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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Canada, Quebec says it will intensify its crackdown on public displays of religion in a sweeping new law that critics say pushes Canadian provinces into private spaces and disproportionately affects Muslims, meanwhile in Turkey, Pope Leo visits Istanbul’s iconic Blue Mosque and celebrates mass as he calls for peace and unity among Muslims and Christians, and in the United Kingdom, GB News is facing calls to cut ties with a regular contributor who has been accused of racism after claiming that the House of Commons deputy speaker, Nusrat Ghani, should not be allowed in the house because she was born in Pakistan. Our recommended read of the day is by the Editorial Board of San Antonio Express-News, which criticizes Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s targeting of Muslim organizations in the state, and argues that such actions engender fear — the precursor to hate — of Muslims. This and more below:
United States
Gov. Abbott’s proclamation against CAIR preys on vague suspicions of Islam | Recommended Read
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s declaration that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, is a foreign terrorist organization and a transnational criminal organization amounts to a thinly veiled attempt to demonize a community for political gain while flouting any semblance of due process. It’s no coincidence Abbott’s proclamation comes as he seeks a fourth term as governor and attempts to sic law enforcement and state agencies on the planners of a proposed development in the Dallas area that includes a mosque, though they have yet to show anything nefarious. In the meantime, CAIR has been vocal and effective in its criticism of Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and others for their obsessive attacks on that proposed development, EPIC City. So unable to take down EPIC, Abbott is invoking a constitutionally sketchy new state law to put labels on CAIR that would deprive it of certain rights, such as the ability to own property. One of Abbott’s favorite ploys — which he’s not alone in routinely employing — is to declare himself a protector against Sharia law. In his proclamation, he praises himself for signing a bill “to prohibit the enforcement of foreign laws in Texas, including Sharia law.” Unfortunately, invoking this bogeyman has become an easy, cynical and lazy way to engender fear — the precursor to hate — of Muslims. read the complete article
CAIR designation: As MAGA turns against Zionism, Israel First right stokes Islamophobia
Today, with voices on the right increasingly tired of foreign conflict and increasingly aware of the influence foreign lobby groups wield over our government, it's a different story. In the wake of the Gaza genocide, conservatives, especially young conservatives, are rethinking the bellicose foreign policy that characterised our nation for decades and the unconditional flow of money and weapons we have provided to the Israeli government. These conservatives are less concerned about the imaginary threat of "sharia law" taking over America, and more concerned about corrupt politicians who put a foreign nation's interests before theirs. So why are we seeing these stale conspiracies seemingly everywhere again? Why are influential (or more precisely, formerly influential) right-wing media institutions promoting them? Why are social media platforms like X boosting anti-Muslim content? And why are certain right-wing politicians spending time declaring American Muslim civil rights organisations as terrorist groups? The answer is simple - this surge in anti-Muslim bigotry is not coming from the right wing generally, but from the old guard Israel First right, who are very well aware that they are losing the narrative among the younger generation of conservatives. Whipping up Islamophobia is their last, desperate attempt at stopping the bleeding. read the complete article
Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson ‘defend Muslims’, attack Tommy Robinson in new interview
Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson pushed back against anti-Muslim rhetoric during a recent discussion that touched on religion, cultural identity, and rising political polarisation in the United Kingdom and the United States. Morgan noted that nearly half of the UK population still identifies as Christian, while almost 40 percent now report no religious belief. He said public debate around Muslims in Britain had often been distorted, adding: "There’s a slight amplification of, for example, the number of Muslims in the country. There are nearly 4 million Muslims in the country, and that represents about 6 percent of the population … the over-amplification of the Islam problem, as people put it, or the Muslim problem has been massively overstated." Carlson agreed, saying hostile narratives about Muslims were manufactured. "That’s an op obviously. Hate the Muslims. No, we know where that’s coming from." Though Carlson did not expand upon where the "op" is coming from, many have speculated that he meant Israel and its supporters, given his earlier contention that "you're not allowed to criticise Israel". read the complete article
Mamdani Won, But Our Battle Against Islamophobia Isn’t Over
New York just weathered one of the ugliest political seasons of the last 50 years, with multiple public figures pumping out literally thousands of divisive, hateful messages about Muslims that were seen and heard by millions. Unfortunately, the bigotry has continued postelection and will poison our city until and unless a vocal majority demands it come to an end. “Any decent New Yorker, certainly any Jew, should hate this bastard,” WABC radio’s morning host, Sid Rosenberg, recently told listeners in a rant against Mamdani that the station not only aired but excerpted and pushed out on social media. Two days before Thanksgiving, Rosenberg was at it again: “This punk is now the mayor. This little bitch,” he spat. “Now he’s putting together this transition team, which looks more and more like the Iraqi soccer team.” These comments are typical of the sort of bigotry the station aired throughout the campaign. I asked WABC’s owner, billionaire and former Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, why he allows it. “You know what I said to Zohran? I said to him, ‘Look, before November 4, there was war. After November 5, let’s settle down and forget about the past and go forward,’” Catsimatidis told me. The political ads were part of a deluge of online messaging, mostly on X, that only accelerated as Election Day approached. “We found a huge spike in online hate and fearmongering targeting Muslims in the aftermath of Mamdani’s primary win, blending racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, red-baiting, and anti-immigrant sentiment into one dangerous narrative,” Raqib Hameed Naik, the executive director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate, told immigrant-oriented news website Documented. The center issued a report after studying 6,669 public social media posts about Mamdani in a 17-day window during the campaign and found that just under 2,000 of the, “frame Islam itself, not any policy detail, as a public threat.” read the complete article
In Houston suburbs, Abbott’s attacks on CAIR unnerve Muslim residents
Whether speaking at local government meetings or protesting over the war in Gaza and Islamophobia in public schools, Amina Ishaq counts on the Council on American-Islamic Relations to defend her rights and those of the growing Muslim community in this politically divided Houston suburb. “They used to come out to our protests to make sure we were okay,” said Ishaq, a social worker who is active at her local mosque. Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR — one of America’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups — a “foreign terrorist organization,” along with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization. He accused the groups of attempting to “subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment.” Abbott said the designation would bar CAIR from acquiring Texas land under a law passed by the state legislature earlier this year and clear the way for the state attorney general “to sue to shut them down.” To Ishaq, it is as if Abbott and other Republican officials are attacking the Anti-Defamation League, a historic anti-hate group founded to combat antisemitism, or the NAACP. “They’re protecting our civil liberties,” she said of CAIR. read the complete article
United Kingdom
A shop assistant slipped pork into my basket – Islamophobia is everywhere
It was on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon this summer, while I was walking along Chatham High Street, when I became the victim of Islamophobia. I’d been running errands when a group of children, no older than 10, walked by me and shouted: ‘Got a bomb under your mop?’. I was stunned by their blatant, unashamed racism – and yet I didn’t do or say anything in my defence. Partly because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of a reaction, but also because I know that when you’re a visibly Muslim woman, a comeback can be filled with risk. So instead of responding, I kept going about my day as if nothing had happened. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard such abuse – sadly it’s part of daily life for Muslim women in Britain – but I fear such slurs are only becoming more visible, more brazen. That’s why, as another Islamophobia Awareness Month draws to a close, I urge people not to stand by in silence when you witness racially motivated abuse. read the complete article
GB News urged to cut ties with contributor accused of racism
GB News is facing calls to cut ties with a regular contributor who has been accused of racism after claiming that the House of Commons deputy speaker, Nusrat Ghani, should not be allowed in the house because she was born in Pakistan. The comments by Lucy White, a rightwing activist, have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum amid warnings that explicitly racist language is becoming increasingly normalised in British life. White, described as a public policy expert during appearances on GB News and Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV, said on her X account on Wednesday: “Today, the Deputy Speaker presiding over the Budget Statement in the UK House of Commons is Nus Ghani. “Nus Ghani was born in Kashmir, Pakistan. There should not be a single person born in Pakistan in the UK House of Commons.” White, who has more than 18,000 followers on X, is one of a new generation of activists seeking to inject far-right language into public debate. read the complete article
Canada
Quebec to ban public prayer in sweeping new secularism law
Quebec says it will intensify its crackdown on public displays of religion in a sweeping new law that critics say pushes Canadian provinces into private spaces and disproportionately affects Muslims. Bill 9, introduced by the governing Coalition Avenir Québec on Thursday, bans prayer in public institutions, including in colleges and universities. It also bans communal prayer on public roads and in parks, with the threat of fines of C$1,125 for groups in contravention of the prohibition. Short public events with prior approval are exempt. CAQ has made secularism a key legislative priority, passing the controversial Bill 21 – which bans some public sector employees from wearing religious symbol – in 2019. It plans to extend that prohibition to anyone working in daycares, colleges, universities and private schools. Full face coverings would be banned for anyone in those institutions, including students. read the complete article
France
How France's media became a mouthpiece of Israeli propaganda
Despite an apparently greater interest shown in the horrific fate of the Palestinians between May and October, in alignment with the slightly more critical declarations of western governments, France's mainstream media never stopped uncritically echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric, even as Palestinians were being decimated before our eyes. This small, temporary shift in tone did not signal any change in their overwhelmingly pro-Israeli positions, but rather a moment of damage control during the worst phase of the genocide. French media - and, to varying extents, those of many other countries - were thus forced to at least pretend to be more critical of Israel and grant more space to the plight of the Palestinians. Yet at the same time, they deployed a range of strategies that effectively cancelled out that already mild and momentary inflexion in their reporting, allowing them to continue toeing Israel's official line as closely as possible. These methods were, and remain, systematic across the dominant French television and radio channels, both public and private, as well as in the major newspapers and magazines, from the centre-left to the far right. At a time when the reality of the genocide had become impossible to deny - after top Holocaust Studies academics and the UN Independent Commission recognised it, and a number of Israeli Jewish public figures echoed the international call for sanctions - the French media saturated their coverage with known Israeli propagandists and government officials. They platformed genocide denialists such as Caroline Fourest and Georges Bensoussan, giving them lengthy, unchallenged airtime. read the complete article
India
Indian state makes polygamy a criminal offence – but activists say it is a tool for discrimination
A state legislature in India has passed a new law criminalising polygamy that critics say is designed to target the Muslim minority. The Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill 2025 makes entering a second marriage while the first legally exists a cognisable criminal offence, meaning police can arrest the man without a warrant. An offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and barred from taking state jobs and contesting elections. Activists and opposition leaders criticised the new law and accused the government of targeting the Muslim minority. They noted that the law didn’t apply to Scheduled Tribes, indigenous communities recognised under the Indian constitution, or to the people living in areas under the administration of tribals, such as the Bodoland Territorial Region and the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. The state’s tribals are predominantly non-Muslim. Opposition members asked why women in exempted territories should not receive similar protections if the law wasn’t targeted at the Muslim community. They also said the law conflicted with the Muslim Personal Law, an act of the Indian parliament permitting a Muslim man to have up to four wives. read the complete article
International
In Istanbul, Pope Leo calls for unity between the eastern and western churches
Pope Leo visits Istanbul's Blue Mosque and celebrates mass as he calls for peace and unity among Christians and Muslims. RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Journalists watched closely as Pope Leo entered the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, otherwise known as the Blue Mosque, in his first visit to a Muslim house of worship since becoming leader of the Roman Catholic Church. read the complete article