Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: Myanmar’s parallel government urges Rohingya to join with them against the military junta, as in India, Narendra Modi’s party begins destruction of the Mughal-inspired Parliament House in New Delhi, while under Boris Johnson’s leadership, the UK decides to cut foreign aid by over 42%, leaving tens of thousands without health services and hundreds of thousands without water. Our recommended read of the day is by James Yee on his personal experience as a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay prison. This and more below:
United States
Experience: I was an imam at Guantánamo Bay
It was November 2002 when I arrived, but the air was humid and hot. At Camp Delta, the permanent detainment camp, the prisoners were held individually in cage-like cells made of heavy-duty steel mesh. It was something the outside world had no idea about at the time. I worked from sunup to sundown in chaotic circumstances, where prisoners were abused and humiliated on a daily basis. On my daily visits, the prisoners often told me about what they had to endure in interrogation sessions. I witnessed some of the broken teeth and bruises that many came back with. Despite the physical abuse, most of the direct complaints I received were about religious persecution. Guards desecrated the Qur’an and made the prisoners bow at the centre of satanic circles. The official military line was that torture did not happen at Guantánamo. As an insider, I knew this was a lie. Some guards were great, while others were abusive. I performed the Muslim prayer service at the chapel every Friday and led a vibrant American Muslim community. This raised suspicions, and FBI agents would turn up at the chapel to monitor us. When I began submitting formal reports on how the prisoners were being abused, I was accused of siding with terrorists. It became clear the officers in charge wanted me out – I was marginalized and under surveillance. Towards the end of my tour, I took two weeks of leave, with the intention of going back to Fort Lewis to set everything up for the return of my wife and daughter. I left the base and got on a plane to the Jacksonville naval station in Florida. When we landed, I was taken to a room and questioned by the FBI. I was charged with spying, espionage, aiding the enemy, mutiny and sedition. read the complete article
Clifton man gets probation for texting anti-Muslim threats to Paterson police chief
A judge in state Superior Court in Paterson handed down the punishment on Friday to 29-year-old Stefan Keco, the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. Keco was arrested in February 2020 for sending the menacing texts to Chief Ibrahim "Mike" Baycora. Authorities had said the threats were made to intimidate the veteran officer because of his Islamic heritage. “We r goin to kill u [expletive] terrorist," Keco texted, according to authorities. Baycora, who joined the police force in January 1988, became the city's first Muslim chief just days before getting the messages. read the complete article
Why Rep. Ilhan Omar wants to repeal a U.S. law that’s been on the books for more than two centuries
Called the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, Omar’s bill would repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that was part of the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” a set of four bills used to target immigrants and non-citizens during times of war. The Alien Enemies Act allows the president to determine how and if foreign nationals from a specific country should be “apprehended, restrained, secured and removed” from the U.S. and has been used in multiple occasions throughout American history, including as a justification for Japanese internment camps during World War II. “No one should be targeted based solely on their religion, ethnicity or national origin. This xenophobic law is dangerous and must be taken off the books,” Omar said. read the complete article
International
UK foreign aid cuts ‘will leave 100,000 refugees without water’
UK aid cuts of 42% will leave about 70,000 people without health services and 100,000 without water in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee settlement, before the deadly cyclone season, the Foreign Office minister for Asia has been warned. A private letter sent to him last week by a group of aid agencies working in the area comes before a vote on Monday designed to force ministers to guarantee they will restore UK aid to 0.7% of gross national income next year. The government faces the dilemma of trying to stymie the Conservative-led rebellion in the week Britain chairs the G7, or backing down. Boris Johnson still believes the aid cuts are politically popular and that the rebels, led by the former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell and the former prime minister Theresa May, are out of touch. read the complete article
China once declared the UK its 'best friend in the West'. But Hong Kong and the treatment of Uyghurs changed everything
She is one of around 500 Uyghur Muslims who call London home, increasingly empowered by the British government's hardening stance toward China. "I know that I won't be imprisoned or oppressed for this because I'm talking about innocent people and I want them to be freed," she told the ABC, surrounded by protest placards she designed and made for her monthly protests outside the Chinese embassy in London. "If there are more people who talk about this, then I know that it will be quicker for them to get to the freedom." Dilmaz enthusiastically showed the ABC a series of family photos, explaining one by one, who each of the faces are. As she raced through the family tree, the same words repeat over and over: "He's in prison. He's in prison." The list includes uncles, cousins and other family members who are missing or detained in Xinjiang Province – including cousins Tayir and Yasin Zair, who are just a few years older than her. They were given sentences ranging from five to 15 years, in part for practicing their religion. More and more people have begun to speak out against China's treatment of Uyghurs in recent years — and the United Kingdom has stood with one of the loudest voices. From banning Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei and state Chinese broadcaster CGTN, to limiting Chinese investment in the UK, Westminster has gone from leading Sinophiles to skeptics in a few short years. read the complete article
Months at sea: Boat carrying Rohingya washes up in Indonesia
A boat carrying 81 Rohingya refugees has washed ashore at an uninhabited island in Indonesia after drifting for more than 100 days at sea, leading to a tense standoff with local authorities as to whether they will be allowed to enter the country or be driven back to sea. The small wooden boat was discovered early morning on Friday in waters off Idaman Island off the coast of Aceh province, about two hours away from the town of Lhokseumawe, which is usually only used as a rest spot for fishermen in the area. “Our staff in the field have met with the refugees who said that they have been travelling for three months,” said Rima Shah Putra, the Director of Geutanyoe Foundation, an NGO which provides education and psychosocial support to refugees in Indonesia and Malaysia. “They travelled from India to Aceh using a small twin-engine, 100-seat boat,” he told Al Jazeera. It is thought that the refugees, many of them women and children, had originally travelled from camps in Bangladesh to waters off the coast of India, where their boat broke down and was fixed by the Indian coastguard which gave them supplies of food and water, but did not allow them to land. The Indian coastguard is also thought to have found that eight of the 90 refugees who originally set sail had died on the boat. The refugees were refused re-entry into Bangladesh, forcing the passengers to try to reach Malaysia before coming ashore at Idaman Island. read the complete article
‘Uyghur Tribunal’ opens with testimony of alleged rape, torture
A London-based people’s tribunal is investigating whether China’s alleged persecution of its Uighur minority amounts to genocide, with witness testimony detailing mass torture, rape and a range of other abuses. The “Uyghur Tribunal” has no state backing and any judgement would not be binding on any government, but it has drawn a furious response from Beijing, which dismissed the hearings as a “machine producing lies”. The first hearings take place over four days, from Friday to Monday, and are expected to draw dozens of witnesses. A second session is expected in September. The nine United Kingdom-based jurors of the tribunal, including lawyers and human rights experts, intend to publish a report in December on whether China is guilty of genocide. The first witness to testify on Friday, Qelbinur Sidik – an ethnic Uzbek teacher from Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, said she was ordered by the Chinese Communist Party bosses to take Mandarin-language classes in two fetid and crowded “re-education” camps, one male and one female, for Uighurs. The so-called students were made to wear shackles during hours-long classes, she told the tribunal. “Guards in the camp did not treat the prisoners as human beings. They were treated less than dogs,” Sidik said through an interpreter. “They enjoyed watching them being humiliated and their suffering was for them their joy.” Female prisoners were allegedly abused when they were taken for interrogation. “They were not only tortured but also raped, sometimes gang-raped,” Sidik said. “The things that I have witnessed and experienced, I can’t forget.” Sidik said she was also subjected to forced sterilization. read the complete article
Cambridge professor whose role was ‘funded by China’ cautioned against Uyghur debate
Professor Peter Nolan said it would be "difficult to contain the sentiment" about the discussion, in which “both sides” would need to be represented. He explained that a contentious outcome would not be “helpful to advancing mutual understanding”. His comments have been described as “utterly wrong” by the former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who said Nolan seems to be a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party. Jesus College, where Nolan is based, has deep financial ties with China – including a £200,000 grant from the Chinese government in 2018 to its Global Issues Dialogue Centre (GIDC). It has also accepted £155,000 of funding from Chinese technology company Huawei. Last year, the company was accused of “reputation laundering” after it funded a study by Jesus College which presented the company in a favorable light. Nolan himself has previously made headlines about his role as Chong Hua Chair at the university’s Centre of Development Studies. The role was funded by a £3.7m donation in 2012 from the Chong Hua Foundation, which was allegedly controlled by the daughter of China’s former prime minister, Wen Jiabao. Reports claim that Nolan had been her professor at Cambridge and the funding was secured after a series of secret meetings in Beijing between 2009 and 2011. His time in that role has now ended. read the complete article
As Dictators Target Citizens Abroad, Few Safe Spaces Remain
Tahir Imin knew that romances sometimes end. So he did not expect the long arm of global authoritarianism when the woman he had been planning to marry broke things off in March. Perhaps he should have. He had fled China’s oppression of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority, in 2017. From his new home in Washington, D.C., he spoke out about Beijing’s indoctrination camps and systems of control, which he and the U.S. government have called a genocide. Threatening messages flooded in, some from people identifying themselves as the Chinese police. He got word that his mother and brother were arrested on spurious charges, a common occurrence for family of Uyghur activists abroad. But Mr. Imin persisted, starting a Uyghur rights organization. He fell in love with a Uyghur exile living in the United States. Just after she ended things, Chinese authorities accused Mr. Imin of aiding a separatist group. “Later she called me and said, ‘Today I will tell you why I left you,’” he said. She had gotten a call from her parents in China, who said the police were with them and had ordered them to ask her for information on Mr. Imin’s dealings. “I realized that my relationship with you would harm my parents, so it’s best to cut it off,” he recalled her as saying. “I said that I got it,” he said. “These kinds of things happen all the time.” And not just to Chinese Uyghurs. Authoritarian governments large and small are increasingly reaching beyond their borders to intimidate, kidnap and kill troublesome émigrés. read the complete article
India
Modi’s bulldozing of parliament shows him as the architect of a Hindu Taliban
At the heart of New Delhi, the capital of India, sits a Mughal-inspired monument that houses the seat of the Indian parliament. Built by the British architect Edwin Lutyens between 1911 and 1931, the parliament buildings and their grand roadways and water channels follow the form established by the Islamic rulers of Iran and elaborated by the Islamic sultanate of Samarkand and the Mughal rulers of India. Unsurprisingly, the Islamic origin of these buildings offends the current regime in Delhi. It is why the tyrant Modi and his henchmen are destroying it. As I write, the destruction is under way. It is an abomination that Modi’s hate-filled campaign to de-Islamify India is allowed to continue via the destruction of a world-class monument. Astonishingly, the UN heritage forum is silent and world heritage bodies have kept their mouths firmly closed. Are they afraid of Modi, or do they not care what happens in India? This ideologically driven, hate-filled destruction follows the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 and the vandalism of Islamic and Mughal monuments all over India. Modi appears to want nothing less than the obliteration of all the Islamic monuments of India and the removal of the 200 million Indian Muslims. Let us not forget that he has already forcibly taken away Indian citizenship from many millions of Indian Muslims and rendered them stateless – a crime for which he has not been brought to book, even though India is a signatory to the UN declaration of human rights, of which citizenship is a central tenet. read the complete article
India’s Hindu Nationalist Government Targets Muslims With New Regulations
After abolishing the full state status of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir and downgrading it to a Union Territory status, India’s Hindu religious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is targeting another Muslim dominated small island which draws widespread protest from all walks of life. Lakshadweep, the smallest Union Territory situated in the emerald Arabian Sea which is also known for its exotic beaches and lush green landscape, has caught the headlines after the federal government’s move to introduce a slew of new reforms which irked the locals and sparked protests in the neighboring south Indian state of Kerala. A draft bill called Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 (LDAR), will give sweeping, arbitrary, unchecked powers to the government and all its bodies to directly interfere with an islander’s right to possess and retain their property for town planning or any developmental activity. The new proposal brings changes in the electoral regulations that will make any person with more than two children ineligible to contest local body elections. In the name of reforms, the BJP government also gave a nod to open bars in the island, a non-alcoholic zone due to its Muslim population, to ‘promote tourism’. The administration also proposes a ban on beef and beef products under the draft Lakshadweep Animal Preservation Regulation. The draft law makes it clear that no person shall directly or indirectly sell, keep, store, transport, offer or expose for sale or buy beef or beef products in any form anywhere in Lakshadweep. read the complete article
Muslims near India’s Hindu temple allege pressure to vacate homes
Javaid Akhter, 71, has lived all his life in his 100-year-old ancestral house built by his grandfather. The house is located just a few metres away from a famous Hindu temple in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state. Akhter, a retired engineer with the Indian railways, says Gorakhpur district officials, including the police, visited his house recently and took measurements of the surrounding land. The next day, he was asked to sign a “consent letter”, which said the residents living on the southeastern side of the Gorakhnath temple had given their “consent to transfer or hand over (their) lands and houses to the government” for the “safety of the temple premises”. Nearly a dozen families, all from the minority Muslim community living in the vicinity of the temple, were asked to sign the consent letter, with the signatories alleging they have been asked to vacate their houses. Akhter told Al Jazeera that he saw a few families had already signed the letter. “The officials told us that if we do not sign the letter, they have other ways to get our signatures as well. We were pressured,” he said. Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh’s right-wing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the “mahant” or chief priest of the Gorakhnath temple. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Educating Yorkshire star Mushy slams Mail article suggesting Muslim areas are 'no go'
Educating Yorkshire star Mushy has slammed the Daily Mail over an article in which Muslim areas of Britain are described as 'no-go' zones for white people. Mushy, real name Musharaf Ashgar, defended his hometown of Dewsbury which was included in the right-wing tabloid's article. The story was about a new book 'Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain', written by reformed Islamic radical turned academic and foreign policy advisor Prof Ed Husain. According to the Mail article, Prof Husain said he felt 'as though he [was] in a different country and century' when he arrived in Dewsbury. Mushy, 24, accused the Mail of trying to aggravate division. The public speaker, who became a TV star while overcoming his stammer, said: "Anyone who is afraid to enter Dewsbury is more than happy to drop me a message and I’ll take you to one of the best ice-cream parlors in Dewsbury. PS It’s owned by a lovely white couple." Others to criticize the article included author of BBC sitcom Citizen Khan, Adil Ray. Adil tweeted: "...The damage this does to all of us is devastating. "It’s shameful, disgusting and a national embarrassment. Many are trying to bring us together, yet those with the largest platforms spread vile, dangerous hate." read the complete article
Batley cartoon row: As Muslim parents are vindicated, the media is silent
Two months ago, Britain underwent one of its periodic moral panics about Islam. Protests by Muslim parents at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire were widely covered in the media, after a teacher showed Year 9 pupils a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist during a religious studies class on blasphemy. These parents were demonized in liberal and conservative newspapers alike. Politicians, including Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, weighed in to condemn the protesters. The teacher’s right to show the cartoon as an exercise in free speech was widely defended, while those who objected were denounced as extremists. The British commentariat was unanimous in its condemnation. In a Sunday Times column headlined, “It’s time liberals showed some spine and stopped pandering to zealots,” Matthew Syed warned of the “chilling effect on open debate”. It was right, then, that the teacher in the Batley case was suspended, and that the responsible Batley Multi Academy Trust (MAT) launched an independent investigation, which recently published an executive summary of its findings. As far as I can tell, not a single one of the newspaper columnists who rushed to judgment back in March has so much as mentioned this investigation. That’s not a surprise: it found in favor of the parents. The investigation recognized that showing the image had caused “deep offence”, noting that the “teaching staff who developed and delivered the lesson genuinely believed that using the image had an educational purpose and benefit, and that it was not used with the intention of causing offence”. Yet, it also concluded that the topics of the lesson “could have been effectively addressed in other ways and without using the image”. read the complete article
MailOnline mocked for suggesting Didsbury is ‘no go’ area for white people
MailOnline has been criticized for a story claiming there are British towns that are no-go areas for white people, generating particular ridicule for the inclusion of the Manchester suburb of Didsbury. The article is based on a book by former Islamist radical Ed Husain called Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, in which he details how he believes communities have become divided. It has received mixed reviews. The Economist said Husain “makes a compelling case”, while the Times also praised it. However, Sameer Rahim, who reviewed it for the Literary Review, wrote: “It is, by some distance, the worst book I have reviewed in nearly 20 years as a critic – at times laughable, at others frankly sinister.” The MailOnline story, headlined “British towns that are no-go areas for white people …”, includes a photo of Didsbury. The 2011 census showed that Didsbury West was 84.1% white and Didsbury East was 77.9% white. Only last month, MailOnline published a story describing the area as “posh and leafy” with “plenty of pubs”, which presumably do not cater exclusively for Muslims as they are forbidden to drink alcohol under their religion. The suburb was the location for the popular drama Cold Feet about middle-class Mancunians – all white – and has a reputation for its cafes and specialist, and expensive, food shops, which many comments humorously referenced as they sought to debunk the Mail article. read the complete article
China
EXCLUSIVE China policies could cut millions of Uyghur births in Xinjiang
Chinese birth control policies could cut between 2.6 to 4.5 million births of the Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in southern Xinjiang within 20 years, up to a third of the region’s projected minority population, according to a new analysis by a German researcher. The report, shared exclusively with Reuters ahead of publication, also includes a previously unreported cache of research produced by Chinese academics and officials on Beijing’s intent behind the birth control policies in Xinjiang, where official data shows birth-rates have already dropped by 48.7% between 2017 and 2019. Adrian Zenz’s research comes amid growing calls among some western countries for an investigation into whether China’s actions in Xinjiang amount to genocide, a charge Beijing vehemently denies. The research by Zenz is the first such peer reviewed analysis of the long-term population impact of Beijing’s multi-year crackdown in the western region. Rights groups, researchers and some residents say the policies include newly enforced birth limits on Uyghur and other mainly Muslim ethnic minorities, the transfers of workers to other regions and the internment of an estimated one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in a network of camps. "This (research and analysis) really shows the intent behind the Chinese government’s long-term plan for the Uyghur population,” Zenz told Reuters. read the complete article
Myanmar
Ousted Myanmar politicians call for Rohingya to join fight against junta
Myanmar’s parallel government has urged Rohingya to join with them in fighting the military junta, promising to offer justice and citizenship to the persecuted minority. The statement has been welcomed by rights experts as “an important and notable step forward” in the movement for full rights for the Rohingya, who have faced decades of discrimination and violence in Myanmar. Despite roots that go back for centuries, Rohingya are widely seen as foreigners in the country and have been denied citizenship under successive governments, including that of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). Her government avoided even using the term Rohingya, instead referring to the minority ethnic group as “Muslims in Rakhine state”. In 2019 Aung San Suu Kyi appalled international observers when she traveled to The Hague to defend the military against allegations of a genocide. In a statement on Thursday, Myanmar’s national unity government, which includes many NLD politicians, said attitudes were changing. “The entire people of Burma is sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingya as all now experience atrocities and violence perpetrated by the military,” it said. “The solidarity of the entire people is now at its best. We are confident that we can build a union that meets the needs of all those in the country who have a stake in its future.” The statement said the NUG would scrap a 1982 citizenship law that denies Rohingya citizenship, and which has effectively rendered them one of the largest stateless populations in the world. Citizenship would instead be based on birth in Myanmar, or birth anywhere to a Myanmar citizen, the NUG said. read the complete article
Germany
German Conservatives Appear to Lead in Last State Election Before National Vote
Voters in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt appeared in a Sunday vote to support a return of the ruling conservatives, which made strong gains in a contest that had been closely watched for signs of a far-right party’s strength months ahead of a national election. Initial partial returns suggested that the conservative Christian Democratic Union were poised to break a losing streak in state ballots and expand their past margins over the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Despite the conservatives’ apparent ability to attract more support, the early partial returns suggested that AfD remained firmly the second most popular party in the state, a position it won five years ago when it received nearly a quarter of votes in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, shocking the country and propelling the party from the far-right nationalist fringe onto the national stage. The following year, the AfD won more than 12 percent in the national election, becoming the largest opposition party in the national Parliament, with 88 seats. Since then, Alternative for Germany has struggled to contend with a more extremist wing that has pulled the party branch in Saxony-Anhalt even further to the right, capturing the attention of the country’s domestic intelligence service. The state’s leaders in the party, along with those from the branches in Brandenburg and Thuringia, are under official scrutiny for their anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim statements. Whether the AfD at the national level will also be placed under observation is on hold, pending the outcome of a legal challenge. read the complete article
Austria
Anti-Muslim attacks surge after release of Austria's 'Islam map'
After the Austrian government released its controversial National Map of Islam last month and placed signs across the country warning of nearby mosques that may constitute a threat, attacks against Muslims have increased rapidly, highlighting a new wave of hate toward the minority group in the European Union-member country. Racist attacks and labeling have dramatically increased since Austria released its "Islam Map" last month, the head of a Muslim community group said on Saturday. After the digital map identifying the locations of more than 600 mosques and associations around Austria was unveiled on May 27, racist attacks on Muslims increased, especially against mosques, which have become a target of racist groups. Incendiary anti-Muslim signs have reportedly been hung in mosques in various cities, especially in the capital of Vienna, in the past two days. Signs depict an "angry Muslim" and a warning of the dangers of political Islam underneath. “Beware! Political Islam nearby," it reads. Vural said that while the map was not a new phenomenon, the government's continued backing of the project via its Documentation Center of Political Islam had taken the issue to a new level. He noted that the map, which could be taken to show that "all Muslims are dangerous," was prepared using one-sided data, with officials naming any Muslim they choose a representative of "political Islam." Requests for the correction of information on the map, meanwhile, were ignored by the team that conducted the study, said Vural. read the complete article
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Before final verdict, Mladic's bloody legacy divides Bosnia
Nearly three decades after Europe's worst conflict since World War II, a U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, is set on Tuesday to close the case against Mladic, the most notorious figure in the 1992-1995 war that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless. "If only he would admit that he made a mistake, that he was wrong," said Grabovica. "But that won't happen." The tribunal sentenced Mladic in 2017 to life imprisonment, after convicting him of masterminding crimes throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian War, including genocide in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica in 1995, where his forces murdered more than 8,000 Muslim Bosnian men and boys. Mladic appealed, but the case has been repeatedly delayed by his ill health and, more recently, by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many hope the final ruling will bring closure for the victims' families and drive home the message that there is no impunity for war crimes. Sofia Stolk, a researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague, said the final verdict is important because it closes the tribunal's last key case and because it concerns genocide, the deliberate killing of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of its destruction. Diametrically opposing views over Mladic's wartime legacy reflect deep ethnic divisions that still exist in Bosnia so many years after the war ended with a U.S.-brokered peace agreement. For Bosniaks, mostly Muslim, he is a villain and war criminal. Bosnian Serbs, however, still worship their wartime commander as a martyr and hero. read the complete article
Bangladesh
Bangladesh: Rohingya Refugees on Island Fear Monsoon
The Bangladesh government has relocated nearly 20,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote island without adequate health care, livelihoods, or protection, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The United Nations and donor governments should urgently call for an independent assessment of the safety, disaster preparedness, and habitability at Bhasan Char during the impending monsoon season and beyond. read the complete article