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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, an investigation is underway into hateful graffiti in a Long Island neighborhood where residents said anti-Muslim vandalism was found on at least eight stop signs in the area, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, Ben Rowe, a Reform UK candidate seeking a seat on Plymouth City Council who shared a post on social media depicting a bomb being dropped on Mecca has been accused of “extremism” by the Muslim Council of Britain, and lastly in New Zealand, Australian white supremacist killer Brenton Tarrant has lost an appeal to overturn his conviction and sentence for shooting dead 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in 2019. Our recommended read of the day is by John Kiriakou for Jacobin, who writes that preemptive war without congressional approval and unchecked executive power, normalized during the “war on terror” by Bush and Obama, are now being pushed to dangerous extremes by Trump. This and more below:
United States
The War on Terror Enabled Donald Trump’s Authoritarianism | Recommended Read
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks marked a paradigm shift in US politics. Following the unprecedented horror and the worst intelligence failure in US history, the United States embarked on the “war on terror:” a sprawling, multifaceted, and in many ways illegal global campaign that profoundly reshaped both foreign and domestic policy. As they waged this offensive, driven by fear, nationalistic fervor, and a desire for revenge, successive US administrations jettisoned liberal democratic norms and legal constraints that had previously defined the American state. In so doing, they sowed the seeds for the authoritarian transformation currently underway. I had a front row seat to the CIA’s dismantling of the Constitution. I spent nearly fifteen years at the agency, serving as the chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after 9/11 and then as executive assistant to the CIA’s deputy director for operations during the planning of the Iraq War. It was clear even then that the United States was moving to embrace what Vice President Dick Cheney called the “dark side”: torture, assassinations, secret prisons, and extrajudicial “renditions.” It was equally clear that the Justice Department would sit idly by while the federal judiciary looked the other way. This dismantling of checks and balances, normalization of extrajudicial power, and cultivation of a culture of paranoid militarism laid the ground for the subsequent rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. These forces continue to endanger American democracy, especially as the US far right embraces insurrectionist ideologies. read the complete article
Anti-Muslim vandalism on stop signs alarms Long Island neighbors
An investigation is underway into hateful graffiti in a Long Island neighborhood. Residents said anti-Muslim vandalism was found on at least eight stop signs in the area of Carto Circle in Deer Park. Underneath the word "STOP," someone scrawled the word "Islam." "Sad, disgusted," said one father, who did not want to share his identity. "Every single stop sign has a 'stop Islam.' 'Stop Islam' all over the place." He said he's concerned for the safety of his children. read the complete article
International
Muslim faith leaders back pope following war of words with Trump
Muslim faith leaders in the UK and Europe have backed the pope following his public spat with Donald Trump over the US attack on Iran, arguing that faith leaders have a duty to challenge injustice and inequality. It comes after the head of the Catholic church condemned world leaders who take their countries into war, saying that Trump’s threat against Iranian civilisation was “unacceptable” and that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fuelling the war. It is estimated that thousands have been killed across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February. Trump fired back at the first American pope on social media, calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy” and adding: “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.” He also posted an AI image of himself as Christ — which has since been deleted — claiming later that he thought it depicted him as a doctor. read the complete article
AI and spatialised Islamophobia
Islamophobia, understood as “an attempt to deny Muslim agency" (Sayyid, 2017, p. 58), operates as a form of racism with deep spatial consequences. In the post-9/11 climate, everyday spaces were restructured around perceptions of Muslims as security threats, from heightened airport surveillance to counter-extremism measures like the UK's “Prevent Duty" (which requires local officials, including school, university and hospital administrators, to report people “at risk” of “radicalisation”) (Fernandez, 2024). Geographers have documented how Islamophobia produces spatial exclusion (Najib & Hopkins, 2019), with gendered dimensions: Muslim women face heightened harassment due to visible markers of faith, while Muslim men are subject to aggressive detention practices, as illustrated by Guantanamo Bay detentions (Bhattacharyya, 2008; Najib, 2022). Ultimately, Islamophobia must be understood as a racialised power that operates spatially, restricting Muslim movement, shrinking belonging, and necessitating alternative spaces. As such, it is rooted not in 9/11 alone, but in a much longer history of imperial formations (Najib, 2022; Nassar, 2023; Fernandez, 2026, in press). In this commentary, I argue that patterns of racialised exclusion directed against Muslims will be exacerbated by emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Whiteness, racialisation and technology are mutually constitutive (Cave & Dihal, 2020), and the Large Language Models at the basis of AI internalise this. For geographers, algorithmic activities that occur in ‘the cloud’ cannot be understood as placeless, as they generate tangible spatial consequences that are underpinned by racism and white supremacist tendencies (Kirk, 2025). I examine this spatialisation of Islamophobia in two key ways: through the increasing use of AI in warfare and the increased use of generative AI (Gen-AI). As AI has become more widely diffused, enabling individuals as well as institutions to reproduce and amplify Islamophobic content, I consider how these processes should be understood as a spatial project that regulates Muslim presence, mobility, and belonging (Najib, 2022). read the complete article
United Kingdom
Reform UK candidate who shared social media post showing bombing of Mecca accused of 'extremism'
A Reform UK candidate who shared a post on social media depicting a bomb being dropped on Mecca has been accused of “extremism” by the Muslim Council of Britain. Ben Rowe is running for a seat on Plymouth City Council in the local elections on May 7. Reform UK have told LBC they are “thoroughly looking into his social media posts” which have since been removed. Dr Naomi Green, Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, told LBC the posts shared online by Ben Rowe portray Muslims as “a group of people who are bombable, who are killable.” Green says: “This is extremism. Anyone who is calling for the mass murder of a group of people is an extremist. It doesn't matter what religion, ethnicity, or background they are.” read the complete article
India
Why is India turning to crocodiles and snakes to ‘fence’ Bangladesh border?
Indian officials have floated a controversial plan to introduce apex predators such as crocodiles and venomous snakes into riverine stretches along the Bangladesh border, to act as natural deterrents against undocumented migration and smuggling in places where erecting fencing is difficult. The government’s latest move to fence the border with Bangladesh has alarmed human rights activists and wildlife conservationists alike in India. “This would be hilarious if it weren’t sinister and dangerous,” said Angshuman Choudhury, a researcher with a focus on northeastern and eastern Indian border states. “It’s absurd, right?” Looking at it objectively, argued Choudhury, “once you release venomous snakes and crocodiles, they won’t be able to differentiate if it’s a Bangladeshi or Indian”. “This is peak cruelty against and dehumanisation of undocumented immigrants. A whole new way of weaponising nature and animals against human beings. It’s biopolitical violence of a new kind.” read the complete article
New Zealand
New Zealand court denies bid by mosque mass shooter to appeal conviction
Australian white supremacist killer Brenton Tarrant has lost an appeal to overturn his conviction and sentence for shooting dead 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in 2019, court documents show. New Zealand’s Court of Appeal denied Tarrant’s appeal on Thursday, ruling that his attempt to overturn his guilty plea for the country’s deadliest mass shooting was “utterly devoid of merit”. The 35-year-old had admitted to carrying out the mass shooting before being sentenced to life in prison in August 2020. Tarrant, who is serving life in prison without parole for killing Muslim worshippers at the Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, livestreamed his attack for 17 minutes. He had also published an online manifesto before carrying out the atrocity, which targeted children, women and the elderly. read the complete article