British MPs call for definition of Islamophobia as ‘type of racism’

Harmful myths and lies about Muslims are now believed by a large section of the UK’s population, contributing to discrimination across employment, housing, the criminal justice system and other areas of public life, a new report by MPs has found.

 

Harmful myths and lies about Muslims are now believed by a large section of the UK’s population, contributing to discrimination across employment, housing, the criminal justice system and other areas of public life, a new report by MPs has found.

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims found that “prevalent” Islamophobia was driving division, hate crime and even terror attacks.

“British society at large, by virtue of normalized prejudice against Muslim beliefs and practice, have come to imbibe a panoply of falsehoods or misrepresentations and discriminatory outlooks,” its report said.

“Academic research has consistently shown that British Muslims face considerably high levels of economic disadvantage than other groups in Britain.”

While a report by market research company Ipsos Mori found that the majority of Muslims believe Islam is compatible with the British way of life, a separate survey of the wider population by polling firm YouGov, found that 46 per cent thought there was a “fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society”.

A separate study recently found almost a third of British people believe the myth of “no-go zones” where non-Muslims cannot enter, while the MPs took aim at false and misleading news stories.