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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In India, Telangana BJP leader T Raja Singh on Sunday urged a Uttarakhand Chief Minister to follow the policy of a different state of “teaching a lesson” to those involved in alleged ‘land jihad’, meanwhile, a secret prisoner exchange between the United States and China has made it possible for a 73 year old Uyghur Muslim women to be reunited with family in Virginia after 20 years apart, and in the US, after a DOE investigation into Temple University’s handling of complaints related to antisemitic and anti-Muslim discrimination, the school has agreed to a series of measures to better address campus discrimination. Our recommended read of the day is by Jane Mayer for The New Yorker on how Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was accordingly forced out of previous leadership positions for a slew of reasons including sexist behaviour and violating workplace conduct statutes. This and more below:
United States
Pete Hegseth’s Secret History | Recommended Read
Hegseth’s record before becoming a full-time Fox News TV host, in 2017, raises additional questions about his suitability to run the world’s largest and most lethal military force. A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!” On May 29, 2015, the staffer said, Hegseth and someone travelling with the group’s Defend Freedom Tour closed down the bar at the Sheraton Suites Hotel. The duo yelled “Kill All Muslims” multiple times, in what the staffer described as “a drunk and a violent manner.” Hegseth’s “despicable behavior,” he wrote, “embarrassed the entire organization.” He went on, “I personally was ashamed and . . . others were as well.” The staffer’s letter cited a second incident in which, he wrote, Hegseth “passed out” in the back of a party bus, then urinated in front of a hotel where C.V.A.’s team was staying. “I tell you this because it’s the truth,” the letter concluded. “And I sincerely care about the mission of C.VA and the future of my kids and the country.” read the complete article
Temple enters agreement with US Education Dept. after investigation into discrimination response
A U.S. Department of Education (DOE) investigation into Temple University’s handling of complaints related to antisemitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination found the university consistently took “proactive” steps to address complaints when they arose. But the DOE said in a statement that concerns about Title VI compliance — relating to discrimination based on shared ancestry — remain. Philadelphia-based Temple entered into an agreement with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to ensure compliance with Title VI in the future, effectively ending its investigation. According to the resolution agreement, the school will provide annual anti-discrimination training for all students and staff, conduct a survey on antisemitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination on campus, and provide regular reports on all complaints of discrimination and harassment based on shared ancestry to the Department of Education. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Policy Exchange told the Tories that Muslims were a threat. Will it work on Labour?
In the aftermath of the Islamophobic riots that swept Britain this summer, a strange quiet descended on Old Queen Street in Westminster. Policy Exchange, the influential right-wing thinktank headquartered among its Georgian terraces, can usually be counted on to provide hardline responses to outbreaks of crime. When politicians want to look tough on law and order, it’s there that they often turn for ideas. Yet a report on policing published by the thinktank in September had little to say about the UK’s biggest outbreak of violent disorder since 2011. Its 120 pages were more concerned with clamping down on protests against Israel’s bombing of Gaza, which it said had put people off going to restaurants — protests that Policy Exchange’s political allies had sought to portray as “Islamist hate marches”. Policy Exchange rarely misses a chance to call for a more hardline approach on crime, be it littering or antisocial behaviour. To understand why it was relatively unmoved by thousands of people unleashing a wave of racist violence, we should recall the way it has helped shape narratives about Islam in Britain over the last two decades. read the complete article
From Guantánamo to Gallery Walls: Art Exhibition “Don’t forget us here” to Come to London
Artwork of longstanding CAGE International Guantanamo Project Coordinator, and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mansoor Adayfi is to be featured, amongst others, in a London-based exhibition "Don't forget us here" shedding light on the injustice of indefinite detention without trial or charge. The exhibit will run from December 5 2024 to January 5 2025 at Rich Mix, Shoreditch, London, with an inaugural event at 6pm on the 5th of December for which Mansoor Adayfi will be speaking as the guest of honour. The exhibition is organised by the UK Guantánamo Network, in collaboration with Amnesty International UK. read the complete article
India
Teach lesson like Adityanath for ‘land jihad’, BJP’s T Raja Singh tells Uttarakhand CM
Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party leader T Raja Singh on Sunday urged Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to follow Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s policy of “teaching a lesson” to those involved in alleged land jihad in the hill state, PTI reported. “Land jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslims plot to usurp public land by illegally building religious structures on them. Singh, a Telangana MLA, was addressing a mahapanchayat, or conclave, organised by the Hindutva group Devbhoomi Vichar Manch in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi seeking the demolition of the town’s Jama Masjid. Hindutva groups have been demanding that the mosque be demolished, claiming that it was built illegally. However, the district administration had said that the mosque was built legally in 1969 and had been registered with requisite documents, The Times of India reported. read the complete article
International
Inside a Secret Plan to Bring Uyghurs Trapped in China to the United States
The police officers came for Ayshem Mamut a week ago at her home in northwest China. They told her to pack her bags. She could have been taken to a prison, a detention center or an internment camp, just like many other ethnic Uyghur Muslims who have vanished, sometimes for years. But four days later, the 73-year-old Chinese citizen was in Virginia having a Thanksgiving meal with two sons she had not seen in 20 years and four grandchildren she had never met. She sometimes talked, sometimes cried, as they ate traditional Uyghur dishes of noodle soup, lamb stew, broiled chicken, salad and rice with chickpeas. Last week, U.S. officials said that China had freed three American men, one of them an F.B.I. informant, in exchange for two imprisoned Chinese spies and at least one other Chinese citizen. But as part of that deal, China also quietly agreed to allow Ms. Mamut and two other Uyghurs, one an American citizen, to leave the country for the United States. The Biden administration has not made public the part of the deal involving the Uyghurs, and it is being reported here for the first time. “Waking up in America and seeing my family, especially my grandchildren, is nothing short of a dream come true,” Ms. Mamut said. The story of the Uyghurs’ journey to freedom is one of persistent efforts by anguished family members and American officials in the face of an increasingly authoritarian China. U.S. officials privately raised the cases for years in talks with their Chinese counterparts. President Biden mentioned Ms. Mamut twice in face-to-face meetings with Xi Jinping, China’s leader. read the complete article