![[Farid Hafez]](https://bridge.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-04-at-10.45.01-AM.jpeg "Farid Hafez")
The Bridge Initiative is a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University.
The Bridge Initiative aims to disseminate original and accessible research, offers engaging analysis and commentary on contemporary issues, and hosts a wide repository of educational resources to inform the general public about Islamophobia.
Research & Resources
Swinging to the right: Austria bans face veils
This op-ed by Bridge Initiative Senior Research Fellow Farid Hafez originally appeared in Daily Sabah. It seems quite intentional that the ban on full-face veiling in public places, infamously known as the so called “Burka Ban,” came into force on Oct. 1, when Austria largely becomes cloudy, the sun fades away, and with all that, the high-time…
In Austria, the problem is not the far-right party
This op-ed by Bridge Initiative Senior Research Fellow Farid Hafez originally appeared in Al Jazeera. Last year, many observers who were worried about the rise of the far-right in Europe and the United States felt relieved after the former leader of the small Green Party, Alexander Van der Bellen, won Austria’s presidential elections by a small margin. He managed…
The ‘Allahu Akbar’ Double Standard of Terrorism
One of the worst mass shootings in modern American history recently took place in October 2017 when a white man named Stephen Paddock shot over 500 people (killing 58 of them) during an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. A few weeks after the Las Vegas massacre, a 29-year-old Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan named Saifullo Saipov…