Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, Dr Amina Shareef writes about the Islamophobic stunt carried out by a French feminist group during the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, noting how the spectacle “reenacts the colonial fantasy of unveiling Muslim women as a symbolic conquest of Islam’s sacred heartlands,” meanwhile in the United States, authorities have confirmed the identities of two other men killed in the attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, and lastly, Israeli authorities are forcibly removing hundreds of native Palestinians out of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood in an effort to make way for Israeli settlers. Our recommended read of the day is by Anisah Bagasra for The Conversation on how research shows that negative portrayals of Muslims in media have serious real-world consequences, including discrimination, psychological harm, and violent hate crimes. This and more below:

United States

San Diego mosque shooting reflects how online rhetoric, media depictions and political discourse contribute to increased Islamophobia | Recommended Read

Many Muslim Americans are fearful following a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego that left three worshipers dead. Investigators reportedly found hate speech and anti-Islamic writing inside the vehicle of the suspected shooters, who killed themselves soon after the attack. The director of the Islamic Center, Taha Hassane, condemned the attack while also encouraging individuals to respond with tolerance and love. “All of us are responsible for spreading the culture of tolerance, the culture of love,” he said, while lamenting the conditions that had led to such violence. Muslim Americans have been warning that the increased rhetoric targeting Islam and Muslims endangers their community. As a scholar who studies Islamophobia and its impact on Muslim Americans, I have observed how the war with Iran intensified anti-Muslim sentiment online. A study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that in the first six days of the conflict, the average number of Islamophobic posts on X jumped from an average of 2,000 posts daily to 6,000. Research consistently shows that negative portrayals of Muslims shape public attitudes toward them and can lead to increased discrimination, psychological harm and hate crimes like the shooting in San Diego. read the complete article

Imam blames anti-Muslim rhetoric for San Diego attack: ‘This is what we get’

Religious leaders from across the country are warning that a deadly shooting at a San Diego Islamic center — the latest in a string of attacks against houses of worship — reflects the escalating rhetoric against Muslims and other religious groups. “This tragedy is a painful reminder that Islamophobia and religious bigotry continue to endanger lives and undermine the safety and rights of minority communities,” said a statement from the Indian American Muslim Council. “We urge political leaders, law enforcement, and civil society to confront anti-Muslim hatred with the seriousness it demands and to ensure that all communities are able to worship in peace and security.” San Diego police said the two teenage suspects in Monday’s attack were radicalized online. In one of their vehicles, the FBI found “writings and various ideologies outlining religious and racial beliefs of how the world they envisioned should look.” The two were found dead nearby shortly after the attack. ”When elected officials, when the media try to dehumanize a community, this is the result," Imam Taha Hassane, the center’s director, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “When we don’t watch what we say about one another as Americans, this is what we get.” Multiple Republican members of Congress along with prominent social influencers this year have made Islamophobic public statements. read the complete article

Mansour Kaziha, Nader Awad identified as victims in San Diego Mosque attack

Authorities have confirmed the identities of two other men killed in an attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, in the latest apparent hate incident in the United States. Mosque officials on Tuesday said Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad had been killed when two gunmen attacked the religious site the day before. That came after friends and family identified Amin Abdullah, a security guard credited with thwarting the attackers, as the third man killed. The alleged gunmen were later found dead of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Police have been investigating the attack as a hate crime. The chairman of the Mosque’s board of directors, Ahmed Shabaik, told Al Jazeera all three men had played a role in responding to the gunmen. “I want to be very clear, all three of our victims did not die in vain,” Wahl said. “Without distracting the attention, without delaying the actions of these two individuals, without question, there would have been many more fatalities yesterday.” read the complete article

The 7 Most Islamophobic Things That Republicans Have Said Just This Year Alone

Republican leaders have been fueling the fire with unfailingly bigoted, inflammatory language against Muslims and their faith. GOP Twitter has raged against “Jihadi Mamdani” and ridiculously claimed the country is backsliding into a so-called “United Caliphate of America.” In a moment when houses of worship are no longer sanctuaries, some of the highest elected officials in the U.S. are working tirelessly to make sure Muslims feel unsafe wherever they turn. Here are seven of the most outrageously Islamophobic and dangerous tweets from Republican lawmakers this year alone. read the complete article

San Diego Mosque Attack Comes Amid Rising Islamophobia

A shooting at San Diego’s largest mosque that left at least five people dead on Monday, including the suspected perpetrators, is being investigated as a possible hate crime linked to white supremacist extremism, according to local authorities. Experts say the incident comes amid a backdrop of rising Islamophobia in recent years. In its annual civil rights report published this year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it received 8,683 civil rights complaints in 2025—the most in a single year since its first report in 1996. That number is up from 8,658 in 2024 and 8,061 in 2023. Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at CAIR, says complaints rise almost every year, except in 2022, when they dropped. Five states—Oklahoma, Illinois, Florida, Minnesota, and Texas—have all seen increasing complaints over the last three years. “Unfortunately, Islamophobia remains at all-time highs,” he tells TIME. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, released a report last month that documented a 1,450% surge in anti-Muslim social media posts by Republican elected officials from February 2025 to March 2026. “Islamophobia is an acceptable form of hate in the United States,” Saylor says. “A large number of elected officials, whether it be Randy Fine from Florida, Keith Self or Chip Roy, both from Texas, have smeared Muslims.” read the complete article

International

Israel's trying to expel a whole Palestinian district in East Jerusalem, activists say

Fakhri Abu Diab, 62, has lived on the same property in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan all his life. But he doesn't know how much longer he will be able to stay. It was his mother's house, the home where Abu Diab was born and grew up. While its original structure predated Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem on land captured from Jordan in 1967, Abu Diab later added rooms to accommodate his growing family. Those additions were considered illegal by the Jerusalem municipality. Residents and human rights groups say it is difficult or impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in the area, leading them to build without permits. Abu Diab is an activist in Silwan fighting to preserve the neighborhood against the demolitions that have been going on for nearly two decades. When NPR interviewed him in 2021, he was still living in his family's home. Now that it's demolished, he and his wife are living in a small trailer he set up in a corner of the courtyard. He says he has received a new eviction notice from the Jerusalem municipality. Hundreds of Palestinians like Abu Diab are being pushed out of Silwan by Israeli authorities to make way for Israeli settlers, as well as Jewish religious and archaeological sites, on this prized land just south of Jerusalem's Old City walls, according to residents and human rights advocates. Amid the piles of demolition rubble, new settler homes have sprouted. read the complete article

United Kingdom

Unite the Kingdom: Hateful theatre of niqab ‘unveiling’ feeds far-right fantasies

Three women take the stage. They are dressed in niqabs, draped head to toe in voluminous black fabric, their faces covered. Motioning with their hands, the women egg on the crowd. Boos and jeers fill the air. The woman in the centre leans into the microphone and chants: “Take it off!” The crowd joins in. One by one, the women tear off their head and face coverings and fling them to the ground. White faces emerge. Hair is tossed. The crowd goes wild. The spectacle continues: off come the abayas. The women stand triumphant in body-con mini dresses, as Union Jacks wave overhead and cheers swell around them. “We have come from France to support you,” one woman announces. A small gold cross hangs visibly around her neck. The group is from the Nemesis Collective, a French feminist identitarian movement that mobilises around the racist trope that Muslim immigrants pose a sexual threat to white women. This is a scene from the Unite the Kingdom rally organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson in London this past weekend, held simultaneously with the pro-Palestinian Nakba Day march. Within this symbolic landscape, the niqab spectacle was not merely an act of Islamophobia. It condensed the far right’s political imagination into a single theatrical performance: the conquest of the Christian nation over Islam, the conquest of women by men, and the imagined reconquest of a sacred homeland. read the complete article

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