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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the UK, a mosque in Taunton, in southwest England, had its windows smashed in an act of vandalism, prompting police to appeal for information, meanwhile in the United States, CAIR has put out a statement publicly rebuking comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent claim that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is somehow “better than” the growing worldwide campaign for a “Free Palestine”, and lastly in France, a police investigation showed foreign nationals placed the pig heads that were found outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris on Tuesday. Our recommended read of the day is by Mehmet Ozalp for The Conversation on a new report by Australian Islamophobia envoy Aftab Malik, which has given the federal government a comprehensive set of 54 recommendations for addressing and tackling Islamophobia in the country. This and more below:
Australia
Landmark report makes 54 recommendations to combat Islamophobia in Australia. Now government must act | Recommended Read
Australian Muslim communities have been calling for official recognition of Islamophobia as a serious social problem for many years. Now, for the first time, the long-awaited report from Australia’s first Islamophobia envoy has given the federal government a comprehensive set of 54 recommendations for addressing it. Aftab Malik was appointed Islamophobia envoy in September 2024. Malik is a respected British-Australian Muslim scholar and community leader. In late 2024 and early 2025, Malik travelled widely across Australia to hear directly from Muslim communities. His report reflects those consultations and sets out a national plan for change. There can be no doubting the seriousness of the Islamophobia situation in Australia. The Islamophobia Register has recorded a 530% increase in reports since October 7 2023. Malik’s 54 recommendations propose a whole-of-society response, spanning government, law, health, education, media, sport and political culture. Malik calls on government to establish a commission of inquiry into Islamophobia. He recommends a similar commission to investigate anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism. And like parliamentarians, police should receive sensitivity training about Islamophobia. He also suggests the Racial Discrimination Act should be clarified to specifically include Muslims, as it does Jews and Sikhs. Education receives special attention. Malik proposes an overarching anti-racism framework for the sector, and for the national curriculum to include “Muslim contributions to Australia, Western civilisation and the development of universal values”. Further, there should be programs designed to better understand the links and commonalities between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. On community safety and support, Malik recommends funding for the safety of Muslim not-for-profit institutions, particularly mosques. Media and digital platforms are another area of concern. Malik recommends the government “strengthen […] online safety laws to more effectively challenge online hate”. The message of these recommendations is clear: Islamophobia should be treated with the same seriousness as antisemitism or racism against Indigenous Australians. read the complete article
Muslim groups call for rethink of approach to terrorism ahead of Islamophobia report
Muslim groups say rethinking religious discrimination and approaches to counterterrorism should be a top priority to address a spike in Islamophobic incidents. A long-awaited report by Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik is expected to be handed down today. The ABC understands the recommendations will not go as far as those put forward by the special envoy for antisemitism, who called for the power to cut funding to public institutions that they deem not to be addressing the problem sufficiently. read the complete article
Threatened, harassed and spat on: envoy details rise in attacks and recommends Islamophobia be treated with urgency
Counter-terrorism laws should be reviewed, and the Racial Discrimination Act should be updated to protect religious groups , according to a long-awaited report from the special envoy to combat Islamophobia. The report makes 54 recommendations to parliament and government departments to tackle Islamophobia, improve data collection on hate crimes, and calls on the government to “confront Islamophobia with equivalent urgency to other discriminatory practices, and provide it with the same rights, protections, and legal recourse”. Muslim groups have welcomed the report and its recommendations, including the Australian National Imams Council who called on the government to act on the findings, “rather than allow the wheels to keep spinning, as successive governments have done, without any change.” Special envoy Aftab Malik stood alongside Anthony Albanese, and the minister for multicultural affairs, Anne Aly, at a press conference in Sydney, after handing down the report. Members of his family were also in the room as he addressed the media. The special envoy said the release of the report was a critical and long-awaited moment for Muslim communities, and a historic opportunity to combat Islamophobia. “Islamophobia in Australia has been persistent, at times ignored and other times denied, but never fully addressed,” Malik said. “The issue is not a lack of evidence, but a lack of action.” read the complete article
United States
US Mourns the Victims of 9/11, But What of the Victims of the “War on Terror”?
At another notorious prison, Abu Ghraib, a prison that the U.S. took over after it destroyed and occupied the country in 2003, Iraqis were subjected to the most egregious torture at the hands of Americans. Commenting on how his experience at the prison impacted him, Talib al-Majli — an Iraqi man who was incarcerated there for 16 months and never charged with anything — stated that “To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me … The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.” Amid the violence of the U.S.’s war on terror, these stories, and hundreds of thousands more like them, are a reminder that Muslim people and communities have been rendered disposable as a means to the U.S.’s national security ends. Unfortunately, the violence of the war on terror, which has been marked by militarism, draconian immigration policies, surveillance, federal terrorism prosecutions, detention, and torture has, thus far, continued unbated. This has resulted in the ongoing targeting and victimization of Muslim and other marginalized communities. Moreover, since Donald Trump began his second tenure as president, he has executed the “war on terror” with even greater fervor — expanding the post 9/11 “forever wars” and constructing new “security threats.” Although the practice of official state commemorations can be expected, commemorations of 9/11 have gone beyond honoring the victims of the attacks, instead serving to weaponize grief in order to justify state violence. Using examples from the United States and Israel, “mourning par excellence,” is how Leeat Granek describes the work of nationalizing and politicizing grief as a means of justifying continued military engagement that executes further violence and kills even more people in its wake. After 24 years of the war on terror and no acknowledgement of the violence that has been inflicted on Muslims and other marginalized communities, 9/11 commemorations by the state that are devoid of any recognition of the victims that the war on terror has created reinforce and entrench a certain idea of whose lives are grievable and whose lives are ungrievable. read the complete article
CAIR Says Jerry Seinfeld’s Claim that KKK is ‘Better’ Than ‘Free Palestine’ is Part of Dehumanization of Palestinians
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said that comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent claim that the racist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is somehow “better than” the growing worldwide campaign for a “Free Palestine” is part of the efforts of those supporting Israel’s genocide to dehumanize the Palestinian people and those who support their call for freedom and justice. According to The Guardian: “By saying ‘Free Palestine’, you’re not admitting what you really think. So it’s actually – compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here…” In a statement, Washington, D.C., based CAIR said: “To suggest that a nonviolent global movement demanding basic human rights and freedom for Palestinians is somehow worse than the Ku Klux Klan—a white supremacist terrorist organization responsible for over a century of lynchings, church bombings, and racial terror—is morally repugnant. It is an outrageous and dangerous attempt to smear and silence a just cause by equating it with hatred and extremism. This kind of rhetoric is not only false—it fuels Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry. It is part of a broader effort by supporters of Israel’s ongoing occupation and genocide to demonize anyone who speaks up for Palestinian rights." read the complete article
United Kingdom
Mosque in southwest England vandalized in suspected hate crime
A mosque in Taunton, in southwest England, had its windows smashed in an act of vandalism, prompting police to appeal for information, it was reported on Thursday. The incident occurred in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 6 at the Taunton Central Mosque and Islamic Centre. Sajjad Jabarkhel, who works at the mosque, said the attack has left the community feeling “hurt.” He told ITV News: “There's a sense of hurt and disappointed that this has happened and it comes at a cost, most people have lived here for years and when something like this happens it is painful. In terms of the spirit of the community, they see Taunton as their home.” Police are seeking to speak to two people in connection with the incident, which they said they were treating as a hate crime. read the complete article
Far-right graffiti removed by 'horrified' residents
Residents have painted over Islamophobic, antisemitic and far-right graffiti which appeared in their town. Volunteers organised by Swindon Stand Up to Racism removed the graffiti, which included a swastika, from an alleyway in the Wiltshire town. Swindon Borough Council said its officers "always aim to remove any offensive graffiti within 48 hours of it being reported", adding it could find no evidence of the graffiti - which was between Swindon Road and Eastcott Hill - being reported. Solicitor Repi Begum was one of 12 people who took part in the clean-up and said she was "astonished that society still has this kind of hatred", adding it was "abhorrent". Ms Begum, who is also a councillor, said the graffiti "is a way to put fear in people" and seeing it means "you don't know what kind of hate lurks around the corner". "I feel like it's my duty to remove any kind of hatred designed to divide us," she said. read the complete article
Police probe 'hate crime' against Muslim schoolgirl
Police Scotland are investigating an alleged ‘hate crime’ against a Muslim schoolgirl in Newton Mearns. According to a social media post by the Newton Mearns Islamic Centre and other local groups, a young girl was walking home from Eastwood High School on Monday afternoon when she was confronted by a man on Harvie Avenue. The man is alleged to have assaulted the girl and is said to have made “threatening comments” against Muslims. read the complete article
International
From ‘hellhole’ UK to anti-Muslim rhetoric in Japan, Charlie Kirk took his message abroad
Charlie Kirk directed most of his rhetoric at the US political scene, but he also strayed into foreign affairs, drawing both favourable and critical comparisons between life in the US and in other countries on his shows and doing the occasional speaking tour. In May, Kirk visited the UK, debating against students at Oxford and Cambridge universities and appearing on the conservative GB News channel. Days before he was fatally shot in Utah he took his message to relatively new audiences on a tour to South Korea and Japan. Last weekend he addressed like-minded politicians and activists at a symposium in Tokyo organised by Sanseito, a rightwing populist party that shook up the political establishment in upper house elections this summer. In Tokyo, Kirk described Sanseito, which ran in July’s elections on a “Japanese first” platform, as “all about kicking foreigners out of Japan”, where the foreign population has risen to about 3.8 million out of a total of 124 million. Foreign residents and supporters of mass migration were, he claimed, “very quietly and secretly funnelling themselves into Japanese life. They want to erase, replace and eradicate Japan by bringing in Indonesians, by bringing in Arabs, by bringing in Muslims”. On his first show after returning to the US, Kirk described the UK as a “totalitarian third world hellhole”, adding: “It’s tragic. I don’t say that with glib, I don’t say that with delight. It is sad. It’s chilling and it’s depressing.” He claimed he had seen a cafe in which “every single table was taken by a Mohammedan and a fully burqa-wearing woman – not a single native Brit” and that people were being arrested for online posts that displayed no apparent harmful intent. read the complete article
France
French prosecutors say foreign nationals placed pig heads outside Paris mosques
A police investigation showed foreign nationals placed the pig heads that were found outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris on Tuesday, the Paris Prosecutor's office said on Wednesday. read the complete article