobia partner \u2018refused service in shop for being Muslim\u2019 | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chief executive of the government\u2019s new official partner in tackling Islamophobia<\/a> has spoken about being refused service in a shop for being Muslim, amid concerns about a rise in insidious anti-Muslim \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d.<\/p>\n

The British Muslim Trust (BMT) is launching a government-backed telephone and online reporting service for hate crimes. In July, the trust was selected as a recipient of the government\u2019s \u201ccombating hate against Muslims fund\u201d<\/a>, and in the months since its chief executive, Akeela Ahmed<\/a>, has been meeting members of Muslim communities, including in Bradford in West Yorkshire, East Sussex, Greater London and Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n

Ahmed said it seemed the \u201cgap is closing\u201d between hate speech and inflammatory comment online \u2013 from social media groups to newspaper comment sections \u2013 and anti-Muslim hatred in real life, which remained \u201cunderreported and underrecognised.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, BMT hopes to research the impact of online discourse and \u201ccall on ministers if research showed social media companies are not being held to account\u201d under existing legislation, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not even just talking about content that could be racist or anti-Muslim in nature. We\u2019re talking about content that is inciting violence, that is actually breaking the law,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cWe would not be asking for any special favours or special measures just for Muslim communities. This is literally about upholding the law as it is and enacting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed said that in Bradford and Greater Manchester she had encountered \u201cfatigue\u201d and a sense of \u201cdisconnection from central government\u201d in people who had been \u201craising the alarm about anti-Muslim hatred impacting their lives for a number of years\u201d.<\/p>\n

Difficulties faced by Muslims she spoke to included being ignored as customers by staff who silently refused to serve them.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI think Muslims are an easy target because they are visible. People like me who wear a hijab. Pretty much everywhere that we visited, people described feeling like they were experiencing levels of hate that their parents had experienced in the 70s and the 80s.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they expressed how they felt that whereas the older generations might have just been like \u2018we\u2019re going keep our heads down, we\u2019re gonna prove our worth, get on with our lives, not make a fuss\u2019 \u2013 they felt that they were a different generation and they were doing all the right things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were contributing to society, they\u2019re accomplished, educated, integrated. But despite that, there were these questions about their place in society, questions about whether or not they\u2019re British, whether or not they\u2019re loyal, what their place is \u2026 there was rhetoric around looking at Muslims as a completely homogenised group which is a threat to society. And they felt that was then translating into greater hostility.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople spoke about how they felt like if they went to a shop they wouldn\u2019t be served, whereas other people around them were being served \u2013 a lot of these kind of microaggressions \u2026 because they\u2019re Muslim, because of the way they looked.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ahmed added: \u201cIt\u2019s something I experienced myself, where I was in a shop and the people around me were being served but I wasn\u2019t served.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst you feel helpless, and then you second guess yourself \u2026 sort of gaslight yourself into thinking that it must have been something that you did wrong. [But] basically there wasn\u2019t anybody else who looked like me in the shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new definition of Islamophobia being considered by UK ministers is expected to \u201cprotect the freedom to criticise Islam\u201d, while helping provide a framework for countering the rise in anti-Muslim hate incidents<\/a>. A government source said ministers were committed to \u201cprotecting people, not religions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ahmed said BMT would have a robust approach to data, aspiring to \u201chave the same level of trust\u201d in Muslim communities as the \u201cgold standard\u201d Community Security Trust did with Jewish communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to paint a holistic and comprehensive picture of exactly what people are experiencing. Not only will we be recording incidents that people report to us of Islamophobia, we\u2019re also, as you say, going out, listening to people through outreach and roadshows, recording that as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll also be doing research that will paint a comprehensive understanding of what\u2019s happening on the ground and then we\u2019ll present those findings to government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

From 30 October, members of the public will be able to report incidents to BMT between 10am and 3pm. For more information, visit the British Muslim Trust\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chief executive of the government\u2019s new official partner in tackling Islamophobia has spoken about being refused service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-235509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}