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Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) (formerly iENGAGE) [1] is a UK NGO. It focuses on media monitoring, advocacy in Westminster and improving the media/political literacy of British Muslims. The aim of the organisation is to tackle Islamophobia and to encourage political, civic and social engagement within British Muslim communities.
MEND was founded by Sufyan Ismail and established in 2014, building on previous work by iENGAGE.
MEND monitors daily media coverage pertaining to British Muslims [2] and provides commentary on stories where it believes Islamophobic narratives are present. MEND is a recognised as a 'representative body' [3] for British Muslims with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).
Over the years, MEND has extensively featured at fringe events in mainstream political party conferences. In 2014, prior to the upcoming general election, MEND's panel at the Conservative Party Conference featured the party's election strategist Lynton Crosby [4] and Peter Oborne. MEND's panel at the Labour Party conference the same year featured Owen Jones and Keith Vaz, amongst others.
At the 2017 party conferences, MEND ran a fringe event at the Labour Party conference focussing on the empowerment of Muslim women with speakers including the politicians Diane Abbott, Kate Green, Rushanara Ali, and Naz Shah. At the 2017 Conservative Party conference, MEND ran a fringe event with speakers Nazir Afzal and Peter Oborne on the topic of the Conservative Party's relationship with Muslim communities.
In November 2017, MEND launched its annual Islamophobia Awareness Month (IAM) in Parliament. IAM is an inter-community campaign which runs throughout November each year in partnership with Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC), local councils, journalists and local media, councillors and local MPs, mosques, universities, schools, community organisations and others, in order to highlight the positive contributions of British Muslims and raise awareness of Islamophobia. At the parliamentary launch in 2017, the event was chaired by Stephen Kinnock, while speakers included Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, Wes Streeting, Naz Shah, Afzal Khan, Kate Green and the Liberal Democrat Lord Brian Paddick, as well as representatives from the NUS, Byline Media, Spinwatch and Hacked Off. Other speakers included the barrister Hashi Mohammed, as the representative to Max Hill QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism, Dr Rimla Akhtar, Chair of the Muslim Women's Sports Foundation, and the Reverend Steven Saxby. [5]
The organisation has also produced dozens of briefing papers [6] on concerns for British Muslims, including hate crime, press regulation, Stop and Search, Schedule 7, police and crime commissioners, halal slaughter, counter terror law, and more.
MEND is opposed to governmental anti-extremism programmes: MEND and Shakeel Begg stated its opposition to the appointment of British Muslim human rights activist Sara Khan as the anti-extremism coordinator, as she supports the government's Prevent anti-extremism programme. [7] MEND has attacked Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Faith Matters, as being islamophobic. [7]
In 2018, the governor of St Stephen’s Primary School in east London said MEND had exerted pressure on him. MEND said it had helped parents to engage in a constructive dialogue with the school. [8]
MEND operates an extensive grassroots community engagement [9] programme whereby is seeks to improve the media and political literacy of British Muslims. Its objective is achieved via national awareness seminars [10] on Islamophobia coupled with masterclasses [11] on media and political engagement. MEND has local working groups nationally in cities and towns across the United Kingdom [12] who work with their local Muslim and non-Muslim communities to tackle Islamophobia.
In 2014, with only the Met Police in London recording Islamophobic hate crime as a separately category of crime, MEND started working with UK constabularies to encourage them to record Islamophobia as a separate category of crime, similar to the treatment offered to racist and anti-Semitic hate crimes. By 2015, MEND had successfully ensured one-quarter of forces would be recording Islamophobic hate crime as a separate category of crime. [13] In late 2015, the UK Government, building on MEND's work, announced that all UK forces will be required to record Islamophobic hate crimes in a separate category. [14] The change comes into force on 1 April 2016.
In its approach to both general and local elections, MEND produces manifestos to advise candidates on the issues that are of interest to Muslims within their constituencies. [15] In addition to this, MEND also provides summaries of major party manifestos in order to help British Muslims to understand the main issues that may concern them and opposing parties' positions on them. Leading up to the 2015 general election, Andrew Gilligan in The Daily Telegraph claimed that MEND saw itself as kingmaker in the upcoming election. [16] MEND disputed the allegation and said that Andrew Gilligan had selectively quoted the comments made in reference to the importance of Muslims voting in the general election. [17]
MEND's director of engagement Azad Ali has stated that the jihadist 2017 Westminster attack, in which Khalid Masood killed five people, was "not terrorism". [18]
A 2017 report by Henry Jackson Society (HJS) alleged the group had legitimised the killing of British troops and promoted conspiracy theories. Shortly after the HJS report was published, the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims plus three other MPs pulled out of a House of Commons event with MEND. [19] [20] Another MP, Wes Streeting, did not pull out, highlighting the group's explicit opposition to antisemitism and homophobia. [21]
MEND responded to allegations of extremism with a rebuttal stating they are not 'anti-Government' or 'Extremists', they do not support or sympathise with terrorism, and they are not antisemitic. [22] MEND responded to allegations of homophobia by stating that their 2015 and 2017 Manifestos both explicitly called for better legal protections against homophobic hate crime. The organisation stated that they unequivocally attest that hatred on the basis of religious, sexual, ethnic or gendered identity is categorically unacceptable and should be resisted wherever it is found. They also pointed to their work in developing a series of educational resources and training programs to aid in the teaching of Islamophobia, antisemitism and all forms of hatred. [23]
On 14 March 2024, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, speaking in Parliament, said MEND was one of five organisations that would be assessed against the new UK Government definition of extremism. [24]
In 2014, MEND (formerly iENGAGE)'s work was commended as "best practice" in "Human Rights Promotion and Protection" in a World Economic Forum report entitled Why Care about Faith?. [25]
The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights rated MEND the “best example for civil society organisations”.[ citation needed ]
Writing in The Parliament Magazine , Sajjad Karim stated that the EU could learn a lot from MEND’s work on counter-radicalisation through engagement. [26]
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereotype Muslims as a geopolitical threat or a source of terrorism. Muslims, with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, are often inaccurately portrayed by Islamophobes as a single homogenous racial group.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a non-profit organisation based in London. Its stated mission is to "champion the rights & duties revealed for human beings" and to "promote a new social [and] international order, based on truth, justice, righteousness [and] generosity, rather than selfish interest." The group was established in 1997. The organisation, since 2007, has held consultative status with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is an umbrella body of Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom, with over 500 affiliated mosques and organisations. It was formed in 1994 in response to British government's expressed wish for a single representative body of Muslims it could talk to. It has been called the best known and most powerful of the Muslim organisations founded since 1990.
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK) is a London-based British Muslim lobby and civil liberties group founded to address what it perceived as the under-representation of Muslims in British politics. The organisation is active primarily in electoral campaigns and media appearances.
Far-right politics are a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century, with the formation of Nazi, fascist and antisemitic movements. One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations, being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF), the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP), or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those groups, such as the English Defence League, who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture, and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.
Islamophobia Watch was a website which was initiated in January 2005 as a non-profit project to document material in the media, and in society at large, which it perceives to advocate Islamophobia. The site ceased by the end of January 2015.
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain or CEMB is the British branch of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims. It was launched in Westminster on 22 June 2007.
Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is an anti-Muslim, pro-Israel American counter-jihad organization known primarily for its controversial, Islamophobic advertising campaigns. The group has been described as extremist and far-right. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists SIOA as an anti-Muslim hate group.
Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns against racism and fascism. It has also mounted campaigns against Islamic extremism and antisemitism. It is self-described as a "non-partisan, non-sectarian organisation." The group was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, a former editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It is backed by various politicians and celebrities, and it has also been backed by several trade unions.
Tell MAMA is a national project which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in the United Kingdom. It is modelled on the Jewish Community Security Trust (CST) and like the CST it also provides support for victims, working closely with organisations such as Victim Support. The reception of the group by British Muslims is highly mixed, due to the relationship between Tell MAMA and the Jewish CST group.
Azad Ali is a British Muslim activist and a spokesman for the Islamic Forum of Europe. He was founding chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, is Vice-Chair of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), and former director of engagement at Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND). He has also been employed as an IT worker and civil servant for the Treasury.
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Malia Mazia Bouattia is the former president of the National Union of Students (NUS) of the United Kingdom, elected at the National Conference in April 2016. She was the first female Black British and Muslim leader of the NUS. She attended the University of Birmingham. In March 2017, she was defeated in her attempt to run for a second term in office by NUS Vice-president Shakira Martin.
Allegations of Islamophobia in the UK Conservative Party have been made, including against senior politicians, such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Zac Goldsmith. Baroness Warsi, former co-chair of the Conservative Party, said in 2018 that anti-Muslim prejudice had "poisoned" the party. Many Muslim party members welcomed Warsi's comments, saying that they felt the issue had been marginalised within the party.
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