This report has been produced by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation, established in March 1997, and based in the United Kingdom. The aims of the IHRC are as follows:
- To champion the rights and duties revealed for human beings;
- To promote a new social and international order, base on truth, justice, righteousness and generosity, rather than selfish interest;
- To demand virtue and oppose wrongdoing in the exercise of power (from whatever base that power derives – e.g. political, judicial, media, economic, military, personal, etc.);
- To gather information about, and to publicise, atrocities, oppression, discrimination, and other abuses of divinely-granted rights;
- To campaign for redress and to support the victims, of such crimes;
- To campaign to bring the perpetrators and their accomplices to justice;
- To cooperate with other groups and individuals where such cooperation is likely to further the achievement of these aims.
In pursuing these aims, the IHRC has dealt with numerous cases of discrimination, and incitement to hostility, against Muslims in the UK. Towards the end of 1998, we decided to survey the extent of the problem, and devised a questionnaire to be distributed among the Muslim community. That questionnaire was distributed at the end of 1998 / beginning of 1999 and again at the end of 1999 / beginning of 2000.
The report presents the results of analysing the returned questionnaires in 1999, and again in 2000, together with supporting information and case studies that illustrate the nature, extent, and effects of anti-Muslim discrimination and hostility in the fields of education, employment, and the media.
Finally, the report outlines the shortcomings of the existing legal system, the prospects for improvement when the 1998 Human Rights Act comes into force, and additional changes to the law that are needed to address the problem fully.
