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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Australia, Meta has blamed a “technical glitch” after an individual who reported an alleged threat against a Sydney mosque on Instagram received a notification saying it had not breached the platform’s community standards on violence, meanwhile in Israel, the country’s Justice Ministry has refused to include an explicit ban on racial discrimination by real estate agents in the new code of ethics for brokers set to take effect next week, and in the U.S., a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card. Our recommended read of the day is by Lizzie Dearden for The Guardian on the UK government’s decision to cut all funding for the Islamophobia reporting group Tell MAMA, leaving the organization in jeopardy of closure only weeks after the group reported on record rates of anti-Muslim activity in the country. This and more below:
United Kingdom
Islamophobia charity Tell Mama facing closure after funding pulled by government | Recommended Read
The government is cutting all funding for the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, leaving it facing closure weeks after it revealed a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain. Since its foundation in 2012, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to run its reporting service, which received almost 11,000 reports in 2023-4, and support victims of Islamophobia. Now it has informed Tell Mama that no grant will be provided from the end of this month, and has not given details of any alternative provision. Police sources raised alarm over the probable impact of the cut, saying information provided by Tell Mama under a data sharing agreement signed in 2015 has been “invaluable” for monitoring indicators of rising tensions and responding to potential threats. Government funding will stop at the end of this financial year, weeks after Tell Mama said it received 10,700 reports last year, of which 9,600 were verified, showing street-based incidents on the rise and a sharp increase in online activity after the Southport attack and ensuing riots. Separate police figures show a record number of religious hate crimes in England and Wales in the year to March 2024, believed to be driven by the Israel-Gaza conflict. Muslims were the most targeted group (38% of police-recorded religious hate crimes), followed by Jews (33%). Several recent far-right terror plots have targeted Muslims, and on Thursday a court heard that an alleged neo-Nazi terror cell had been planning attacks on mosques and synagogues in north-west England, and that one of its members discussed torturing an imam. read the complete article
Reform UK MP suspended over ‘violent threats’ against Muslim chairman
UK's right-wing party Reform UK has been thrown into disarray following serious allegations against one of its MPs, including threats of physical violence against the party's chairman and multiple claims of bullying. Nigel Farage's party released a statement confirming that complaints had been lodged against Rupert Lowe for alleged bullying behaviour. He allegedly made threats of physical violence against party chairman Zia Yusuf on at least two occasions. The matter has been reported to the police, and an independent investigation is underway. In a statement, Yusuf and Reform UK’s chief whip Lee Anderson confirmed that the party had "appointed an independent King's Counsel to conduct an investigation" into the claims. Reform UK has been embroiled in multiple controversies in the last years - involving allegations of racism and Islamophobia. During the 2024 general election campaign, undercover footage revealed party campaigners in Clacton making racist and Islamophobic remarks, including a derogatory term for Rishi Sunak and disparaging comments about the LGBT community. Further scrutiny uncovered that several Reform UK candidates had histories of offensive social media activity. Candidates such as David Carpin, Ginny Ball, and Mick Greenhough faced deselection due to homophobic, racist, and Islamophobic posts. read the complete article
United States
Ice arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia protests, lawyer says
A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney. Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press. One of the agents told Greer by phone that they were executing a state department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil, who graduated last December, was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer. The arrest comes as Donald Trump vows to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. The authorities declined to tell Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, why he was being detained, Greer said. Khalil has since been transferred to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. read the complete article
Columbia Bent Over Backward to Appease Right-Wing, Pro-Israel Attacks — And Trump Still Cut Federal Funding
Columbia University could hardly have been more draconian in the last year and a half since students began speaking out against Israel’s assault on Gaza. In early November 2023, four months before the Columbia Gaza solidarity encampment even began, the university banned its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. A few hundred students from the groups had had the audacity to walk out from classes and hold a “die-in” protest on campus — some of the most widely celebrated nonviolent protest tactics available. The crackdown was just getting started. Since then, the university has ordered police raids on campus three times, leading to the arrests of over 100 students. Last week, the school expelled four students, three from Barnard College, one from Columbia. Many dozens of students have faced discipline and suspensions for participating in pro-Palestine protests and speech. Professors have been slandered before Congress, censured, removed from positions, and reportedly pushed into retirement over their support for Palestine and criticism of Israel. The campus has been essentially locked down for almost a year. Again and again, Columbia has shown a willingness to throw students, faculty, free speech, and academic freedom under the bus in acquiescence to a right-wing, pro-Israel narrative that treats support for Palestinians as an affront to Jewish safety. For all Columbia’s appeasement, President Donald Trump’s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced last week that it would cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university. read the complete article
Canada
Pierre Poilievre claimed her job was ‘useless’ — but Amira Elghawaby says her role combating Islamophobia is needed more than ever
In a political landscape that appears to be retreating from an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, Canada’s point-person on tackling Islamophobia says roles like hers are now needed more than ever. “Democracy stands for ensuring that every citizen has the freedom to fully participate, to fully contribute,” said Amira Elghawaby, the country’s special representative on combating Islamophobia. read the complete article
Is Islamophobia Resurfacing in Canada?
A disconcerting politics is taking shape in Canada, and it’s being led by Pierre Poilievre. The leader of the Conservative Party called protesters who have demonstrated for a ceasefire in Gaza “lawless mobs.” He has promised, he says, “a crackdown on all terrorist networks that Trudeau has allowed on our streets.” Rhetoric like that puts all Muslims in danger. It doesn’t matter that protesters come from all backgrounds—the rhetoric unmistakably feeds into Islamophobic talking points. No matter their efforts at being good neighbours, workers and community members, Muslims in Canada are often forced to pick up the pieces of global conflicts. Depending on the news cycle, stereotypes and prejudices can emerge unexpectedly. As a newly appointed researcher on Islamophobia at the University of Manitoba, I have learned that Islamophobic attacks ebb and flow depending on foreign conflicts—wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Syria. Muslim communities in Canada are vulnerable to political events over which they have no power or involvement. Harper’s Conservatives were particularly adept at weaponizing fear in the decade following 9/11. But even after Trudeau came to power, the phenomenon of Islamophobia wasn’t well understood. In 2016, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid received death threats for introducing a motion condemning Islamophobia in Parliament. “We will burn down your mosques,” one message read. read the complete article
International
Israel refuses to ban racial discrimination against Palestinians in housing
Israel's Justice Ministry refused to include an explicit ban on racial discrimination by real estate agents in the new code of ethics for brokers set to take effect next week. The new code, which governs Israel's Real Estate Brokers' Association, was approved by the Knesset six months ago. But the Justice Ministry has faced a wave of criticism for its refusal to address racial bias explicitly, even after the case involving three Palestinian women - citizens of Israel - who had filed a discrimination claim against a Tel Aviv realtor. The women, who had sought an apartment in the summer of 2018, were denied a unit after revealing their identities. Their case - heard by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court last week - set a precedent by holding the realtor and their agency responsible for discriminatory practices. Despite the ruling and compensation, the Justice Ministry refused to include anti-discrimination provisions in the real estate code. Human rights law professor at Queen Mary University of London Neve Gordon, who is also a board member of the International State Crime Initiative, slammed the move and accused Israel of a consistent racist bias against Palestinians. read the complete article
UK anti-Muslim violence: How killing in Gaza enables attacks in Gloucester
According to a UK-based watchdog that monitors Islamophobia, there was a 73 percent rise in Islamophobic assaults last year. The watchdog, Tell Mama, attributed the rise to the normalisation of Islamophobic rhetoric in political discourse, along with the spread of far-right conspiracies like the “Great Replacement” theory. In common parlance, Tell Mama suggests that because British politicians and the far right are saying Islamophobic stuff, British Muslim people are being attacked on the streets. While there is nothing untrue about this assertion, it is entirely inadequate as an explanation for one key reason: it contains the discussion of this issue to UK politics, rather than highlighting the connections between Islamophobic street violence in Britain and other attacks on Muslim life around the globe. Taking a view of Islamophobia as a transnational project, I believe the rise in UK incidents last year can be explained by locating it within a global racial architecture, which gives permission for Muslim people to be injured or killed. It is worth noting that anti-Muslim racism is much more than the racialisation of Muslim people. It is a social system in which Muslim people’s life chances are reduced through exclusions in education, employment, housing and healthcare. It is a system in which Muslim people face life-threatening violence: lynchings, assaults on the streets, torture, denationalisation, targeted drone killings, and political abandonment, as in the case of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean in unseaworthy vessels. It would thus be appropriate to understand anti-Muslim racism as a system that exposes Muslim populations to both slow and imminent death. read the complete article
Australia
Meta apologises after 'Christchurch 2.0' report claimed it didn't breach Instagram rules
Meta has blamed a technical glitch after an individual who reported an alleged threat against a Sydney mosque on Instagram received a notification saying it had not breached the platform's community standards on violence. WA Police arrested a 16-year-old in Bunbury on Tuesday, hours after the newly opened Australian Islamic House reported an alleged threat on social media that sparked a "major" investigation by NSW Police. Among other comments on Instagram were "I'm going to christ church 2.0 this joint" — an apparent reference to the massacre of 51 worshippers at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 by a white supremacist. Yet the day after the teenager's arrest, Meta provided notification to the individual who had reported the comment, saying its team had undertaken a review that "found that it does not go against our community standards on violence or dangerous organisations". In a statement to the ABC on Friday evening, Meta said: "We do not allow organisations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms. "The threatening Christchurch 2.0 comment was removed as soon as we became aware," a spokesperson said. read the complete article