Displaying Type: In the News

08 Sep 2025

Austria hijab school ban law is deja vu for marginalised Muslims

This article was written by Bridge Initiative Senior Researcher Farid Hafez and first appeared in The Middle East Eye on September 8th, 2025 This month, Austria’s new centrist coalition government is preparing legislation to ban... read the complete article

17 Mar 2025

Furthering the ‘far-right international’: Likud joins the Patriots for Europe

In the 1990s, Europe’s post-fascist and post-Nazi political parties were clear in rejecting Israel on the grounds of their antisemitism. Seen largely as an extension of the United States‘ neocolonialism, these parties mobilised against the US as a leader... read the complete article

27 Jan 2025

On the Auschwitz anniversary, Europe cannot ignore its far-right problem

On January 27, 1945, the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated. An estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945 and 1.1 million of them were murdered. As... read the complete article

27 Jan 2025

Austrian far-right victory foreshadows dystopia for Muslim population

For the first time since the end of the Nazi regime, the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) – a political party that was established by ex-Nazis for ex-Nazis, and that has grown to become... read the complete article

24 Oct 2024

After the far-right victory: what’s next for the Austrian government?

Elections in Austria are over. The Austrian far-right celebrated a historical victory by winning the most votes following a similar success in the European Parliamentary elections in July this year for the first time ever.... read the complete article

07 May 2024

Statement on Campus Protests

The Alwaleed Center for Muslim Christian Understanding (ACMCU), The Bridge Initiative and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at Georgetown University stand in support of courageous university students across the country exercising their First... read the complete article

26 Apr 2024

Fighting Smear Campaigns Against Muslims in Europe: The Case of Professor Farid Hafez

In March 2023, The New Yorker published an article, “The Dirty Secrets of a Smear Campaign,” revealing a large-scale systematic smear campaign that disseminated false allegations of purported links of European residents to Islamists with the aim... read the complete article