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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Conspiracy theories linking the Notre Dame cathedral burning to Muslims proliferate on the Internet, as the Black Caucus warns President Trump’s incendiary remarks are placing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in danger. In India, a politician running for office is temporarily barred from campaigning after anti-Muslim comments, while China is revolutionizing facial recognition technology to target it Uighur Muslim minority. Our recommended read of the day is a piece by Branko Marctetic that unpacks the Democrats’ tepid defense of Ilhan Omar and how their treatment feeds into the alt-right. This, and more, below:
United States
Opinion | Liberals and the Attack on Ilhan Omar | Recommended Read
It hardly needs to be said that this is a willful attempt to drum up outrage over nothing. One doesn’t need to even watch Omar’s full speech — all about how Muslims have been historically marginalized, treated as second-class citizens, and associated with violence — to understand what she was doing with those words: divorcing the murderous actions of a small group of extremists from the lives of a billion ordinary people, in order to point out the unfair treatment Muslims received because of what those few individuals had done. read the complete article
In Attacking Ilhan Omar, Trump Revives His Familiar Refrain Against Muslims
With 19 months until the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme once again. And this time, he has a specific target: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Mr. Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, one of a group of progressive women Democratic House members who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. And they are gambling that there will be limited downside in doing so. read the complete article
Opinion | Why isn’t Dan Crenshaw following his own advice with Ilhan Omar?
It is evident from the full video that Omar was using the phrase “some people did something” to distinguish between American Muslims who had their civil liberties revoked and the foreign terrorists who committed the attacks. But this context was stripped away when a questionable “imam”tweeted an edited version. Omar did not do that, but Crenshaw, R-Texas, jumped to share the tweet with a base that had previously accused her of being anti-Semitic, adding, “First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as ‘some people who did something.’ Unbelievable.” read the complete article
Notre Dame fire: Alt-right conspiracy theorists are using the cathedral blaze to spread anti-Muslim rhetoric
Even before the blaze brought the centuries-old steeple and roof crashing to the earth on Monday, conspiracy-minded conservatives on Twitter began declaring the cause to be terrorism — and using the world-renowned landmark as a symbol to push western Christian rhetoric. The comments online came as authorities in Paris ruled out any terror-related motives as the cause of the blaze, as firefighters continued to battle the fire that was expected to burn the entire church to the ground, leaving just the stone walls behind. read the complete article
Black Caucus warns Trump is putting Omar's life at risk
Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) warned Monday that President Trump is endangering the life of one of their members, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), with his attacks suggesting the freshman lawmaker downplayed the 9/11 terror attacks. "He is really putting the congresswoman's life at risk,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and a prominent member of the CBC, told reporters on a conference call Monday. read the complete article
India
Yogi Adityanath banned from election campaign after anti-Muslim comment
India’s election commission on Monday banned Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning for three days after anti-Muslim comments in an election that will end next month. The commission said Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had spoken about a “green virus” in a speech last week in reference to Muslim voters who he said were being wooed by opposition parties. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been playing to its nationalist base and painting its rivals as soft on terrorism and eager to appease Muslims, who make up about 14 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population. read the complete article
China
China using artificial intelligence to track largely Muslim minority: report
According to The New York Times, Chinese authorities are using a widespread and secret facial recognition system to track the Uighurs, who are mostly Muslims, throughout the country. China is using the facial recognition technology in combination with an existing network of surveillance cameras, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Times. The databases allow Chinese officials to search and review the whereabouts of Uighurs based on compiled images, according to the Times. read the complete article
United Kingdom
The Conservative party owes Britain’s Muslim community an apology
The Conservatives have finally been forced to sack the government adviser Roger Scruton, who had dismissed Islamophobia as a “propaganda word” and said homosexuality was “not normal” .The Tories knew about these views but chose to defend him and keep him in post. The Scruton story really goes to heart of the Conservative party’s problem with Islamophobia. It exposes the depressing reality that they don’t really think there’s anything wrong with it. They are not abhorred by it the way we all should be by all hatreds and prejudices. read the complete article
Denmark
In Copenhagen, Reaction to an Anti-Muslim Event Turns Violent
After an anti-Muslim provocateur publicly desecrated the Quran in Copenhagen, demonstrations against him on Sunday and early Monday descended into violent clashes between protesters, who set about 70 fires in the streets, and the police, who made 23 arrests.The unrest in the Norrebro district of the Danish capital began on Sunday after Rasmus Paludan, the founder of a tiny far-right party, tossed a book he claimed was the Quran into the air and let it fall to the ground. Mr. Paludan has spent the past months touring Denmark and staging offensive protests against Muslims and immigrants, often in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Until recently, he had largely been ignored by mainstream Danish news outlets, but the riots have propelled him to the center of national attention. read the complete article