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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the US, Students and faculty at Atlanta’s Emory University have been targeted by an outside group posting and handing out flyers labeling 14 of their colleagues “anti-Israel”, elsewhere in the US, the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Sacramento) has called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate as a possible hate crime an incident in which a pig’s head was reportedly left at a family’s front door, and in Canada, counterprotesters with ties to the far-right Jewish Defense League waved Kahane Chai flags at a recent pro-Palestinian event at Canada’s University of Toronto, where chants of ‘Let’s make Gaza a parking lot’ were heard. Our recommended read of the day is by Ziyad Motala for the Al Jazeera on a recent development in American politics where former Vice President Dick Chaney is being touted by domestic media outlets as a “defender of democracy” for endorsing Kamala Harris for President, despite Chaney’s negative track record when it comes to human rights across the globe. This and more below:
United States
Cheney’s policies as VP caused immense human suffering on a global scale | Recommended Read
In an unsurprising yet telling development, Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney has thrown his support behind the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, over his party’s candidate, framing former President Donald Trump as an unprecedented threat to the United States. On its face, this endorsement might appear as a principled defence of democracy from a longstanding Republican stalwart. But beneath the surface lies a troubling irony. Cheney, the architect of some of the most disastrous foreign and domestic policies of the early 21st century, now seeks to claim the moral high ground. The legacy of his policies – particularly the havoc unleashed during the Iraq War and the broader “war on terror” – continues to reverberate globally, causing suffering and instability that far surpass anything Trump has wrought to date. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Harris proudly touted Dick Cheney’s endorsement as a badge of honour – a moment as baffling as it was revealing. Embracing a man whose policies left a trail of death and destabilisation in their wake as a champion of American values lacks any semblance of moral clarity. Cheney, whose hands are stained with the blood of countless innocents from Iraq to Guantanamo, who undermined American democracy and terrorised countless innocent Americans under the “war on terror”, should not be celebrated, especially by someone seeking the mantle of progressive leadership. read the complete article
Atlanta’s Emory University targeted by anti-Palestinian group: ‘It’s scary’
Students and faculty at Atlanta’s Emory University have been targeted by an outside group posting and handing out flyers labeling 14 of their colleagues “anti-Israel”. The flyer, titled “Security Alert”, included the names, ages and mugshot-style photos of each of them, arranged under the word “Arrested”. Campus Reform, a national group of conservative students, put its logo on the flyer, which refers to arrests made during last April’s protests seeking Emory divestment from Israel. Charges for most of that day’s 28 arrests remain unresolved and awaiting trial, after several faculty leaders have been unsuccessful in efforts to get Emory president Gregory Fenves to ask prosecutors to drop them. The flyers were distributed on Monday as classes began again and have left several faculty members and 11 students – and others who supported last year’s protests – concerned for their own safety and awaiting a response from the school’s administration, according to interviews with the Guardian. read the complete article
Laura Loomer, far-right provocateur who spread 9/11 conspiracy theory, influencing Trump as he searches for a message
As Donald Trump mingled and posed for pictures with firefighters on Wednesday – one of several stops to observe the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States – a small entourage of the former president’s inner circle looked on from outside Engine Company 4 Ladder Company 15 in New York City. Standing near them was another figure whose sway with the Republican nominee also cannot be discounted: the far-right provocateur Laura Loomer. Of all the days to count Loomer as a travel companion, September 11 was notable. Last year, she posted a video on social media claiming that the attack on the World Trade Center towers was an “inside job,” an illogical but pervasive conspiracy theory that continues to haunt the families of victims and survivors. Her anti-Muslim social media posts eventually earned her a ban from Twitter that lasted until billionaire Elon Musk bought the website, now known as X, and restored her account. Loomer has made a career out of courting controversy. Rising out of the radical right-wing online ecosystem, she has regularly tested the willingness of internet companies to enforce their terms of service. She once described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and tweeted in 2018 that “someone needs to create a non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver.” She was eventually banned from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. read the complete article
Student files Title VI complaint against NC State citing racism, Islamophobia
A student filed a Title VI complaint against NC State on behalf of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization. It is the second recently reported Title VI complaint leveled against the University, the first of which was settled in July. Nathaniel Dibble, a third-year studying political science, filed the complaint in April, citing racism and Islamophobic discrimination. Title VI complaints, developed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, can be filed if an individual believes they have been discriminated against on the basis of race, color or national origin. NC State Police arrested Dibble at a protest in February while he was handing out pamphlets at the Engineering Career Fair, though the charges have since been dropped. Police also arrested a non-affiliated individual at a pro-Palestinian protest in May. Dibble said these arrests are forms of disproportionate use of police, a reason for the complaint as cited in an Instagram post by the NC State Young Democratic Socialists of America announcing the complaint. read the complete article
CAIR-Sacramento Calls on Feds to Probe Pig’s Head Left at Family’s Front Door
The Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Sacramento), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate as a possible hate crime an incident in which a pig’s head was reportedly left at a family’s front door. Surveillance video shows a man in a hoodie walking up to the door on Sunday. An individual in the home says he is Pacific Islander from Fiji but “could be mistaken for Middle Eastern.” Local police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. read the complete article
Canada
Jewish Far-right Extremists Linked to Outlawed Terror Group Show Up at pro-Palestinian Events in Toronto
Counterprotesters with ties to the far-right Jewish Defense League waved Kahane Chai flags at a recent pro-Palestinian event at Canada's University of Toronto, where chants of 'Let's make Gaza a parking lot' were heard. On the sidelines were members of a 'safety patrol' linked to Israel's ruling Likud party. read the complete article
Students from both Muslim and Jewish communities say they feel unsafe at University of Toronto
Members of both the Jewish and Muslim communities have launched their own initiatives to protect students, feeling that school administration isn’t doing enough. Mark Carcasole reports. read the complete article
Germany
Germany bans Islamic center over alleged Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood ties
Authorities in the German state of Brandenburg on Thursday banned an Islamic center in the town of Fürstenwalde over alleged affiliations with the militant groups Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Interior Ministry of Brandenburg state, which surrounds Berlin, said the decision to force the closure and ban all operations of the Islamic Center Fürstenwalde al-Salam association (IZF) was made after a series of coordinated police raids earlier in the day. Authorities searched the association's premises in Fürstenwalde as well as several private residences across Brandenburg and in Berlin, which, like Washington D.C., is an independent region that does not sit within any state's boundaries. read the complete article
Tajikistan
Struggling to Stem Extremism, Tajikistan Targets Beards and Head Scarves
People in Tajikistan were expecting a government crackdown after Tajik men were arrested and charged with a terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall in March. But it still seemed excessive to Nilufar, a 27-year-old education professional, when she saw local authorities with scissors outside a K.F.C. in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, trimming beards that were deemed too long. Excessive, but not so surprising. In the span of a month, Nilufar herself had been stopped three times by the authorities for wearing a hijab in public. With a population of 10 million, Tajikistan has many challenges that counterterrorism experts say make it an incubator for extremism: poverty, poor education, high unemployment and grievances against an autocratic government that severely restricts the practice of religion. In the face of these challenges, critics say, Tajikistan has continued to restrict how Islam can be taught and practiced and increasingly implemented superficial policies regulating head scarves and beard lengths. The rationale appears to be that stamping out public signs of conservative Islam will help tamp down conservative Islam itself — and potentially reduce Islamic extremism. The state needs to be doing more, said Larisa Aleksandrova, a Dushanbe-based expert on human rights. Instead of tackling substantive problems like corruption, poverty, and social inequality, she said, the state was focusing on “where to put a comma in a sentence, what to name a particular ministry or what clothes, for example, women or men should wear.” “It distracts us by talking about problems which, in my opinion, are not so relevant,” she said. read the complete article
International
Violent Majorities Part III: Indian and Israeli Ethno-Nationalism
This is the last of three discussions in Violent Majorities: Indian and Israeli Ethno-nationalism, a Recall This Book series put together by the anthropologists Ajantha Subramanian and Lori Allen. First Ajantha and Lori spoke with Balmurli Natrajan about the slippery slope to a multiculturalism of caste in India. Then Natasha Roth-Rowland joined them to discuss what the most extreme Israeli ethno-nationalists share with the established political ruling parties. Here Ajantha and Lori join RTB host John Plotz to unpack the key ideas from those conversations. read the complete article