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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In India, a Muslim couple has been hounded out of their newly-purchased home by their Hindu neighbours who said they would not allow them to live there because of their faith, meanwhile in the UK, statistics from Avon and Somerset Police show that the number of reported hate crime incidents against Muslims has doubled in the last year with 76 incidents since January, and in the US, a Muslim associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York can proceed with her claims that the school discriminated against her based on her religion by not offering a tenured position. Our recommended read of the day is by Rasheed Ahmed on how the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 has emboldened Hindu nationalists attempting to destroy mosques, providing them with a game plan. This and more below:
India
India’s Mosques Are Under Siege. The Destruction of the Babri Masjid Explains Why | Recommended Read
Thirty-two years ago, on December 6, 1992, mobs descended on the Babri Masjid in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya, destroyed the 600-year-old structure brick by brick, and provoking riots in which more than 2,000 people, predominantly Muslims, were killed. The mob was driven by a Hindu nationalist campaign to reclaim the mosque for Hindus. Their wish was ultimately fulfilled in 2023, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi consecrated an enormous Hindu temple built directly on top of the destroyed mosque, in effect sanctifying the site of an anti-Muslim pogrom. To understand India today, one must understand the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The recent November 22 police killing of at least six Muslims in Uttar Pradesh state illustrates the Ayodhya legacy. Following the Babri Masjid model, two Hindu nationalist lawyers advanced the claim that the 800-year-old Shamsi Jama Masjid was originally a Hindu temple. Despite the fact that their evidence is threadbare – they pointed to a non-existent lotus flower on the walls and a “hidden locked room filled with Hindu idols,” which was, in fact, a janitor’s closet – the court agreed to conduct an investigation in response to the lawyers’ demands. In May 2022, a senior leader within Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that the Mughal empire had destroyed 36,000 Hindu temples and his party would “reclaim all those temples one by one.” The campaign is grounded by a common Hindu supremacist myth that every mosque was built over a destroyed temple, even though scholars of South Asia broadly reject this idea. Any small quirk of a mosque’s architecture can be pointed at as a sign of Hindu origins. read the complete article
Waqf bill: Why Indian Muslims worry about Modi plan for $14bn endowments
A proposal by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist government to change laws governing Muslim endowments in the country has triggered fear and a backlash among the minority community. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi says it aims to root out corruption in the functioning of what are known as waqf bodies, which oversee these properties, to enhance their efficiency. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) argues that the proposed changes are necessary for reforms but critics say that the move could leave properties donated by Muslims over centuries more vulnerable to disputes and demolitions. The properties in question include religious institutions, mosques, shops, shrines, graveyards and thousands of acres of land. So what do we know about waqf properties and who manages them? And why does the government want to change the waqf bodies? read the complete article
‘Hindus have changed’: A sleepy Indian state becomes anti-Muslim tinderbox
The last thing that Shahin Ahmed, 38, remembers of his brother, Alfeshani Ahmed, was a frantic call with him amid gunshots and screams. A mob was running riot in the market, and Ahmed knew his shop wouldn’t be spared. “So, he left the shop, taking only the account ledger of his shop containing all his financial transactions and records,” Ahmed said. Tension had previously flared in the early hours of the day between the local Hindus and Muslims in the area after a Muslim driver of a car refused to pay a subscription to a local Hindu club for Durga Puja, a major Hindu festival. The driver and a passenger, both Muslims, were also allegedly assaulted by the members of the club. The Kadamtala subdivision, which includes the market as well, has a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims, with Hindus forming more than 64 percent of the population and Muslims accounting for nearly 35 perent. Muslims, the state’s largest minority group, also make up about 9 percent of Tripura’s population of 3.6 million. Muslims in Kadamtala and the adjoining areas in the Hindu-majority North Tripura have traditionally paid subscriptions to Durga Puja celebrations as a sign of harmony between Hindus and Muslims. The situation, on October 6, however, snowballed by the evening, as Hindu and Muslim groups clashed, leading to the heavy deployment of security personnel. The police baton-charged the mobs and opened fire, according to reports. The clashes in Kadamtala are only the latest instances of inter-religious violence in Tripura in recent months, after tensions erupted repeatedly in August and October, over allegations that Muslims had defaced Hindu deities. In retaliation, mosques were attacked, and in some cases, Muslim homes were burned. read the complete article
Muslim couple forced to sell house after protests by Hindu neighbours
A Muslim couple in India have been hounded out of their newly-purchased home by their Hindu neighbours who said they would not allow them to live there because of their religion. Hindu residents of the posh TDI City – an upscale residential bloc in the northern city of Moradabad – began protesting on Tuesday night after news of the sale became public. The incident resulted in a huge outrage in India after a video from the protest went viral. It showed one of the residents Megha Arora saying that Dr Ashok Bajaj, a resident, had sold his house to a Muslim family without consulting them. "We cannot tolerate a Muslim family living right in front of our local temple. This is also a question of the safety of our women," she said. "We want the sale to be revoked and are asking the administration to cancel the registration of the house in the name of its new owners. We cannot allow people from another faith to come and live here. We will not allow them to enter and continue to protest as long as they don't go away," she added. On Friday, Dr Bajaj told the BBC that a resolution, mediated by the city's elected representative, had been reached and the new Muslim owners would re-sell the house to a Hindu family already living in the housing society. Dr Bajaj, who runs an eye hospital in the city and had lived in the society for more than six years, said he had sold the house to the Muslim couple who are both doctors and that their families had known each other for 40 years. The Muslim couple, he said, were no longer comfortable moving into the house. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Hate crime reports against Muslims in Avon and Somerset more than doubles in past year
The latest statistics from Avon and Somerset Police show that the number of reported hate crime incidents against Muslims has doubled in the last year. While not all race-based hate crimes may be reported as an attack on a person’s faith, a local charity which supports victims of hate crimes has seen a rise in reports from Muslim clients over the last seven months with people of the Muslim faith making up over a third of all their clients. Between 2022 and 2023, Avon and Somerset had 35 incidents where the victim reporting a hate crime was targeted as a result of their Muslim faith. This year the figures provided by Avon and Somerset Police on reported Islamophobia has risen to 76 across the region. read the complete article
Teen spared jail after shouting ‘vile’ abuse at Muslims from top of phone box
An 18-year-old was spared prison after he threatened to burn down a mosque in an online video and shouted “vile” abuse aimed at Muslims from atop a phone box on Brighton seafront. The offences took place on Sunday 4 August during more than a week of rioting and disorder across the country after the murder of three little girls who were stabbed to death in Southport. Max Ritchings, now 19, posted a video on Instagram. Against a backdrop of news footage of the riots, he said: “One more mosque, one more fucking mosque in the area, I will burn the fucking thing down.” Later the same day, he stood atop a phone box near the Palace Pier, Brighton, wrapped in a St George’s flag, shouting anti-Islamic abuse and saying that foreigners should leave the country. At Lewes Crown Court, Ritchings pleaded guilty to inciting violence online and to religiously aggravated harassment. He sobbed in the dock when freed on bailed at a hearing in September. read the complete article
International
Ten percent of all civic repression worldwide related to Palestine, study finds
A Johannesburg-based civic freedom monitor has pinpointed the Palestinian cause as the reason behind 10 percent of all global repression of free speech in 2024. The civil society alliance Civicus, which monitors the state of civic freedom globally, said the violations it documented either took place in occupied Palestinian territories or were “perpetrated against those expressing solidarity with Palestine” elsewhere, according to its 2024 report. “The lack of open civic space is rooted in a number of issues,” the report says. Major conflicts, it explains, such as Israel’s war on Gaza, "have affected millions of people and their livelihoods and created the conditions for state and non-state sources to implement authoritarian policies”. The report says that this is most notable in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), which “continues to be home to some of the most repressive governments in the world”. read the complete article
United States
Columbia University Professor Can Advance Anti-Muslim Bias Suit
A Muslim associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York can proceed with her claims that the school discriminated against her based on her religion by not offering a tenured position, a federal district court said. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess is a Muslim immigrant from Bosnia who has been a non-tenure-track faculty member at Teachers College for over a decade, the court said. She sued April 18, contending that Columbia rejected her efforts to obtain a tenured or tenured-track position because of her faith and age. read the complete article
Netherlands
Protest planned over Dutch parliament motion to keep details of migrants
Protests are planned in the Netherlands in response to a motion accepted by the Dutch parliament to “keep details of cultural and religious norms and values of Dutch people with a migration background”. A public petition is calling for the motion to be withdrawn and anti-racism campaigners are planning to demonstrate next Saturday against the direction of the government, in which the largest party is run by the anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders. The motion from the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – part of the rightwing coalition – says “data about norms and values can offer insights into the cultural integration” of ethnic minorities and calls the government “to keep details”, for example through social research. But Mpanzu Bamenga, an MP for the progressive Democrats 66 party who took Dutch border police to court to overturn ethnic profiling, called it “a new social low” on a LinkedIn post. read the complete article