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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, a man was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, and banned from going near a mosque for 18 months after he repeatedly released rats outside a mosque in Sheffield, meanwhile in Australia, the education minister has said he wants to look at all of the proposed recommendations to combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism before responding, stating he wanted to “tackle racism in whatever form it comes”, and in the United Kingdom, the recent call for evidence by the Government’s working group on an Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hatred definition has left activists disappointed, and with the impression that it is not a sincere effort. Our recommended read of the day is by The New Arab on a new report from the Centre for Media Monitoring, which finds that Muslim women in British media are being pushed to the brink of leaving the industry due to Islamophobia and tokenism. This and more below:
United Kingdom
'We're pushed out': Muslim women in UK media face systemic discrimination, new report finds | Recommended Read
A new study has uncovered entrenched discrimination against Muslim women in Britain's media industry, revealing toxic workplace cultures, limited career progression, and the emotional toll of covering conflicts such as the war on Gaza. The report, published by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) and entitled 'Muslim Women in the Media: Breaking Barriers, Bearing the Burden' was launched at a central London event and draws on anonymous responses from 102 Muslim women working across print, broadcast, and online media. It found widespread Islamophobia, stereotyping, and structural exclusion, leaving many to question their future in journalism. "I've never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist", one respondent said, referring to newsroom coverage of Gaza. Among respondents, 92 percent said negative attitudes towards Islam and Muslims are embedded within media organisations, while 72 percent reported experiencing direct discrimination linked to their Muslim identity. read the complete article
Moment man dumps rats outside Sheffield mosque in hate crime
This is the shocking moment a man releases rats outside a mosque in Sheffield as part of a series of racially motivated hate crimes. CCTV footage shows Edmund Fowler, 66, taking cages containing rats from his car boot and dumping them outside Sheffield Grand Mosque on Grimesthorpe Road, with the vermin appearing to run in through the fence. The 66-year-old repeated this on three other occasions between May and June. Fowler, of Skelwith Drive, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to four counts of racially aggravated harassment at Sheffield Magistrates' Court. On Thursday (16 July), he was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and banned from going near a mosque for 18 months. read the complete article
‘The Government’s Call for Evidence on Islamophobia is a Rigged Box-Ticking Exercise’
In an era where British Muslims face rising levels of hostility – from hate crime in the streets to institutional discrimination – one might expect that a Government working group tasked with producing a definition of Islamophobia or ‘anti-Muslim hate,’ might be a good-faith effort. Unfortunately, the recent call for evidence by the UK Government’s working group on an Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hatred definition has left activists disappointed, and with the impression that it is not a sincere effort. In fact, the process appears to be little more than a farcical box-ticking exercise, leading to the conclusion that the procedure has been structurally rigged to avoid engagement with the very communities whose rights it claims to serve. Firstly, the process for submitting evidence on how to define Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hate appears to have been designed to avoid actual engagement. Anyone who has submitted evidence to a standard Parliamentary inquiry knows the word count for consultations tends to be around 3,000 words. It would have made sense for this process to have been the same, for the obvious reason that Islamophobia is a multi-faceted and nuanced sociological and political problem that requires in-depth analysis. Such work requires evidence drawn from the lived experiences of ordinary Muslims, academic literature, case studies, legal precedent and data analysis. However, the amount of evidence that can be submitted to the working group is constrained by tight limits, in some cases disallowing answers that exceed 70 to 100 characters. To put that into perspective, this is barely more than one tweet’s worth of letters. One cannot even scratch the surface of a problem like Islamophobia, covering legislative gaps, media biases, hate crime trends or workplace discrimination, within such restrictive limits. This does not appear to be an open and sincere invitation to share knowledge; rather, it has the look of a bureaucratic muzzle disguised as a public consultation. read the complete article
International
Relatives mourn Palestinian American beaten to death by Israeli settlers: ‘He made everyone feel loved’
When Fatmah Muhammad thinks about her younger cousin Sayfollah Musallet, affectionately known as Saif, she pictures him behind the counter of his ice-cream shop in Tampa Bay, Florida, carefully decorating her knafeh with the same effort he brought to everything else. Now, less than a year after opening that shop with dreams of expansion, Saif is dead – beaten to death by Israeli settlers on his family’s farm in the occupied West Bank while he was visiting relatives. His death has left a family shattered and a community demanding answers. “He really made everyone feel like family,” Fatmah remembers. “No matter the race, no matter the background, no matter the age. That’s just who he was.” Born in Port Charlotte, Florida, Saif was the oldest of four children. His parents had moved the family to Palestine for his elementary and high school years before he returned to the US to live and work. The family Saif was visiting represents generations of connections between Palestine and America. His uncle Hesam, who was born in the United States, explained how his father – Saif’s grandfather – had come to the US in the early 1960s. His grandfather first arrived in New York in the early 1900s, spending a few years stateside before returning to the West Bank. “There’s so many people in our town that are American citizens,” Hesam says of their village. “Most of their children and grandchildren all born here. So they go back and forth, summer vacations there. Everybody goes for summer vacations, weddings. It’s just typical.” read the complete article
Oxford University Press to stop publishing China-sponsored science journal
Oxford University Press (OUP) will no longer publish a controversial academic journal sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice after years of concerns that several papers in the publication did not meet ethical standards about DNA collection. A statement published on the website of Forensic Sciences Research (FSR) states that OUP will stop publishing the quarterly journal after this year. Several papers published in FSR have attracted criticism because they study genetic data from Uyghurs and other heavily surveilled ethnic minorities in China. Critics say subjects in the studies may not have freely consented to their DNA samples being used in the research and that the studies could help to enhance the mass surveillance of those populations. One study, published in 2020, analysed blood samples from 264 Uyghurs in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region in north-west China. The paper states that the people giving the samples consented to the research and that their data was anonymised. The lead author on the study is affiliated with China’s state security apparatus via the Xinjiang Police College, which provided a research grant. In 2024, OUP published an “expression of concern” about the article, responding to questions about whether or not Uyghurs in Xinjiang could freely refuse to participate in a study conducted by representatives of China’s state security. The paper has not been retracted. read the complete article
The Truth About Taqiyya and the Concealment of Genocide
Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, and the tsunami of Islamophobia it unleashed, I’d never heard of taqiyya. Nor had any of the Muslims, or those identified as Muslims, that I had encountered before that time. More precisely, the topic never came up. Not once. As explained by Islamophobes, and pro-Israel flunkies in particular, taqiyya means not only “liar” but much, much more. In their telling, taqiyya not only permits but positively requires Muslims to lie and conceal, about anything and everything, in order to achieve their collective objective of global domination, thus transforming the entire planet into an Islamic caliphate. Through subterfuge, of course. It is a divine license, directly provided by Allah, to fabricate and dissemble at will. It is the primary religious obligation of every Muslim, whether religious or not, exceeding the Shahada and the other pillars of the Muslim faith. So what exactly is this diabolical phenomenon, and what are its origins? Specifically, taqiyya permits Muslims to conceal their faith and/or beliefs if confronted with genuine danger to their persons or communities, and if they are doing so for the purpose of preserving life and property. The religious justification for doing so is that God remains aware of their true convictions and intentions, and will therefore, under these specific circumstances, forgive the believer for outwardly concealing their faith. Taqiyya may only be practiced as a defensive, protective measure when confronted with genuine danger, and only in relation to concealing one’s identity as a Muslim believer. read the complete article
Australia
‘Tackle racism in whatever form’: Labor defers response to contentious antisemitism proposals for universities
The federal government will defer its response to Jillian Segal’s contentious plan to address antisemitism on campuses until after it has received a broader review of racism at universities and a separate report from the Islamophobia envoy, the education minister has confirmed. Jason Clare outlined the process to reporters on Wednesday, saying he wanted to “tackle racism in whatever form it comes”. The antisemitism envoy’s 20-page plan, released last Thursday, made a range of recommendations for the higher education sector, including launching a “university report card” and withholding government funding from universities that “facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism”. Some academics, human rights groups and peak bodies have expressed concerns that moves could be weaponised to stifle free speech and dissent. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Clare said racism existed at universities “in all its ugly forms”, not just antisemitism. “Before we consider those recommendations to their final conclusion, I want to look at the recommendations of the special envoy on Islamophobia, and I also want to see the work of the race discrimination [commissioner],” Clare said. “I think that’s fair, I think that’s the right thing to do. But it’s not just antisemitism and it’s not just Islamophobia. Ask Indigenous kids at university today and they’ll say ‘Well, don’t forget me’. read the complete article