DONALD Trump has been accused of blanketing Muslims under ‘one skewed and twisted stereotype’ by Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi.
In a letter to the US president following the US president’s retweeting of extremist videos posted by the leader of right-wing organisation ‘Britain First’, the MP defended the Islamic faith and invited the president to come to the West Midlands and see first hand Muslim communities living ‘peacefully alongside others’.
Mr Zahawi wrote: “The videos you have chosen to distribute to your 43.6million Twitter followers, seek to conflate all Muslims into one skewed and twisted stereotype in the hope of inciting religious hatred towards the Islamic community.
“Whether the videos are valid or not the individuals within them do not represent the overwhelming majority of those who adhere to the many forms of the Islamic faith.”
He talked about how the UK and the USA had worked to eradicate terrorist groups and feared Mr Trump’s controversial actions could undo the work carried out by state bodies, ‘stoking the flames of radicalisation further’.
He added: “This is precisely what groups like Daesh want, and this makes it so much more vital that we do not now allow our actions to play into their hands.”
Mr Zahawi, whose family fled their native Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein’s regime, said he would welcome the president to the West Midlands as part of his scheduled visit to Britain in February.
The MP said: “I think this could be a real opportunity to show him what Coventry, Stratford, Birmingham and London look like.
“The West Midlands is a fantastic example of the UK at its most diverse, with people of different backgrounds and creeds living peaceably together and enriching each other’s lives. This is why I said in my letter that the President would find the experience of visiting places like the West Midlands so enlightening. In particular, he would see that our Islamic communities are so far removed from the stereotypes the videos he has unfortunately retweeted seek to portray.”
“We are a most diverse community. I myself was born in Baghdad, I couldn’t speak English, I am now the member of parliament for Stratford-on-Avon.”
The US president has been condemned by Downing Street for sharing the videos Mr Zahawi called ‘terrorist porn’.
But Mr Trump hit back, telling Prime Minister Theresa May – who was the first foreign leader to visit the Trump White House – to focus on combating ‘terrorism’ rather than his tweets.
Several UK politicians have criticised the president for retweeting videos including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who said it was ‘deeply disturbing’.
And it has led to renewed calls for Mr Trump’s planned state visit to the UK to be cancelled, although Downing Street confirmed on Wednesday the invitation still stood.
