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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, a medical tribunal has suspended a doctor for making “deplorable” Islamophobic comments against a Muslim colleague who posted a petition criticising the British government’s support for Israel, meanwhile in the United States, at a Texas State Board of Education hearing this past week in Austin, over 150 conservative “anti-Sharia” activists flooded the hearing spewing misinformation and demanding that Texas stand against “the threat of Islam”, and lastly in France, Bally Bagayoko, a French mayor of Sahelian African descent, is facing racist insults that are currently being investigated by police. Our recommended read of the day is by Anna Liss-Roy for The Washington Post, who reports that Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has posted from both his campaign and official accounts about Muslims, Islam or “sharia law” more than 244 times since January — the most of any member of Congress, drawing concern and “eye rolls” from opponents and colleagues alike. This and more below:
United States
Under attack by their own congressman | Recommended Read
“No more Muslims,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in a recent online post. Roy, who is in a competitive May runoff in the Republican primary for Texas attorney general, has ramped up attacks on the Muslim community in his bid for the statewide office. A Washington Post analysis found Roy has posted from both his campaign and official accounts about Muslims, Islam or “sharia law” more than 244 times since January — the most of any member of Congress. Stopping “the flood of Islamists” into Texas would be Roy’s “fundamental mission” as attorney general, he told The Post in an interview. He said the advance of Islam is “destroying the state,” vowed to defend what he called Judeo-Christian culture in Texas and accused Muslim organizations of plotting to turn the West into an Islamic state. He led a recent constituent newsletter with a call to “end the scourge of Islamist violence,” referencing recent violent attacks in Texas, Virginia, Michigan and New York. Roy’s comments about a group that makes up a low-single-digit percentage of his state’s population are part of a broader trend of Republicans leaning into Islamophobic rhetoric. In more than a dozen interviews with The Post, Muslims who live in or near Roy’s congressional district — which nudges out into Austin and slices down into San Antonio before extending west into Hill Country — said Roy’s accusations are a misrepresentation of their community’s values designed to distract from real issues, and that his words contribute to a culture of rising prejudice that puts their families at risk. read the complete article
Tarrant activists, officials ask Texas education board to ‘keep Islam out of social studies’
The group from Grapevine had left for Austin shortly after 5 a.m., answering a call from leaders of True Texas Project — the Tarrant County-based conservative activist group that galvanized Fort Worth officials to overturn a nondiscrimination policy in 2024 — to keep Islam and “sharia law” out of public school and urge board members to adopt a curriculum focused on “traditional, America-first principles.” “Islam has nothing to do with the founding of the USA or Texas and should not be included in U.S. and Texas history curriculum,” Fran Rhodes, president of True Texas Project, told SBOE members. “Sharia practices are in conflict with both the U.S. and the Texas Constitution — not to be considered in a social studies curriculum.” About 150 people were registered to speak during the 14-hour meeting. Some took to the lectern to warn state education leaders about what they characterized as the “threat of the Islam” taking over Texas public schools. However, the majority of speakers argued the proposed instruction materials prioritized Christianity over other religions and lacked diverse faith perspectives. State Board of Education hearings have long been “a traditional battleground in Texas politics,” said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University. The rhetoric used to target the Islamic faith and Muslims on Tuesday — by both residents and elected officials — mark a “ratcheting up of vitriol,” he said. “It is the critics of Islam who have a bullhorn right now, and it’s hard to hear anything other than the misrepresentation that they are broadcasting,” Chancey said in an interview while reviewing recordings of the SBOE hearing with Fort Worth Report journalists. read the complete article
‘It’s solid gold’: Some Texas Republicans ramp up criticisms of Muslims to energize primary voters
Running in a contentious race to keep his seat, Sen. John Cornyn put out an ad vowing to fight “radical Islam.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Cornyn’s opponent in the May 26 runoff, accused his rival of helping “radical Islamic Afghans invade Texas.” Rep. Chip Roy, running to replace Paxton as attorney general in a runoff next month, has alleged without evidence that parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, home to thousands of Muslims, have become what some Texas women believe to be “no-go zones” in which they are “increasingly feeling uncomfortable, as if they are somehow immersed in the Middle East.” Certain Republicans in Texas have made anti-Islamic rhetoric part of their primary campaigns, arguing that Muslims have made the state less safe. That’s a notable message in the nation’s largest conservative state and one that’s echoed by a handful of Republicans nationally, including members of Congress. Vinny Minchillo, a Republican strategist based in Plano, Texas, said that with illegal immigration hitting lows during Trump’s presidency, it made sense for GOP candidates to drive at another immigration-related concern and that opposition to Sharia law, or Islamic religious law, in particular was a winner in primaries. “It is playing as well as anything I have ever seen with Texas Republican voters,” said Minchillo, who worked on the media team for Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid. “It’s solid gold.” read the complete article
American Muslims Don’t Need to Defend Our Existence
The right to freely practice my religion is enshrined in our Constitution under the First Amendment. It protects this right for all people to practice any faith, or none at all, and prohibits our government from establishing an official religion. You would think members of Congress, who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, would know this. Yet many continue to attack the faith of millions of Muslim Americans, including their own constituents. Some have invoked “sharia” — which refers to the various rules Muslims follow, like prayer guidance — to preposterously claim that Muslims are trying to “replace” the Constitution. Islamic learning institutions — like the summer school where I first learned the Arabic alphabet in my youth — are a growing target. This racist fearmongering is a tried and true tactic — a cheap deflection from these leaders’ own failure to respond to their constituents’ actual needs, like affordable housing, health care, and groceries. But it’s also more than that. The more Muslims are dehumanized, the easier it is for politicians to justify their endless, costly, and immoral wars on Muslim-majority countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iran, and the genocide in Gaza. Like clockwork, each new bombing abroad fuels more anti-Muslim racism and violence against my community at home. read the complete article
United Kingdom
UK doctor suspended for sending Islamophobic messages about Gaza to colleague
A medical tribunal in the UK has suspended a doctor for making “deplorable” Islamophobic comments against a Muslim colleague who posted a petition criticising the British government’s support for Israel. Cinderella Nonoo-Cohen, a serving member of the European Jewish Parliament, sent a series of comments about fellow doctor Roghieh Dehghan in a WhatsApp group, prompting a referral to the General Medical Council (GMC). The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) handed Nonoo-Cohen, also known as Cindy Cohen, a four-month suspension over the messages, which were sent more than two years ago in the days following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. Nonoo-Cohen’s comments came after Dehghan shared a post asking her colleagues to “consider” signing a petition to oppose the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s decision to display the Israeli flag in support of Israel. The north London doctor responded to Dehghan’s post on the group by saying, “You should not bring politics to this group. I’m disappointed in you as a doctor. Get your facts straight first. Typical of you Muslims to gaslight.” read the complete article
A racist killed my father and Islamophobia has got worse since
Thirteen years ago this month, Birmingham grandfather Haji Mohammed Saleem was stabbed to death as he walked home from Green Lane Mosque in Small Heath. His murderer was white supremacist Pavlo Lapshyn, a student from Ukraine who had arrived in the UK just days earlier, hell bent on killing Muslims. It was an act of Islamophobic hate of the vilest kind. The spectre of right wing extremism has not disappeared. It is taking hold in ways that leave his still grieving family disturbed and anxious. In an open letter penned for BirminghamLive, daughter Maz Saleem has expressed her frustration that voices of extremism and hate have become 'mainstream' - and has pressed for more action to confront the Islamophobia that is continuing to ferment and foment across the country. read the complete article
Not just about Gaza: the Muslim voters turning from Labour to the Greens
In interviews last week, Suleman and a dozen other Muslim campaigners and voters across Newcastle described a profound sense that Labour has long abandoned communities like theirs. The council has been Labour-run for decades, but voters and campaigners point to graffitied, shuttered shopfronts, diminishing local services and a Labour leadership’s tepid response to the rise of the far right as evidence that the party no longer speaks for them. This shift is not unique to Newcastle. From Gorton and Denton, where Hannah Spencer won the Greens’ first ever byelection victory, to contests in Birmingham, Leicester and east London, Labour is haemorrhaging Muslim support. The trend is so stark that the health secretary, Wes Streeting, who came within 500 votes of losing his seat in Ilford North, has spoken of his alarm that even previously safe council wards are at risk. The upcoming local elections will show whether these results were simply a protest vote or emblematic of a deeper, more permanent shift. For Suleman, Onwurah’s abstention was a telling moment – but also part of a much longer process of disillusionment. It was the rise of the far right that helped him make the jump from simply hating politics to standing as a Green councillor. The 2024 summer racist riots, where mosques were attacked, asylum hotels burned down, hijab-wearing women assaulted, and men dragged out of their car by baying mobs, reminded him of his bleakest days at school. “They had special days to beat up people like me. They called it ‘Paki bashing’,” he said. He was angry to see that same “poison” being fed into their communities as the cost of living takes a deeper toll. So why the Greens? Suleman believes it is the best party to fight the far right. read the complete article
Met police accused of favouring Tommy Robinson far-right rally over Palestine march
Annie Lennox and Miriam Margolyes are among artists who have accused the Metropolitan police of giving preferential treatment to a far-right demonstration led by Tommy Robinson over a pro-Palestine protest in London on the same day. The pro-Palestine movement has had its preferred route through central London for its annual commemoration of Nakba – the mass expulsion of Palestinians – rejected by the Met, while the “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration will take place on the same date in Kingsway, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Parliament Square. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted on X: “London is ours on May 16th.” An open letter saying that the Met “must not favour the far right over Palestine” has also been signed by the actors Samuel West and Khalid Abdalla, the musicians Billy Bragg and Nadine Shah, as well as MPs, academics, lawyers, trade union and civil society leaders. read the complete article
I was horrified by a child’s question – no one stood up for me
It was on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon this summer, while I was walking along Chatham High Street, when I became the victim of Islamophobia. I’d been running errands when a group of children, no older than 10, walked by me and shouted: ‘Got a bomb under your mop?’. I was stunned by their blatant, unashamed racism – and yet I didn’t do or say anything in my defence. Partly because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of a reaction, but also because I know that when you’re a visibly Muslim woman, a comeback can be filled with risk. So instead of responding, I kept going about my day as if nothing had happened. People around me were oblivious as they walked past. I wondered had we reached a point where incidents like this have made people desensitised? This wasn’t the first time I’d heard such abuse – sadly it’s part of daily life for Muslim women in Britain – but I fear such slurs are only becoming more visible, more brazen. read the complete article
India
Shortlisted for an Oscar, 'Homebound' is a daring movie about two dear friends
Neeraj Ghaywan, director of Homebound, didn't want to go public with his movie until it was ready. He worried its central story might be received with hostility by Indian media — by a country — profoundly changed by a decade of rule by the e Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, known as the BJP. He need not have worried. Homebound, is based on a true story: a tender friendship between two boys from a dusty village, one a Muslim; the other a Dalit, a South Asian caste once known as "untouchables." The movie revolves around their failed attempts to push through the discrimination they face in today's India as their lives are upturned and imperiled by the Indian government's response to the COVID pandemic. read the complete article
Political turmoil in Indian border state as nine million lose voting rights
Muhammad Daud Ali, a former Indian army technician, recently discovered that he was no longer a voter in his home state of West Bengal. His name - and those of his three children - had been struck off the electoral rolls despite valid documents, including his passport and service records. Only his wife remained on the list. Ali, 65, and his children are among nine million voters - about 12% of West Bengal's 76 million electorate - who have been removed from the 2026 rolls as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Voting to elect a new state government will take place later this month in this eastern Indian state. Of these nine million, more than six million names were struck off as absentee or deceased voters, while the fate of another 2.7 million - including families like Ali's - remains undecided and will be determined by tribunals. The tensions have been fuelled by remarks from political leaders, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who have suggested in campaign speeches that the clean-up is aimed at identifying so-called "illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators" - a term the TMC says is being used to refer to Muslims. However, many Hindu voters have also been left out from the list. read the complete article
France
When a mayor becomes a symbol in France’s far-right politics
The intersection of race and politics has become increasingly fraught, shaped by a public discourse in which media and political actors often normalize polarizing and inflammatory language around race, policy, and identity. In France, this dynamic is particularly visible in the rhetoric of far-right media and politicians, who argue that politics itself is actively reshaping racial categories and perceptions. Lately, a French mayor of Sahelian African descent faced racist insults that are currently being investigated. The hate speech he faced reflects the rise of far-right ideology ahead of next year’s unprecedented and crucial presidential election. Bally Bagayoko, a member of La France Insoumise (LFI), was elected as the mayor of Saint-Denis in the 2026 French municipal elections. Saint-Denis is 8 to 10 kilometers (5 to 7 miles) from the center of Paris, in the Ile-de-France region, which is the second-largest region in France, and represents 18.8% of France’s metropolitan population. For the first time, the commune, which is home to 130 nationalities, has a mayor who reflects its community, a child of the city and the son of a Malian immigrant family. However, Bagayoko was targeted with racist insults after winning the mayoralty. read the complete article