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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, Home Office figures reveal a 25% rise in religious hate crimes over the past year, meanwhile in Austria, the success of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) in the country’s general election on September 29 has left some Austrian Muslims fearing they will be deported, and in the United States, a new series on PBS, “Muslims In America (ph), ” explores the untold story of Islam in the country. Our recommended read of the day is by Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan for the Guardian on how “Muslims in India say they have been fired from their jobs and face the closure of their businesses after two states brought in a ‘discriminatory’ policy making it mandatory for restaurants to publicly display the names of all their employees.” This and more below:
India
Muslims in India face discrimination after restaurants forced to display workers’ names | Recommended Read
Muslims in India say they have been fired from their jobs and face the closure of their businesses after two states brought in a “discriminatory” policy making it mandatory for restaurants to publicly display the names of all their employees. The policy was first introduced by Yogi Adityanath, the hardline Hindu monk who is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Last month the state of Himachal Pradesh, governed by the opposition Congress party, announced it would also make it compulsory for all names of workers and employees to be put on display. Both state governments have said it is to ensure compliance with health and safety rules and vending regulations in the north Indian states. However, locals and activists have alleged that the new rules are instead a thinly veiled attack on Muslim workers and establishments. Names in India widely signify religion and caste and there are growing fears among Muslim business owners in Uttar Pradesh that this will lead to targeted attacks or economic boycotts, particularly by hardline Hindu groups that are active in the state. “This order is dangerous, it forces us to wear our religion on our sleeve,” said Tabish Aalam, 28, who comes from a long line of specialist chefs in the city of Lucknow. “I am sure the government knows this, and that is why it is being exploited.” read the complete article
United States
Amid anger over Israel, Harris courts Arab and Muslim voters. Will it work?
Despite touting her unwavering support for Israel as the country wages war in Gaza and Lebanon, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is trying to garner support in Arab and Muslim communities in the United States before elections next month. In recent weeks, the US vice president and her team have held meetings with Arab and Muslim “community leaders” while receiving endorsements from Muslim individuals and groups aligned with her Democratic Party. But many advocates argue that as long as Harris maintains her pledge to continue to arm Israel and refuses to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s unconditional support for the US ally, nothing will help her standing with Arab and Muslim voters. Moreover, critics have slammed the private meetings by Harris and her top national security adviser with handpicked attendees – whose identities are often not made public – as not representative of the communities her campaign says it is hoping to win over. “Such groups and faceless individuals are mere tokens for the Democratic Party, paraded by Harris’s campaign to check off a box recommended by an algorithm — a strategy she maintained campaigning on trends and memes rather than impactful policy,” Laura Albast, a Palestinian American activist in the Washington, DC, area, told Al Jazeera. read the complete article
Rights group files complaint against US university over failure to protect Muslim, Arab students
A leading Muslim-American civil rights group filed a complaint with the US Department of Education against the University of Michigan, calling on the agency to investigate whether or not the institution has failed to protect Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and South Asian students from discrimination on campus. The federal complaint, filed on Wednesday, from the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-MI), comes after a student group leaked an audio recording, in which it is purportedly president Santa Ono saying that schools are being pressured to address reports of antisemitism on campus more urgently than Islamophobia. In the leaked recording, the speaker alludes to the notion that the government could pressure the university by withholding federal funding. "To have the government say that we will withhold your $2bn in federal funding if you don't address antisemitism," Ono purportedly said in the recording leaked by the Tahrir Coalition on 6 October. "The government could call me tomorrow and say in a very unbalanced way the university is not doing enough to combat antisemitism." The person added that he could respond by saying that "the university is not doing enough to combat Islamophobia, and that's not what they wanna hear. So the whole situation is not balanced". read the complete article
A new PBS series shows the history of Muslims in America
A new docuseries opens with a portrait of an African man, Mamadou Yarrow, or Yarrow Mamout. He wears a knit cap and a short beard. And what's remarkable about this painting is not the colors or brush strokes, but the subject himself, a formerly enslaved Black man, a Muslim who bought his freedom, done by a famous Revolutionary War painter. RASCOE: Yarrow's story is just one in the series "Muslims In America (ph), " which airs on PBS and explores the untold story of Islam in this country. NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid hosts two of the episodes, and she hopes these stories can help us reevaluate our own understanding of America. ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: In understanding, you know, this faith as being indigenous to this country, I hope that it just helps us all better understand what the American story is. And what the American story can be. read the complete article
International
Bill Maher says Chappell Roan would be thrown ‘off a roof’ in Gaza after singer shows support for Palestine
Bill Maher criticized Chappell Roan’s support for Palestine on Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Maher, an atheist whose mother was Jewish, has frequently defended Israel’s actions since the war with Hamas erupted in Gaza last year. “To mark the October 7 anniversary, we must launch a campaign to educate young Americans about the Middle East,” the talk show host began the episode by saying. “And the way I’d like to begin that process is by addressing an open letter to Chappell Roan. Now, to those viewers who aren’t watching this while also looking at your phones, let me explain. … She’s actually a great new recording artist, who, like a Hezbollah pager, is really blowing up.” He continued: “Chappell, if you think it was repressive growing up queer in the Midwest, try the Mid East. Roan, 26, recently criticized the Democratic party over its support of Israel, telling fans on TikTok the party has “failed people like me and you. And more so Palestine. And more so every marginalized community in the world.” read the complete article
Azad Essa Q&A: ‘When I went to Palestine, I immediately saw the similarities with Kashmir’
Journalist Azad Essa was born during the end of apartheid in South Africa. Growing up, he recalls being very aware of the tides shifting, and the impact of a new social order on both individuals and the collective. Essa started his career covering global social justice movements, with a specific focus on Kashmir due to his family’s own Indian heritage. Currently a senior reporter at Middle East Eye, he is based between New York and Johannesburg. His work tackles foreign policy and Islamophobia in the US, but he has also written books addressing the issue of race and identity within world politics. Essa’s latest book Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel, was published just months before the Hamas attacks of 7 October and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Rooted in the history of India’s partition, which occurred only nine months before the birth of Israel, the book attempts to spotlight an alternative narrative to world events. He speaks to Hyphen about the parallels between Palestine and Kashmir, the growing partnership between India and Israel and how his own background has informed his reporting. read the complete article
A surging far right cements its place in Europe
If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election next month, he will find across the Atlantic a hotbed of political parties that share his rightward mix of authoritarianism, populism and extreme hostility to immigration. This is the rise of the European far right, which reached a high-water mark on Sept. 29 when Austria’s Freedom Party won the largest share of votes — 28.9 % — in the national election. The FPÖ, as it’s known, was founded by former Nazis and wants to “remigrate” Austrian nationals with migrant roots to create a more “homogenous” society. This is not a new trend, and its current cycle has been covered by NBC News and others for at least a decade. But the last 12 months have been a bonanza for this former fringe of the political spectrum. There have been big wins for France’s National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, as well as for Dutch anti-Islam radical Geert Wilders and the neighboring Alternative for Germany, which is being monitored by Berlin’s own intelligence agency for suspected extremism. “The overall trend is unmistakable: The far right is gaining ground,” said Matthijs Rooduijn, a politics professor at the University of Amsterdam. European “far-right parties are here to stay,” agreed Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia and the author of 2019’s “The Far Right Today.” read the complete article
United Kingdom
Religious hate crime at record high, figures show
Religious hate crime recorded by police in England and Wales has risen by 25% over the past year, driven by a rise in offences against Jews and Muslims since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Home Office figures show. The vast majority of the 140,561 hate crime offences recorded - about seven in 10 - are shown to have been motivated by race, according to the data. But the increase in religious hate crimes is mainly driven by a rise in antisemitic offences, the department said. Hate crimes targeted at Jewish people more than doubled, while incidents against Muslims were up 13% on the previous 12 months, according to data. read the complete article
What You Need To Know: October 7 aftermath - The impact on British Muslims & rise of Islamophobia
Although the Israel-Gaza conflict is thousands of miles away, anti-Muslim hate crimes are happening closer to home - leaving many British Muslims scared. read the complete article
Austria
Austrian Muslims fear deportation after far right wins vote on ‘remigration’ platform
The success of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) in Austria’s general election on 29 September has left some Austrian Muslims fearing they will be deported, community leaders have warned. The FPÖ won 29% of the national vote on an ultra-nationalist platform of policies including the “remigration” of citizens with migrant heritage and a promise to ban what the party calls “political Islam”, which the party’s leader Herbert Kickl has described as a “poison to society”. “You really cannot overemphasise the anxieties a lot of Muslims here are experiencing,” said Nadim Mazarweh, head of extremism prevention at the Islamic Faith Community in Austria (IGGÖ), an umbrella organisation advocating for Austria’s different Muslim groups. “I’m seeing students ask their teachers questions such as ‘will we be deported after the election?’” The FPÖ’s remigration policy, in which they suggest Austrians with migrant heritage who “refuse to integrate” will be sent back to their families’ countries of origin, is borrowed from the ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, co-founded by Austrian Martin Sellner. Sellner, who has been linked to the mass shooter who killed 51 people in terror attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, is banned from the UK, Germany and the US as a potential terror threat. Kickl has described the Identitarian Movement as an NGO and “worth supporting”. read the complete article
Australia
Concerns about Antisemitism and Islamophobia related to conflict in the Middle East continue
Reported incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise in Australia, with community groups saying they have been increasing significantly since October 7 last year. Local businesses, and an MP's office vandalised, along with a white supremacy rally, among some of the recent instances. read the complete article
Canada
BC Muslim Association calls for Conservative candidate to resign after Islamophobic comments surface
The BC Muslim Association is calling for the province’s Conservative party to take “meaningful action” and have a candidate whose Islamophobic remarks recently resurfaced step down. In a statement Friday morning, the BCMA says it is “horrified and deeply troubled by the unacceptable comments made by Mr. Brent Chapman, the BC Conservative Party candidate, several years ago.” “These remarks have resurfaced and are particularly alarming given Mr. Chapman’s continued representation of the party in a community as diverse and multicultural as Surrey.” read the complete article