{"id":2270,"date":"2006-09-04T17:52:25","date_gmt":"2006-09-04T17:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2006\/09\/04\/pm-accused-of-creating-negative-muslim-images\/"},"modified":"2016-01-06T16:35:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:35:32","slug":"pm-accused-of-creating-negative-muslim-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2006\/09\/04\/pm-accused-of-creating-negative-muslim-images\/","title":{"rendered":"PM accused of creating ‘negative’ Muslim images"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE UK’S first Muslim Miss England has hit out at Prime Minister Tony Blair accusing him of creating a negative image of Islam following the 7\/7 London bombings.<\/strong><\/div>\n

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19-year-old Hammasa Kohistani said Mr Blair was guilty of fuelling hostility towards Islam.<\/div>\n

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Speaking to the media as she returned to Uxbridge College, west London, to study for her A-Levels, she said: “Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within.<\/div>\n

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“That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community”, she said, adding, “Even the more moderate Muslims have been stereotyped negatively and feel they have to take actions to prove themselves.” <\/div>\n

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She said 7\/7 had represented “a reality slap” for those who thought Britain would never see such atrocities.<\/div>\n

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“I think in a sense it brought communities together,” she said. But at the same time “there is this hostility”, which comes “mainly from the Government”.<\/div>\n

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The Prime Minister told MPs in July this year that moderate Muslims were not doing enough to tackle extremists in their own community.<\/div>\n

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He said “the moderate majority” must “stand up against the ideas of these people”. “You cannot defeat this extremism through what a Government does. You can only defeat it within a community,” he said.<\/div>\n

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The 19-year-old made history last year when she became the first Muslim to be crowned Miss England. <\/div>\n

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She said general perceptions of Muslims had worsened, adding she was a “symbol” to prove “it’s not really that bad.”<\/div>\n

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She said: “”The attitude towards Muslims has got worse over the year. Also the Muslims’ attitude to British people has got worse. <\/div>\n

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“Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more. <\/div>\n

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“People may feel I am just a sugar coating on the situation. I am a symbol to show it’s not really that bad.<\/div>\n

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“I like being in the limelight because people can look at me and see I am a Muslim but good. Most of the people being pinpointed are judged by their outer appearances and people assume because they are Muslim and have a beard they have done something wrong.”<\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE UK’S first Muslim Miss England has hit out at Prime Minister Tony Blair accusing him of creating a negative image of Islam following the 7\/7 London bombings. 19-year-old Hammasa Kohistani said Mr Blair was guilty of fuelling hostility towards Islam. Speaking to the media as she returned to Uxbridge College, west London, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}