Radio Islam News Team – 18/11/2015

Reports of Islamophobia has emerged following the Paris attacks, and fears of attacks on Muslims in Paris have risen.

After gunmen attacked the magazine Charlie Hebdo in January, there were nearly as many anti-Muslim incidents in the two weeks following the attacks as there were in all of the previous year.

More than 220 anti-Muslim acts were recorded in the first quarter of 2015 with incidents including violent assaults and destruction of Muslim places of worship

Spokesperson and head of the International Relations Desk for the Collective against Islamophobia in France Yasser Louati discussed how the Muslim Community in Paris are dealing with the aftermath of the attacks following a highly criticized interview on CNN which was described as biased by people from around the world.

Louati says he was surprised with the level of attention the interview attracted, only realising later the biased comments made by the CNN anchors.

CNN anchors John Vause and Isha Sesay spent a good six-plus minutes blaming French Muslims either for not doing enough before the attacks or for not doing enough after the attacks.

“Why is it that no one within the Muslim community there in France knew what these guys were up to?” asked Vause of Louati. “Because it seems to me that this was a pretty big plan. Surely someone beyond the seven guys who’ve been killed over the last 48 hours would have to have known something and that was probably within the Muslim community but yet no one said anything.”

Louati says he was shocked by the comments and only realised afterwards that the questions that were posed to him were biased.

He says he received an apology from CNN and the people working there for the actions of those two ‘idiots’.

Louati highlighted that over 100 000 Muslims died between World War One and World War Two defending France, saying “we won’t forget that”.