DAVAO CITY — Thousands of Filipino Muslims, many of them women and the youth chanting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Great), launched a series of rallies since Sunday in Mindanao to warn against and denounce the rising tides of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments sweeping Europe and the United States.

Mass actions were staged in Cotabato City on Sunday with thousands of participants, and in Marawi City on Monday morning, and in the afternoon in this city at Rizal Park.

Speakers, many of them from ulama groups as well as professionals, slammed the pervasive religious discrimination in many EU member countries.

They took turns pointing to anti-Islam acts in Switzerland (the banning of minarets), prohibition of wearing of hijab (scarves) and niqab or burka (face-covering) in France, Germany, and the Netherlands; publication of offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Allaihi Wassalam in Sweden and Norway, among other acts of bigotry.

Aleem Zainal Abedin Saleh in Marawi City recalled the cold-blooded murder by a German citizen in Dresden, Germany, of three-month pregnant Marwa al-Sherbini, 32-year-old Egyptian national, because of her hijab.

In the US, anti-Islam discrimination continues to grow after 9/11, despite the reaching out of American Muslims who are facing strong opposition in some states over the building of new mosques.

Muslims in the United Kingdom are also experiencing many cases of religious discrimination.
The Marawi City rallyists numbered from 4,000 to 5,000, said Aleem Abdul Majeed Djamla of the World Islamic People's Leadersip (WIPL), a Libya-based international humanitarian organization with a branch in the Philippines. "Aleem" is singular form of "ulama" -- or Islamic clerics.

Djamla said Islamic non-governmental organizations (NGOs), advocates of Muslim rights, and religious leaders schooled in various universities in the Middle East joined the protest, with hijab-clad women and the youth out-numbering the men.

Djamla led other Muslim clerics in organizing the Marawi protest at Plaza Cabili, Barangay (village) Bangulo while Aleem Jaapar Ali spearheaded the Cotabato rally.

"We are only showing our brotherhood and solidarity with our fellow Muslims in the West. These are peaceful protests to stop every form of religious discrimination," said Djamla. He said they issued a manifesto containing their rallyists' sentiments.

"Swiss, don't destroy our mosques" and "Swiss, Muslims hate you" were among the placard signs seen in the Marawi City mass action, said Allan Balangi of the AMANA party-list.

Here in Davao City, Aleem Ahmad Nooh Darping, president of WIPL-Philippines, organized the rally at the plaza starting about 1 p.m.

Speakers also called attention to the tides of religious discrimination sweeping the Western world.

Darping told the Manila Bulletin that Europeans and Americans should promote their Christian religion without insulting Islam.

"To speak badly of other religion is a dishonest way of praising one's religion," said the WIPL-Philippines Muslim religious leader.

Some of the leaders of the anti-Islamophobia protests studied at the Quliatul Ad-Da'wah Al-Islamie (Islamic Call College) in Tripoli, Libya.

In Cotabato City, Luwaran.com quoted Ali asked as calling on the "ulama (religious leaders), political leaders, individuals, and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to appeal to the Swiss government to uphold the universal principles for the freedom of religion and the rights of minorities in Switzerland and in other parts of the world."