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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, a former soldier accused of murdering his Muslim neighbour in November 2024 said that society was “bowing down to Muslims”, his trial heard, meanwhile in India, the new film The Taj Story is the latest example of how pop culture is amplifying anti-Muslim conspiracy theories in the country, and in the U.S., ex-Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified as part of Anthony Garrett’s bid for a retrial accounting the torture and treatment he endured by the Chicago police detective involved in Garrett’s case. Our recommended read of the day is by Senator Mehreen Faruqi for The Sydney Morning Herald on how fellow Senator Pauline Hanson’s offensive publicity stunt is “trying to spark a culture war that distracts people from the real issues they face,” and ultimately puts the lives of Muslim Australians at risk. This and more below:
Australia
Pauline Hanson pulls a stunt and Muslims pay the price | Recommended Read
It is Groundhog Day for Muslims in Australia. More than eight years since her first attempt, Pauline Hanson, fresh from rubbing shoulders with far-right extremists in the United States, has dug deep into her closet, dusted off her burqa and decided to unleash on Muslims again. The fact that this is One Nation’s number one priority as we reach the end of another parliamentary year is further evidence of its hollow agenda. One Nation has nothing to offer Australians struggling with the cost of living and housing. It never has. All it has are pathetic but damaging publicity stunts. It has always flipped through the book of racist and Islamophobic policy and chosen the page that best meets its divisive agenda at the time. This time it landed on the burqa again. But this is not really about a burqa. It’s not really about what a woman can or cannot wear, which should never be up for any debate. It is about One Nation trying to spark a culture war that distracts people from the real issues they face. It is about using an item of clothing to bring to the surface the underlying racism that “others” certain people, who One Nation and its backers want to scapegoat for issues not of their making. And once again, it is migrants and Muslims who pay the price. read the complete article
Amnesty International Australia condemns Senator Hanson’s harmful stunt targeting Muslim people
Amnesty International Australia condemns the stunt carried out by Senator Pauline Hanson on Monday 24th November. Senator Hanson, who is not Muslim, wore a Burqa into the Senate after she was not given leave to move legislation to ban the religious garment in Australia. Senator Hanson’s stunt and the legislation that accompanied it is offensive to many in the Muslim community and amounted to Islamophobia. Politicians and other community leaders should refrain from engaging in actions that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or fuel hatred toward already targeted communities. Actions of this nature, especially by high-profile elected representatives, fuel hostility and violence towards targeted communities and must be unequivocally rejected. Senator Hanson’s longstanding pattern of such inflammatory behaviour cannot and should not be tolerated. read the complete article
Australian senator is barred from Parliament for wearing burqa in protest
An Australian senator who is campaigning for a national burqa ban was barred Tuesday from Parliament for the rest of the year for wearing the Muslim garment in the chamber. Pauline Hanson, the 71-year-old leader of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigration One Nation minor party, was accused of performing a disrespectful stunt on Monday when she walked into the Senate shrouded in the head-to-ankle garment to protest fellow senators’ refusal to consider her bill that would ban the burqa and other full-face coverings in public places. Senators suspended her for the rest of the day on Monday. In the absence of an apology, they passed a censure motion Tuesday that carried one of the harshest penalties against a senator in recent decades. She was barred from seven consecutive Senate sitting days. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Murder trial hears ex-soldier's rant about Muslims
A former soldier accused of murdering his neighbour said society was "bowing down to Muslims" and described the victim as a "wrong 'un" who had "pushed his luck", his trial heard. Abdulkadar Chadli, 48, was found dead with a single stab wound to the chest at a property on Mousehold Street, Norwich, in November 2024. The jury was shown police body-worn camera footage from officers who first attended the home of Elvis Vickers, 48, and discovered Mr Chadli lying on the bathroom floor. Mr Vickers, who denies murder, can be heard on the footage saying it was "self-defence". While talking about what had just happened, the defendant said the victim was a "wrong-un, like all them" and he "pushed his luck, didn't he?". The jury had previously heard Mr Vickers had said he was "not letting these terrorists run my street" ahead of the alleged attack. At Norwich Crown Court, Christopher Paxton KC, said Mr Vickers "was a man consumed with anger and hatred". read the complete article
British Muslim Trust launches helpline service
The British Muslim Trust (BMT) has launched a new helpline service in the wake of increased anti-Muslim hate in the UK. The British Muslim Trust provides confidential support and safe reporting for victims of anti-Muslim hate across the UK. The helpline will be used to support victims to help them report their experiences in a safe environment and can be accessed via multiple channels: Phone 0808 172 3524 - free of charge from any phone, operating between 10am and 3pm, Website form – designed with three steps and mostly non-required fields for easy completion, and Email, SMS, WhatsApp and live chat (victims can use these services at any time, and a member of the team will provide follow-up on the following day). All calls are handled by Muslim staff to ensure there is a cultural and religious understanding of the context of these incidents. read the complete article
Women tell of harassment on the tube as calls grow for segregated carriages
Muslim women and girls have spoken out about sexual harassment on the tube as a petition urging the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to introduce women-only carriages gains momentum. Maya Rose Williams, a 20-year-old English student, told Hyphen how she had been making her way to university earlier this year with her friend when a man began harassing them at Waterloo station. “He followed and preyed on us all the way to our gates, lunging into our faces repeatedly shouting ‘boo’. We were both terrified,” she said. “When we confronted him about it, he began to get aggressive, shouting at us that we don’t belong here, that we were disgusting and to go back to Afghanistan. Ironically, I’m a British revert.” Both students were wearing a black niqab and jilbab, and Williams said they strongly felt that the man’s actions were motivated by both Islamophobia and the fact they are women. “These people wouldn’t do this to a man,” she said. “They want to prey on vulnerable women who can’t defend themselves properly. No one even helped, they simply watched.” read the complete article
United States
Ex-Guantánamo detainee testifies a former Chicago detective tortured him for months
A Dutch citizen told a Cook County judge Monday afternoon that a Chicago police detective interrogating him at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, convinced him that U.S. authorities were allowing his mother to be kidnapped and raped. Sept. 11 suspect Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified as part of Anthony Garrett’s bid for a retrial. Garrett was convicted in the 1992 murder of Dantrell Davis, 7, who was shot by a sniper in the now-demolished Cabrini-Green public housing complex while walking to school with his mother. Garrett says his confession in the case was tortured out of him by then-Chicago Police Department detective Richard Zuley. In 2003, more than a decade later, Zuley was on leave from the police department as a Navy reservist in the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo. After 70 days of Zuley-orchestrated torture, Slahi said, the detective confronted him with a hoax. “Due to the lack of your cooperation, the U.S. government has decided to arrest your mother and put her in a men-only prison,” Slahi recalled Zuley telling him. “The U.S. government cannot guarantee her safety, and this is all because of you.” Zuley led “enhanced interrogation techniques” throughout the summer that year, Slahi testified. The torture included isolation, temperature extremes, beatings, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, barking dogs and a mock execution at sea. Round-the-clock sessions allegedly included strobe lights and a looped recording of the U.S. national anthem that kept Slahi from sleeping and praying. read the complete article
India
Attempts to demonize the Taj Mahal damage more than history
In recent years, the Taj has also become a contested site, targeted by those determined to recast India’s pluralist history. The symbol of love is now a flash point in India’s historical antagonism between Hindus and minority Muslims, a battle between historians — a battle over truth, identity and power. The latest salvo is the film “The Taj Story.” Directed by Tushar Amrish Goel, it follows Vishnu Das, a guide in the city of Agra who is convinced the Taj was originally a Hindu structure, possibly a temple dedicated to Shiva. Das’s convictions echo a conspiracy theory that has circulated for years: that the Taj has hidden Hindu origins. The film questions whether Shah Jahan, the fifth emperor in the Mughal dynasty, built the Taj from scratch or repurposed a Hindu palace, using this debate to imply deceit and civilizational betrayal. It projects Muslims as the perpetual other, with Das describing the Taj as “a symbol of atrocity, a symbol of genocide” — an inversion of historical record and an attempt to transform beauty into threat. The film caricatures traditional scholars of Mughal history as conspirators without engaging with actual scholarship. “The Taj Story” fits into a larger climate shaped by Hindu nationalist rhetoric and amplified through India’s influential popular culture. Bollywood has produced a steady stream of films, including “Chhaava,” “The Kashmir Files” and “Padmaavat,” that reimagine history, often portraying medieval Muslim rulers as bloodthirsty tyrants, flattening centuries of Indo-Islamic contributions to architecture, music, literature and cuisine into a single narrative of oppression. It’s mirrored in messaging from political leaders. read the complete article