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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, recent reporting shows the likelihood of a new travel ban on the horizon, which would affect citizens from 41 countries, according to sources from within the Trump administration, meanwhile in India, authorities issued an indefinite curfew on parts of the city of Nagpur after more than a dozen police officers were hurt in clashes sparked by a Hindu group’s demand for the removal of the tomb of a 17th-century Mughal ruler, and in Scotland, a 17-year-old boy has been arrested and charged after paint was allegedly thrown at an Aberdeen mosque and a rock hurled through a window while worshippers were inside. Our recommended read of the day is by Mansur Mirovalev for Al Jazeera on the difficulty facing practicing Muslims within the Russian penal system and how things such as fasting, praying, and dietary guidelines are “almost impossible” in some prisons. This and more below:
Russia
As Islam grows in Russia, Muslim prisoners struggle to practise their faith | Recommend Read
After arriving in a frigid Siberian jail in November 2023, Nariman Dzhelyal ate nothing but bread and gruel. The bespectacled, bearded Crimean Tatar community leader is a devout Muslim. He said most of the meals he was served contained pork, the consumption of which is forbidden in Islam. “I just took bread, it wasn’t of good quality, and ate it with tea,” Dzhelyal, who had been sentenced to 17 years in jail for “blowing up a natural gas pipeline” and “smuggling explosives” in a trial Ukraine called Kremlin-orchestrated, told Al Jazeera. He denied all the allegations against him. But diet is by far not the biggest problem tens of thousands of Muslims face in Russia’s notoriously cruel penitentiary system. For almost a century, Soviet and Russian jails have been described as a dark underworld governed by unwritten laws. “Red prisons” are the ones where wardens hold sway. Here, career criminals have accused prison officials of inhumane conditions including torture, solitary confinement, malnutrition and rape. But in the past two decades, a third force has begun affecting Russia’s prison population as tens of thousands of Muslims have been convicted of “terrorism”, “extremism”, or other crimes. About 15 percent of Russia’s population of 143 million is Muslim. They represent the fastest-growing demographic amid a population decline. According to rights groups and media reports, Russian convicts who convert to Islam are “automatically” listed as terror suspects and occasionally have their sentences extended for “extremism”. read the complete article
United States
Activists urge lawmakers to help reduce anti-Muslim incidents
At a time when bias incidents are on the rise, advocates gathered outside the Statehouse on Monday to commemorate the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. “Islamophobia kills,” said Imam Saffet Catovic, operations director for Justice for All. “It is the primary driver of persecution and genocide worldwide. Its effects are devastating.” The number of Islamophobic incidents is at its highest point since 1996, even topping the anti-Islam climate following Sept. 11th attacks, according to a report recently released by CAIR-NJ, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which hosted Monday’s event. CAIR’s executive director Salaedin Maksut listed a few examples of the 8,658 incidents reported nationally in 2024, including 290 in New Jersey. “Rutgers New Brunswick Muslim prayer hall was vandalized and trashed on Eid day,” she began. “There was an unprovoked physical assault of a Muslim protestor which landed him in the hospital and he had to receive stitches. A café owner was harassed and threatened for her public expression of support for the Palestinian cause. There was physical assault of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab in Jersey City leaving the Newport Mall.” read the complete article
Revised US travel ban could expand to more than 40 countries: Reports
Reports show a new travel ban on the horizon with slightly different iterations, according to media reports. Reuters reported on Monday that a forthcoming travel ban would affect citizens from 41 countries, according to an internal memo they had seen and sources they had spoken to who were close to the issue. The list is made up of three different categories: countries that are banned outright, countries with sharply restricted travel to the US, and countries that have sixty days to address concerns. Reuters identified Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea as five of the 10 countries where citizens would be subject to a full visa suspension. According to an article in the The New York Times last week, the full list includes Afghanistan; Bhutan; Cuba; Iran; Libya; North Korea; Somalia; Sudan; Syria; Yemen; and Venezuela. Seven of these countries - which were on different iterations of Trump’s 2017 predominantly "Muslim travel ban" list - continue to remain on the banned list. These countries include: Iran; Libya; North Korea; Somalia; Sudan; Syria; Yemen and Venezuela. read the complete article
Cornell student sues Trump to stop deportation of pro-Palestine student activists
A British graduate student, suspended for his pro-Palestine activism at Cornell University, is suing US President Donald Trump to stop his attempt at deporting international students and scholars who support Palestine and protest against the war on Gaza. Momodou Taal, 31, has joined forces with a fellow graduate student, a scholar at Cornell University, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to file a lawsuit challenging Trump's executive orders, which Taal has described as a "threat to millions in the US and worldwide". "Today, on the advice of counsel, we have sought a national injunction against Trump's executive orders. This is because we cannot allow international students, faculty, immigrants and people with conscience to live in perpetual fear, with the threat of illegal detention hanging over our heads," Taal said in a statement. The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block the enforcement of two executive orders signed by Trump - "Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats" and "Additional Measures to Combat Anti Semitism." Last year, Cornell University suspended Taal and threatened to revoke the 31-year-old's visa to study in the UK after student protestors shut down a careers fair where two arms companies, Boeing and L3Harris, were present at the fair. read the complete article
Nothing changes in the US: Third war on terrorism
For the past few years, U.S. President Donald Trump has been astonishingly portrayed as a prominent anti-war figure within the domestic political discourse of the empire, as he has repeatedly claimed that, unlike his predecessors, he never started a new war during his first administration. And his supporters seem to have embraced this claim, which, in their eyes, represented a bitter irony that it was really their opponents who, though always styled themselves as the peacemakers, have been the true warmongers. Trump appeared somewhat different to his supporters, as he was ostensibly the enemy of the mysterious “establishment.” It is worth noting that the ”anti-establishment” rhetoric, like much else in contemporary politics, has been hijacked by the public relations machinery surrounding the second administration of Trump. Despite the rather obvious fact that Trump’s circle consists precisely of those working tirelessly to “establish” their absolute rule over the entire world, the emperor continues to posture as the voice of the voiceless, as it were, not hesitating to present himself as the enemy of the establishment, even as his goals and methods remain indistinguishable from those whom he claims to oppose. The recent revival of the infamous U.S. “war on terrorism” serves as the perfect example of this contradiction. Trump’s idol, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, launched the first war on terrorism long before 9/11. In 1984, he declared that “a very worrisome and alarming new kind of terrorism” had developed, identifying it with “the direct use of instruments of terror by foreign states.” His preferred term was “state terrorism” – a term that has been in wide use since then. The description was certainly instructive: state terrorism was terrorism by “foreign states” by definition, and this excluded the United States itself from ever entering the list of states who would participate in it. One important advantage of this was especially remarkable: whoever questioned the policy risked being labeled a terrorist sympathizer. Fed up with the endless wars, Republican voters imagined that Trump would break the cycle and bring an end to this catastrophic exercise. No more wars, neither on terrorism nor on anything else. And he promised to uphold free speech, too, suggesting that people would be free to voice their discontent with their government’s foreign adventures, for example. Yet, recent developments have vindicated the skeptics who always doubted Trump’s supposed anti-war stance. Today, the U.S. is involved in yet another war on terrorism in Yemen. The third war on terrorism, like the earlier versions, has already started to have its effects on the domestic affairs of the empire. read the complete article
United Kingdom
'I was scared and humiliated... I did not deserve what happened to me'
A man has escaped a prison sentence after he was captured spitting in the face of a Muslim woman during a riot in Piccadilly Gardens. Michal Tomaszewski left his victim feeling 'violated, degraded and dehumanised' after joining what a judge described as an 'abhorrent' attack by a 'mob'. The 32-year-old, from Poland, joined a group hurling abuse at three Muslim women, all wearing hijabs, during last summer's violent protest in Manchester city centre on August 3. His victim was a British Muslim woman who was wearing a hijab head covering and a scarf representing Palestine who had been out shopping and had not realised a protest was to take place, said Mr Howie. The woman, who was with two other Muslim women, recalled hearing shouts of 'stop the boats', 'go back home' and 'go suck Allah's a**e', said the prosecutor. The woman later told police the shouts were 'horrific'. The trio of Muslim woman were 'surrounded' by a number of protesters, including Tomaszewski. The footage captured the defendant chanting 'save our kids' before moving towards his victim in an 'aggressive manner', said the prosecutor. Tomaszewski spat at the woman on the right cheek of her face while she was being led away, said Mr Howie. The footage, played in court, also showed other members of the mob shouting 'get the terrorist rag off her'. read the complete article
Australia
Police say there's no evidence attack on Muslim man at Logan was racially motivated
Police say there's no evidence an attack on a Muslim man wearing "religious attire" south of Brisbane was racially motivated. The 20-year-old Springwood man was allegedly hit in his upper back by a "projectile" fired from a passing vehicle shortly after midnight on Sunday at Underwood in Logan. On Tuesday, police said they were "open to any lines of investigation" but had found no evidence so far that the man had been targeted for his faith or race. Detectives have arrested a 23-year-old Kingston man over the incident, and he has been charged with three counts of grievous bodily harm. Earlier, the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) questioned if the assault — in the holy month of Ramadan, on the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch shooting and the International Day to Combat Islamophobia — was motivated "by hate or a political far-right cause". The man had been praying at the mosque earlier that evening and was walking with friends, wearing a thobe — a traditional robe — when police allege he was struck on Logan Road. read the complete article
India
India orders curfew after violence over tomb of 17th-century Muslim ruler
Authorities clamped indefinite curfew on parts of the Indian city of Nagpur after more than a dozen police officers were hurt in clashes sparked by a Hindu group's demand for the removal of the tomb of a 17th-century Mughal ruler, police said on Tuesday. Monday's violence in the central Indian city damaged many vehicles and injured several people, among them at least 15 police personnel, one of whom was in serious condition, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Police said in a statement that members of the group, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), burnt an effigy of the Emperor Aurangzeb and his tomb as they chanted slogans demanding its removal from the nearby city of Aurangabad. The police officer told Reuters the situation escalated after several members of Muslim groups marched near a police station and threw stones at police. The VHP denied accusations of engaging in any violence. It wants the tomb to be replaced with a memorial for rulers from the local Maratha community, its general secretary, Milind Parande, said in a video message. Nagpur is also the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. The VHP belongs to the same family of organisations. read the complete article