Nadine Osman
Labour MP Zarah Sultana was told ‘go back to your country’ in an abusive email following her return from bereavement leave. The 28-year-old Coventry South MP posted a screenshot of the message on November 11, in which she is told ‘you are in my country, not yours, you do not belong here’.
It says it is ‘tough’ that blackface would ‘bother’ the politician, claiming it is ‘one of our traditions’. The email says, ‘Britain First rising, we will soon get our (sic) heritage back and tough if you don’t like it’, and claimed Labour lost ‘thousands’ of voters over Brexit, with ‘immigrants the biggest reason’.
In response, Sultana said, ‘Having spent a couple of days away on bereavement leave, I came back to my emails today. This is what I found. Muslim women in politics shouldn’t have to tolerate this. ’
This is not the first Sultana has received abuse. During a Parliamentary debate on the definition of Islamophobia in September she burst into tears while she recounted the torrent of Islamophobic abuse she has received since becoming a politician.
Sultana said she received messages calling her a “terrorist sympathiser” and “a cancer everywhere you go, and soon Europe will vomit you out”.
“Before being elected I was nervous about being a Muslim woman in the public eye,” she said. “Growing up, I had seen the abuse prominent British Muslims were subjected to. I knew I wouldn’t be in for an easy ride.
“And when young girls ask me what it’s like, I’d like to say I was wrong to be worried. That they would face the same challenges as their non-Muslim friends and colleagues. But in my short time in Parliament that’s not my experience.”
She added, “I have discovered that to be a Muslim woman, to be outspoken and left-wing, is to be subject this barrage of racism and hate.
“It’s to be treated by some as if I were an enemy of the country I was born in, as if I don’t belong.”
And she did not stop short at criticising the Labour and Conservative party.
Sultanah said the abuse would worsen when she called Tony Blair out for launching an illegal war and spoke out for those who were left behind in Afghanistan. She argued that “this Islamophobia doesn’t come from a vacuum. It’s not natural or ingrained. It’s taught from the top.”
She highlighted cases she had faced from Conservative MPs, including, she said, “when a far-right online account targeted me with racist abuse, suggesting that Muslims were an invading army, a Conservative MP replied not calling them for their racism, but by insulting me.”
Labour MPs took to twitter to show their support for Sultana and to condemn the abuse she has endured.
‘Sending love and strength to my colleague @zarahsultana following this disgusting abuse’ Tweeted Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP for Batley & Spen.
Leadbeater, who is the sister of the late MP Jo Cox who was murdered by a far-right fanatic, said the incident was ‘a stark reminder of the wholly unacceptable abuse faced by many
#IslamaphobiaAwarenessMonth #IAM2021.’‘Solidarity forever with my sister Zarah in the face of such relentless Islamophobia, misogyny & racism, and all during #IslamophobiaAwarenessMonth #IStandWithZarah’, wrote fellow Muslim Labour MP Apsana Begum who represents Poplar & Limehouse.
‘Solidarity with Zarah, who continues to face unrelenting Islamophobia, racism and misogyny. We should all be deeply worried by the abusive & threatening behaviour we’re currently seeing towards young Muslim women MPs, especially during #IslamophobiaAwarenessMonth,’ tweeted Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Streatham.
Angela Rayner, MP for Ashton under Lyne and Deputy Leader of Labour Party, said, “Solidarity with you, Zarah, and I’m so sorry for your loss. We all have a duty to call out this racist bile. Zarah should not have to put up with this disgusting Islamophobia, and nobody should have to put up with racist abuse.”
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Shadow Home Secretary and Welsh Labour MP for Torfaen, tweeted ‘@zarahsultana should not have to face vile Islamophobia and misogyny. It has absolutely no place in our politics or our society. Sending support to Zarah’.
Claudia Webbe, Labour MP for Leicester East called the email ‘totally appalling and vile’ adding ‘sending you love and solidarity. Keep going higher.’
Richard Burgon, Labour MP for East Leeds, said, ‘Solidarity with Zarah and all those in public life and in [the] wider society who are subjected to this disgusting racist abuse.’
‘This is absolutely appalling & an example of the vile abuse and islamophobia that Zarah and many Muslim women face in politics and public life,’ tweeted Ruth Cadbury, Labour MP for Brentford & Isleworth.
In a separate incident earlier this month, Oldham Council’s first female Muslim leader, Arooj Shah, revealed she has received several death threats since taking up her position.
At a council meeting on November 10, the Labour Councillor called for an end to hatred and abuse, “most of which is fuelled by lies and misinformation… by the colour of my skin, by my religion and by the fact I am a woman”, The Oldham Times reported.
Shah was also targeted earlier this year when her car was firebombed outside her home in July.
Sultana, a vocal supporter of former Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been named as being at risk of deselection. Labour members have accused her of being gifted her seat by the “Corbynite machinery” after former MP Jim Cunningham announced his retirement from Westminster.
At Labour’s annual conference in September the party membership voted to overhaul the system for de-selecting MPs, the change was viewed as an attempt by the Labour leadership to oust Corbyn supporters.
Photo: Zarah Sultana (Credit: Official Parliament portrait)
