Irish Muslims fear being demonised

Islamic community: Irish Muslims are "deeply concerned" about the impact current events in Britain may have on their community here.

While all who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday expressed horror at last week's bombs, there was also concern at a readiness to identify Islam as a whole with terrorism.

Summayah Kenna, public relations officer with the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin, said everyone had been "devastated and shocked at the news last Thursday". And Tuesday's news that the bombs had been exploded by suicide bombers, born in Britain, had "shocked us even further", she continued.

"But I would have doubts about saying it 'grew' within the British community. I would say it is being imported and introduced to those young men, probably very vulnerable young men.

"They may probably be idle young men without much hope for the future - where is the heroism in that?"

She did not know whether there were people capable of such acts within the Irish Muslim community, but she doubted it and expressed "huge concern" about such reports as in one newspaper yesterday claiming there was a hard core of 200 militant Muslims living in Ireland.

"We do not want to seem naive by denying it [ extremism]exists if it then turns out it does. There are people with extreme views in every community. There are people we know with outspoken points of view, but they  never give us any cause forconcern."

Asked about whether there was any truth in newspaper claims about 200 militants here, she said: " It is news to us, I have asked the Garda to verify the unnamed Garda source quoted in the story, because it would obviously be very worrying if it was true." In Dublin's other Islamic Centre, on the South Circular Road, administrator Abdul Haseeb doubted whether such stories were accurate. "We would definitely know if there was any truth in it. There is a dangerous tendency to demonise the whole Muslim community. The Irish should know better. They have been through it in Britain."

There was "quite a lot of fear" among the community about a backlash, he said, adding there had been "hate-calls" to the centre.

Outside the Clonskeagh Mosque yesterday Muslims such as Hassam Hadi, from Iraq, said the bombs were "terrible" and not representative of Islam.

"It's truly terrible. What can I say?" he asked. "These were innocent people they killed and hurt. But there are many things I could say about the men that did this.

"The politics of America and Blair are the reason they did it. The bombers want revenge without thinking properly. But it is too easy to condemn them evil." "What they did was horrible and wrong. But when you think that 12,000 people are killed in Falluja and no one cares, but 50 or so are killed in London and it's totally different. That is was makes people so angry.

"It's very wrong what happened, but it's important to understand why it happened."