Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: In India, according to a new report by India Hate Lab, instances of hate speech against minorities jumped 74% in 2024, peaking during the country’s national elections, meanwhile in Germany, current CDU leader Friedrich Merz, favored to become Germany’s net chancellor after this month’s elections, has in a recent vote on the asylum seekers courted the far-right AfD party in a move many say could indicate his favor towards the far-right, and in France, PM Bayrou’s comments about France being ‘flooded’ with immigrants are a reflection of how scapegoating of immigrants has become mainstream in society. Our recommended read of the day is by Maria Ramirez Uribe for Al Jazeera, who writes that while the U.S. has previously used Guantanamo Bay prison to detain certain migrants, President Donald Trump’s use is drastically different. This and more below:
United States
The US held migrants at Guantanamo before. Is Trump’s approach different? | Recommended Read
The Donald Trump administration has started sending flights of undocumented migrants in the United States to Guantanamo Bay. The officials in charge have painted the move as a common practice, saying Guantanamo Bay has always been used for immigration enforcement. “We’ll have the capacity to continue to do there what we’ve always done. We’ve always had a presence of illegal immigrants there that have been detained. We’re just building out some capacity,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on February 2 on NBC’s Meet the Press. The US has indeed previously used a Guantanamo Bay camp to detain certain migrants, but Trump’s use is different, immigration experts have said. The administration has provided conflicting information about where migrants will be held within Guantanamo Bay, for how long and under what conditions. The US has never sent people who were arrested or detained in the United States to Guantanamo, the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank, wrote on February 4. Under federal law, people in the US accused of civil immigration violations have more rights than people intercepted at sea, Hannah Flamm, interim senior policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said. People who have been on US soil “have rights and protections, even if they are sent to Guantanamo. Whether these rights will be respected is another question,” she said. It’s not clear how due process for migrants will be followed, as Noem assured. read the complete article
EXPLAINER: Trump’s Migrants Plan for Guantánamo Bay
The focus in the political world on Jan. 29 was President Donald Trump signing into law the first piece of legislation of his second term. But the president – in the midst of a long-promised and now ramping up mass deportation operation – made another unexpected and vague announcement at that bill signing: He ordered officials to expand to “full capacity” the detention center space at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay for “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.” Nearly two weeks later, Trump’s immigration enforcement plans for the facility are still relatively unclear. That, however, hasn’t stopped the administration from starting to use the base in Cuba for detaining migrants. The focus in the political world on Jan. 29 was President Donald Trump signing into law the first piece of legislation of his second term. But the president – in the midst of a long-promised and now ramping up mass deportation operation – made another unexpected and vague announcement at that bill signing: He ordered officials to expand to “full capacity” the detention center space at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay for “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.” Nearly two weeks later, Trump’s immigration enforcement plans for the facility are still relatively unclear. That, however, hasn’t stopped the administration from starting to use the base in Cuba for detaining migrants. Here is some background about the facility’s controversial history and what is known about the president’s strategy for expanding its detention capacity. read the complete article
India
India sees huge spike in hate speech in 2024, says report
Instances of hate speech against minorities jumped 74% in India in 2024, peaking during the country's national elections, according to a new report. The report, released on Monday by Washington-based research group India Hate Lab, documented 1,165 such instances last year, adding that politicians like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were among the most frequent purveyors of hate speech. Muslims were targeted the most, with 98.5% of recorded instances of hate speech directed against them. The report said most of the events where hate speech occurred were held in states governed by Modi's party or larger alliance. The lab's report said that hate speech was especially observed at political rallies, religious processions, protest marches and cultural gatherings. Most of these events - 931 or 79.9% - took place in states where the BJP directly governed or ruled in coalition. Three BJP-ruled states - Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh - accounted for nearly half of the total hate speech events recorded in 2024, the lab's data showed. The ruling party was also the organiser for 340 such events in 2024, a 580% increase from the previous year. read the complete article
Germany
By courting the far right, the man tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor may have sealed his own downfall
The current CDU leader, Friedrich Merz, who is the polls’ favourite to become the next chancellor after Germany’s general election on 23 February, may have had his moment of truth when his proposed crackdown on asylum seekers was narrowly passed by the Bundestag with the full support of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The vote, on 29 January, was a first-time event in the post-second world war era in what has, until now, been a no-go area for Germany’s political centre. Mainstream parties have maintained a longstanding vow not to collaborate with the radical right. Whether the breach of this principle puts Germany on track for a far-right government in the future remains to be seen. But it certainly turns up the heat in the campaign. The conservatives are a power-seeking machine in the end and are desperate to make electoral gains this time round. But the overall support for the AfD has stabilised at 20% of the vote share, which would make it the second-largest political party in parliament after the CDU. This confirms the theory about centrists copying the populist right: on tougher migration measures, voters generally prefer the original to the copy. read the complete article
France
French PM Francois Bayrou's anti-migrant comments are Le Pen's legacy
France's political crisis has been given a reprieve this week after Francois Bayrou’s government survived a no-confidence vote, allowing it to pass a budget without holding a vote in parliament. This came after budget talks had broken down when Bayrou made comments lamenting that France was being 'flooded' with immigrants, which gave the Socialist Party cold feet about entering into some kind of coalition deal with him. The Socialists still submitted their own no-confidence motion against his government for these comments (knowing the National Front would oppose it so it wouldn’t pass), leaving them on very shaky ground. You'd think in such a time he'd avoid making comments that'll antagonise the very politicians he's trying to swoon, but scapegoating of immigrants (those of Algerian origin in particular) has become so mainstream in French society that it's almost like the government can't function without indulging in it. Leaving aside the morality of any of these stances, it all comes across as a government which has no clue what it's doing. This leaves them particularly vulnerable to the influence of the far-right National Front, who do have a coherent plan that they've been working towards for many decades now, and now have a leader who is less prone to counter-productive outbursts. read the complete article