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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Australia, the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) has accused former Prime Minister Scott Morrison of promoting Islamophobic narratives and unfairly blaming Muslims for acts of violence, meanwhile in Canada, Muslim leaders are calling for an end to Islamophobic rhetoric and fearmongering, as the country marks the ninth anniversary of a deadly attack on a mosque in Quebec, and lastly in the Netherlands, authorities have launched an investigation into possible racially motivated violence by a police officer following an incident in Utrecht in which two Muslim women were beaten with a baton and kicked. Our recommended read of the day is by Imran Mulla for Middle East Eye on Reform Party candidate, GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, whose taken an interesting shift from a former liberal academic who studied the far-right, to promoting far-right narratives demonizing Muslims and immigrants. This and more below:
United Kingdom
Reform candidate Matt Goodwin: From 'liberal left' to Islamophobia sceptic | Recommended Read
On Tuesday Reform announced its candidate for the election: GB News presenter Matt Goodwin. Goodwin is a prominent right-wing commentator with a long record of making controversial comments about ethnicity, Islam and Muslims. Most contentiously, he has repeatedly insisted that British-born people with immigrant parents are not necessarily British. His positions on ethnicity and Muslims will likely become a major talking point for his opponents ahead of the 26 February by-election, in a seat where more than one in four voters are Muslim. But Goodwin cuts an unusual figure for Reform, which is topping national opinion polls. For one thing, he is not a former Tory (the party has seen a spate of high-profile defections from the Tory party in the past few weeks). But most unusually, St Albans-born Goodwin used to be an academic who studied and wrote on national populism and the far right. He authored books on the British National Party and the UK Independence Party, which used to be led by now-Reform leader Farage. Between 2013 and 2015 he even served as an adviser to the coalition government on tackling anti-Muslim hatred. He left the anti-hatred taskforce in 2015 saying that "the basic message appeared to be that the government was simply not that interested in anti-Muslim hatred". Goodwin accused the government of failing to engage with British Muslim communities. But over the next several years Goodwin became increasingly sympathetic to the right-wing politicians he wrote about and now he has become one of them. read the complete article
How did British Muslims become ‘the problem’? – podcast
The far right is on the rise and much of its messaging is explicitly Islamophobic. In 2024 anti-Muslim hate crimes in England and Wales doubled. Meanwhile, the government has stated that it cannot even agree on a definition of what Islamophobia is. How does all this make British Muslims feel? Miqdaad Versi, Shaista Aziz and the Guardian’s community affairs reporter Aamna Mohdin talk to Nosheen Iqbal about what’s changed. Miqdaad says that as his Muslim identity feels increasingly politicised and criticised, it has made him more protective of others in the community. “There’s so many people who are in so many difficult circumstances because of the Muslim identity. And it feels like if you don’t try and stand up for all, you’re diminishing what it means to be Muslim here in this country.” For Aamna, the data tells a worrying story. “The stats are quite harrowing and really staggering. Latest YouGov polling data shows that most British people don’t think Islam is compatible with British values, which is really bizarre to me. The number of Islamophobic assaults has increased by 73% between 2023 to 2024. Genuinely every leader that I talk to within the Muslim community in this country is saying this is an unparalleled time to be Muslim, the danger is here, we desperately need help – and they are being ignored.” read the complete article
Australia
Australia's Muslim community blasts ex-Premier Morrison over Islamophobic demands
Australia’s Muslim community on Wednesday criticized former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, accusing him of promoting Islamophobic narratives and unfairly blaming Muslims for acts of violence. The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), the peak body representing Muslim religious leaders in Australia, said Morrison’s calls for Muslim leaders to undertake so-called “wholesale reform” and to take “accountability and responsibility” to address what he described as “political Islam" and implying that Islam or Muslims bear responsibility for the recent Bondi beach attack, were "reckless, irresponsible, and deeply ill-informed." “This is not the first time Scott Morrison has made such reckless remarks,” ANIC said, adding that during his time in office he made similar claims following the 2018 Bourke Street attack, suggesting Muslim leaders and communities should be “more proactive” and implying they would know who was being radicalised. The council rejected any suggestion that Islam or Muslims bear responsibility for the Bondi attacks, noting that law enforcement authorities have clearly stated the incidents were not organized, directed, or endorsed by any religious group. read the complete article
Liberal frontbencher says Morrison's proposal to register imams 'a worthwhile discussion'
Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg says parts of Scott Morrison's proposal to crackdown on antisemitism, including the introduction of a register for Islamic preachers, are "worth looking at". He also says Australian Muslims need to take "some responsibility" for extremist incidents. Labor minister Pat Conroy says it is "incredibly unfair" to hold the entire Muslim community responsible for acts by people adhering to an "extreme perversion of Islam". read the complete article
Canada
Montrealers remember victims of 2017 Quebec City mosque attack
"It's crucial that Canadians continue to combat Islamophobia because it undermines our social cohesion and our democracy," says Amira Elghawaby, Canada's Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. read the complete article
Quebec mosque attack anniversary renews call to end anti-Muslim hate
Canadian Muslim leaders are calling for an end to Islamophobic rhetoric and fearmongering, as the country prepares to mark the nine-year anniversary of a deadly attack on a mosque in the province of Quebec. Stephen Brown, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), said Thursday’s anniversary is a reminder that Islamophobia in Canada “is not benign”. “It’s something that unfortunately kills people,” Brown told Al Jazeera. “[The anniversary] forces us to remember that there’s real consequences to hatred.” Six Muslim men were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City on January 29, 2017, marking the deadliest attack on a house of worship in Canadian history. The assault left Quebec City’s tight-knit Muslim community deeply shaken, spurred vigils and condemnation across Canada, and shone a spotlight on a global rise in anti-Muslim hate and radicalisation. The Canadian government denounced the shooting as a “terrorist attack” against Muslims and pledged to tackle the underlying issues. In 2021, it announced it was designating January 29 as the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia. But Brown said he was not sure whether the lessons learned after what happened in Quebec City were being fully remembered today, nearly a decade later. read the complete article
Canadian Muslims mark Quebec mosque attack anniversary, warn of rising Islamophobia
Canadian Muslims on Wednesday marked the anniversary of the 2017 Quebec City mosque attack, remembering the six men killed and renewing calls to confront Islamophobia amid concerns that progress is eroding. In Montreal’s Pierrefonds borough, residents, advocates, and minority leaders came together to honour the victims of the shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, an attack that remains the deadliest on a house of worship in Canadian history, CityNews Montreal reported. Six Muslim men were killed when a gunman opened fire during evening prayers on January 29 2017. Community members said the tragedy fundamentally altered how many Muslims viewed Canada. “The country we believed to be a place of safety and belonging suddenly felt more fragile than we had ever imagined,” said Ola Shaheen of the Canadian Youth Development Centre, quoted by CityNews Montreal. read the complete article
International
Trump’s framing of Nigeria insurgency as a war on Christians risks undermining interfaith peacebuilding
As a scholar of African politics, I know that calling the insurgency in Nigeria a persecution of Christians – as the U.S. administration has repeatedly done – is simplistic and ill-informed. Yes, Christians have been killed and kidnapped as part of the prolonged terrorism campaign by Boko Haram and other extremist groups. But so too have other groups in the country, including Muslims. Moreover, the religious identity of the victims masks other motives of the militant groups involved. I recently carried out interviews in Maiduguri, Borno State – the epicenter of Boko Haram activities in northeast Nigeria – as part of research into interfaith efforts to counter threats from Islamic extremists. For many of those interviewed, the insurgency and violence have often served to unite Nigerians with different religious identities against a common enemy: the groups making their life a misery. The danger of Trump’s narrative of this being a war on Christians is that it could undermine such efforts to build cross-community trust. read the complete article
Dissident Who Daringly Documented Uyghurs’ Repression Wins Asylum
A federal immigration judge on Wednesday granted asylum to a Chinese dissident who had taken great risks to secretly record his country’s mass detention and surveillance of Uyghurs. Heng Guan, 38, was detained last August in upstate New York, and supporters feared that he would be sent back to China, where human rights activists said he would almost certainly face persecution. After an outcry from human rights advocates, Democrats and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Trump administration sought to deport him instead to Uganda. Then in late December, the administration dropped that request, but Mr. Guan has remained in immigration detention. The judge, Charles M. Ouslander, said that Mr. Guan’s testimony was “credible and worthy of belief.” Judge Ouslander referred to a number of factors, including the State Department’s previous designation of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in its far western region of Xinjiang as a “genocide.” read the complete article
United States
CAIR Says Rasmussen Poll ‘Message Testing’ Anti-Muslim Talking Points is Latest Sign of Deliberate Effort to Stoke Islamophobia
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said today that a recent Rasmussen Reports survey “message-testing” anti-Muslim talking points is the latest sign of a deliberate effort to stoke anti-Muslim hysteria nationwide for political gain. On January 15, 2026, Rasmussen Reports released the results of a three-question message-testing measure. CAIR asserts the survey used selectively framed questions to elicit a predetermined conclusion that Muslims are inherently threatening. One question falsely declared that Muslims were establishing sharia law in America and then asked respondents for their reaction: “Some Muslims in the United States want to form separate communities governed by Islamic Sharia law. Do you support or oppose Muslims establishing their own communities in the United States?” CAIR notes that such dehumanizing messaging can produce hateful rhetoric that targets American Muslims for political gain and harmful policies. In 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump cited an already debunked poll as justification for what became his Muslim Ban. read the complete article
Netherlands
Netherlands probes police attack on Muslim women in Utrecht
Authorities in the Netherlands have launched an investigation into possible racially motivated violence by a police officer following an incident in Utrecht in which two Muslim women were beaten with a baton and kicked. According to police statements, all available video footage—including recordings from body cameras and other sources—will be thoroughly reviewed as part of a comprehensive investigation. Police emphasised that reports of this nature are taken “very seriously," Caliber.Az reports per foreign media. read the complete article