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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the UK, a newly proposed ban on pro-Palestinian protesting could have a “chilling effect” on speech, according to analysts, meanwhile in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government has been systemically pushing Indian Muslims ‘back’ to Bangladesh in expulsions carried out by security services under the justification of “state security”, and in Germany, the Director of a leading human rights group (CLAIM) has stated recently that German authorities must take anti-Muslim racism more seriously and implement “stronger measures to combat the rising number of attacks” in the country. Our recommended read of the day is by Middle East Eye, who writes that a debate around the portrayal of Muslim women in Iran has gained traction on social media in recent days, with users critiquing and ridiculing long-standing western narratives that frame women in the region as in need of liberation. This and more below:
International
Iranian women's rights used to justify war again, widely mocked online | Recommended Read
A renewed debate around the portrayal of Muslim women, particularly in Iran, has gained traction on social media in recent days, with users critiquing and ridiculing long-standing western narratives that frame women in the region as in need of liberation. The conversation about the rights and freedoms of women in Iran follows a series of online posts about women's education, including their level of literacy and legal rights in Iran, which portray Iran's treatment of women as unfair. Many of these posts draw comparisons between Iran, western countries and Israel, suggesting that women are exceptionally discriminated against in the country. However, many on social media were shocked and outraged by this conversation because the level of female literacy in Iran is extremely high, according to Statista, which suggest that by 2020, the level of literacy among Iranian women was 85.5 percent, higher than that of men, which stood at 80 percent. Many on social media said that the discourse around Iranian women's illiteracy was served to the public over and over again as a way of "weaponising feminism" to justify Israeli and US attacks on Iran. Writer and activist Susan Abulhawa made a compilation of these statistics on the social media platform X, where she also shared that Iranian women enjoy free maternity care and subsidised infertility treatments. She also said that many of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates in the country are women, and the level of female homicide is much lower compared to western countries, specifically the United States. read the complete article
Photographer Asma Elbadawi on ‘being seen but not seen, as a Muslim woman’
Elbadawi, who in addition to her photography, is a basketball player, sports inclusivity consultant and spoken word poet, is best known for her involvement with a campaign petitioning the International Basketball Association to lift its restrictions on the hijab and religious headwear in 2017. “I don’t think anyone ever opened the rule book and actually looked to see if we were allowed to play or not,” she says, explaining that the effort came about after a friend, the American-Bosnian player Indira Kaljo, was banned from professional basketball when she started wearing the hijab. “The goal was to change the rule. I saw it as a huge storytelling project,” she explains. “Why did I never think about going professional? Why did I never think that could be my path? It was because I wasn’t told stories of women who did these things. They were invisible.” The possibility of encompassing several identities — sportsperson, wife, hijabi — is the subject of an image that won the 2024 British Journal of Photography’s Female in Focus x Nikon award. Elbadawi returns to the domestic setting of her self-portraits, appearing in a vintage wedding dress as she irons a pair of parrot-green tracksuit trousers. Through the juxtaposition, she says, “I was critiquing society as a whole: the western world, as well as the Arab world, the community that I grew up in,” adding that she created the image while pregnant. It speaks to “the expectations that are placed on women, and what is deemed acceptable to continue doing, and what should now be a hobby, after becoming a mum,” Elbadawi says. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Ban on Palestine Action would have ‘chilling effect’ on other protest groups
The crackdown on protest in England and Wales has been ringing alarm bells for years, but the decision to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws raises the stakes dramatically. As the group itself has said, it is the first time the government has attempted to proscribe a direct action protest organisation under the Terrorism Act, placing it alongside the likes of Islamic State, al-Qaida and National Action. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the proposed ban was evidence-based and had been assessed by a wide range of experts. “In several attacks, Palestine Action has committed acts of serious damage to property with the aim of progressing its political cause and influencing the government,” she said. Proscribing the group, which uses direct action mainly to target Israeli weapons factories in the UK, would make it illegal not only to be a member of Palestine Action but to show support for it. read the complete article
Yvette Cooper vows to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws
The home secretary has said she will ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws, ignoring a warning from the group’s solicitors that the proposal was “unlawful, dangerous and ill thought out”. In a statement to parliament on Monday, three days after activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton, Yvette Cooper said a draft proscription order would be laid in parliament on 30 June. If passed, it would make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action. The group, founded in 2020, says it aims to prevent the commission of genocide and war crimes in Palestine and to expose and target property and premises connected to such crimes against humanity. Many of its activists have been acquitted by juries in the past and a letter from Kellys Solicitors, which represents several Palestine Action activists, sent to Cooper on Monday said the group “has gathered a significant level of public support”. read the complete article
United States
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani fends off hate as he inspires New Yorkers
Just days before the New York City mayoral elections on 24 June, 118 volunteers were at a phone banking session for Zohran Mamdani, one of nine people vying to be mayor of the largest city in the US. Running on a Democratic Socialist platform, Mamdani's bid for mayor – which centres on making New York more affordable for its inhabitants - has captured the imagination and support of largely young voters through his dynamic social media campaign. He's also managed to capture older voters who feel the bite of high housing costs post-pandemic and the soaring increase in general cost of living. The 33-year-old candidate has been criticised for being too young or inexperienced, and also for not being tough on crime. But the loudest criticism against Mamdani has not been substantively focused on policy issues. Rather, it has been fear-mongering over his identity. Mamdani, who is Muslim, has been subject to vitriolic Islamophobic verbal attacks and even death threats. During the first mayoral debate in early June, moderators singled out Mamdani with pointed questions about Israel, widely seen as an attempt to paint him as antisemitic. Following the debate, a proposed mailer, created by a super PAC supporting Cuomo, contained an altered image of Mamdani that made his beard darker and bushier. Aimed at Jewish voters, the mailer accused Mamdani of being antisemitic and rejecting Jewish rights, Israel, the New York Police Department and capitalism. In addition, politicians both in and outside of New York have made racial and religious slurs against him. Iskander Abbasi, a professor in the theology department at Fordham University, said that Islamophobia is "clearly a driving force behind the attacks on his [Mamdani's] campaign by both billionaire-backed liberal and conservative forces". "One major reason for these attacks is Mamdani's consistent and vocal support for boycotting apartheid Israel and advocating for the basic human rights and freedom of the Palestinian people," Abbasi added. "Another is that one of the biggest motivators for racists and Islamophobes is when people of colour gain political power and fight for justice on their own terms." read the complete article
The lasting impact of 9/11 on Muslim integration in America
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 profoundly altered American society, shaping attitudes towards Muslim communities in ways that extend well beyond national security policies and civil liberties. One of the overlooked yet deeply significant consequences of this shift has been the effect on intermarriage between Muslims and non-Muslims. This is a powerful indicator of the degree of progress or regress on social integration, offering unique insights into how communities connect and blend across ethnic, racial and religious lines. Examining how 9/11 influenced marriage choices provides a deeper understanding of American society, showing that a single event can reshape not just headlines or policies, but also the deeply personal decisions people make about love and family. The aftermath of 9/11 led to a dramatic shift in marriage patterns among American Muslims. Rising anti-Muslim sentiment, fuelled by increased surveillance (Khan and Ramachandran, 2021), media narratives (Alsultany, 2012) and political rhetoric (Archetti, 2010) created an environment in which interfaith relationships became more difficult to form and sustain. My research uses data from the American Community Survey for the period from 2008 to 2019, focusing on couples who got married between 1990 and 2015. It shows that after 9/11, the intermarriage rate among Muslims fell by eight percentage points relative to other minority groups. There was an even sharper 11 percentage point decline in marriages between Muslims and white Americans (see Figure 2). Hence, fewer Muslims married white Americans, with a corresponding increase in marriages to individuals from other ethnic minority groups. read the complete article
India
‘Foreigners for both nations’: India pushing Muslims ‘back’ to Bangladesh
Ufa Ali could barely stand. On May 31, the 67-year-old bicycle mechanic returned to his home in India’s northeastern state of Assam after spending four harrowing days stranded in Bangladesh, the neighbouring country he claims he had only heard of “as a slur” since birth. Ali’s weeklong ordeal began on May 23 when he was picked up by the police from his rented house in Kuyadal, a small village in Assam’s Morigaon district, during a government crackdown on “declared foreign nationals” – a category of people unique to Assam. The tensions have gotten worse since 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power for the first time in Assam. More than a third of the state’s 31 million population is Muslim – the highest percentage among Indian states. Ali is among the more than 300 Muslims in Assam “pushed back” into Bangladesh since May, according to state Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. “These pushbacks will be intensified. We have to be more active and proactive to save the state,” Sarma told the state’s legislative assembly earlier this month. Apoorvanand, a professor of Hindi at the University of Delhi, told Al Jazeera the Pahalgam attack gave the BJP – which runs both the federal and Assam governments – an excuse to expel vulnerable Muslim groups, such as the Rohingya or the Bengali-speaking Muslim migrants. “Muslim identities in any form are synonymous with terrorism in India under the BJP government,” he said. “The government treats Bengali Muslims as illegal Bangladeshis.” read the complete article
Germany
Alarming Islamophobia in Germany: ‘Every second person agrees with anti-Muslim statements’
German authorities must take anti-Muslim racism more seriously and implement stronger measures to combat the rising number of attacks and discriminatory practices in the country, according to a leading rights group. “We currently see extremely anti-Muslim sentiments in society. Every second person agrees with anti-Muslim statements,” Rima Hanano, co-director of CLAIM, told Anadolu. Recent surveys show that Muslims are the least accepted minority in Germany, the EU’s largest economy and a country of 84 million people with more than 5 million Muslims. Many Germans were found to be harboring negative stereotypes and prejudices toward Muslims, while media coverage of international conflicts and terrorism has further fueled suspicion of the Muslim community. In this deeply concerning political climate, anti-Muslim attacks and discrimination hit a record high in 2024, with Hanano’s organization documenting 3,080 anti-Muslim hate incidents last year – a dramatic 60% increase from 1,926 cases reported in 2023. According to Hanano, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and other right-wing movements, along with increasingly inflammatory political rhetoric, has emboldened individuals to become more aggressive and “feel justified” in attacking Muslims. read the complete article