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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, new figures show that parts of the country saw two sharp rises in Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crimes
United States
Chinese Muslims, After Finding a Refuge in Queens, Now Fear Trump | Recommended Read
They survived re-education camps in China’s western Xinjiang region. They were released from detention centers and psychiatric hospitals. They watched their loved ones disappear one by one and feared when it would be their turn. Then they managed to get out of China and reached the soil of the United States, many by trekking through the brutal jungle in Panama known as the Darién Gap on their way to the U.S. southern border. They are Hui Muslims, a state-recognized ethnic minority group in China, where the government is determined to crack down on Islam. As President-elect Donald J. Trump promises to build detention camps and enlist the military to carry out mass deportations, the future of this group of immigrants is precarious. Deportation could mean years in jail or labor camps. “My mother told me to stay here,” said Yan, a single mother who came to the United States in July with her 10-year-old son, Masoud, through the Darién Gap. “‘If you come back,’” she quoted her own mother as saying, “‘there’ll be no good outcome for you. Who knows — they might even sentence you to life imprisonment.’” Mr. Ma, a businessman and a critic of the government’s policies to make Islam in China more Chinese, started the shelter in February 2023 as more Chinese came from the southern border. Over 350 people have stayed at the refuge. Most of them are Hui Muslims, though some are Uyghurs, Tibetans or Han Chinese. “They are all traumatized,” Mr. Ma said. “But sometimes, they didn’t even know what they experienced was oppression and discrimination.” read the complete article
US repatriates Tunisian detainee held without charge at Guantanamo Bay since the day it opened
The US has repatriated a detainee from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to Tunisia, the Pentagon announced Monday, the fourth detainee to be transferred this month. Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi, 59, was determined to be eligible for transfer after a “rigorous interagency review process,” the US Department of Defense said in a statement, more than 22 years after he was first brought to the facility. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress about his intent to repatriate Yazidi to Tunisia in January 2024. He was never charged with a crime. Rights groups say Yazidi, a Tunisian national, had been incarcerated at Guantanamo since the day it opened on January 11, 2002. According to a 2007 US military assessment, Yazidi was accused of being a member of the militant group al Qaeda. However, human rights groups have long been critical of those assessments arguing they have often proven unreliable. read the complete article
US Renews Uyghur Sanctions
The American-Uyghur community received a parting present from President Joe Biden: a renewal of Global Magnitsky human rights sanctions that ensures that the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which was due to sunset next year, stays in place till at least mid-2030. “It’s a gift of hope for Uyghurs,” Omer Kanat, executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. “Congressional leaders stand with the Uyghur people to dial up the pressure to end the atrocities in our homeland.” “The United States must continue to send a clear message that we will not be complicit in the Chinese government’s persecution and genocide of Uyghur Muslims. Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang are being tortured, imprisoned, enslaved, forced into labor, and pressured to abandon their religious and cultural practices by the Chinese government,” Merkley said at the time. “Passing this bill is vital to holding China accountable for these grave human rights violations while protecting the victims of this genocide.” read the complete article
United Kingdom
Islamophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes rising
Figures have been released showing a rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes across the West. Avon and Somerset's police force area saw the greatest rise of anti-Muslim crimes which almost doubled within two years. Freedom of Information requests by the Press Association (PA) also found Gloucestershire had more hate crimes in the last two years. Avon and Somerset Police said the rise in reported crimes showed "trust and confidence" in policing. The increase was attributed to the disorder in Bristol, in August, where far-right protestors and a counter protest group clashed. PA obtained full responses from 33 of the 40 forces operating across England, with the data representing a snapshot of what has been recorded. The year-on-year data ranged from October 2021 to September 2024. Nationally, most forces saw a clear year-on-year increase in the total number of the crimes. Avon and Somerset's data included the number of crimes with a hate flag deemed anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim. From October 2021 to September 2022 there were 58 Islamophobic hate crimes in Avon and Somerset, compared to 112 between October 2023 and September 2024. read the complete article
UK hate crimes ‘surged’ after Southport attack and start of Gaza war
Parts of the UK saw two sharp rises in Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crime respectively over the last year-and-a-half, new figures show. Hate offences targeting Jewish people recorded by three major police forces spiked in the weeks after the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out in October 2023. The same forces recorded a surge of hate offences targeting Muslim people after the Southport stabbings and subsequent riots in July this year. The forces were the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester, and West Midlands, which cover many of the UK’s biggest Muslim and Jewish communities. Iman Atta, head of anti-Muslim hate monitor Tell Mama, said the organisation alone has ‘assisted over 5,000 British Muslims this year and the number keeps rising’. She added: ‘Anti-Muslim hate or Islamophobia spikes repeatedly when there are international issues and when there is far-right agitation, extremism, continued finger-pointing at a political level against Muslims, and even post the Brexit vote. So these figures are not surprising. read the complete article
International
10 things you didn’t know Muslims invented
If you start your day with a cup of coffee and brush your teeth before you head out, that’s already two Muslim inventions embedded in your morning routine. From fountain pens to surgical tools, many items we use today can be traced back to Muslim innovators, with significant advancements in the fields of astronomy to medicine stemming from Islamic heritage. Here are 10 things you may not have known Muslims invented. read the complete article