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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, House Democratic leaders condemned GOP Rep. Randy Fine and demanded that he apologize after the Florida lawmaker called Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota a “Terrorist”, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, reporting by Middle East Eye reveals that the British government has blocked a working group it set up to advise on a possible definition of Islamophobia from consulting the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), while the group consulted prominent figures and organizations themselves accused of Islamophobia, and in India, the Election Commission has opted to re-scrutinize nearly 80 million voters’ documents in a bid to weed out “foreign illegal immigrants”, a move which has prompted widespread fears of mass disenfranchisement and deportations. Our recommended read of the day is by Juwayriah Wright for TIME on a new report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which found that online Islamophobia spiked significantly after the electoral win of Democratic NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani. This and more below:
United States
Islamophobia Surges Online After Zohran Mamdani’s Win | Recommended Read
Online Islamophobia spiked sharply in the immediate aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, new research has found. The 33-year-old assembly member, a Muslim democratic socialist, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo by 56% to 44% in the final round of ranked choice voting, marking a watershed moment for the Democratic establishment. Within hours of his win however, Mamdani became the target of coordinated online attacks that framed his faith, ideology, and heritage as threats to public life, according to the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH). What comes next is a heated general election campaign, with the 33-year-old assembly member positioned to become the first Muslim mayor of New York City. The primary race was marked by offline Islamophobic rhetoric—most prominently from Cuomo’s camp, which included flyers with Mamdani’s beard lengthened and darkened. Mamdani condemned them as playing on "racist tropes." The campaign had already seen instances of anti-Muslim sentiment, but the scale of the online response that followed the primary results was considerable. Social media platforms hosted a wave of anti-Muslim content that would generate hundreds of millions of views over the following day. “What we've witnessed was not just criticism of his policies,” notes Raqib Naik, Executive Director at the CSOH. “It was a coordinated multi-platform surge of anti-Muslim hate, ideological fear mongering, and nativist exclusion.” The surge was immediate. From June 13-23, hate-related posts about Mamdani averaged between 56-264 per day. On June 24, the day of the primary, that number jumped to 899 posts. By June 25, it had exploded to 2,173 posts in a single day. read the complete article
Mamdani's win unleashed a surge of Islamophobia — and showed how to beat it
Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York City’s mayoral primary election felt like a watershed moment for the progressives, for his still fledgling Democratic Socialist Party and for Muslim Americans, who for the first time saw one of their own become the presumptive next mayor of the country’s largest city by comfortable margins. All the while, Mamdani’s primary win pulled Muslims and the country even further into a xenophobic and Islamophobic familiarity reaching far past the city limits. While the Democratic primary in the deep blue city traditionally determines who will be mayor, Mamdani’s faith and socialist values promise to make the months from now until the general election in November one of the most vitriolic campaign seasons in recent history. While some of Mamdani’s opponents are aligning with right-wing-led aggressions, the most aggressive and arguably violence-tinged attacks are coming from beyond the city. After Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles referred to Mamdani as “little Muhammad” and urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to denaturalize and deport him, President Donald Trump entered the fray, declaring that he isn’t above investigating Mamdani to make sure he isn’t in the U.S. illegally. “It’s interesting how identity played a role in this campaign,” said Fahd Ahmed, executive director of DRUM Beats, a sibling of the South Asian-focused political organizing group Desis Rising Up & Moving. “It wasn’t completely sidelined, but it wasn’t the crux of politics. Zohran identified himself as being South Asian and Muslim, but it wasn’t the center of his campaign.” Instead of urging voters to choose him because he was South Asian or Muslim, Ahmed said, Mamdani tied his identity back to an identification with New Yorkers — cab drivers, for example: “Every South Asian (in New York) has an affinity to cab drivers,” said Ahmed. “In his campaign, Mamdani asked them, ‘What do you need?’ He spent years building relationships with taxi alliances,” as the drivers’ unions are known in New York. read the complete article
House Democratic leaders call on GOP congressman to apologize over ‘unhinged, racist and Islamophobic’ attack on Ilhan Omar
Top House Democratic leaders condemned GOP Rep. Randy Fine and demanded that he apologize after the Florida lawmaker suggested in a post on X that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is a terrorist. Fine was replying to an X post from Omar on Tuesday, in which she said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “should be held accountable for his crimes,” and, “war criminals should not be welcomed by any president or Congress,” after Netanyahu met with House Speaker Mike Johnson. Fine wrote in response to Omar’s post, “I’m sure it is difficult to see us welcome the killer of so many of your fellow Muslim terrorists. The only shame is that you serve in Congress.” Omar in a Wednesday post wrote, “Anti-Muslim bigotry should have no place in Congress.” Omar is one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress. In a joint statement, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar called Fine’s comments “unhinged, racist and Islamophobic,” as well as “bigoted and disgusting,” and demanded he apologize. “We are just weeks removed from heinous acts of political violence targeting elected officials in Minnesota for assassination. This is an incredibly difficult time for our nation and Members of Congress should be solving problems for the American people, not inciting violence. Randy Fine must apologize immediately,” they said. Fine responded to the statement from House Democratic leadership with a post on X calling the House Democrats the “Hamas Caucus.” read the complete article
Tweet from powerful Silicon Valley VC exec. fuels anti-Muslim hate in NYC mayoral election
In a recent tweet, Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, posted about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani saying "Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything. It's literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda." "Why is he saying that about any culture? That is inherently problematic. That is making a stereotype. That is making sweeping generalizations that is incredibly biased. It's racist," says Nadia Rahman, a political activist based in San Francisco. Rahman says when someone like Maguire, a partner at one of Silicon Valley's most powerful venture capital firms, puts out a tweet like this which has over 5.5 million views since Tuesday afternoon, it normalizes hate. "Someone who is in his role, and of his stature, sharing anti-Muslim, racist rhetoric, and not facing any consequences for his statements, normalizes those problematic ideas. And it gives permission for others to do the same," suggests Rahman. In a rare rebuke, more than 900 tech founders sent an open letter to Sequoia Capital asking it to denounce Maguire's comments. The letter claims that Maguire has a documented pattern of anti-Muslim rhetoric over the past two years. The letter also states: "We cannot accept leadership from a firm whose partners engage in hate speech and spread bigotry." read the complete article
Digital Hate, Islamophobia, Zohran Mamdani, and NYC’s Mayoral Primary
This report analyzes online hate before and after New York City’s mayoral primary, showing how discourse surrounding Zohran Mamdani and Muslim communities was shaped by overlapping narratives of Islamophobia, ideological fear-mongering, and xenophobic attacks. read the complete article
United Kingdom
UK government blocked own Islamophobia advisers from consulting Muslim organisations
The British government blocked a working group it set up to advise on a possible definition of Islamophobia from consulting the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), while the group consulted prominent figures and organisations themselves accused of Islamophobia, Middle East Eye can reveal. The working group, which the government set up in February, is being overseen by a former public affairs officer for the pro-Israel Board of Deputies of British Jews, who has also worked for an arms industry trade association and gone on trips to Israel with an organisation accused of operating in illegal settlements. Government sources with knowledge of the matter said that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), headed by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, told the group it could not consult the MCB because the government has a policy of “disengagement” with the organisation. The MCB is the largest umbrella group claiming to represent Muslim organisations, with over 500 affiliates, including mosques, schools, local and county councils, professional networks and advocacy groups. However, the working group consulted two prominent figures who have been accused of Islamophobia, Trevor Phillips and John Jenkins, on whether an Islamophobia definition would be helpful. read the complete article
India
Why is India forcing 80 million people to justify their right to vote?
A move by India’s top election body, the Election Commission of India (ECI), to re-scrutinise nearly 80 million voters’ documents in a bid to weed out “foreign illegal immigrants” has prompted widespread fears of mass disenfranchisement and deportations in the world’s largest democracy. On June 24, the ECI announced that each of the nearly 80 million voters – equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom – in the eastern Indian state of Bihar will need to re-register as voters by July 26. Those unable to do so will lose their right to vote and will be reported as “suspected foreign nationals”, as per the ECI directive and could even face jail or deportation. The state’s legislative elections are expected to be held in October or November. Critics say the move is a backdoor route to implement the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has proposed in the past as a way to identify “illegal immigrants” and deport them. The move comes at a time when thousands of largely Bengali-speaking Muslims have been rounded up, and many of them have been deported from India as alleged Bangladeshi immigrants in the last few weeks. read the complete article