Power-hungry 'community'spokespeople' are doing serious damage

I am tired of men like "Abdullah from Bristol" – the sexist so-called imam who appeared on the BBC televised leadership debate on Tuesday evening to raise the topic of Islamophobia, and asked the candidates whether they recognised that “words have consequences”. It was a thinly-veiled swipe at Boris Johnson, who has been widely condemned for a column in this newspaper in which he likened the appearance of women who wear the burqa to letterboxes.

Yet it has since transpired that Abdullah Patel's now-deleted Twitter account includes such unenlightened comments as: “Generally, men are the predators, but women need to realise this and be smarter. It takes 2 to tango and if you put yourself in that position, don’t expect every man to pass up the opportunity to take advantage of you”.

I come from a community where the burqa is the norm, and the search for identity has led many women to don a symbol of oppression. The painful irony is that those in the West who wear or defend the burka would never want to live under the medieval rule it represents.

Men like Abdullah are twisting my beautiful faith into something that seeks to oppress women and then blaming others for the abuse Muslim women face – in an attempt to protect their own ego and weak masculinity. The words of our politicians are powerful but the idea that one line in an article is more damaging to Muslim women and girls than sexist self-appointed community leaders such as Abdullah from Bristol is ridiculous.