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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Denmark, two men have been fined 10,000 kroner ($1,500) each after a court found them guilty of desecrating a copy of the Quran, one of these men being Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the anti-Islamic Stram Kurs party, meanwhile in India, outrage has erupted after a Muslim professor was arrested over a social media post which praised India’s military operations against Pakistan while criticizing attacks on Indian Muslims, and lastly, the United Nations has called for an investigation into “credible reports” that Indian authorities rounded up Rohingya refugees and expelled them, in some cases by putting them into the Andaman Sea off the shore of the same country they had escaped from. Our recommended read of the day is by Katie J.M. Baker for The New York Times on how the Washington-based right-wing think tank, Heritage Foundation, has been working diligently to attack and defame pro-Palestinian movements across the country, and has found a receptive audience with the Trump administration. This and more below:
United States
The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement | Recommended Read
In late April, the Heritage Foundation dispatched a team to Israel to meet with power players in Israeli politics, including the country’s foreign and defense secretaries and the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee. The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power. Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious policy paper: Project Esther, the foundation’s proposal to rapidly dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities, at progressive organizations and in Congress. Drafted in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered “open society.” read the complete article
Trump is repackaging the ‘War on Terror’ to stop Palestine activists, but you can’t deport a movement
At first glance, the assault on Mahmoud Khalil and other pro-Palestine organizers may seem like a terrifying rupture—something unprecedented. But to those who have studied the U.S. government’s response to dissent, particularly in Arab and Muslim communities, it is chillingly familiar. This is not a new phenomenon. It is the resurrection of the post-9/11 “War on Terror” playbook, this time aimed not at a constructed foreign enemy, but at the growing, domestic movement for Palestinian liberation. In fact, the playbook and narrative are strikingly similar. When former President George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror,” his administration ushered in a new era of expanded executive power at the expense of civil liberties, adopting a “detain first, ask questions later” approach. Early in his presidency, Bush authorized the President’s Surveillance Program in secret, directing the National Security Agency to engage in warrantless electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens—including phone tapping and internet data mining—targeting primarily Arab and Muslim communities. Congress subsequently passed the Patriot Act, dramatically expanding government surveillance powers and paving the way for heightened, unchecked criminalization and further erosion of civil liberties. Dozens of organizations were shut down under the guidance of national security – most notably of which is the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The Holy Land Foundation was shut down by the Bush administration after 9/11 and labeled a terrorist organization, even though it donated to Palestinian charities also funded by the U.S. government. Its leaders received sentences of up to 65 years, despite not being accused of directly funding terrorism or terrorist attacks. Instead, they were prosecuted under “material support” laws based on the claim that the social services they funded helped build support for Hamas. The case relied on FISA wiretaps, foreign intelligence from Israel, flawed translations, and testimony from anonymous Israeli military witnesses. While the Trump administration’s strategy is not new, its target is broader. Where the post-9/11 playbook focused on Arabs and Muslims, today’s iteration criminalizes any visible support for Palestine, regardless of ethnic or religious identity. That is because the movement for Palestinian liberation has become too large, too diverse, and too mainstream to be dismissed as the agenda of a single minority group. From campus encampments to congressional offices, the people have found their voice – a threat too terrifying for those in power to dismiss without deploying their most aggressive silencing tactics. read the complete article
India
India: Outrage after Cambridge-educated Muslim academic arrested over online post
Outrage has erupted in India after a Muslim professor was arrested over a social media post which praised India's military operations against Pakistan while criticising attacks on Indian Muslims. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, 42, is a British-educated associate professor of political science at Ashoka University. He studied at Winchester College, a boarding school in England, and earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2014. Mahmudabad was arrested on Sunday in New Delhi after a complaint was filed against him by a youth leader of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Rights groups and prominent commentators have erupted in outrage. Aakar Patel, the chair of Amnesty International India, said: "Mahmudabad is in jail not because of what he wrote but because he's Muslim." Ashoka University's faculty association released a statement condemning his arrest on what it called "groundless and untenable charges". The university, by contrast, issued a statement distancing itself from the academic's social media posts. But more than 1,000 academics have signed a letter of support for Mahmudabad, including prominent historians Romila Thapar and Ramachandra Guha. The Print, a major Indian news outlet, said that the "vicious hounding and egregious arrest" of Mahmudabad was a "shameful insult to our millenia-old democratic tradition". read the complete article
India Is Accused of Inhumanely Deporting Rohingya Refugees
The United Nations has called for an investigation into “credible reports” that Indian authorities rounded up Rohingya refugees and expelled them, in some cases by putting them into the Andaman Sea off the shore of the same country they had escaped from, fearing persecution and death. The episode appeared to be part of a broader recent crackdown, as officials of India’s government used a moment of conflict with its neighbor Pakistan to expand a campaign of oppression against minority Muslims. “The idea that Rohingya refugees have been cast into the sea from naval vessels is nothing short of outrageous,” said Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. “I am seeking further information and testimony regarding these developments and implore the Indian government to provide a full accounting of what happened.” He urged the Indian government to refrain from “inhumane and life-threatening treatment of Rohingya refugees, including their repatriation into perilous conditions in Myanmar.” read the complete article
Denmark
Denmark fines two for desecrating Koran
A Danish court on Friday fined two men 10,000 kroner ($1,500) each for desecrating the Koran, including the leader of an anti-Islamic party. The men were found to have violated a law banning "inappropriate treatment of a religious text", which was implemented in December 2023. The law was drafted after protests that involved desecrations and burnings of the Koran in Denmark and Sweden sparked anger in several Muslim countries. According to the ruling, one of the two men, born in 1988, tore pages from an English edition of the Koran before dropping the book into a puddle of water. The incident was broadcast live on the Facebook page of the anti-Islamic party Stram Kurs, led by Rasmus Paludan - the other person fined. read the complete article