A Muslim woman who accused her former employer of religious discrimination lost her case this week before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Chantal Hamel said she was fired after six days at a Vancouver call centre because she wears a head scarf and her religion prevents her from shaking hands with male colleagues.

RSVP Customer Care said she was fired because she completed just five sales in 31 hours. A tribunal member tossed out the case, saying there was no sign of religious discrimination. [Link]

A fear of Islam grips non-Muslims in America and around the world, fueled by inadequate information and the media's proclivity for unbalanced reporting, says a University of California, Berkeley, professor who is bringing together experts to analyze Islamophobia.

"Talk radio continues to heap insults on Islam and Muslims without any discussion of what the consequences could be," said Hatem Bazian, who teaches at UC Berkeley and at the East Bay's Zaytuna Institute.

"The media are collapsing us into a one-shoe-fits-all category — the hostile, angry, cartoon images. (Radio personality) Michael Savage has made a career of it. Osama bin Laden is Muslim, therefore every Muslim is Osama bin Laden."

Bazian spent five months putting together a conference in which 23 university experts will consider media images, civil rights and what he sees as the failure of academia to scrutinize adequately the schism between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

The "Deconstructing Islamophobia" conference at UC Berkeley is free and open to the public.

An analysis of conservative and liberal publications shows each lean toward a similar coverage of American Muslims, said a UC Davis professor.

"We spent several years looking at key papers — we looked at The New York Times as the leading liberal newspaper, the Wall Street Journal the leading conservative — looking for patterns of repetition," Suad Joseph said. "We are finding a lot of similarities."

The words that crop up have to do with criminality and policing, she said.

Ideally, researchers will compare the key words that appear in news stories about Muslims with coverage of other ethnic groups — Irish or Italian Americans, for instance.

"If there is a different pattern, that's the key," she said. "My hunch and my hypothesis is that there is a significant difference."

Muslims are suffering the fate that has bedeviled other groups in the nation's past, including violence and discrimination, she said. [Link]

Managing Editor of the Washington Post Philip Bennett gave an hour-long lecture entitled “Covering Islam: A Challenge for American Journalism” on Monday, March 3. The event was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy as a part of the 2007-08 Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows Series.

“[The] United States news media has failed to produce sustained coverage of Islam to challenge the easy assumptions, gross generalizations or untested rhetoric that shape perceptions of Muslims,” Bennett said.

He then shared with the audience a question that the Washington Post is currently struggling with in regard to whether the publication should adopt using the word “Islamist.”

“Words matter … especially to journalists,” Bennett said.

One of the major challenges of covering Islam in the media is the use of broad, de-contextualized terms such as “Islamist,” “madrassa,” “hijab” and “jihad.”

Bennett explained that it is his job as an editor “to ensure that … stories are as close to the truth as is possible … and so much of the power of good journalism is the power of surprise.”

Bennett argues that, despite drastically increased coverage of Islam and the Middle East since 9/11, the media consistently “fails to demonstrate a critical understanding of the region’s history, culture and context.” The coverage is always criticized as “too soft, too hard or incomplete.”

Muslim Americans are moderate, assimilated and happy with their lives, according to Bennett, who cited from numerous polls; yet, he noted that an ABC-Washington Post poll in 2006 showed that 46 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of Islam and six out of 10 Americans lacked a basic understanding of the religion. [Link]

Sikhs say an Associated Press story suggesting the FBI has asked followers of their faith to cooperate in counter-terrorism efforts perpetuates the attitude has led to prejudicial attacks on them since 9/11.

"The FBI is intensifying efforts nationwide to enlist Muslims, Arab-Americans and Sikhs to help thwart a possible terrorist attack this summer or fall."

So says the first line of a July 9 Associated Press story that was picked up by numerous newspapers, radio and television outlets including CNN.com, ABCNews.com, National Public Radio and the Guardian Unlimited in England.

This was news to Sikhs, who are not Muslim or Arab and have never been linked to Al-Qaeda or the September 11 attacks.

"That gives the impression some members of the Sikh community are involved in terrorism," said Manjit Singh, president of Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Taskforce (SMART) which works toward accurate representation of Sikhs and Sikhism in American Society and media. "Sikhs are not connected in any way to 9-11."

The AP story, by reporter Curt Anderson, came from a July 9 FBI press release titled "Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigations Reinforce Commitment to working with leaders of Muslim, Sikh and Arab-American Communities."

The press release is based on Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller's recent meeting with leaders of national Muslim, Sikh and Arab-American organizations. It lumped together the FBI's separate initiatives. One goal is to glean terror-related intelligence from Muslim and Arab-American community leaders. The other is to investigate and prevent hate crimes stemming from reaction to the war on terror and directed at these groups as well as at Sikhs, whom some mistake for Muslims because male Sikhs wear a type of turban.

"The AP jumped the gun by not realizing the clear distinction between the different things," said Singh. "Mr. Anderson fell victim to the common misconception that Sikhs are connected to 9-11. That's what we're trying to correct." [Link]