Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Australia, Sky News is reviewing its new Sunday night program Freya Fires Up, hosted by Freya Leach, after removing an interview with a guest who appeared with bacon draped over his shirt and told the host it was to “protect him from terrorists”, meanwhile in India, the Delhi high court has become the latest to deny bail to detained political prisoner and activist Umar Khalid, whose prison sentence surpasses the five year mark this month, and in the United Kingdom, after flags associated with the Bajrang Dal militant group were raised in a Muslim-majority area of Leicester last month, Rajiv Sinha of Hindus for Human Rights UK said the rally “likely aimed to intimidate Muslims”. Our recommended read of the day is by Adeshola Ore for The Guardian, who writes on a new report out by Islamophobia Register Australia, which shows that Muslim women and girls in Australia are subject to 75% of reported anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country. This and more below:
Australia
‘I’d rather be bored than in danger’: Muslim women change how they behave in public because of racist attacks in Australia | Recommended Read
Islamophobia Register Australia data shows women and girls are subject to 75% of reported incidents. These are some of their stories. These include Muslim women having their hijabs pulled off and being spat on in public. The IRA’s executive director, Dr Nora Amath, says since 2014, reports from women have not dropped below about 70% of all reports. The register has also documented a 530% increase in incidents reported since 7 October 2023 – when Hamas led a coordinated attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people. Alongside a rise of Islamophobia, antisemitic incidents have also increased in Australia since this date. Alzoubi, who wears a hijab, says since October 2023, she has chosen to visit only areas of Sydney that have a higher Muslim population. “I don’t know how people will react to me in public, being so visibly Muslim, and I can’t take that chance, especially when I have my son with me,” she says. When she commutes with her 14-months-old boy, who loves trains, she is extra cautious. “It’s not just me to think about any more, it’s also his safety to think about too,” she says. Mariam Tohamy, a teacher and activist who wears a hijab, has experienced incidents such as being spat on in public in Sydney in 2007. But an Islamophobic incident she experienced in Bankstown’s Kmart, in Sydney’s west, last December felt like an escalation. Tohamy and her 10-year-old daughter, who was also wearing a hijab, were browsing the bathroom section when she noticed pencil boxes flying off the shelves. A woman then began pulling boxes from the shelves towards her and later gestured a throat-slitting motion at her, Tohamy says. The woman in the footage is also heard saying “get f*cked Allah”. “That’s when I thought, yeah, that’s it. She’s there because I’m pro-Palestinian and obviously, wearing the hijab,” Tohamy says. “I didn’t respond to her at all because of my safety.” read the complete article
Sky News orders review after guest unleashes anti-Islam rant, wears bacon on-air
Sky News is reviewing its new Sunday night program Freya Fires Up, hosted by Freya Leach, after removing an interview with a guest who appeared with bacon draped over his shirt and told the host it was to “protect him” from terrorists, as he made further Islamophobic comments before being cut off. While the interview on Sunday evening was removed from the full episode uploaded onto Sky’s online platform, guest Ryan Williams reposted his appearance on Instagram. The post has since been liked 90,000 times. Williams’ social media accounts feature multiple videos of him wearing bacon across his chest. He asks followers online to donate to his cause of inflicting “maximum damage on Islam” and keeping “Europe Christian at all costs”. Leach introduced Williams as a “social media sensation” and a conservative political strategist. She later made a brief on-air apology for the interview. “The reason I’ve got bacon on my shoulders is because the terrorists are a charming lot, and they threaten to behead me every single day, so a little bit of protection,” Williams said appearing to laugh. During his Sky appearance, he said the UK faced the threat of Islamic invasion every day, and wrongly said that Britain’s second-biggest city, Birmingham, has a Muslim majority. According to the 2021 census, 34 per cent of Birmingham residents identify as Christian, while 29.9 per cent identify as Muslim. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Manufacturing Fear: A Critique of Tommy Robinson’s Islamophobia
The contemporary global landscape is increasingly fraught with narratives of division, fear, and hostility, meticulously constructed and disseminated by figures who position themselves as guardians of national identity against perceived external threats. Among these, Tommy Robinson, born Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, stands out as a particularly potent and influential purveyor of Islamophobia. His trajectory, from co-founding the English Defence League (EDL), an extreme nationalist movement, to his current incarnation as an independent media personality, is characterized by a relentless campaign against Islam, framed as an existential threat to Western, and specifically British, values. This paper undertakes a comprehensive and critical examination of Robinson’s rhetoric, statements, and textual derivations, primarily as expressed in his autobiographical and polemical works: Enemy of the State (2015), SILENCED (2022), and Mohammed’s Koran Why Muslims Kill for Islam (2017). This analysis aims to expose how Robinson’s discourse systematically misrepresents Islam, undermines democratic principles, and actively threatens the fabric of a pluralistic global community. We contend that Robinson operates as a war-mongering extremist whose narratives fuel division, dehumanization, and ultimately imperil the potential for genuine coexistence and shared human flourishing. read the complete article
Nadiya Hussain: my BBC exit, Islamophobia and new grocery ranges
The Great British Bake Off winner and national treasure on her BBC deal, racism and new grocery collaborations. For all its positive associations, Hussain pinpoints the book as the moment when opportunities began to dwindle. Rooza took “many, many years” to come to fruition, Hussain says, due to the hesitancy of her publisher around writing something explicitly linked to her faith. Unfortunately, their fears came to pass. Hussain says she lost 1,000 Instagram followers within 15 hours of announcing the book’s release. “When I put faith and food together, I think it unnerved a lot of people,” she explains. “And that very day I lost a big contract.” While Hussain keeps tight-lipped on the details, she reflects that “up to that point, I felt like a very manufactured version of a Muslim”. “I feel like I just made myself so digestible, so easy and comfortable, for the general public. But as soon as I wrote Rooza, I think it dawned on certain people: ‘Oh, my goodness, she’s a Muslim.’” Hussain has become more outspoken about her experiences of racism and Islamophobia. “I’m getting really bored of letting it go,” she says. Speaking recently on the We Need to Talk podcast, she recalled how the presenters of a “very big breakfast show” mocked a recipe from her cookbook, by changing the name of her ‘chaat in a bag’ dish to ‘shat in a bag’. “I found that really distasteful and really hateful,” she told the podcast’s host, Paul Brunson. “And they refused to apologise.” read the complete article
Why Britain can no longer turn a blind eye to Hindutva extremism
After flags associated with the Bajrang Dal militant group were raised in a Muslim-majority area of Leicester last month, Rajiv Sinha of Hindus for Human Rights UK said the rally likely aimed to intimidate Muslims. Though some linked it to a Hindu festival, the symbolism and timing - coming around the third anniversary of the 2022 unrest in Leicester - pointed to the presence of Hindutva ideology. And yet, Britain’s right-wing media and think tanks downplayed the incident, blaming Muslims or depicting it as generic “communal unrest”. This was not unlike the framing that arose three years ago, after India defeated Pakistan in a cricket match in Dubai on 28 August 2022. These contests often extend beyond sport, fuelling nationalist rhetoric online. In Leicester, one of England’s most multicultural cities, The Guardian reported that jubilant Indian fans shouted “Pakistan Murdabad” (“death to Pakistan”) on the streets, sparking tensions that escalated into widespread unrest. Such tensions were not new; disputes over cultural practices and religious events had previously caused friction. Hindu festivals involving loud music during processions, for example, have sometimes clashed with the sensibilities of “conservative Muslims”. A recent Community Policy Forum report identified Hindutva as a key driver of the 2022 unrest, combined with antisocial behaviour, divisive narratives and disinformation. It stressed that the tensions were not rooted in Leicester’s multicultural fabric, but in external influences and extremist ideologies. While some have accused recent migrants of importing Hindutva ideas, this obscures the role of larger local networks in promoting extremism. The UK is thus mirroring a global trend: far-right movements, including Hindu ultra-nationalists, are converging in shared campaigns of anti-Muslim hatred. Leicester must be understood not as an isolated clash but as part of a transnational mobilisation of violent ideologies. By turning a blind eye to Hindutva, Britain risks strengthening violent transnational Islamophobia. read the complete article
India
‘This is their attempt to silence him’: Umar Khalid reaches five years in Indian jail without trial
Few understand the purgatory of jail like Khalid. For five years – since his arrest in September 2020 under a draconian terrorism law – he has remained India’s most prominent political prisoner, to many a potent symbol of the systematic crushing of dissent under the dominant Hindu nationalist regime of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. This month the Delhi high court became the latest to deny the bail pleas of Khalid and his alleged co-conspirators. His bail case is now with the supreme court, where a hearing was delayed again on Friday. In the meantime he has remained detained in Delhi’s notorious Tihar jail without a conviction to his name. Khalid, a Muslim and leftwing activist, is accused of being a key conspirator in the Delhi riots in which violent religious mobs rampaged across the north-west of the city in February 2020. Most of the 53 people killed in the riots were Muslims and several mosques were burned to the ground. Before his arrest Khalid had emerged as one of the faces of an anti-government protest movement after the Modi government passed a citizenship law in late 2019 that was seen as discriminatory to Muslims. The protests that erupted were the first widespread challenge to the Modi regime and were met with brute force by the state. Dozens were killed by police fire and activists were detained and tortured. In the months that followed, many of those who had been prominent protest organisers and voices began to be accused of acts of terror, while figures associated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party who had made direct calls to violence in Delhi just before the riots erupted faced no action. read the complete article
India: What's behind PM Modi's 'demographic mission?'
On India's Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a "high-powered demography mission" would deal with the "conspiracy" of irregular migration. Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has repeatedly described immigrants from neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh as a "national security crisis," claiming that the Muslim "infiltration" is leading to a demographic shift in India. "Infiltrators are snatching away the livelihood of our youth, targeting the sisters and daughters of our country, misleading innocent tribals, and capturing their land," Modi said in his August 15 speech at the iconic Red Fort in New Delhi. "This will not be tolerated." Since then, Modi has doubled down on his declaration, although detailed operational plans have not been made public. Many critics have pointed out that linking irregular migration to threats against jobs and tribal land rights was nothing but a ruse to justify targeting populations perceived as outsiders — especially in the Indian states that share borders with Bangladesh. "The core rationale behind both efforts chillingly converges to undermine the legitimacy of a substantial segment of Indian citizens by branding them as foreigners," Mukhopadhyay told DW. "What was once sharply opposed as communal politics is now repositioned as a form of nationalistic policy deemed politically acceptable." read the complete article
Canada
New bill to target use of hate or terrorism-related symbols
The Canadian government is introducing a bill criminalizing the promotion of hatred using hate symbols. The bill will address increasing hate incidents, including antisemitism and islamophobia. Our Emily Fitzpatrick has more on how the proposed legislation is going over here in Alberta. read the complete article
International
UK and other Western nations recognize Palestinian state ahead of UN meetings – but symbolic action won’t make statehood happen
Of the 193 existing U.N member states, some 150 now recognize a Palestinian state. Ahead of the U.N. gathering in New York, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom become the latest. And that number is expected to increase in the coming days, with several more countries expected to officially announce similar recognition. That a host of Western nations are adding their names to the near-universal list of Global South countries that already recognize a Palestinian state is a major diplomatic win for the cause of an independent, sovereign and self-governed nation for Palestinians. Conversely, it is a massive diplomatic loss for Israel – especially coming just two years after the West stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas. As a scholar of modern Palestinian history, I know that this diplomatic moment is decades in the making. But I am also aware that symbolic diplomatic breakthroughs on the issue of Palestinian statehood have occurred before, only to prove meaningless in the face of events that make statehood less likely. In fact, many Palestinians and other critics of the status quo say Western nations are using the issue of Palestinian statehood to absolve them from the far more challenging diplomatic task of holding Israel accountable for what a U.N. body just described as a genocide in Gaza. read the complete article