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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In India, activists are saying that the Bengali-speakers being detained by the Indian government are mostly Indian Muslims who speak Bengali and not the Bangladeshi immigrants the Modi government is seeking to deport, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, police have arrested the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson on suspicion of assault, following an attack last month at London’s St Pancras station, and in the United States, activist and Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil speaks to Ezra Klein on his life, detention, and eventual release on bail. Our recommended read of the day is an excerpt from Shahed Ezaydi’s forthcoming book, The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women, for Vogue Arabia. This and more below:
International
This Forthcoming Book Discusses White Feminism, Muslim Women and Empowerment | Recommended Read
Muslim women have had our voices taken from us for too long. We're told we're weak. Submissive. Uneducated. Back-ward. In need of saving. And most of all? Definitely not feminists. Debates are constantly held that question and discuss our lives and our bodies without our voices ever being in the room, let alone invited. And on the rare occasion that we are invited into these rooms, it's usually so we can field racist and Islamophobic views in the name of ‘debate'. Newspapers regularly dedicate headlines and pages to dissecting our faith and womanhood. Being a Muslim woman is a minefield of dodging ignorance, a lack of education and malicious and violent mindsets and behaviours. The narrative that white feminism has created and reinforced around Muslim women is so deeply embedded in Western societies that you'd be forgiven for thinking that many of us are married stay-at-home wives who have no views or opinions outside of the family unit. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong or bad about being a stay-at-home wife or mother – if anything, some of the strongest, most vocal women in my life are just that. But Muslim women are complex and varied and we occupy a range of roles, ideas and behaviours that don't fit into this harmful box that white feminism has put us in. We're doers and thinkers and, ultimately, women who have fundamentally changed this world for the better. read the complete article
A Rohingya Muslim refugee builds a new life, away from a difficult past
A Rohingya Muslim man tells the story of how he escaped the squalid refugee camp in southern Bangladesh where he was born and came to the U.S. as a refugee. read the complete article
United States
Many Jewish Voters Back Mamdani. And Many Agree With Him on Gaza.
Ben Sadoff knocked on roughly 1,000 doors as a canvasser for Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral primary campaign in New York City, and the voters he met brought up the same issues again and again: the cost of rent, the cost of child care and the sense that things in the city were going in the wrong direction. One thing they did not frequently mention was Israel, he said. And when voters — including Jewish ones — did bring it up, their comments often focused on their anguish over Israel’s war in Gaza, where starvation is spreading and about 60,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan officials. “I think this campaign has really shown us something we have known for a while,” said Mr. Sadoff, who is Jewish and works as a bike mechanic in Manhattan. “There are a million Jewish New Yorkers who have wide-ranging opinions on all kinds of issues.” Mr. Mamdani’s commanding victory in the Democratic primary for mayor alarmed many Jews who are concerned by his outspoken criticism of Israel. But he won the votes of many other Jewish New Yorkers, some of whom said in interviews that they were unbothered by that criticism and inspired by his intense focus on affordability. Often these voters said that Mr. Mamdani’s views on Israel, and his vocal opposition to its treatment of Palestinians, echoed their own. “I am proud to vote for him as a Jew,” said Emily Hoffman, 37, as children read books, sang songs and played near a big cardboard bus that evoked Mr. Mamdani’s campaign promise to make city buses fast and free. “It’s unfair that it feels like Zohran is starting with a kind of assumption of antisemitism against him, both because of his racial and ethnic identity and because of his politics on Palestine,” she said. Mr. Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor. read the complete article
Mahmoud Khalil Tells His Story
Across the 2024 election, Donald Trump and the people behind him said again and again that they were here to restore free speech to this country. Then they got power. And his administration came after speech in a way that the left never dared to do — never wanted to do. You saw it as immigration agents begin yanking people off the streets — for the crime of nothing more than speech. Among the first of these people was Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia who had been a leader in the school’s anti-Israel protests. Khalil is a green-card holder. He’s married to a U.S. citizen. His sole offense had been to speak out against Israel in a way this administration did not like. He was detained under the U.S. secretary of state’s authority to cancel the residency of noncitizens who threaten U.S. foreign policy. Khalil was not followed into his building by plainclothes officers and taken to an ICE detention center in Louisiana for more than a hundred days — imprisoned there while his wife gave birth — because the U.S. government feared him. He was imprisoned there because the U.S. government wanted others like him to fear them. It wanted noncitizens and immigrants to stop speaking out. It wanted everyone to ask: If they could do this to Khalil, could they do it to me? If they could detain him on such flimsy grounds, could they not come up with a reason to detain me? Khalil is out now on bail. He is still speaking. So I wanted to hear what he had to say. read the complete article
Why are Muslim American voters turning away from the Democratic Party?
A recent poll has found that Muslim American voters are turning away from the Democratic Party. This comes amid Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which started during a Democratic administration, and a general trend away from party affiliation. The poll, published by Pew Research Center in July and conducted between 2003 and 2004, found that the advantage the Democrats have had with the Democratic Party over the last two decades has shrunk considerably. Though the party continues to outperform Republicans with Muslim voters, the gap has significantly narrowed. Around half of Muslim adults (53 percent) lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42 percent lean toward the Republican Party, according to the poll. Prior to 9/11, the US Muslim community tended to lean Republican, aligning with their generally conservative social values. With post-9/11 policies such as the Patriot Act that imposed mass surveillance on the community, many Muslims turned toward the Democratic Party. This continued through Donald Trump's first administration. Joe Biden's presidential campaign saw an unprecedented mobilisation of Muslim voters, which helped him clinch key swing states. However, with his support for Israel's far-right government's war on Gaza, many withdrew their support for the Democratic Party. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Far-right figure Tommy Robinson arrested for train station assault in UK
Police in the United Kingdom have arrested the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson on suspicion of assault, following an attack last month at London’s St Pancras station. The far-right campaigner, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was arrested at about 6.30pm (17:30 GMT) on Monday evening at Luton airport, which is located north of the English capital. Robinson had just landed there on a flight from the Portuguese city of Faro. His detention comes a week on from the alleged assault at one of London’s main railway terminals. “The man had been wanted for questioning after leaving the country to Tenerife in the early hours of 29 July following the incident at St Pancras,” the British Transport Police (BTP) said on Monday evening. He will now be questioned in custody “on suspicion of… grievous bodily harm”, the BTP added. Although the statement did not directly name Robinson, he was shown in a video of the incident that was widely circulated online. Robinson has been described by the advocacy group Hope Not Hate as “the UK’s most notorious far-right extremist”. read the complete article
India
Is India targeting its own Muslim citizens in deportation drive?
Police in India are on a drive to detain and deport Bangladeshi immigrants, following a government directive. But activists say those being detained are mostly Indians who speak Bengali, who are also often Muslims. This is leading to an exodus of Bengali-speaking Indian workers from urban centers. Many of them are fleeing home to their families in the states of Assam and West Bengal. The city of Gurugram, which borders New Delhi, is seeing the consequences of this exodus of sanitation and domestic workers who keep the city functional. DW Special Correspondent Nimisha Jaiswal reports from Gurugram. read the complete article