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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Spain, the arrest and detention of an alleged far-right ringleader in southern Spain following three nights of anti-immigrant violence has once again put the spotlight on the social network, Telegram, with disinformation experts accusing the platform of failing to adequately moderate posts, meanwhile in Australia, hockey gold medallist and former Labor senator Nova Peris shared a series of Islamophobic social media posts, including one which said that Islam “should be banned in the West”, and in the United States, far-right social media personality, Laura Loomer has been pushing anti-Muslim conspiracy theories about the suspected individual behind the July 28th Manhattan NFL headquarters shooting. Our recommended read of the day is by author Tariq Mehmood for Al Jazeera, who warns that the UK is sliding into a “racist dystopia”: the far‑right Reform Party is riding anti‑migrant, Islamophobic rhetoric to 30% in polls while mainstream parties debate austerity but fuel cultural fearmongering. This and more below:
United Kingdom
The UK is slipping into racist dystopia | Recommended Read
It has been a year since the Southport attack, which triggered furious racist riots in the streets of the United Kingdom. Unruly crowds, galvanised by false claims that the perpetrator was Muslim, went on a rampage, attacking mosques, Muslim-owned businesses, homes, and individuals they perceived as Muslim. As the riots were raging, I was finishing my novel, The Second Coming. The book is set in a dystopian future in which a Christian militia inspired by English nationalism seizes London, bans Islam, and exiles Muslims to refugee camps in Birmingham. The events unfolding in the streets as I was writing the final chapters made me realise that today, we are much closer to the dystopian world in my novel than I had imagined. The scenes and images that helped me shape this fictional world were inspired by the England I lived in during my youth, when racist violence was rampant. Gangs of white youth would hunt us down, especially after the pubs closed, in wave after wave of what they called “Paki bashing”. While the old crude white racism has not disappeared, a more vicious form – Islamophobia – has been fanned over the past few decades. It feels like the old “Paki” bashing gangs have been replaced by a new crusading wave that equates Islam with terrorism; sexual abuse with Pakistanis; asylum seekers with parasitic hordes about to overrun the country. This is the soil in which the Reform Party has taken root and flourished, in which ever cruder forms of racism are made respectable and electable. read the complete article
The 2024 riots — by the people who lived through them
On 30 July 2024 riots broke out in the seaside town of Southport, Merseyside, following the murder of three young girls at a local dance class the previous day. The chaos, which began outside the local mosque, was catalysed by false claims circulated online by far-right groups that the killer was a recently arrived Muslim immigrant. Despite the release of details by police confirming that the attacker, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was born in the UK to a Christian family of Rwandan heritage, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant violence continued to spread across England and Northern Ireland for the next week. Stretching from Aldershot to Belfast, the 2024 riots are now considered the worst incidence of racially motivated disorder on British soil for decades. As part of our series of articles on the long-term impact of the unrest, Hyphen’s reporters have spoken to people in communities that lived through the violence and continue to be affected by it today. These are their stories. read the complete article
India
What the 2006 Mumbai blasts acquittals reveal about policing and anti-Muslim bias in India
Shaikh, a schoolteacher, was one of thirteen men originally accused in the charges of coordinated attacks in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Seven bombs had exploded within minutes on commuter trains during the evening rush hour, killing more than 187 people and injuring 800. Shaikh spent nine years behind bars before being acquitted in 2015. When reporters outside asked how it felt, he told them: “We have always said we are innocent.” He says that he watched the others break down in tears when they heard the judgment, their sobs echoing through the courtroom. “I also could not control my emotions. I went out, prayed and thanked God,” Shaikh tells TRT World. The verdict overturned a 2015 ruling by a special court that sentenced five men to death and seven to life. But the high court ruled the police had tortured suspects and fabricated evidence, “creating a false appearance of having solved a case.” Legal experts say the acquittals expose systemic flaws in how terror cases are investigated and the devastating cost of those failures. Across India, courts have overturned numerous terrorism-related convictions involving Muslims, often years, or decades, after the damage was done. Analysts say this pattern reflects how anti-Muslim suspicion became embedded in India’s security and political systems after 9/11, and how it has endured under successive governments. “After 9/11, anti-Muslim suspicion became institutionalised, policing based on identity and ideology rather than solid evidence became the norm,” says Asim Ali, a policy analyst, in an interview with TRT World. read the complete article
Erasing Empires: How India’s Textbooks Are Rewriting Its Past
India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which guides curriculum in thousands of schools across the country, has revamped school textbooks to align with the ideology of the BJP-led central government. Critics say this will change the way future generations idea of India and the contributions of Muslims to the nation-building. India is rewriting its school history books and, in the process, reshaping how its next generation will remember the past. The curriculum revisions go beyond medieval history. Entire chapters on modern political movements, global revolutions, and social justice have also been deleted. From the Class 11 history syllabus, topics such as "Central Islamic Lands"," Confrontation of Cultures", and "The Industrial Revolution" are no longer included. Similarly, the Class 12 history book, Themes in Indian History – Part II, has dropped the chapter "Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts (16th and 17th Centuries)". Chapters on post-independence politics have also been removed. many academics and educators believe something more deliberate is happening — a narrowing of history that aligns with political ideology. The BJP-led central government has, since coming to power in 2014, focused heavily on shaping a cultural identity rooted in Hindu pride. In this framework, the medieval period - dominated by Muslim dynasties like the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals - becomes an uncomfortable chapter. The new textbooks reflect that discomfort. read the complete article
Spain
Telegram under fire again as ‘living room’ for far-right extremists
The arrest and detention of an alleged far-right ringleader in southern Spain following three nights of anti-immigrant violence has once again put the spotlight on social network Telegram, with disinformation experts accusing the platform of failing to adequately moderate posts. Telegram this week denied claims that it had allowed Deport Them Now — a Europe-wide network of far-right militants calling for the mass deportation of immigrants from western countries — to disseminate hate unchecked, culminating in the violence in Murcia that resulted in 14 arrests. It is the latest scandal involving the platform’s alleged use as a space for the extreme right to organise. Spanish journalists and web analysts, however, argue that extremist groups, including Deport Them Now, prefer to use Telegram precisely because of its comparatively lax moderation and a history of pushing back against calls from authorities to shut down problematic channels. Marcelino Madrigal, a Spanish web analyst who monitored social-media activity during and after the recent riots believes the Deport Them Now Telegram channel served as a “living room” for people to talk and organise. “It provided the infrastructure for groups to chat in,” Madrigal said. read the complete article
Australia
'Does not belong in his country': Hockey Australia stands by Peris as more anti-Islam re-posts emerge
Hockey gold medallist and former Labor senator Nova Peris shared a series of social media posts scathing of Islam in the lead-up to her election as a director of the sport, including one which said the religion “should be banned in the West”. Peris was voted onto the board of Hockey Australia last month, nearly three decades after her triumph with the national women’s team, the Hockeyroos, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. But her position as a director of the government-funded national federation has come under question because of comments she has re-posted online this year. This masthead reported that the pro-Israel campaigner shared a comment from another user on X in April that called Muslims “Satan worshipping cockroaches that need to be eradicated”. That account is no longer active, but other Peris re-posts of anti-Islam rhetoric in the three months before her elevation to the Hockey Australia board have remained on her profile on the social media platform. The 54-year-old, who has 15,000 followers on X, shared a comment by right-wing commentator Kobie Thatcher on April 18 that denounced Muslims praying in public in Parramatta on Good Friday. read the complete article
United States
Laura Loomer pushes baseless Islamophobic claims in the wake of NYC shooting
On July 28, a shooter opened fire in a Manhattan office building that houses the NFL headquarters, killing four individuals including New York Police Department officer and Muslim immigrant Didarul Islam. Laura Loomer, an extremist with close ties to the Trump administration, immediately began pushing anti-Muslim lies about the suspected shooter, later identified as a former high school football player from Las Vegas who reportedly had a note mentioning the NFL and claiming he had a degenerative brain disease linked to concussions. Loomer initially claimed the shooter was “described by witnesses as a Middle Eastern man with an AR-15 rifle.” She also claimed the shooter supported the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, and the “Free Palestine movement.” After the identity of the suspected shooter was released, Loomer doubled down on claims that he was a “Free Palestine” activist, writing, “So let me get this straight. A Free Palestine low IQ black jihadi killed a Muslim police officer in his rampage on a building in NYC with a Jewish CEO while he was screaming Free Palestine?” Loomer then lashed out against the media for not pushing baseless claims about the shooter’s motives: “Now the media is running to cover up another act of Islamic terrorism by the FREE PALESTINE crowd.” There appears to be no evidence that the shooter is connected to protests about Palestinians. Loomer used her claims to push an Islamophobic agenda, repeatedly calling for Mamdani, who has been visiting Uganda, to be refused reentry to the country. She framed Mamdani as an “Islamic immigrant invader” and attacked Muslim politicians broadly, writing, “We need to have a serious conversation about banning Islamic immigrants from running for office in America.” read the complete article
International
A personal tale of an Iraqi friendship that has defied religion and conflict
The war in Gaza has driven a wedge between many Jews and Muslims in the U.S. and around the world. These tensions stretch back decades. But there was a time when Jews and Muslims lived together throughout the Middle East as close friends and neighbors. It's a very personal story for NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi. HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: My father was born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq. He likes to tell a good story, and one he always told our family was about his dear college friend Khudr Bassoon. They met at the University of Baghdad in 1967, where they studied chemical engineering. My dad's friend eventually moved to the United Kingdom, and a year later, my dad did too. H AL-SHALCHI: That's my 76-year-old father, Fakhri Al-Shalchi, talking to me on the phone recently and retelling the story I know from memory. My dad says, in Iraqi Arabic, "I didn't know the language. I didn't know the country. I didn't know the weather, but he helped me." H AL-SHALCHI: Bassoon gave him a place to sleep, a tour of campus, showed him where to eat. We're Muslim, and my dad always made a point to remind my sisters and me that his friend Bassoon was Jewish. I think it was my dad's way of teaching us that there used to be a time when Jews and Muslims were neighbors and friends in the Arab world. That was a time before Jews fled or were expelled from Arab countries, and Palestinians were fleeing and forced from their lands as the state of Israel was created in 1948. When I moved to Israel on assignment for NPR last year, my dad surprised me. He said his old friend Bassoon lives there, and I could now meet the man I had heard of for so long. read the complete article