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Issue 211, Friday 24 November 2006 - 4 Dhu al-Qa'dah 1427 Since 9/11, students bullied for being Muslim in schools By Safa Suling Tan There has been an increase in Muslim students being bullied in schools since September 11, 2001. At the conference on ‘Tackling Prejudice-Related Bullying’ organised by National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) on November 13, in London, the General Secretary of NASUWT, Chris Keates said, “Since September 11, 2001, and the London bombings in 2005, anti-Muslim prejudice and racism - Islamophobia - has intensified. Unfounded hostility to Islam has resulted in an increased level of fear within the Muslim and other communities. The high profile given to often ill-informed comments and commentary on cultural differences, including dress have fanned the flames of prejudice. We know from members in schools that this has exacerbated an already existing problem of racist attitudes and bullying and victimisation associated with it and has been interpreted almost as giving ‘permission’ to bully.” At Nottingham Manning Comprehensive Girl’s School, exactly such a bullying was played out in the first week of November 2006. 11 year-old Muna Mansur was repeatedly hit by a white girl as she was praying. Muna told The Muslim News, “One girl sat next to me and started hitting me. She did it two or three times and I ignored her, I didn’t hit her once. I just told her to stop it, but she kept on doing it.” Though schools are legally required to provide rights of religious observance, a group of thirteen Muslim students had to pray outside in the playground as they were denied a room by the school to observe their religious duties. “We didn’t have a prayer room. I found out that we can pray outside in the playground so I and a group of girls went to pray outside. A group of girls came around us when we were praying. They started laughing at us and said ‘look at them sticking their bums to the sky,’” Muna related. Muna said that her sister Jamila and a group of other Muslim girls came to, “not to tell her off, but to tell her to stop. But she wouldn’t, when we told her to stop she asked, ‘what are you going to do about it?’” Muna’s voice carried much hurt and disillusionment with the authority figures that were supposed to protect and provide a safe and secure environment at the school, “When I went to the head teacher she called the other girl and told her to say sorry to me. The head teacher asked me if that’s OK, I said it was, but I only said that because the teacher was there. The teacher could have excluded her, gave her detention or even called her parents but she didn’t. All she did was ask her to say sorry. I went home and found a little bruise were she kept hitting me, but that’s not what made me sad. It’s not the hitting but the making fun of my religion that made me sad. The head teacher should know how important my religion is, I was even praying outside.” Earlier in September, another girl, 11 year-old Sundus Al-Ameen was called an “Iraqi suicide bomber” on three separate occasions. The first abuse happened at 9.10am on September 8. Sundus had taken that lightly and did not report it. The second abuse happened two hours later, when the same white girl came with a gang of eight others. She even encouraged others to verbally abuse Sundus. A frightened Sundus went to the head teacher, Lesley Lyon, to complain, and was told to come back should it happen a third time. The third time came at 1.15pm when the same girl taunted her by screaming, “Help, Help, Suicide Bomber, Suicide Bomber!” and ran away from Sundus. This time, Sundus complained to the other head teacher, Jo Horsey, who promised Sundus she will look into the matter. However, her father asserts that nothing was done, the school “took no account of the serious nature of the incident…[and] failed to do anything to end such provocations and harassments.” In a separate matter, her older sister, Yasmeen and seventy others claimed they were turned down by the school when they had requested for a supervised place to pray during Ramadan. Their father, Dr Sanaa Al-Ameen who had immigrated to Britain from Iraq thirty years ago, told The Muslim News, “My daughter [Sundus] was advised to complain if it happens again. What kind of advice is that to give to a child who was subjected to a racist comment? Why subject a child to hear that for a third time? When it happened again the head teacher said she ‘told off’ the other girl, but where’s the punishment? What would happen if a Black or Asian child subjected a white child to this? When my other daughter [Yasmeen] asked for a prayer room she was told she needed a written permission. The school refused to announce that a prayer room was available so how do other parents know the service is provided? There was even a deputy head standing outside the prayer room not allowing girls to go in and pray unless they had a written permission from their parents. When my daughter gave the head teacher a letter with the names of all the girls who wanted to pray, she was told they had to hand in separate letters.” Despite the fact that these Muslim pupils have alleged to experience Islamophobic bullying where the perpetrators were not punished, and the infringement of their religious rights, the school denies any such claims. Nottingham Manning Comprehensive Girls’ School said that the school teaches the students respect for each other’s race, culture and religion; and that the race and religion based incidents have been treated seriously and dealt with under the school’s policy of restorative justice. Jo Horsey, who shares the role of head teacher with Lesley Lyon, told The Muslim News that the incident with Muna Mansur was a matter of misinterpretation and tit for tat, “One white student poked a Muslim student on the arm as she was speaking in Arabic, and said, ‘Why are you talking about me?’ Muna then prodded her back and said, ‘Go away, I am praying.’ The white girl then hit Muna once on the arm.” Horsey claimed that both girls were called in and Lyon interrogated them and “both girls agreed that that was what happened” and the white girl was made to see the wrongness of her actions and asked to apologise and the matter was settled. The incident was then recorded in a racism incident log which all schools have, to keep track of all such racist incidents. Horsey said that a “second time of racist act is dealt with differently.” Regarding the incidents with Sundus, Horsey explained that that case was “dealt with exactly the same way, but very seriously. The white girl was called out of her class and monitored.” Horsey also denied the claim of the school refusing to provide a room for Muslims during Ramadan, “Absolute nonsense. We always make a supervised room for girls during Ramadan.” The school also says that it provides a room for Muslims to pray outside of Ramadan, “We have already made that provision before the incidents and media reports. If parents write in to the school to make a special case for their religious requirements to be met, then we put it into place.” However, the existence of such a prayer room for Muslims is not made known to the school Muslim population as the school says that “We have to make sure that we treat all pupils the same. We cannot announce to the school that there is such a room provided.” Chris Keates of NASUWT said that their “research on racial harassment in schools showed that a significant number of schools and local authorities were still not meeting their obligations to monitor and record racist incidents.” A spokesman from the Department of Education and Skills told The Muslim News, “We deplore any act of racist bullying as evident from the law in effect since 1999 that prevents all forms of bullying including racist bullying,” but refused to take up the issue of the Nottingham school bullying as, “We give the strategic directions of policies and the local authorities have the responsibility to implement it at the school level.” Nottingham City Council’s spokesperson told The Muslim News, “It is up to individual schools to respond to requests made in relation to religious observance depending on the specific circumstances. We support and advise our schools in implementing their own policies for tackling bullying in all its forms and in dealing with possible racist incidents.” Islamophobic attacks p13 If you have experienced bullying or know of anyone else, please email us: bullying@muslimnews.co.uk
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