Fury at ‘racism slur’ in Muslim cemetery row

Aug 30 2007 Rutherglen Reformer

CARMUNNOCK Community Council has asked police to investigate allegations which it claims have branded almost 300 people who attended a public meeting it held in the village last week as “racists”.

A video of the meeting was made for the community archive.

And the council says the video of the meeting — called to air local objections to a planning application to build a 31-acre Muslim cemetery on what it says is greenbelt land — proves clearly that the hurtful allegations are completely untrue.

The racism claims are alleged to have been made by Bashir Maan, a representative of the Muslim community attending the public meeting, which was held in the Castlemilk Hall last Wednesday.

It is alleged Mr Mann told a national newspaper that the atmosphere at the meeting was totally racist and that he had never experienced such a racist atmosphere in the 54 years he had lived in this country.

It is alleged he further claimed that, when he was trying to explain how it would take the Muslim community 200 years to fill the cemetery, someone had shouted “take them to Pakistan” and that another person had shouted “you are in a minority, you can’t dictate to us”.

It was claimed this had been confirmed by MSP Charlie Gordon.

This week a spokesman for the community council told the News: “We strongly refute this version of events and the statement the atmosphere was racist.

“There were almost 300 people in that room who are all now under suspicion as being racist.”

The angry spokesman said the community council had contacted Mr Gordon who said he had spoken to a journalist but the only statement he had confirmed was that there had been a heckler at the meeting and that he had been ejected by police at the request of the community council chairman Stewart Roy. He had not confirmed any other remarks made by Mr Maan, nor had he been asked to do so.

The community council spokesman said that, given the severity of the accusation by Mr Maan, it had contacted Strathclyde Police.

He added that the video the community council had made of the meeting clearly showed there was just one heckler out of almost 300 people.

He had been shouted down by the audience with calls of “shameful” before being ejected by police at the request of the chairman.

The atmosphere, the spokesman added, had been far from racist and it was wholly unjustified for anyone to ‘play the race card’ in the post-metting publicity.

Indeed at the start of the meeting the community council had made it crystal clear that its campaign against the creation of the cemetery on greenbelt land was consistent with its objections to ALL such developments in and around the village. It was not an issue of race or religion and the community council would not tolerate racism in any form.

It was made clear the community council supported the Muslim community’s request for a new cemetery but did not feel it needed to involve the destruction of green belt.

Mr Maan and Doctor Mohammed Kausar, the general secretary of the Central Mosque in Glasgow, had stayed behind at the end of the meeting and had happily chatted with members of the public.

Said the spokesman: “Carmunnock Community Council is deeply saddened that Mr Maan has been quoted as making these allegations. We have stated publicly on several occasions that this is a Green Belt protest to protect our conservation village and that we will not tolerate any form of racism nor the misrepresentation of the campaign or the people of Carmunnock as racist.”

He added that, although the community council feels disappointed by this latest development, the members are determined they will not be swayed from the real motivation behind this campaign — preserving the green belt and Carmunnock conservation village.

Further information about its campaign is available by e-mail at www.carmunnock.com

The Muslim community was asked to comment on the row but, at the time of going to press, they had not done so.