Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In Australia, a new study of 2 million online posts shows persistent anti‑Jew and anti‑Muslim hate, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, Islamophobic graffiti was spray-painted at “every entrance” of a primary school in Bristol, including on the wall of the nursery and inside the main gate, and in the United States, Texan Muslims say that the anti-Muslim hate speech shared by elected officials is increasingly echoed by people in their everyday interactions. Our recommended read of the day is by Muddassar Ahmed for the Global Policy Journal on the growing transnational anti-Muslim conspiracy theory claiming that the ordinary presence of Muslims in Western public life constitutes an organized threat to democratic institutions. This and more below:

International

The Democratic Cost of Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Politics in the West | Recommended Read

In the local elections of May 2026, Reform UK gained more than 1,400 council seats and took control of fourteen English authorities, having previously held none. The result drew extensive commentary on populist insurgency and the fracturing of the two-party system. Less examined was the political infrastructure behind it: a sustained effort to recode Muslim civic participation not as engagement with democracy but as evidence of its subversion. That infrastructure is not uniquely British. A recognisable set of actors and arguments recurs across the United States, France, Germany and the Netherlands, organised around a single premise — that the ordinary presence of Muslims in Western public life constitutes an organised threat to democratic institutions. The operative logic is self-reinforcing. The more visibly a Western Muslim contributes to public life, the more suspect that contribution is made to appear - civic service becomes cover, institution-building becomes infiltration. In Trump’s Ameria, this has moved beyond rhetoric and into legislation. However, the consequential development was domestic. Florida enacted a law empowering officials to designate “domestic terrorist organisations,” strip school-voucher funding from affiliated institutions and expel students found to “promote” such groups; in Texas, roughly two dozen Muslim schools were excluded from a new voucher programme over alleged extremist links. In Britain, the leader of Reform has characterised British Muslims as a “fifth column” and asserted, without evidence, that 46 per cent support Hamas. read the complete article

United Kingdom

Andy Burnham wants to be prime minister. He cannot do it without Britain's Muslims

If Andy Burnham succeeds Keir Starmer, he will inherit a Labour Party that has lost something it spent decades assuming it owned: the trust of Britain’s Muslims. He should understand that this trust will not be recovered with a photograph at a mosque, an iftar or Eid party, or platitudes. It was destroyed by actions, and it can only be rebuilt by actions. The rupture is not a matter of opinion. It is measurable. In the 2024 general election, Labour’s share of the Muslim vote fell to just over 60 percent, from around 80 percent in 2019. In the 21 constituencies that are more than 30 percent Muslim, it collapsed by almost 30 points. Five sitting Labour MPs were defeated by pro-Gaza independents. Other Labour MPs survived by a few hundred votes. This was not a protest that has since faded. By this past April, polling put Labour’s support among Muslims at just 33 percent, with three in five willing to back an independent to keep Labour out. The Muslim vote does not bend back towards Labour; it keeps moving away, and the distance keeps growing. Muslims no longer feel safe in Britain, and they no longer believe the Labour government cares. read the complete article

Anti-migrant politics spark resurgence of racism, say some Britons of colour

After nearly four decades in Britain, Ali Haydor says there are now days when he wishes he could hide his brown skin. Violent protests erupted in his home city of Southampton after a British-born Sikh, who falsely accused his white victim of a racist attack, was jailed for murder. A week later, gangs of masked men went door to door seeking out migrants after a white man in Belfast was stabbed multiple times and lost an eye in an attack by a Sudanese immigrant. While such cases are rare, they have become a rallying point for right-wing activists and politicians, whose focus on crime has ‌tapped into simmering tensions over national identity and immigration. The net result is that, for some, the Britain that has been a stable home for many ethnic minority communities has turned more hostile. "Anybody of colour is at risk at the moment," said Haydor, a 44-year-old who moved from Bangladesh aged five. "As much as we love our heritage and identity, sometimes (I wish) we could just hide it." read the complete article

Islamophobic graffiti spray painted at 'every entrance' to Bristol primary school

Islamophobic graffiti has been spray painted at a primary school in Bristol. The abusive messages, directed towards the Muslim community, were found painted at entrances to Blaise Primary and Nursery School on Monday morning (June 29). A parent told BristolLive the vandalism had been painted at "every entrance" to the school, including on the wall of the nursery and inside the main gate. read the complete article

7 black holes in public data about Muslims

Gaping deserts in the UK’s data on faith communities mean there is a risk the UK is overlooking their needs and falling behind on community cohesion, MPs have warned. Faith communities are affected by policy decisions in specific ways. The two-child benefit cap, for instance, particularly hit larger families, who were disproportionately from religious communities (Black Christian, Orthodox Jewish and Muslim). Yet in key areas, policymakers are blind to how people from different faith backgrounds are affected by their decisions, instead relying on data on ethnicity and economic status that is often a poor proxy for religion. While there is data collected and published on hate crimes reported by people from different faith groups, you might be surprised to hear that there’s none about the outcomes of those reports. In other words, we don’t know what proportion lead to a charge or conviction, which could mask issues with achieving justice for particular types of hate crime. read the complete article

United States

‘Weaponizing ignorance’: Muslims bear brunt as Texas Republicans make hate mainstream

Following a brutal Republican primary runoff in which Islamophobia took center stage, anti-Muslim hatred continues spilling into public life in Texas. Texans say that the hate speech shared by elected officials is increasingly echoed by people in their everyday interactions, including discussions about education or interactions at a store, in a park, at university and at elementary school. In one case, students at the University of Houston were praying when a man approached them and burned a Qur’an. In other cases, people have been verbally attacked for wearing traditional garments. “It definitely trickles down,” said Naila Syed, a Dallas resident and member of the Islamic Center of North America Council for Social Justice. Syed says her two young daughters have been confronted with anti-Islam “talking points” while at school. A fellow student asked them if they knew that followers of Islam treated women poorly. “To have a kid who has these points ready and memorized like this is just very concerning as a parent,” Syed said. Multiple people said the hatred had made them uncomfortable venturing outside their own home by themselves. Others requested the use of a pseudonym because they had already been the subject of threats and online harassment. Recently, Muslim attenders at the official Texas GOP convention – including some delegates – were told to convert to Christianity or leave the country. About the same time, a woman was filmed verbally accosting two Muslim women in a grocery store. “Islam is a terrorist organization, not a religion,” the woman said. “This is not a Muslim country; this is a Christian country.” read the complete article

In Texas, a planned Muslim community stirs opposition

Under a baking Texas sun, hundreds of Muslim worshippers park their cars in a gravel lot the size of a football field and make their way to a green-domed mosque. Most don’t glance over at the dozen or so people gathered outside an office on the East Plano Islamic Center’s grounds. These conservative activists are protesting a real estate project – a 400-acre planned community with more than 1,000 homes, a mosque, a faith-based K-12 school, and commercial spaces – being developed by the mosque in this suburb north of Dallas. Much of the opposition has centered around accusations of exclusionary practices, with critics saying it will be a “no-go zone” for non-Muslims, something the project’s developers deny. Republicans have warned about “sharia cities” for years, with legislators at the state and federal levels introducing legislation to prevent sharia, or Islamic law, from superseding U.S. laws and customs, though there is no evidence that this is occurring. Nowhere has the issue been more prominent than in Texas, where opposition to The Meadow has become a rallying cry for GOP officials. This month, the state Republican Party added to its official platform a demand that the “advocacy or implementation” of sharia law be declared “a seditious criminal act, worthy of criminal punishment, disqualification for public, military, and law enforcement service, denaturalization, and [deportation].” For Muslims in Texas, anti-Islam rhetoric is nothing new – but the recent surge has been unnerving nonetheless. “It’s more extreme than we’ve ever seen it,” says Mr. Hamideh, the Islamic Association spokesperson. “You get politicians talking about, ‘How can we ban Islam? How can we get rid of Muslims?’” read the complete article

Van Orden’s social media history shows pattern of anti-Muslim, racist comments

Republican Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden has a history of Islamophobia and racism, including spreading baseless fears of American Muslims being terrorists and child rapists. Van Orden’s Twitter history and media appearances show the sitting U.S. congressman is not adhering to the attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to downplay the White House’s immigration policies ahead of the midterms. Public polling suggests the majority of Americans disapprove of the president’s tactics. Van Orden is seeking reelection in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. In 2024, he won by about 11,000 votes over Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke, who is seeking the seat again. One prominent Black Muslim leader in Milwaukee said Van Orden’s online history shows he is incapable of doing the job any longer and has further endangered followers of Islam. read the complete article

Australia

New study of 2 million online posts shows persistent anti‑Jew and anti‑Muslim hate in Australia

Today, the Tackling Hate Lab, a research group bringing together experts in social science, psychology, data science, engineering and economics, released two reports examining these changes. We analysed more than two million Australian social media posts, most of them from X (formerly Twitter), together with hundreds of verified offline incidents of vandalism, harassment and physical violence targeting Jewish and Muslim Australians between 2021 and 2026. The findings suggest Australia is dealing with something more than occasional spikes in hate. They point to a lasting shift in how hate spreads and how it interacts with events in the real world. The biggest surprise was not that hate increased. It was that the increase persisted. read the complete article

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