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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, a federal judge ordered the immediate release of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who was arrested in March, after two months of detention in an immigration facility in Texas, meanwhile in India, Nadira Khatun’s new book Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity explores how Muslims are represented in Hindi cinema, and how politics has influenced those portrayals, and in the United Kingdom, police say three men have been convicted of planning to carry out an attack on mosques or synagogues in anticipation of a coming race war. Our recommended read of the day is by The Middle East Eye on how the U.S. Department of Justice has launched a federal civil rights investigation into a planned Muslim-friendly housing development in Texas, according to Republican Senator John Cornyn. This and more below:
United States
US administration launches federal probe into Muslim housing development in Texas | Recommended Read
The US Department of Justice has launched a federal civil rights investigation into a planned Muslim-friendly housing development in Texas, according to Republican Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn requested a federal investigation into the housing development, citing concerns about “religious discrimination” and “sharia law” in Texas. He announced in a post on X on Friday that attorney general Pam Bondi had notified him that an investigation was launched on 9 May. The maelstrom around the proposed housing development did not start with Cornyn and may be part of a political campaign to win voters. Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched the initial salvo in February when he posted on X: "Sharia law is not allowed in Texas." His post came shortly after Amy Mekelburg, a far-right agitator known for spreading anti-Muslim disinformation, falsely labelled the proposed development a "Sharia City". Abbott amplified the message, characterising Muslim families building homes as a threat to be taken seriously. A month later, on 25 March, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton followed suit, launching a formal investigation into the development dubbed "Epic City" and demanding records from its developers and local officials. Though framed as a routine legal step, the inquiry targeted supposed violations of state law, despite no evidence of illegality or any attempt to establish a parallel legal system. That did not stop Texas officials from invoking national security language to criminalise what is, in essence, a housing development. Shortly after, Abbott escalated matters further, instructing the developers to confirm within seven days that they would immediately cease any construction of their "illegal project". Two weeks later, on 8 April, Paxton announced his bid to unseat Cornyn. The very next day, Cornyn called on the Department of Justice to investigate the project, echoing the same narrative of preventing "religious discrimination". Both men seized on the same Muslim-led housing project to outflank each other in a hardline race to the right, with the presence of Muslims being portrayed not as a right to be protected, but as a threat to be investigated, critics say. read the complete article
Judge Orders Georgetown Academic Released From Immigration Detention
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who was arrested in March, after two months of detention in an immigration facility in Texas. Ruling from the bench, Judge Patricia Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia said the government had declined every opportunity to provide evidence detailing why Mr. Suri, an Indian national, should be detained. She also said it had not identified any past statements he had made that represented a threat to U.S. interests, as the government had claimed. Judge Giles ordered that Mr. Suri be released without bond and imposed minimal conditions beyond requiring him to return to Virginia and attend all court proceedings. The government also had not offered proof that Mr. Suri, a scholar committed to “peace and conflict resolution,” might pose a flight risk, she said. The judge also decided against subjecting him to GPS monitoring or other terms the government had requested. Mr. Suri, who has not been charged with a crime, moved to the United States in 2022 and had been teaching a course on minority rights in South Asia through his role at Georgetown this semester, according to court filings. After Mr. Suri’s arrest in March, another district court judge ruled that he could not be removed from the United States before a court had the opportunity to weigh in. Judge Giles said Mr. Suri’s release was necessary to “disrupt the chilling effect” his detention most likely had on others who have been critical of Israel. She also said it was clear to her that he had been arrested “for punitive reasons,” in violation of the First Amendment, which protects speech and the freedom to associate without being retaliated against over the beliefs of one’s family members. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Racialized Grooming Gangs: How Musk and X Amplified Islamophobia and Racism in the UK
The improvement in Reform UK’s performance in the 2025 local elections highlights a growing legitimacy crisis within the Conservative Party. Yet, this shift is less a case of the electorate drifting organically toward the far right and more the product of a media and platform ecosystem that has steadily normalized far-right rhetoric. We can see a direct example of these changes in the transition of X (formerly Twitter) into a cesspit of hate and disinformation under Elon Musk. Since acquiring X in late 2022, Musk has branded himself a “free speech absolutist,” dismantled trust and safety systems, and reinstated and actively engaged with previously banned far-right X accounts. In practice, however, his hands‑off approach to content moderation and personal amplification of conspiratorial claims has turned the platform into fertile ground for Islamophobia, racism, and disinformation. Nowhere is this clearer than in the so‑called “grooming gangs” panic that resurfaced in January 2025. Our new report at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) analyzed 1,365 X posts about “grooming gangs” between January 2024 and January 2025. In the peak period—from January 1 to January 30, 2025—1,208 posts generated a staggering 1.53 billion engagements (1.51 billion views, 11.5 million likes, 3.17 million reposts, 625 thousand replies, and 347 thousand bookmarks). Musk’s 51 posts to the conversation alone accounted for 1.2 billion of those engagements. His centrality here has relied on both his algorithmic privilege and the convergence of an extensive global Islamophobic X network spanning the UK, Europe, the US, and India. read the complete article
UK neo-Nazis convicted of planning mosque, synagogue ‘race war’ attack
Police in the United Kingdom say three men have been convicted of planning to carry out an attack on mosques or synagogues in anticipation of a coming race war. Brogan Stewart and Marco Pitzettu, both aged 25, and Christopher Ringrose, 34, all pleaded not guilty but were convicted of all charges by jurors at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday. Sentencing is scheduled for July 17. “They were a group that espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence, all to support their extreme right-wing mindset.” The convictions come amid a debate in the UK over immigration rights as the left-of-centre Labour Party adopts increasingly harsh rhetoric on migration amid increasing public support for the far right. Critics said a recent speech by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in which he said immigration threatened to turn the UK into an “island of strangers” helps legitimise a view perpetuated by the far right that immigration is a destructive and dangerous force. The convicted far-right group was part of a Telegram channel named Einsatz 14, in which they talked about executing former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and torturing imams. “It was their belief that there must soon come a time when there would be a race war between the white and other races,” prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford told jurors. read the complete article
India
Modi party politician’s Islamophobic attack on Indian Army spokesperson backfires
An Indian lawmaker is facing criticism for making offensive remarks against an army spokesperson in the aftermath of the conflict with Pakistan, with opposition leaders calling for his apology and resignation. In a public speech on Tuesday, Vijay Shah, member of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), suggested that Colonel Sofiya Qureshi was from the community of people who had attacked India. Colonel Qureshi, assigned to brief the media along with foreign secretary Vikram Misri after the conflict broke out, is from the minority Muslim community. “They killed our Hindu brothers by making them remove their clothes,” the minister said, meaning the gunmen. “They made our sisters widows, so Modiji sent a sister of their community to strip them and teach them a lesson.” Mr Shah drew immediate condemnation from opposition leaders who called his remarks “derogatory and shameful”. “Such comments were made only because Colonel Sofia Qureshi is a Muslim," Harish Rawat, former chief minister of the northern Uttarakhand state from the Congress party said. read the complete article
India’s ‘new normal’ of perpetual war will damage its democracy
On May 12, two days after the announcement of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally addressed the nation. He stated that the Indian army had only “paused” military action and Operation Sindoor, launched in the aftermath of the April 22 massacre in Pahalgam to target “terrorist hideouts”, had not ended. “Now, Operation Sindoor is India’s policy against terrorism. Operation Sindoor has carved out a new benchmark in our fight against terrorism and has set up a new parameter and new normal,” he said. Modi’s speech was clearly not meant to reassure the Indian people that the government can guarantee their safety or security and is seeking peace and stability. Instead, it was meant to warn that the country is now in a permanent warlike situation. This new state of affairs has been called not to secure the national interest but to satisfy Modi’s nationalist support base, which was bewildered and disappointed with the announcement of the ceasefire by United States President Donald Trump. The detrimental impact that this new militarised normal will have on Indian democracy is clearly a price worth paying, according to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While victims of the attack like Himanshi Narwal, who survived but lost her husband, navy officer Vinay Narwal, called for peace and warned against the targeting of Muslims and Kashmiris, the BJP called for revenge and embraced anti-Muslim rhetoric. read the complete article
‘People love the Khans, hate Muslims’— book event calls out Bollywood double standards
The Khans of Bollywood have “brought more joy to India than any Gujarati politician”, said Jamia Millia Islamia professor Mujibur Rehman at a recent book discussion. This is Rehman’s standard response to anyone who says the Muslim community hasn’t achieved much in the last 75 years. The book in question was Nadira Khatun’s Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity, which explores how Muslims are represented in Hindi cinema, and how politics has influenced those portrayals. “Bollywood is very selective in choosing themes, what gets portrayed, and what gets left out,” said Khatun, an assistant professor at XIM University, at the discussion held at Delhi’s India International Centre in April. “Communal violence and riots, for instance, rarely find space, while narratives around terrorism are repeatedly exploited.” Outlining why she felt compelled to turn her research into a book, Khatun drew attention to the changing portrayal of Muslims in Bollywood, “especially after the Babri Masjid demolition”. Muslim characters, according to her, were increasingly vilified, demonised, and pushed to the margins. Rehman, who wrote the book’s foreword, pointed the contradictions in public perception. “We are in the middle of an ideological warfare,” he said. “People hate Muslims but love the Khans.” Bhaskar recalled how even the Right Wing mourned the death of actor Irrfan Khan. read the complete article