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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the US, the Department of Defense has transferred a detainee from Guantanamo Bay to Kenya, marking the first transfer in more than a year, elsewhere in the US, a Muslim judicial nominee for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia has asserted that the process for picking federal judges is “fundamentally broken” after being subject to blatantly Islamophobic questions during a Senate Judiciary Committee interview, and in India, Hindu nationalist political movements in the country have continuously propagated various false narratives in the aim of marginalizing Indian Muslims, with one of the most prominent being the ‘Land Jihad’ conspiracy theory. Our recommended read of the day is by Australian Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik for the Guardian on the different ways in which Islamophobia manifests in contemporary Australia and why it’s so important for all Australians to wrestle with its rise in recent years. This and more below:
Australia
Islamophobia is an everyday reality for too many Australians | Recommended Read
Five years ago, then prime minister Scott Morrison stated on national television: “I don’t know if Australians understand Islam very well.” It seems this is still the case in 2024. After spending five weeks travelling across this nation as the new special envoy to combat Islamophobia, defined broadly as anti-Muslim hate or prejudice, I have heard heartbreaking stories that illustrate how Islamophobia manifests in everyday life, and negatively affects the lives of everyday Australians. Sometimes it manifests as discrimination or harassment. Sometimes as abuse. Sometimes outright hatred. And sometimes violent acts or vandalism. The offensive graffiti discovered on a busy underpass in Sydney’s west over the weekend is just the latest visible reminder of Islamophobia in Australia. It puts into context just how wrong Senator Dave Sharma was stating that Islamophobia is “fictitious”. Every day, Islamophobia affects children, teenagers at their most vulnerable, and adults alike. The fact is that there has been a 600% increase in reports of Islamophobia since the 7 October atrocities last year and it wasn’t uncommon beforehand. The evidence documenting anti-Muslim hate is overwhelming. Over the past decade, countless studies have detailed incidents of anti-Muslim crime and discrimination, and analysed the media tropes that perpetuate stereotypes about Islam and Muslims. This body of work paints a troubling picture of a world in which harassment and abuse of Muslims are equal parts common and perceived as socially acceptable. read the complete article
United States
US transfers Guantanamo Bay detainee to Kenya
The US has moved a detainee of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Kenya, marking the first detainee transfer in more than a year. Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu was transferred to Kenya nearly three years after a Periodic Review Board determined the “continued law of war detention … was no longer necessary” in December 2021, a release from the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress about his intent to transfer Bajabu to Kenya in November. He was never charged with a crime. Bajabu had been detained since 2007, Mark Maher, a staff attorney for the human rights group Reprieve US who represented him, told CNN last year. According to Department of Defense filings, Bajabu was a facilitator for al Qaeda in East Africa before he was detained. President Joe Biden made it an early goal of his administration to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, also known as GTMO, but the US made only marginal progress in moving the prisoners held there over the last four years. The facility held about 40 detainees at the start of the Biden administration. According to the Pentagon’s release, 29 detainees remain at the military prison — 15 of whom are eligible to be transferred out. Among those remaining are three alleged 9/11 conspirators whose plea deals are at the center of an ongoing dispute between the Pentagon and the military judge over the validity of said deals. read the complete article
Pentagon Repatriates Malaysian Prisoners Who Pleaded Guilty to War Crimes
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that it had repatriated two Malaysian men from its prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who admitted to committing war crimes for an affiliate of Al Qaeda that carried out a deadly bombing in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002. The rare transfer, a day after the Pentagon released another prisoner to the custody of Kenya, reduced the detainee population to 27 men. The freed prisoners, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, 47, and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, 49, have been held by the United States since 2003. They were returned to the custody of the Malaysian government, and supervision of its de-radicalization program, through a diplomatic arrangement that was reached as part of their guilty pleas in January. Brian Bouffard, a lawyer who represented Mr. Bin Lep at Guantánamo, said his client “plans to live a quiet life with his family. He’s been punished many times over for his long-ago involvement with the wrong people, and we hope one day that his torturers and their enablers might face accountability for the evil they have done in our name.” At their sentencing hearing in January, Mr. Bin Lep’s co-defendant, Mr. Bin Amin, showed sketches to the military jury that he had made portraying his first months in C.I.A. custody — both the circumstances of his interrogation and his conditions at a “black site” prison in Afghanistan. read the complete article
Stalled 3rd Circuit judicial nominee, a Muslim, criticizes 'performative McCarthyism' of review process
A Muslim judicial nominee for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia has asserted that the process for picking federal judges is “fundamentally broken” and based on “performative McCarthyism before video cameras.” The nominee, Adeel Mangi, is a partner with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler who encountered opposition partly based on his affiliation with a Rutgers Law School group that examines the causes of Islamophobia. Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law.com and Law Dork have coverage, some of it noted by How Appealing. Mangi’s questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t go as expected, he wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to President Joe Biden. “I was prepared to answer any questions about my qualifications, philosophy or legal issues,” he wrote. “I received none. Instead, I was asked questions about Israel, whether I supported Hamas and whether I celebrated the anniversary of 9/11. Even more revealing, however, was the tone. The underlying premise appeared to be that because I am Muslim, surely I support terrorism and celebrate 9/11. When I made clear that all these claims are false—that I condemn the Hamas attacks and all forms of terrorism, and indeed that it was my city that was attacked on 9/11—the next Republican senators up just repeated their performative outrage.” read the complete article
International
'1000% there are double standards': Streamers speak out after Twitch bans pro-Palestine accounts
On October 20, 2024, Amazon's popular streaming service, Twitch, issued a formal apology acknowledging that it had blocked user account creation within Palestine and occupied Palestine. In the weeks leading up to Twitch’s apology, a media meltdown took place labelling the platform as anti-Semitic. Twitch explained that its decision to block account creation was to prevent potentially violent and graphic streams. However, their apology was quickly disregarded by creators who accused the platform of anti-Semitism. Over the past two months, Twitch users have found dozens of examples contradicting Klein’s claim and showing that the platform has in fact shut down content creators who voice support for Palestine, not Israel. Most notably, media outlets pointed out that streamer, Frogan, was hit with a month-long ban after advocating for the boycott of Israeli hummus brand, Sabra, compared to Asmongold, a streamer who was punished with a two-week ban after saying that he did not care if Palestinians in Gaza experienced genocide. And despite a positive welcome back to the platform, the fear caused by the bans has users and creators wondering what censorship is yet to come. “1000% there are double standards. You can call for genocide with a two-week ban, but then a fun meme tier list is turned into a hateful thing,” says Frogan. “Unjust measures against Arab Twitch streamers are being made without any transparency, and when workers question injustice, they are swiftly shut down,” says an anonymous Twitch Software Engineer. read the complete article
India
Land Jihad propaganda: Muslims' freedom curtailed in India
The Hindu nationalists have always dreamed of turning India into a "Hindu Nation." In this dream, their biggest enemy is India's largest minority, the Muslims. The most influential thinker of Hindu nationalist ideology, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, wrote in his book Hindutva: Who is a Hindu: "India is the holy land of Hindus; it is not the holy land of Muslims or Christians." Similarly, M.S. Golwalkar, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader, mentioned in his book, Bunch of Thoughts, the 3 internal enemies of India—Muslims, Christians, and Communists. Now that the proponents of this ideology have come to power, they are determined to fulfill their dream by any means necessary. Unable to remove Muslims from their path, they seek to marginalize them in every possible way. To achieve this, they continuously propagate various false narratives, one of the most prominent being the propaganda—Land Jihad. Post-2014, Hindu nationalists launched propaganda in India, claiming that Muslims were engaging in Land Jihad. They alleged that Muslims, under the guise of the Waqf Boards, could seize land of Hindus. By misrepresenting the provisions of the Waqf Board, they misled the general Hindu population. By instilling fear among the Hindu majority, these narratives not only fuel violence against Muslims but also encourage the confiscation of their properties. Furthermore, over 120 cases have been filed in various courts across India challenging the validity of the Waqf Act. read the complete article