Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, Randy Fine, a Trump-endorsed candidate for the House of Representatives, threatened two Muslim members of Congress, tweeting “The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway.”, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the first Muslim regional director for the English and Welsh police watchdog felt his presence at the organisation allowed it to pay lip service to diversity while privately dismissing his criticisms, and in India, a proposal to amend a decades-old law that governs properties worth millions of dollars donated by Indian Muslims over centuries has triggered protests in the country. Our recommended read of the day is by , , for The Conversation on how Universities must not become sites of suppression as they are “indispensable to supporting the free inquiry needed to do the work of addressing atrocity crimes” and upholding democracy. This and more below:
International
Universities should not silence research and speech on Palestine | Recommended Read
As the world witnesses the ongoing destruction of Gaza, universities in the West have become critical sites of examination, debate and protest. They have also become sites of suppression that shrink, rather than facilitate, the open exchange and analysis of ideas. Universities are indispensable to supporting the free inquiry needed to do the work of addressing atrocity crimes. However, Western universities are increasingly prioritizing ideas of neutrality over a principled commitment to free speech and the pursuit of truth. In an essay on education and neoliberalism, Canadian-American cultural studies scholar Henry Giroux emphasized the importance of the university’s role in leading social change. He said the university is: “one of the few public spaces left where students can learn the power of questioning authority, recover the ideals of engaged citizenship, reaffirm the importance of the public good, and expand their capacities to make a difference.” Understanding — and ultimately preventing — genocide and other atrocity crimes requires an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates insights from a multitude of areas of expertise including law, history, politics, hard and applied sciences, psychology, journalism and others. Universities are crucial to supporting the evidence-based research needed to do this essential work. Unfortunately, many have responded to political and donor pressure by repressing discussions of Palestine in the classroom and on campus grounds. These moves curtail the academic freedom of scholars working on Palestine. When universities become less free, the health of our democracies declines. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Hate pushing UK Muslims away but government yet to ‘accept Islamophobia exists’: Rights lawyer
Months have passed since a wave of far-right riots swept through British towns and cities this summer but Muslim communities are still on edge. A survey revealed last week that one-third of Muslims in Britain are considering leaving the country after the riots, which included arson, racist chants, and damage to property as several mosques were targeted. The survey, conducted by market research company Survation on behalf of Tell Mama, a non-governmental organization that tracks hate crimes targeting Muslims, showed rising concerns within British Muslim communities following the unrest. Two-thirds of survey respondents said they felt the risk of harm to Muslim communities had increased since July 30, when the riots began in the city of Southport. Sparked by false online claims that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for the fatal stabbing of three children in Southport, the riots had led to a significant surge in charges as authorities addressed the unrest. According to a human rights lawyer, the anti-immigrant violence was the result of a "massive increase" in Islamophobia over the past several years coming to a head. In an interview with Anadolu, Aamer Anwar, a British political activist and human rights lawyer, said the UK government had to openly accept that Islamophobia is rising in the country. read the complete article
Muslim former police watchdog chief says he was used for ‘performative diversity’
The first Muslim regional director for the English and Welsh police watchdog felt his presence at the organisation allowed it to pay lip service to diversity while privately dismissing his criticisms. Sal Naseem oversaw investigations into some of the most serious police misconduct cases in London between 2019 and 2023. But he said his decisions at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) were often met with pushback and disagreements. “Everything I did there ended up being a fight,” he said. The former director, who left the IOPC in July 2023, described himself as an “outsider” at the organisation. “I found that there’s a performative thing where difference is welcomed until you suggest something different or until you suggest a different approach.” He continued: “It’s not just about the basic performative diversity of having more melanin in my skin.” Speaking to Hyphen as his memoir, True North: A Story of Racism, Resilience & Resisting Systems of Denial is released, Naseem said the police system as a whole was “broken” and in need of reform, and that the IOPC — which investigates police misconduct cases — lacked the leadership to hold forces to account. read the complete article
Unpacking fascism, Islamophobia and empire in Tariq Mehmood's The Second Coming
Tariq Mehmood’s latest novel, The Second Coming, deals with the question of how imperial Britain survives the extreme violence, precarity, and inequalities it has instigated. Drawing on his own experiences of political organising, Mehmood, lead defendant in the Bradford 12 trial, addresses this which he calls the “English question”: a not-so-distant future where the chickens of empire have come home to roost. The novel follows 17-year-old Marah in London as her plans to go to medical school are scuppered by a fascist takeover that leaves her questioning her own identity, power, and understanding of how the world works. Part dystopian sci-fi, part coming-of-age, the novel is a captivating and moving entrance into a plausible future Britain collapsed into civil war. In 277 pages the reader is taken on a rousing journey to places they could not guess they would end up in just pages before. Reading the book in August felt far from reading a work of fiction, but a prophecy. I read the book just days after Britain faced almost one week of far-right riots and pogroms attacking those deemed to be Muslim, refugee, or immigrant. These pogroms saw temporary accommodation for asylum seekers firebombed and attacked; mosques, shops, and homes firebombed and defaced; and violent attacks against racialised people. The instigation of these pogroms came from the political and media class’ obsession with the rhetoric to “stop the boats” and assert their robust support for Israel’s genocide. read the complete article
Labour MP’s call for Islamophobia crackdown prompts ‘blasphemy law’ fears
A Labour MP’s call for a law to tackle Islamophobia has provoked concerns about Keir Starmer’s commitment to freedom of speech. Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley MP Tahir Ali raised the issue of hate crimes against Muslims as part of Islamophobia awareness month on November. He went on: “Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Koran, despite opposition from the previous government. “Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the prime minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?” The problem of Islamophobia has been a growing issue in the UK and appears to have been exacerbated by the Israel/ Gaza war. In the year following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the charity Tell Mama UK said it has recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate, the highest annual total in 14 years. Mr Ali’s question raised concerns he was in effect calling for a blasphemy law, but Sir Keir did not reject the proposal in his answer while not committing himself to any specific action. read the complete article
United States
Muslim American Life after October 7
Describing the October 7 Hamas attacks as a “watershed moment,” Asim Ijaz Khwaja, the co-chair of Harvard’s task force on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias, spoke on Monday evening with Aslı Ü. Bâli, a Yale scholar of international and human rights law and president of the Middle East Studies Association, about the profound consequences of the past 13 months on American college campuses and American Muslims. The two painted a sobering picture of renewed negative attention and harassment directed toward people of Middle Eastern descent. They also outlined what they saw as a worrying retreat by university administrators amid political attacks against their students and their mission. Those reverberations can be seen, Bâli argued, in the current upheavals over Israel and Palestine. Bâli noted the numerous armed conflicts, many with direct U.S. involvement, that have erupted in the broader Middle East in the years since 9/11—in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria—and the “waves of grief and trauma” for the Muslim diaspora watching from abroad, who experience their connection to the region as a source of their own insecurity. “I think part of what explains what’s happening on our campuses is that there’s a growing awareness among Americans of all backgrounds of some of the things that have been truly unjust consequences” of these wars and their effects on American Muslims. “So what we saw in the last year is the broadest, widest mobilization ever in support of Palestinian rights in the United States. And that occurred…because non-Arab, non-Muslim students were making common cause very broadly in solidarity with a community they don’t identify with on any ethnic basis.” It’s important to remember, she added, that today’s students grew up almost entirely in the shadow of 9/11, watching its effects unfold. “There is really a reckoning with the long-term relationship that the United States has had to many of the destabilizing events in these regions, and an understanding that there is some responsibility.” read the complete article
MAGA Candidate Makes Wild Threat to Only Muslim Women in Congress
In a disturbing post on X, a Trump-endorsed candidate for the House of Representatives targeted and invoked an anti-Muslim trope against two Muslim members of Congress. Florida state Senator Randy Fine, who is running to fill the vacancy in Florida’s 6th U.S. congressional district, singled out Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on Tuesday. Quote-tweeting an endorsement from the Republican Jewish Coalition, Fine posted, “The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway.” Tlaib and Omar are two of just three Muslim members of Congress, and the only two Muslim women. Fine has a history of using demeaning rhetoric against Muslims and Palestinians and trafficking in Islamophobic tropes. In the past, he has said that “we have a Muslim problem in America” and that “while many Muslims are not terrorists, they are the radicals, not the mainstream.” read the complete article
Almost Half of Muslim Students at California Universities Cite Harassment, Survey Says
Almost half of Muslim students at California colleges and universities report being targets of anti-Islamic harassment in the last year, a sharp uptick from four years ago, the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a new report, the Los Angeles Times reported. The study, which surveyed hundreds of Muslim students at 87 California public and private campuses, found that 49% of students, 352 out of 720 respondents, said they had experienced anti-Muslim discrimination by students, staff or administrators. CAIR and the Center for the Prevention of Hate and Bullying, which jointly published the study, pointed to widespread pro-Palestinian protests, which have led to hundreds of arrests and multiple lawsuits against universities, including UCLA and USC, to explain the increase. read the complete article
India
Why Muslims in India are opposing changes to a property law
A proposal to amend a decades-old law that governs properties worth millions of dollars donated by Indian Muslims over centuries has triggered protests in the country. The properties, which include mosques, madrassas, shelter homes and thousands of acres of land, are called waqf and are managed by a board. The new bill - which introduces more than 40 amendments to the existing law - was expected to be tabled in the current parliament session after incorporating changes suggested by a joint committee of MPs. But the committee is now set to ask for more time to submit its recommendations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says that the proposed changes are necessary to root out corruption in the management of these properties and address demands for reform from the Muslim community. But several Muslim groups and opposition parties have called the changes politically motivated and an attempt by Modi's Hindu nationalist party to weaken the rights of minorities. read the complete article