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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the Netherlands, an 82-year-old Muslim woman says she was physically assaulted by her neighbor and that she “called the police many times, but they didn’t do much”, meanwhile in the UK, a Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision, and in Canada, a London Ontario Muslim family was assaulted in a park on Saturday in what police are investigating as a hate-motivated attack. Our recommended read of the day is by Hamed Aleaziz for The New York Times on how Former President Donald J. Trump is trying to persuade Arab and Muslim American voters that they should vote for him in the general election, despite “years of insulting and demonizing them”. This and more below:
United States
What Muslim Ban? Trump Tries to Sidestep Years of Islamophobia | Recommended Read
Last month, former President Donald J. Trump was still promising to reinstate what he called his “famous travel ban” on some Muslim countries. He falsely claimed over the summer that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to deposit thousands of jihadist sympathizers in Minnesota.” And he said Democrats have a plan to “turn the Midwest into the Middle East.” The anti-Muslim scaremongering is a cornerstone of Mr. Trump’s political identity, dating back at least to his 2016 campaign when he said he would create a registry of Muslims and embraced an apocryphal story about Gen. John J. Pershing executing Muslim rebels in the Philippines with bullets dipped in pig fat. But in the final stretch of the presidential race, Mr. Trump is trying to persuade a potentially decisive group of Arab and Muslim voters that they should vote for him, even though he has spent years insulting and demonizing them. “I have many friends who are Arab,” the former president said last week in an interview on Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language TV channel. “They’re very warm people. It’s a shame what’s happening over there. They’re the warmest people.” During a rally on Saturday in Michigan, a crucial swing state with a sizable Arab and Muslim population, he told the crowd that he had met a group of the community’s leaders earlier in the day. “You know what they want?” he asked. “They want peace. They’re great people.” read the complete article
Trump’s Momentum With Muslims Threatens Harris’ Lead in Michigan
When he was president, Donald Trump sought to ban people from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the US. More recently, he has stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel’s prime minister and used the word Palestinian as an insult. And yet he is having some success courting Muslim and Arab American voters in the battleground state of Michigan as he pursues the White House once again. read the complete article
Muslim American Support for Trump Is an Act of Self-Sabotage
Over the weekend, a group of Arab American and Muslim American leaders in Michigan appeared onstage at a Donald Trump rally and urged their communities to vote for him. The outreach might be working: A recent poll showed Trump with a narrow lead among Arab American voters. This is shocking, but hardly surprising. It’s shocking because Trump’s stated policies—on Palestine, on political freedom, and on the very presence of Muslims in America—are antithetical to so much of what most of these voters believe in. It’s unsurprising because we Arab and Muslim Americans have a long tradition of merciless political self-sabotage. In 2000, angered by the sanctions against and bombing of Iraq, the use of “secret evidence” in deportation proceedings against Arab and Muslim immigrants, and especially the carnage of the Second Intifada, many liberal Arab Americans—myself included—decided not to vote for Al Gore and turned instead to Ralph Nader, himself a prominent Arab American. If the point was to advance Arab political interests, our protest was a pathetic failure. The election of George W. Bush led directly to the catastrophic 2003 invasion of Iraq, a strategic disaster that continues to resonate in the Middle East, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Arab civilians. This time around, the primary grievance is the Biden administration’s support of—or, at least, inability to end—Israel’s invasion of Gaza and, now, its widening wars in Lebanon and Iran. Once again, the impulse is to express our anger and “punish” the politicians responsible by withholding a vote for them. In an election with only two viable candidates, however, there is no difference between not supporting Kamala Harris and actively supporting Trump. And a quick review of the most important issues on which there’s a consensus among Arab and Muslim Americans demonstrates that a second Trump term would be dramatically worse than a Harris presidency. read the complete article
Woman charged with hate crimes in July pepper spraying of Muslim Uber driver
A woman was indicted on several counts, including second and third-degree assault as a hate crime, for pepper spraying a 45-year-old Uber driver in an unprovoked attack in New York City earlier this year, prosecutors said. Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, was charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment one count each of second-degree assault as a hate crime, third-degree assault as a hate crime, and second-degree aggravated harassment, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors accused Guilbeault of pepper spraying an Uber driver in an anti-Muslim attack on the Upper East Side in July. The driver began praying in Arabic after he stopped at a red light at an intersection, the district attorney's office said. At that point, prosecutors said Guilbeault "lunged forward toward the driver’s seat, holding a can of pepper spray" and sprayed the driver in the face. The driver experienced burning, redness, and pain because of the pepper spray and called 911 a few minutes after the attack, according to the district attorney's office. Guilbeault was arrested at the scene. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Women’s football league in London ‘bans’ Somali Muslim player over clothing
Football’s governing body in England has said that women playing the sport across its competitions are allowed to wear clothing that follows their religious beliefs after former Somalia captain Iqra Ismail was prevented from playing a match for not wearing shorts. The Football Association (FA) said on Wednesday they were aware of the matter that arose two days earlier. Ismail revealed in an Instagram video that she was not allowed to come on as a substitute for the team United Dragons during a game in the Greater London Women’s Football League (GLWFL) on Sunday because she was wearing tracksuit bottoms. The 24-year-old Muslim player, who is also a coach, added that she has been playing in the GLWFL for five years wearing similar clothing. “Every year, they have made it more and more difficult for women like me to play now they have drawn the line and banned me from playing until I compromise my beliefs,” Ismail said in the video. read the complete article
Palestinian student stripped of UK visa after Gaza remarks wins human rights appeal
A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision. The Home Office failed to demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar, 20, was “not conducive to public good” after the law student’s visa was revoked in December 2023, according to a tribunal ruling. She came to the attention of authorities after statements made at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News. The dual Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin said: “For 16 years Gaza has been under blockade, and for the first time they are actively resisting, they are not on the defence, and this is truly a once in a lifetime experience.” She also said: “And everyone is, we are both in fear, but also in fear of what, how Israel will retaliate and how we’ve seen it retaliate overnight, and the missiles that it’s launched and the attacks, but also we are full of pride. We are really, really full of joy of what happened.” The judgment also said Abu Qamar was “not an extremist”, and said her references to Israel as an “apartheid” state were consistent with views expressed by human rights organisations. It added that her language of “actively resisting” and “broke free” would be recognised by informed observers as relating to lawful acts of Palestinian resistance. read the complete article
India
India’s BJP Government Proposes Legislation to ‘Take Over’ Muslim Charitable Properties
There was high drama at a parliamentary committee meeting in the capital New Delhi last week, when opposition Trinamool Congress member Kalyan Banerjee was injured after he smashed a glass bottle during a heated argument at the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) meeting on the contentious Wakf Amendment Bill 2024. The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and the opposition bloc are at loggerheads with each other, and leading Muslim organizations have rejected the bill outright, perceiving it as a ploy by the Hindu supremacist BJP government to take over Muslim charitable properties. An Arabic word, wakf is a charitable endowment of property and assets under Muslim law. Significantly, it is property donated in the name of God or Allah. Wakf Boards in India administer all such properties that have been donated for charitable, religious, or pious use. With the community good being the driving motivation, wakf properties are used to run educational institutions, Muslim graveyards, mosques, and shelter homes. The most contentious change being proposed is the alteration of the composition of the Wakf Board. At present, as per the statute, the board has one or two nominees from the state government, Muslim legislators, recognized Islamic scholars, and managers (or “mutawalli”) of the wakfs. The new bill mandates that the Wakf Board must include “two non-Muslims” as members. Moreover, the state government can now nominate three members of parliament and senior civil service officers to the Wakf Board, who are not necessarily Muslim. read the complete article
Netherlands
Elderly Muslim woman says she was attacked by racist neighbour in the Netherlands
“She would say I’m going to cut your neck. They’re always on her side. If she calls the police, they all rush here. But when we call them, they don’t come.” An 82-year-old Muslim woman says she was attacked by her neighbour in the Netherlands. Cemile Telli says she called the police many times, but they didn’t do much. Her alleged attacker was released, and is still reportedly harassing her. read the complete article
Canada
Officials condemn hate-motivated assault in downtown London, Ont., park
A London police hate crime officer is investigating a hate-motivated assault that happened over the weekend in a downtown park. At approximately 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, a man was with his family in Ivey Park, in the area of King and Thames streets, when an unknown man approached them, police said. The suspect made derogatory comments toward the man before proceeding to assault him. In a social media post, the National Council of Canadian Muslims said it was "deeply horrified" to learn the victims were Muslim. "They're shaken up," said Nawaz Tahir, a London lawyer who serves as spokesperson for HIKMA Public Affairs Council, which has been in touch with a friend of the family. "Generally, when you go to the park your goal is to have a good time, and this just sort of shatters that." The Muslim community is seeing an increase in a compromise of its safety and security, said Tahir, through both verbal and physical forms of hate, despite the City of London's comprehensive plan to dismantle Islamophobia. read the complete article