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.

Today in Islamophobia Newsletter

Sign up for the Today in Islamophobia Newsletter
10 Jan 2024

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, this January New Jersey’s first-ever Muslim heritage month after a joint resolution this past spring was signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, meanwhile in France, PresidentEmmanuel Macron has appointed former Education Minister Gabriel Attal, who outlawed the Abaya in schools this past September, as the country’s new Prime Minister, and in the Netherlands, a right-wing coalition in the country is becoming far more likely to coalesce after the far-right politician Geert Wilders dropped three pieces of his draft anti-Islam legislation from the Dutch parliament.  Our recommended read of the day is by Adam Johnson and Othman Ali on new research from The Intercept showing that nearly all major U.S. newspapers fostered a “gross imbalance” in narrative and coverage favoring Israel in the first six weeks of reporting relating to the war in Gaza. This and more below:


International

COVERAGE OF GAZA WAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES AND OTHER MAJOR NEWSPAPERS HEAVILY FAVORED ISRAEL, ANALYSIS SHOWS | Recommended Read

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza showed a consistent bias against Palestinians, according to an Intercept analysis of major media coverage. The print media outlets, which play an influential role in shaping U.S. views of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, paid little attention to the unprecedented impact of Israel’s siege and bombing campaign on both children and journalists in the Gaza Strip. Major U.S. newspapers disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7. Pro-Palestinian activists have accused major publications of pro-Israel bias, with the New York Times seeing protests Opens in a new tabat its headquarters in Manhattan for its coverage of Gaza –– an accusation supported by our analysis. In the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, the words “Israeli” or “Israel” appear more than “Palestinian” or variations thereof, even as Palestinian deaths far outpaced Israeli deaths. For every two Palestinian deaths, Palestinians are mentioned once. For every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned eight times — or a rate 16 times more per death that of Palestinians. read the complete article


United States

January is N.J.’s 1st Muslim Heritage Month. See 11 ways to celebrate.

Beginning this year, January is recognized Muslim Heritage Month in New Jersey, following a joint resolution signed by Gov. Phil Murphy last spring. The Garden State is home to one of the highest Muslim populations in the United States, about 300,000. The historic move acknowledges the contributions of the Muslim community and celebrates their rich history, civic engagement, patriotism, advocacy and philanthropy. read the complete article

Sunsetting the War on Terror — Or Not

This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the infamous prison on the island of Cuba designed to hold detainees from this country’s Global War on Terror. It’s an anniversary that’s likely to go unnoticed, since these days you rarely hear about the war on terror — and for good reason. After all, that response to al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, as defined over the course of three presidential administrations, has officially ended in a cascade of silence. But Guantánamo, a prison that, from its founding, has violated U.S. codes of due process, fair treatment, and the promise of justice writ large isn’t the only unnerving legacy of the “war” on terror that still persists. If indefinite detention at Guantánamo was a key pillar of that war, defying longstanding American laws and norms, it was just one of the steps beyond those norms that still persist today. In the days, weeks, and even years following the attacks of September 11th, the U.S. government took action to create new powers in the name of keeping the nation safe. Two of them, more than two decades after those attacks, are now rife with calls for change. Congress created the first just a week after 9/11 (with but a single no vote). It authorized unchecked and unending presidentially driven war powers that could be used without specified geographical limits — and, strangely enough, that power still remains in place, despite recent congressional efforts to curtail its authority. The second, the expansive use of secret surveillance powers on Americans, is currently under heated debate. read the complete article


India

How did India’s Supreme Court send Bilkis Bano’s rapists back to jail?

India’s Supreme Court on Monday restored life prison sentences for 11 men who had raped a Muslim woman, Bilkis Bano, during the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. The decision came after Bano and other petitioners challenged a decision by the Gujarat government, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, to set the convicted rapists free two years ago. Yet, when a Supreme Court bench gathered on Monday to declare its verdict in the case, it was unclear to the wider nation what it had decided — and what its rationale would be, months before India’s national elections in which religious polarisation is expected to play a central part. So how did India’s top court decide to send the convicts back to jail? It starts with a woman’s struggle that has played out before all of India, through multiple twists and turns since a day of horror in the spring of 2002. read the complete article


France

Abaya ban Gabriel Attal picked as France's new PM

French leader Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday picked Gabriel Attal as prime minister in a bid to give new momentum to his presidency, with the 34-year-old becoming France's youngest and first openly gay head of government. Attal's first move following his appointment as education minister last year was to controversially ban the Muslim abaya dress in state schools. The decision earned him a popularity boost among many conservative voters – but left French Muslims once again feeling under attack and isolated in their own country. Since he defeated the far-right to win a second term in 2022, Macron has faced protests over unpopular pension reforms, the loss of his overall majority in parliamentary elections, and controversy over immigration legislation. With Macron unable to run again in 2027, ministers have publicly aired concerns that Le Pen, who belongs to the far-right National Rally (RN), has her best chance yet to win the presidency. Attal will go toe-to-toe ahead of the European elections with another rising star of French politics, the even younger Jordan Bardella, 28, who is now RN party leader. Constitutional expert Benjamin Morel told AFP that Attal's appointment signals a "very offensive strategy with a view to the European elections" in June. read the complete article


Netherlands

Dutch right-wing coalition moves closer as Wilders drops anti-Islam law proposals

Far-right leader Geert Wilders has withdrawn three pieces of draft anti-Islam legislation from the Dutch parliament in a move that clears arguably the main obstacle to a new right-wing coalition government in the Netherlands. The three controversial proposals have already been identified by the Council of State advisory body as unconstitutional – and have been challenged by Mr Wilders’s potential coalition partners, particulary Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract (NSC), as possible deal-breakers. As coalition talks resumed on Tuesday between Mr Wilders’s Freedom Party, the centre-right VVD, the citizen-farmer protest party, BBB, and the NSC, it emerged that the draft legislation, which had been tabled well before the November general election, had been withdrawn. Most incendiary of the three, and a key article of faith for Mr Wilders’s long-time followers, was the proposal to outlaw all “expressions of Islam” – which included an outright ban on the Koran and a prohibition on Islamic schools as an alternative to the state education system. read the complete article


United Kingdom

Perry’s Facebook group hosted video by Islamophobic ‘comic’

The secretive Facebook group set up by Croydon’s Tory Mayor Jason Perry has now hosted a video rant from a “venomously racist” mate of far-right criminal Tommy Robinson. Among Perry’s Facebook group’s 2,000 members is Conservative MP for Croydon South Chris Philp, whose government job is… checks notes… the Policing Minister. Back in September, when Inside Croydon first uncovered the dodgy company that Perry and Philp were keeping online, we described their Facebook group as occupying “one of the darker, murkier corners of the interweb, which is full of blatantly bogus conspiracy theories, racists and Islamophobes, anti-vax and anti-mask cranks, and out-and-out Trump supporters”. The video posted on Perry and Philp’s group has Tuffs him spreading deliberate disinformation about immigrants getting some kind of priority access to GP appointments and housing. One of the recurring themes of Mayor Perry’s anti-ULEZ Facebook group, and Tuffs’ video rant, is a visceral dislike of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, with barely disguised racism underpinning it all. read the complete article

Today in Islamophobia, 10 Jan 2024 Edition

Search

Enter keywords

Country

Sort Results

Displaying 1447 Results

March 17, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In Europe, Islamophobia and far-right extremism are escalating across the continent, with Muslim communities bearing the brunt of hate crimes and discrimination, while United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expresses concern over a “disturbing rise in anti-Muslim bigotry”, calling on governments to protect religious freedom and for online platforms to curb hate speech, and on this year’s International Day To Combat Islamophobia over the weekend, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL) Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa warned about the growing threat that anti-Muslim sentiment poses to global coexistence. Our recommended read of the day is by Bridge Initiative Senior Researcher Farid Hafez for Middle East Eye on how Israel’s ruling Likud party has joined the European Parliament’s largest far-right bloc, Patriots for Europe (PfE), as both share the same hostility against Muslims. This and more below:

Regions: CanadaEuropeIndiaUKUnited States

March 14, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In Europe, during a recent interview, Marion Lalisse said EU institutions must agree on a definition of Islamophobia and set clear goals if they are to tackle surging anti-Muslim violence, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the government has denied the allegation that they’ve cut funding from the recording and reporting group Tell Mama, saying that there is £1 million of funding available for the organization “once they sign the Government’s grant funding agreement”, and in the U.S., Columbia University has taken action against students who participated in a pro-Palestinian protest last spring with punishment ranging from “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocation and expulsions”. Our recommended read of the day is by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, commemorating the International Day to Combat Islamophobia with a petition for world leaders to reflect on the staggering rise of anti-Muslim bigotry, racial profiling, and the increased adoption of policies that violate human rights across the globe. This and more below:

Regions: EuropeFranceUKUnited States

March 13, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, President Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, a group of students at the University of Essex are facing potential expulsion after sharing a series of social media posts, including a video published by Middle East Eye marking the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and in France, a new promotional video by a Dutch clothing brand featuring the Eiffel Tower draped in an Islamic headscarf has sparked a barrage of anti-Muslim criticism and commentary. Our recommended read of the day is by Daisy Dumas for The Guardian on how the newest Islamophobia in Australia Report indicates that there were 309 in-person incidents between early 2023 and 2024, with girls and women being the most recurring victims. This and more below:

Regions: AustraliaEuropeFrancePalestineUKUnited States

March 12, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, released its 2024 civil rights report noting a record number of complaints of discrimination and Islamophobic attacks, while the White House is defending it’s arrest of pro-Palestinian protest leader and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, saying the Department of Homeland Security plans to arrest more protesters moving forward. Our recommended read of the day is by Imran Mulla for Middle East Eye on why Tell MAMA, an organization founded in 2012 to document Islamophobia cases in the UK, is losing its funding following accusations of severely under-reporting hate crimes. This and more below:

Regions: UKUnited States

March 11, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, a report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday said that the 8,658 complaints regarding anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents last year – representing a 7.4 percent rise year on year – was the highest number since the group began compiling data in 1996, while Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who helped organize on-campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, has been seized by ICE for “espousing pro-Hamas views” according to the Trump Administration, and in Canada, the University of Toronto’s Muslim Law Students’ Association (MLSA) released a statement expressing concerns over an online Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training course assigned to first-year law students that contained Islamophobic content. Our recommended read of the day is by Soumaya Ghannoushi for Middle East Eye on how, in his desperation for diplomatic support, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has aligned with far-right movements steeped in xenophobia and anti-Muslim hatred, who beneath their pro-Israel rhetoric still carry the same historical antisemitism. This and more below:

Regions: CanadaEuropeFranceSpainSwedenUKUnited States

1 2 3 4 5 289 290