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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, a man has been arrested after Islamophobic graffiti was sprayed on the walls of the Jami Community and Education Centre in what police are calling a “religiously aggravated” crime, meanwhile in the United States, according to lawyers in New York and New Jersey, federal law enforcement visits to Shiite Muslims living in the U.S. have increased, as have hate incidents targeting them online and in person, and lastly in the Netherlands, a mosque in Zaandam was severely damaged in a vandalism attack, raising concerns over a pattern of incidents targeting places of worship. Our recommended read of the day is by Faisal Hanif for Middle East Eye on how ‘Islamofascism’, a term forged in the fever swamps of post-9/11 neoconservatism, is being picked up again now to justify the latest western onslaught in the Middle East. This and more below:
International
Islamofascism: The word that launders war crimes, from Iran to Palestine | Recommended Read
The carefully collapsed term “Islamofascism” is having its moment. Its use across the western mainstream media and blogosphere - including UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Europe - increased in frequency by 33 percent in 2025 over the previous year, according to my own tracking. It is appearing in the Jerusalem Post, in neoconservative journals, and in western tabloids keen to frame the illegal war on Iran as a necessary and noble conquest. The word is not new. But its resurrection, and the purposes it is now being made to serve, demand scrutiny. The term was forged in the fever swamps of post-9/11 neoconservatism. Its most committed architect was author Norman Podhoretz, who died late last year, just months before his pet project of bombing Iran came to fruition. According to Podhoretz’s 2007 essay in Commentary magazine, titled “The Case for Bombing Iran”, the latter is not a state with a history, a population, or a society of competing political interests. Iran is merely a front in a global war, and the only appropriate response is air strikes. In the latest edition of the magazine, his son, John Podhoretz, has taken up the baton, painting a straight line from Nazi Germany to the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the lament that all this could have been avoided if only the US had listened to papa and dropped the bombs two decades ago. In the intervening period, the term Islamofascism has been nominally specific: the Islamic State (IS) group, suicide bombers, or those who refuse to stop until they are dead. But once you establish that a category of belief places its holder beyond civil protection, the question of who belongs to that category becomes entirely political. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Man arrested over Islamophobic graffiti at mosque
A man has been arrested after Islamophobic graffiti was sprayed on the walls of a Birmingham mosque and community centre. The Jami Community and Education Centre on Kettle Road in Kingstanding was targeted on 1 April and 3 April, West Midlands Police said. Officers increased patrols in the area to reassure the local community after the word "terrorists" was sprayed on the building. Police said a 38-year-old man was arrested at an address in the same area on suspicion of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage, and remained in police custody. read the complete article
SMB Success in Landmark Discrimination Claim For Mohammed Arif
The Birmingham County Court has today handed down judgment in favour of long standing SMB client, Mohammed Arif, a veteran Cabinet Member and former Conservative Councillor for St Matthew’s, concluding proceedings relating to his discrimination claim against officers of the former Walsall Conservative Federation. In a detailed 150-page judgment, the court found Mr Arif had been discriminated against or victimised in 13 different respects by officers of the former Walsall Conservative Federation between 2015 and 2018. The court found that Mr Arif’s Muslim faith had been “weaponised” against him in a decision not to select him as a local election candidate and the Federation had victimised him in expelling and then re-expelling from both the Federation and the Conservative Party. read the complete article
Network Rail worker wins race harassment case after EDL leaflet left in locker
A Network Rail worker has won a race harassment case after his colleagues left an anti-Islam English Defence League [EDL] leaflet in his locker. Parmjit Bassi, who is not a Muslim, was found to have been the victim of a racist attack when his co-worker stuffed an EDL leaflet in his locker that asked “what individuals were doing to protect their children from Islam”. The railway worker was also accused of committing a high-profile stabbing, when colleagues placed a newspaper page in his locker about a knife attack. Bassi, based at Eastleigh depot in Hampshire, is now in line to receive compensation after successfully suing Network Rail at an employment tribunal. The tribunal ruled that even though Bassi did not follow Islam, the incidents were “clear slights” against his race and Network Rail managers had had a “laissez-faire attitude” towards them. read the complete article
United States
America Has Long Targeted Muslims, But Today’s Hatred is Different
Within the past month alone in New York City, a mugger targeted a Muslim woman on the subway, calling her a “terrorist” and saying that Mayor Zohran Mamdani “can’t help you now”; a man smeared feces on a mosque after tearing pages from the Quran on the doorstep; and a member of a pro-Israel terror group was exposed for planning to assassinate a Palestinian-American woman and movement leader. Our nerves are frayed. As members of historically excluded communities—including Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities—our nerves have long been frayed, and especially so since 2023. And this year has somehow started off worse than last year ended. To understand why we feel so unsafe and unwelcome in this moment in particular, one need only listen to the many members of Congress openly hating and endangering American Muslims with no political or professional consequence: Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles has declared that Muslims “don’t belong in American society” and that “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back." Florida Rep. Randy Fine, who has previously called for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the United States, stated, “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” As none of these comments have been met with consequences from Republican leadership, this would lead no one to believe that acting on such statements would, either. While the present seething public hatred of Muslims may feel exceptional, it is important to understand its history. read the complete article
Iran war rhetoric puts Shiite Muslims in the US at risk, advocates say
Since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran over a month ago, federal law enforcement visits to Shiite Muslims living in the U.S. have increased, as have hate incidents targeting them online and in person, according to lawyers in California and New Jersey. Muslim advocates who track hate incidents and legal cases say comments from the Trump administration about the Iran war have put a target on Muslim Americans, and especially Shiite communities as Iran is a majority-Shiite country. In Los Angeles, several Iranian or Shiite Muslims have been visited by the FBI in the last month, said Dina Chehata, the civil rights managing attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles chapter. She said the spike in visits aligns with the start of the Iran war and is consistent with what she described as a pattern of reactive crackdowns on diaspora Muslim communities whenever there is a geopolitical flashpoint. “They are investigating certain people because of their protected identity, because they are Muslim or Arab or Palestinian, or now Iranian or Lebanese or Shia, which is so dangerous — and that’s always been the problem that American Muslims have had with our federal government,” Chehata said. read the complete article
Netherlands
Dutch mosque attack raises alarm over targeting of worship sites
A mosque in the Netherlands was severely damaged in a vandalism attack, raising concerns over a pattern of incidents targeting places of worship, the Islamic Foundation Netherlands (ISN) said Wednesday. The foundation said the attack took place on the night of April 4, when perpetrators entered the Sultan Ahmet Mosque in Zaandam and caused significant damage inside the premises. It said the vandalism targeted an educational center within the mosque complex that is currently under construction. ISN warned that the incident was not isolated, pointing to what it described as a pattern of attacks targeting places of worship in the Netherlands. read the complete article