Islamophobia Conference 2015
The Changing Face of Racism
Speakers include: Moazzam Begg (former Guantanamo prisoner), Salman Sayyid (author of Recalling the Caliphate), Craig Murray (former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan), Nicola Fisher (Stop the War Coalition Scotland), Abed Choudhury (IHRC), Abdul Ahad Hussain (FOSIS Scotland), Ade Johnson (Justice for Sheku Bayoh Campaign), Charlotte Ahmed (UAF Scotland), Douglas Chalmers (President, UCU Scotland), Samena Dean (MWAE).
Online registration is bow closed. You can register at the door from 10.45am. First session starts 11.15am promptly.
The conference will be livestreamed by Independence Live.
SACC and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) are presenting twin conferences in London and Edinburgh. The conferences follow the successful Islamophobia Conference held by IHRC in London in 2014, supported by SACC.
The 2014 conference focused on analysing institutional and structural forms of prejudice and hatred. Academics and activists from all over the UK attended the event, to take part in a discussion with an international panel of speakers. This year we hope to discuss how Islamophobia has evolved from and replaced biological racism from the colonial period. We will also place Islamophobia within the wider xenophobic narrative currently on the rise in Europe. Furthermore, the aim of the conference is to develop a discussion around ways we can articulate why Islamophobia is racism and how we can utilise this to fight against the rise of racism in Britain and Europe.
In Edinburgh, we'll look again at the problems of state Islamophobia and racism highlighted at the 2014 conference, and examine the ways that these themes are playing out in Scotland. In particular, we'll discuss the Government's Islamophobic 'Prevent' strategy, and look at ways of resisting it. And we'll discuss the part that both Islamophobia and anti-black racism played in the death of Sheku Bayoh in police custody in Kirkcaldy in May.
There will be sessions on Islamophobia, Colonialism and War (plenary), Roots of Racism, Racism and Islamophobia in Schools, The State and the Street (Plenary), Prevent and Racism and Islamophobia in Policing.
The cafe at the conference venue is available for lunch, as are various other cafes a few steps from the door.
Everyone welcome. Suggested financial contributions: £10 standard, £5 low income or £3 student/unwaged.
If your organisation would like to add its support, please contact us.
The conference programme will be available from this page once it has been finalised.
London Conference: details here.
