Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, after a long string of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents plaguing the multinational news agency, the BBC’s has lifted it’s longstanding moratorium on internal trainings aimed at curtailing these types of hateful conduct, meanwhile in France, the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) announced it will file a complaint over alleged Israeli-linked surveillance of Muslims in France, calling on authorities to investigate accusations that two individuals gathered data on Muslims in France and passed it on to Israeli intelligence, and lastly, a German court has ruled that a Muslim woman cannot serve as a judge or prosecutor if she refuses to remove her headscarf during court proceedings, a decision critics call a violation of religious freedoms. Our recommended read of the day is by Ismail Allison for The New Arab on how with growing anger among conservatives over U.S. support for Israel, far-right power brokers are “doubling down on anti-Muslim bigotry as a distraction tool”. This and more below:
United States
CAIR designation: As MAGA turns against Zionism, Israel First right stokes Islamophobia | Recommended Read
Creeping sharia. The Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy. The last time these buzzwords were widely used, America was a very different nation. Our government was entangled in multiple Mideast forever wars, un-Islamic extremist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda were feeding off those conflicts to grow their ranks and launch new attacks, and anti-Muslim hate groups here in the US were having a field day fanning the flames of hate against American Muslims. Back then, the American public, especially the political right, was much more susceptible to conspiracy theories about "sharia law" taking over America. 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. read the complete article
Failed Missouri Candidate Launches Texas Congressional Bid With Anti-Muslim Platform
A former Missouri candidate for secretary of state has entered the race for U.S. House in Texas’ 31st Congressional District with a platform focused on removing Muslims from the state. Valentina Gomez Noriega, who ran for Missouri secretary of state and finished sixth in the primary with 48,003 votes, according to Ballotpedia, is now running on the Republican ticket against incumbent Rep. John Carter. Danny Hoskins, who beat her in the Missouri primary by about 100,000 votes, went on to win the race. In a campaign announcement video, Noriega said, “Vote for me so we can kick every dirty Muslim out of Texas.” In the post accompanying the video, she wrote, “I will make Texas the worst place for terrorist muslims & illegals so help me God. For me, this is just an election, but for you, this is YOUR life. Jesus is King.” She also said in the video, “Save your daughters from getting raped by Muhammad.” read the complete article
The structural ignorance behind declaring Islam 'a death cult'
In New York City, just one week before it voted for its first Muslim mayor in history, British columnist Melanie Phillips declared that “the West is facing a death cult in the forces of Islam.” The remark, reiterated repeatedly by British, European, American and Israeli voices, was made at a conference titled “Rage Against the Hate,” ironically patterned after the anti-racist 1990s band Rage Against the Machine, known for its politically active anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist members who openly protested state violence. By contrast, the conference represented the opposite axis of contemporary power: a platform aligned with state-security narratives, geopolitical propaganda, and a worldview that pathologises the very populations Rage Against the Machine defended. The statement drew approving nods—it didn’t require evidence despite being historically unfounded. Such a sentence does not stand alone; it condenses a worldview built since the Second World War through war, repression, and the recasting of Islam as a civilisational threat. read the complete article
Greg Abbott’s Cair ‘terror’ label stokes legal fight in Texas’s long struggle with Islamophobia
Islamophobia is on the rise in the US, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), a civil liberties group, reporting sharp increases in anti-Muslim violence and rhetoric over the last two years. In Texas, the issue has come to the fore in high-profile incidents, including the case of a Euless woman who was initially released on a $40,000 bail after attempting to drown two Palestinian American children. Now, a brewing legal battle between Texas’s hardline Republican governor, Greg Abbott, and Cair represents a new chapter in the state’s long struggles with Islamophobia. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Anti-muslim hate business: How global Islamophobia grift is duping gullible Brits and Americans
Recent revelations on social media show how anti-Muslim hatred is being manufactured, monetised, and deliberately pushed into the feeds of gullible audiences in the West. A new feature on X (formerly Twitter) now reveals the location of accounts based on IP addresses. It has exposed that many of the loudest anti-Muslim accounts claiming to be British or American patriots are actually run from countries in Asia and Africa. These operators have learned to capitalise on people’s naivety, fears and prejudice by posting Islamophobic content that reliably goes viral — and viral posts mean income. read the complete article
‘BBC’ orders training on antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias
The BBC’s outgoing director, Tim Davie, has lifted his longstanding objection to training staff on how to avoid antisemitism, and has ordered that they undergo a course on it and anti-Muslim prejudice within six months. “The BBC Academy has spent the last few months developing new anti-discrimination training. We’re starting with e-learning modules on antisemitism and Islamophobia, which we expect staff across the BBC to complete,” he wrote to staff on Wednesday. The move followed a long string of incidents featuring antisemitism involving BBC personnel, and a scandal tied to the BBC’s coverage of Israel. That scandal, which led to the pulling offline of a documentary, was over the use of a Hamas-affiliated family to depict the suffering of Gazans presented as innocent civilians. read the complete article
France
Religion-based discrimination on rise in France, primarily targeting Muslims: Report
A recent survey released by a French rights group on Thursday revealed an increase in religion-based discrimination, particularly against Muslims. According to the new 2024 edition of the Access to Rights survey conducted by the Defenseur des droits (Defender of Rights), 7% of more than 5,000 respondents reported experiencing discrimination based on religion in the past five years, up from 5% in 2016. During the 2024 legislative elections, the Defender of Rights also observed a 53% spike between May and June in calls to 3928, the hotline dedicated to combating discrimination. The survey found that 31% of respondents reported witnessing discrimination based on religion in 2024, compared with 21% in 2016. "The rise in discrimination on religious grounds appears to be observed across all religions. However, it is reported far more frequently by people who say they are Muslim, or who believe they are perceived as such," the report underscored. read the complete article
French Muslim Council Files Complaint over Alleged Israeli Surveillance
On Friday, the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) announced it will file a complaint over alleged Israeli-linked surveillance of Muslims in France, calling on authorities to investigate accusations that two individuals gathered data on Muslims in France and passed it on to Israeli intelligence. The claims emerged in a video shared on social media, where pro-Israel French consultant Didier Long asserted that, since early 2023, he has been carrying out research for the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and several Jewish organizations in France, in collaboration with Dov Maimon, a senior fellow at the Israeli think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), who is said to work with Israel on matters concerning Islam and the security of Jewish communities in Europe. Long said “we met with people from the DGSI [French domestic intelligence service], analysts, former superintendents from Seine-Saint-Denis [in the Paris region], chief superintendents, people from the DRM [Directorate of Military Intelligence], as well as local politicians, security experts, intellectuals, etc.” He allegedly claimed that the data they gathered was compiled into a report and delivered to Israeli intelligence services. read the complete article
International
Pope criticises anti-Muslim ‘fears’ in Europe, US
BEIRUT: Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday criticised anti-migrant activists who stoke “fears” of Islam and said co-operation between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon should be an example for Europe and the United States. The 70-year-old pope spoke to reporters on the plane at the end of his visit to Turkey and Lebanon — his first trip outside of Italy since becoming head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May. Leo said anti-Muslim sentiment was “oftentimes generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.” He said his visit to Lebanon was intended to show “that dialogue and friendship between Muslims and Christians is possible”. Leo said stories he heard during the trip of Christians and Muslims helping each other were “lessons … that we should perhaps be a little less fearful”. read the complete article
Germany
German court bars Muslim woman from judgeship over headscarf
A German court has ruled that a Muslim woman cannot serve as a judge or prosecutor if she refuses to remove her headscarf during court proceedings, a decision critics call a violation of religious freedoms. The administrative court in Hesse announced its ruling on Monday, upholding the authorities' decision to reject the woman's application. In a statement, the Darmstadt court acknowledged that the lawyer's religious freedom carries significant constitutional weight. According to the court's statement, the woman was asked during her application interview whether she would remove her headscarf when interacting with trial participants. She clearly said she would not. Hesse authorities rejected her application, arguing that wearing a religiously symbolic garment during judicial proceedings violates the principle of state neutrality and could undermine public confidence in the justice system's impartiality. read the complete article