Today in Islamophobia

A daily list of headlines about Islamophobia
compiled by the Bridge Initiative

Each day, the Bridge Initiative aims to bring you the news you need to know about Islamophobia. This resource will be updated every weekday at approximately 11:00 AM EST.

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04 Feb 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In Sweden, a man who publicly desecrated and burned copies of the Quran has been found guilty of hate crimes, days after another man facing the same charges was killed, meanwhile in the United States, around 300 service members have landed at Guantánamo Bay naval base to provide security and begin setting up at a new tent city for migrants, as officials comply with President Trump’s order to prepare the Navy base for as many as 30,000 deportees, and in France, more than 600 primary and secondary students at the Al Kindi private Muslim school group, located in Lyon, risk not returning to their school at the start of the next academic year due to state funding being cut in January. Our recommended read of the day is by Alisha Rahaman Sarkar for The Independent on how a new investigation by Human Rights Watch found that Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, China have been limited from travel to Muslim-majority countries by the state and instructed not to “speak critically about the Chinese government” when abroad. This and more below:


China

China bans Uyghurs from visiting ‘sensitive countries’ with large Muslim populations | Recommended Read

China has imposed severe travel restrictions on Uyghurs from its northwestern region of Xinjiang in violation of their internationally protected right to leave the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday. Members of the minority community are prohibited from visiting "sensitive countries" with large Muslim populations such as Turkey. They can only travel to a limited number of countries such as Kazakhstan for business, the group said. According to the report, Uyghur Muslims are prohibited from engaging with activists abroad or speaking "critically about the Chinese government". Uyghurs settled abroad wanting to visit Xinjiang are required to furnish a "purpose of travel" and "invitation from a family member". A Uyghur person, whose father was interrogated after returning from a foreign trip, told the Human Rights Watch he was asked “whom he met, where he went, and what he told people". Uyghurs, who are citizens of countries which require a visa to visit China, face a longer application process of upto six months. Participating even in non-political activities, like sending children to Uyghur-language schools or attending a wedding in the presence of Uyghur activists, can result in the visa being rejected, the group claimed. The report comes as Chinese authorities start to allow some Uyghurs to travel outside Xinjiang, years after confiscating passports of some members of the ethnic minority and imprisoning them for contacting people abroad. read the complete article


India

Jailed Indian Muslims fight Delhi election to ‘set the record straight’

“Fighting for your rights, my husband has been in jail for nearly five years,” she says, scratching her fingers nervously. In April 2020, Rehman, a 48-year-old human rights activist, was arrested by the Delhi police, accusing him of mobilising student protests against a controversial citizenship law. Critics have described the law as discriminatory because it fast-tracks naturalised citizenship for people from India’s neighbouring nations if they belong to any minority community — other than Islam. Rehman and Tahir Hussain, another prisoner waiting for his trial in cases related to the riots and demonstrations that erupted in New Delhi in 2020 over the law, are running in upcoming elections to the Indian capital’s legislative assembly on February 5. In all, 53 people were killed in the 2020 violence, a majority of them Muslims. After five years of intense legal battles, and dozens of appeals before Indian courts, their families are now turning to the Delhi election with a hope for redemption. “We have been treated as gangsters and terrorists [since Rehman’s arrest]. In this election, we have to prove our innocence,” Fatima tells Al Jazeera. “When we win, people unjustly imprisoned for years win with us.” Fatima leads a group of women, raising slogans from handheld speakers, through narrow lanes dotted with potholes, leaking sewers, and fading slogans on the walls from the days of the protest movement. “How will we answer oppression?” she shouts at the top of her voice. “By our vote to Shifa!” read the complete article

‘Criminalised for politics’: Rohingya caught in Delhi election crossfire

Fatima is among a handful of Rohingya children in Khajuri Khas with access to formal education in a government school. Many other children like her, including her younger brother Ahmed*, have been denied school admission for years. As a new academic year begins next month, Fatima fears she may suffer the same fate. On Christmas Day in December, as tens of thousands of Delhi’s pupils looked forward to a winter break, the national capital territory’s Chief Minister Atishi, who goes by her first name, posted on X: “Today, the Education Department of the Delhi Government has passed a strict order that no Rohingya should be given admission in the government schools of Delhi.” Atishi, a former Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford, is a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man’s Party or AAP), a relatively new political force in India that owes its foundation in 2012 to a popular “pro-poor” and anticorruption movement. This year, AAP faces a serious challenge from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which controls 20 of India’s 36 states and federally-run provinces (called Union Territories) – either directly or through coalition partners – but has been out of power in the national capital for more than 25 years. On December 11, the BJP-appointed lieutenant governor of Delhi ordered a special drive to identify and act against “all illegal immigrants from Bangladesh” who may be “involved in criminal activities” in the city. Bangladesh, India’s neighbour in the east, hosts more than a million Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic group, most of whom fled what the United Nations described as a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing” by Myanmar’s military in 2017. It was the largest exodus of the community which had been fleeing state persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for decades. read the complete article


United Kingdom

I hope I’ve made the community proud: Zara Mohammed on seeing MCB through ‘turbulent’ years

Zara Mohammed, the outgoing secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has reflected on her tenure as its youngest and only female leader. The beleaguered institution, which is the largest umbrella body of Muslim organisations in the country, has been beset both by challenges facing the Muslim community and frosty relationships with UK government. As Dr Wajid Akhter was elected the MCB’s new head last month, Ms Mohammed spoke to the Religion Media Centre about the past four years, and the highs and lows of her leadership. Elected in 2021, the Scotswoman was 29 when she became the face of one of the highest-profile institutions for one of the most heavily scrutinised demographics. “It’s been a pretty steep learning curve and certainly turbulent,” she said, citing the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Gaza, the general election and the Southport riots. “As I come to the end of my term, we see the rise of the extreme far right as well as the rhetoric pushed by Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s presidency.” On the back of the UK riots last summer, Ms Mohammed is concerned that the challenges facing the demographic have proliferated rather than abated. “It feels like things are getting more challenging and more polarising. Hate is something we really need to tackle as a country,” she says, citing the increase in Islamophobic hate crimes, with the Muslim community reported as the worst victims of religious hate, accounting for 38 per cent of all reported incidents. read the complete article


United States

Guantánamo Bay Prepares for President Trump’s Migrant Surge

About 300 servicemembers have landed at Guantánamo Bay to provide security and begin setting up at a new tent city for migrants, as officials comply with President Trump’s order to prepare the Navy base for as many as 30,000 deportees. The small base in southeast Cuba is on the verge of undergoing its most drastic change since the Pentagon opened its wartime prison there after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The operation will require a surge of staff and goods to the isolated base, which is behind a Cuban minefield and is entirely dependent on air and sea supply missions from the United States. Fulfilling Mr. Trump’s order could grow the population there tenfold because of the staff it would take to operate the encampment, which is on a unpopulated corner of the base, far from the prison as well as the commissary, school and suburban-style neighborhoods for servicemembers and their families. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that dangerous deportees might be put in detention facilities that currently hold 15 prisoners from the war on terrorism, among them five men who are accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. read the complete article


Sweden

Man convicted of hate crimes over Quran burnings in Sweden

A Swedish man who publicly desecrated and burned copies of the Quran has been found guilty of hate crimes, days after another man facing the same charges was killed. Salwan Najem was convicted by the Stockholm District Court on Monday of “having expressed contempt for the Muslim ethnic group because of their religious beliefs on four occasions”. Najem was given a suspended sentence and fines for the 2023 demonstrations, in which he trod on copies of the Quran and set them alight while making derogatory remarks about Muslims. The court ruled his acts, which inspired anger and protests in some Muslim countries, went beyond the bounds of legitimate religious criticism protected as free expression. The ruling comes less than a week after Najem’s fellow campaigner, Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, was shot dead in an apartment right before he was due to receive his verdict in a parallel case. No suspect has been charged yet in that killing. Last week, authorities arrested five people in relation to the incident but later released them. read the complete article


France

France: Muslim private schools under threat of closure

More than 600 primary and secondary students at the Al Kindi private Muslim school group, located in the suburbs of Lyon, in central-eastern France, risk not returning to their school at the start of the next academic year. On 10 January, the prefecture terminated the association contract with the state of this institution founded in 2007 and withdrew public subsidies amounting to 1.5 million euros ($1.53m), which were used to cover tuition fees and the salaries of around 30 teachers. Prefect Fabienne Buccio said she based her decision on a school board inspection report that accused Al Kindi of a series of pedagogical and administrative “failures” as well as “attacks on the values of the Republic”. Seen by Middle East Eye, the report from the inspection, carried out in October 2024 following another one in April that year, mentions the discovery of two books deemed “radical” in the school library, one of which “promoting violent jihad”. It also highlights controversial remarks made by a professor on his YouTube channel, where he supported controversial imams, some of whom have been expelled from France. The report also denounces internal regulations deemed discriminatory against girls, such as a ban on skin-tight tops or makeup. read the complete article

Today in Islamophobia, 04 Feb 2025 Edition

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