Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, Michigan police said that they arrested 22 people during an Islamophobic rally held a day earlier in Dearborn, meanwhile the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called for sanctions against members of India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who have been found responsible for religious freedom violations, and lastly in the United Kingdom, the monitoring group Tell Mama has logged 1,031 reports of anti-Muslim prejudice and hate in London during the first six months of this year, surpassing the 1,028 gathered across the whole of 2023. Our recommended read of the day is by Rosina Ali for The New York Times on how the Trump administration is using the “material support” law, which has been used to prosecute primarily Muslims in the years after 9/11, against people President Trump characterizes as his political enemies. This and more below:

United States

These Protesters Were Charged With Terrorism. Who’s Next? | Recommended Read

Earlier this summer, a federal judge sentenced a group of eight anti-ICE activists to a collective 450 years in prison after what has become the first “test case” for the Trump administration’s crackdown on left-wing activism. The decades-long sentences in the Prairieland case were only possible because prosecutors brought forth an unusual charge: “material support” for terrorism. This law, which has been used to prosecute primarily Muslims in the years after 9/11, is being broadly applied under the Trump administration against people President Trump characterizes as his political enemies. Who and what constitutes “terrorism” could have broad implications for our civil liberties. If Mr. Trump’s statements are any indicator, what happened at Prairieland is not likely to be an isolated incident. The law that prosecutes material support to terrorism, created in 1994 and expanded two years later in the wake of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, is two-pronged: one part prosecutes support for a terrorist organization and the second prosecutes support for specific acts of terrorism. Both come with lengthy minimum sentences and a possibility of a lifetime in prison. But what could constitute “support” is so ambiguous that, shortly after the law was created, it had confused even senior government officials. During an interagency background briefing, one Clinton administration official wondered if even “$25 of dues” to a group could count as material support. As it turned out, prosecutions for small donations and increasingly vague definitions of support would happen in a few years. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, prosecutors accused hundreds of people of supporting terrorism this way. “Support for terrorism” could entail anything from translating a magazine to even offering nonviolent alternatives to a militant group. It did not matter if the defendant directly helped carry out an assault or belonged to a terrorist organization: They could be prosecuted as if they were. read the complete article

Police Arrest 22 People At Far-Right Islamophobic Rally In Michigan

Police said Wednesday they arrested 22 people during an Islamophobic rally held a day earlier in Dearborn, Michigan, where Christian nationalists led by Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang surrounded the building where City Council members were meeting. "Officers met a challenging and rapidly evolving situation with the professionalism this community expects, keeping everyone safe, protecting the constitutional rights of those who came to be heard, and allowing the City Council to complete its business," Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin said in a statement. Lang led what was dubbed the "Christian Crusader March," where he, Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell and their supporters crowded the council's meeting space at the Henry Ford Centennial Library after officials moved from its usual location in anticipation of the rally. read the complete article

Letter: UNC leaders need to contest Islamophobia

TO THE EDITOR: In solidarity with UNC students, staff and faculty mobilizing against racism, we call for our campus community to challenge the rising climate of Islamophobia, marked by the Chapel Hill shootings in February, the attacks on the Literature of 9/11 course in August and this month’s legislative actions to bar Syrian refugees. In this context, students who are South Asian-American, Arab-American, Latino, Black, Muslim and perceived to be Muslim are vulnerable to racialized violence. Following the Paris attacks, the University’s alert email pointed to a generic threat of terrorism with calls for “vigilance” and reporting of “unusual activity,” implicitly reinforcing the racial profiling to which our communities are regularly subjected. Nationally and globally, Islamophobia is linked to unjust anti-Black criminalization and post-9/11 policies which expanded surveillance and militarization of law enforcement at the border, in cities and across minority communities. Police across the country, including in the Triangle, have employed assault weapons and military equipment leftover from the disastrous Iraq war, increasing the use of deadly force and military tactics to suppress public protest. read the complete article

London seeing ‘sustained escalation of anti-Muslim hate’, charity reports

Monitoring group Tell Mama has logged 1,031 reports of anti-Muslim prejudice and hate in London during the first six months of this year, surpassing the 1,028 gathered across the whole of 2023. The group highlighted a sixfold surge in annual London cases from 2021-2025, saying that behind every report is "a Londoner who was made to feel unsafe simply because of their faith". Iman Atta, director at Tell Mama, said: "This is not a temporary blip, it is a sustained escalation of anti-Muslim hate, and it demands a sustained and uncompromising no-nonsense response from our public institutions." read the complete article

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott takes aim at Muslim washing stations in airports

For years, travelers passing through Texas’s two biggest airports have had access to small washing stations for a ritual called wudu, in which Muslims clean their hands, arms, head and feet before the five daily prayers. Now, amid rising attacks on Muslims by Republican elected officials, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is making the stations a target. He sent a letter Friday to the heads of the Houston airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that said facilities aimed at serving one religious group are discriminatory against everyone else. Muslim leaders and experts in religious liberties rejected Abbott’s claim that the facilities would discriminate against non-Muslims. Several said opposition to the washing stations is the latest example of GOP leaders, perhaps most visibly in Texas, railing against Islam. “If there is one thing all religious liberty scholars and advocates across the ideological spectrum have agreed on, it is that the Free Exercise Clause forbids government discrimination because of religion,” Steven T. Collis, a University of Texas-Austin law professor, said in an email. “Although Gov. Abbott’s letter characterized what the airports were providing as discriminating in favor of Muslims, this newest saga is actually part of a much broader pattern of state officials targeting Muslims and trying to make Texas an inhospitable place for them.” read the complete article

International

Israel numbers Palestinian detainee foreheads: What we know

The Israeli army has confirmed that soldiers marked Palestinian detainees with numbers on their foreheads during a raid on the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier this week. Palestinian news outlets reported the incident, which took place on Monday. One of the detainees, Ahmad al-Hathnawi, who was marked with the number, told Palestinian media that this was the first time that the army had written numbers on his forehead. Al-Hathnawi explained that he had been released from Israeli detention 10 days ago for the fourth time, but said that he had never experienced something like this before. “It was just interrogation and terrorism, intimidation of the families and the freed detainees,” he said. “They are basically trying to send a message that if settlers come into the area, there will be no problems, and that the settlers are going to remain here for a long time,” he added. read the complete article

US religious freedom panel seeks action against RSS members ahead of chief's visit

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called for sanctions against members of India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) found responsible for religious freedom violations, as the Hindu nationalist organisation's chief prepares to visit the US. USCIRF Chair Dr Asif Mahmood noted that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of the RSS, describing it as an Indian umbrella organisation whose sub-groups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims. The agency’s commissioner Gene Mills urged Washington to withhold high-level engagements, stating that RSS leaders should not be honoured with diplomatic courtesies and that US authorities should instead focus on imposing sanctions on members responsible for religious freedom violations. read the complete article

How China turned the ‘war on terror’ against the Uyghurs

While the world commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Muslims in many countries continue to face sweeping accusations of terrorism. Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are often labeled “terrorists,” while some Christians and other religious believers have been branded “subversive” elements. Over the years, China has enacted a number of laws and regulations to combat what it calls “terrorism.” With vague definitions and an overly broad range of offenses, these measures have left Uyghurs and other Muslim populations in China under suspicion of engaging in separatist or terrorist activities. In some cases, practicing Islam and identifying as Uyghur can be treated as evidence of “terrorism” or “separatism.” read the complete article

United Kingdom

Farage using Christianity ‘to stir anti-Muslim feeling’, says Rowan Williams

A former archbishop of Canterbury has accused Nigel Farage of misusing the UK’s Christianity “to channel anti-Muslim feeling” and said he also had “some awkward questions” for the far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Dr Rowan Williams, who was the archbishop of Canterbury for 10 years until 2012, said there was an “inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction”. Speaking to the New Humanist magazine, Williams said: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.” Asked what he believed was driving Christian nationalism in the UK, Williams said: “There are lots of possible causes. Anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism. In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect. “The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them. “Then again, if we’re looking for what animates Christian nationalism, I think it’s in part the very simple search for someone to blame.” read the complete article

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