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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In France, Amnesty International has called the country’s refusal to allow its athletes to wear hijabs while competing in the Olympic Games “discriminatory and hypocritical”, meanwhile in India, a court in Uttarkashi has acquitted two men charged with crimes related to the “love Jihad” conspiracy theory after it found that these allegations (which served as the basis for the 2023 expulsion of Muslim families from the town of Purolaj)were false, and in the Netherlands, hours before last week’s murder of 25-year-old Hamza el Baghdadi by his neighbor, the alleged shooter posted a series of racist tweets on his X account. Our recommended read of the day is by Shada Islam for Hyphen on how despite the EU acknowledging that anti-Muslim hate is growing across member states, very little seems to be in the works to try and address the issue. This and more below:
International
What is the EU doing about its Islamophobia problem? | Recommended Read
Last November, the EU made an unprecedented statement of solidarity with its Muslim citizens. Responding to rising incidents of Islamophobia across Europe in the wake of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, a group of EU officials urged their 27 member states to fight all forms of anti-Muslim bias and ensure the safety of Muslims in places of worship, workplaces, schools and at home. A similar promise was also made to fight anti-Semitism. They were right to be concerned. The wave in anti-Muslim violence since 7 October is crashing onto deep structural Islamophobia in the EU. Governments still view European Muslims through a security lens as foreigners, not as citizens. It’s a perspective that persists despite various studies — including from the EU’s own Fundamental Rights Agency — reporting that Europe’s Muslims are well integrated and overwhelmingly support democratic European values. Politicians rarely mention the significant contribution of the Muslim community to the EU’s economic, cultural and — increasingly — political life. Responding to a Fundamental Rights Agency survey in 2017, nearly one in three Muslims reported suffering discrimination when looking for a job; one in four said racist harassment was a common experience. As the far right entrenches itself in the European political landscape, this discrimination is unlikely to abate. Despite the efforts of centrists to unify and limit the influence of this emboldened far right, its corrosive brand of Islamophobia is steadily seeping into mainstream discourse. read the complete article
Trump’s Vance pick riles UK politicians after ‘Islamophobic’ remarks
Former President Trump’s newly appointed running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio.), ruffled the feathers of some of Britain’s most senior politicians after suggesting that the United Kingdom could become the “first truly Islamist country” to possess nuclear weapons following the Labour Party’s landslide win in the general election. While the Ohio senator made the remarks earlier this month, they have resurfaced after Trump formally selected him as his running mate — sparking fresh backlash from British political figures. “The fact Vance can so easily miscategorize the U.K. in this way, and make such flippant remarks in public, so casually delivered — his shocking line raised a laugh from his audience — tells me that, to this potentially incoming vice-president, the special relationship has become no more than a racist joke,” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the former Conservative Party co-chair, wrote in The Independent. In a post on the social platform X, Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the British Cabinet, said that Vance’s comments represented the “everyday Islamophobia / anti Muslim racism which is casually thrown around by some of the most powerful in our societies.” read the complete article
France
Resisting fascism: why Islamophobia is the bigots’ racism of choice
‘Crucially for Marine Le Pen’, wrote Adler, ‘those who support her aren’t embarrassed to admit it any more. The RN is no longer viewed as an extremist protest movement.’ This is an argument that has been pushed by some French commentators. The journalist Valery Lerouge has claimed that it makes more sense to talk about the RN as ‘nationalist right’ because ‘if you look at the history of the far right, you’re talking about a party that is racist, antisemitic and homophobic. Far right harkens back to fascism, and that’s not where we are anymore.’ According to the political analyst Jean-Yves Camus, ‘the legacy of fascism and historical extreme right is no more…For more French people, this is simply a far-right party with a law and order and anti-immigration agenda.’ The RN is not moving towards the centre but instead, at least in public, simply swapping its long history of antisemitism for anti-Muslim racism. According to Chris Bambery, ‘far from being a break with France’s fascist tradition, it sits easily with it’. The RN’s 143 seats in the National Assembly should not be allowed to provide it with the ‘gift of respectability’, as the historian Robert Paxton wrote about earlier fascist movements, but instead should be a strong reminder that a united front against the RN is still necessary. While the RN does of course talk about economic issues, its priority is to stoke a culture war – with serious implications for the lives of the victims – in relation to Arab immigration which is, by far, the most salient issue for the far right. In fact 77% of RN supporters in a recent poll said that they were motivated by concerns over immigration, compared to 69% concerned about cost of living issues and only 6% by ‘social inequality’. read the complete article
France Won't Let it's Athletes Wear Hijabs at the Olympics
Paris’s mayor may be celebrating the city’s readiness to host the Olympics next week by swimming in the formerly E. coli–infested Seine, but not everyone is impressed with the host city. On Tuesday, Amnesty International called France’s refusal to allow its athletes to wear hijabs while competing in the Games discriminatory and hypocritical. “French authorities made it emphatically and unashamedly clear … that their proclaimed efforts at improving gender equality and inclusivity in sports do not apply to one group of women and girls — those Muslim women and girls who wear religious head coverings,” a new report from Amnesty International says. In September, France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said the country’s secularism principle and its rules against showing religious symbols during sporting events would be upheld for athletes competing for France during the Olympics. The United Nations quickly criticized the ban, saying, “No one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear,” per The Guardian. The French Sports Ministry clarified that athletes could wear hijabs in the Olympic village but not while competing. In addition to hijabs, athletes are prohibited from wearing “any other accessory or garment expressing their religious affiliation when representing France in a national or international sporting competition.” Athletes for other countries have to follow rules set by their own federations and the International Olympic Committee. Though several human-rights organizations wrote a letter to French authorities last month asking them to reconsider, the rule still stands. It’s hard to ignore the irony of France not allowing its athletes to wear hijabs during the year the Games are being touted as the “Gender Equal Olympics” by the IOC, the World Economic Forum, and France itself because there will be a 50 percent participation rate between men and women. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Subjugation Of Women: New Book Argues Misogynistic Behavior Contrary To Islam
Is oppression central to the life of a Muslim woman? What roles do Islamophobia and white supremacy have in this misogyny? And where do the biggest threats to Muslim women’s freedom and safety really come from? These are some of the many pertinent questions that Samia Rahman answers in her book “Muslim Women and Misogyny: Myths and Misunderstandings.” In this book, published by Hurst Publishers, the U.K.-based female Muslim scholar explores the relationships between misogyny and Muslim women’s experiences, untangling complex issues such as Muslim feminism, representation, toxic masculinity, marriage and sexuality. Based on her own personal experience as a Muslimah of color living in the U.K., as well as from extensive interviews with both women and men from Muslim communities, Rahman debunks “lazy stereotypes” in this book that is a bold exploration of Islamophobia, patriarchy and identity by a “native informant.” read the complete article
Government-Funded Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Monitor Accused of Focusing on ‘Extremism’
Through 14 years of Conservative rule, the UK Government has increasingly severed lines of engagement with Muslim communities amidst a rising tide of anti-Muslim hatred that is fracturing social cohesion and national unity. A decade later in March 2020, under Boris Johnson’s premiership, the MCB made a fatal political mistake: it published an extensive report documenting evidence of high-level institutionalised Islamophobia across the Conservative Party and government. Almost instantly, the organisation became persona non grata. Government departments were banned from engaging with the MCB. But it wasn’t just the MCB. After that point, the UK Government began to systematically degrade and sever ties with diverse Muslim organisations across the country – to the point that there is now only one that it considers legitimate enough to speak with: a little-known group called ‘Faith Matters‘. Originally established in 2006 under Tony Blair, Faith Matters was founded by Fiyaz Mughal and Iman Atta. In 2012, with the financial support of David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition Government, Faith Matters established ‘Tell MAMA’ as a national anti-Muslim hate crime monitoring agency. The organisation was launched by then Senior Minister for Faith, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. It was modelled on the Community Security Trust, a British charity which monitors antisemitic incidents across the UK. Unlike the Community Security Trust, Faith Matters is not a charity. Rather, it’s a Community Interest Company (CIC), which means it is subjected to much lighter regulation. Since 2012, as one of the only Muslim-led organisations the UK Government actively engages with, Faith Matters has received £7 million in government funding specifically to support its work monitoring anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country through Tell MAMA. Shortly before crashing out of power in the 2024 UK elections, the Conservative Party’s manifesto mentioned Tell MAMA specifically, noting that it is “proud to support and help fund” its “vital work”. On 20 May, several senior British Muslim members of the House of Lords publicly challenged the Conservative Government about its unstinting support for Faith Matters and its Tell MAMA initiative and the seeming monopoly it appears to hold on government engagement with Muslim communities. read the complete article
Israel
Israeli ministry funding multi-million-dollar disinformation campaign spreading Islamophobia
The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs is funding a multi-million-pound disinformation campaign spreading hatred of Muslims, Al Jazeera has revealed. The campaign, which targeted US lawmakers and spread Islamophobic content, began shortly after 7 October and has raised serious concerns about foreign influence operations and the use of artificial intelligence in spreading misinformation. At the heart of the operation is Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based marketing company, which reportedly received $2 million from the Israeli ministry to run the campaign. The operation utilised AI to generate high volumes of deceptive online content, marking a new era in the ease and scale of influence campaigns. The campaign’s existence came to light in early 2024 when researchers began noticing suspicious patterns across social media platforms. Scores of fake accounts were identified spreading pro-Israeli content, primarily focused on garnering support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. These accounts were predominantly linked to three websites: “Moral Alliance”, “Unfold Magazine” and “Non-Agenda”. Collectively, these sites amassed over 40,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram and X. The campaign involved publishing pro-Israeli articles, often lifted from legitimate news outlets, and then sharing them through hundreds of fake social media accounts. One such example was an article reporting on allegations of UNRWA staff involvement in the 7 October attack. Researchers noted that the content was frequently repeated verbatim across multiple accounts, targeting the same individuals with identical posts and replies. read the complete article
United States
CAIR-NY Welcomes Hate Crime Charge for Ramming Attack on Muslim Men in Suffolk County
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed an announcement by Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney that Brendan Marchetti, 35, was “arrested for Criminal Mischief in the Second Degree, as a Hate Crime, and other related charges, for threatening to kill four Muslim men and then ramming his vehicle into theirs.” The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said: “According to the investigation, on June 17, 2024, at approximately 9:00 a.m., four Muslim men dressed in traditional Muslim attire were in a car on their way to a mosque. The men’s vehicle came to stop at a red light at an intersection in Huntington. Marchetti was in the driver seat of a vehicle that was stopped at the same red light. Marchetti allegedly stated to the Muslim men, in sum and substance, that he wanted to kill all Muslims, that all Muslims should die, and that he wanted to blow them up. Marchetti then allegedly drove his vehicle into the side of their car, causing damage exceeding $1,500.” read the complete article
Netherlands
Netherlands’ Shooter Posts Racist Tweets Hours Before Killing Muslim Neighbor
Hours before 55-year-old Gerben van V. shot and killed his 25-year-old neighbor, Hamza el Baghdadi, the alleged shooter posted a series of racist tweets on X. The horrific incident occurred late Wednesday of last week. Neighbors described van V. as “cold-blooded” after he shot el Baghdadi twice in the back outside the victim’s home. El Baghdadi’s wife and their two-month-old baby were hiding in the bathroom at the time, fearing for their lives as van V. allegedly threatened to kill them as well. Authorities revealed that van V. had a known fascination with World War II weaponry, an obsession that had been previously documented. However, his Twitter profile exposed a darker side, showing a deep-seated hatred for Muslims. Just hours before the murder, van V. tweeted incendiary remarks, including integrating with hateful content that incites violence against Muslims and Islam in general. While local residents suggested the fatal altercation stemmed from a long-standing dispute over a parking spot, friends of the victim believe the killing was racially motivated. read the complete article
India
‘Love jihad’ drove out Muslims from an Uttarakhand town. In court, it turned out to be a hoax
In June last year, Purola, a small town in Uttarakhand, was in tumult. A campaign by Hindu right-wing groups demanding that the town be cleared of Muslims had made national headlines. At least 41 families left, with six of them permanently relocating to different parts of Uttarakhand almost overnight. At the heart of this push by Hindutva groups was the allegation that two men, one of them Muslim, had tried to abduct a 14-year-old girl under the “ruse of marriage” and convert her to Islam. The campaign kicked off an anti-Muslim frenzy across the Uttarkashi district, where Purola is located, as Hindutva outfits accused the two men – 22-year-old Uvaid Khan and his 24-year-old friend Jitendra Saini – of “love jihad”. “Love jihad” is a conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of being part of an organised plot to trick unsuspecting Hindu women into romantic relationships to ultimately convert them to Islam. Khan and Saini were not only booked for kidnapping and procurement of a minor under sections of the Indian Penal Code but also for sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, or Pocso. A year later, however, the case against Khan and Saini has collapsed. On May 10, a court in Uttarkashi acquitted both men after it found that the allegations against them were false. The court’s judgement raises questions over the role of the police in whipping up the hysteria against Muslims. During the trial, the 14-year-old girl told the court that the police had tutored her to accuse Khan and Saini of trying to abduct her. read the complete article