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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Leaked emails show UKIP leader compared Muslims to Nazis, as reports emerge of China paying Facebook and Twitter to spread anti-Muslim propaganda. In Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees turn down second Myanmar repatriation effort. Our recommended read of the day is by Rowaida Abdelaziz titled “When Swimming As a Muslim Becomes a Political Act”. This, and more, below:
United States
When Swimming As a Muslim Woman Becomes A Political Act | Recommended Read
Muslim women like Hussein have long been persecuted and intimidated for wearing a modest bathing suit. They have been kicked out of pools and beaches. They have been told that their bathing wear wasn’t suitable. Pool- and beachgoers have even told them to go back to their country. Some have called the police on them. HuffPost spoke to over 30 Muslim women across the country who described a wide range of experiences swimming in America. Not all of their encounters were negative, but the vast majority of interviews uncovered a pattern: Muslim women are still fighting for their right to swim. Often they are confronted in public, humiliated and abused. They face decades of entrenched prejudice from people who view their modesty as oppressive and unfeminist. read the complete article
'I'm being punished': Guantanamo's 'most tortured detainee' still can't leave Mauritania
For 14 years and two months, Salahi was held in Guantanamo Prison without charge, enduring extensive psychological and physical torture, documented in his best-selling book, Guantanamo Diaries. He was reunited in 2016 with his family in his native Mauritania. Yet sitting with tea, much of his body lost somewhere in the thick white fabric of a traditional robe called a boubou, which hangs off his body like oversized bird wings, Salahi is still not free. Under pressure from the US, Mauritanian authorities have refused to hand over his passport since he arrived home. He can’t travel for treatment to fix a longstanding nerve condition that he says was exacerbated by his Guantanamo torturers. read the complete article
Opinion | Joe Walsh is not your anti-Trump savior
Walsh doesn’t just have experience with conservative talk radio and Trump support; he inhabited the fever swamps of birtherism and anti-Muslim rhetoric and conspiracy theories as recently as a couple years ago. The one-term congressman also tweeted the n-word on several occasions, and he has significant personal baggage. Peter J. Hasson pulled out a number of examples of Walsh’s tweets Wednesday night. They include the falsehood that Obama is Muslim, employ the racist trope that he should “go back” to someplace other than the United States, and make frequent use of ethnic slurs. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Leaked emails show Ukip leader comparing Muslims to Nazis
Richard Braine, the new Ukip leader, has been accused of whipping up religious tensions and anti-Muslim prejudice after leaked emails showed he argued that people should no more want Muslims to settle in their country than Nazis. Braine, who won the leadership after a campaign in which he expressed anti-Islam views, also suggested that non-Muslims needed to help Muslims to “cast out their demon” and argued there was no such thing as “moderate Muslims”. read the complete article
Myanmar
Rohingya refugees turn down second Myanmar repatriation effort
The Myanmar government had approved more than 3,000 Rohingya to be brought back to the country beginning on Thursday but, as during the first repatriation attempt in November, no refugees agreed to voluntarily board the buses to Myanmar. A Bangladeshi government official confirmed that four families, or about 18 people, from Shalbagan camp 26 in Cox’s Bazar had initially expressed interest in going back. They had almost boarded a vehicle to cross the border, but were dissuaded by fellow refugees who told them they would not be able to return to their original villages or have a pathway to citizenship. Mohammad Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, said on Thursday that efforts would continue over the next few days. UNHCR had only interviewed a third of the 3,450 refugees, or 1,037 families as part of the agency’s intention surveys, he said. “None of the listed refugees turned up expressing their willingness to return to Myanmar today,” he said. “Most Rohingya who took part in the intention survey very clearly said that they were very afraid of their physical safety in Rakhine and this is the main reason they do not want to go to Myanmar now.” read the complete article
Two years on, a look at the Rohingya crisis
This month marks the second anniversary of the fleeing of more than 730,000 Rohingya from Myanmar’s northwest Rakhine State to Bangladesh after a military-led crackdown in response to an attack by Muslim militants on Myanmar police posts. Here is a timeline of key events in the crisis. read the complete article
International
UN chief urges world to stamp out religious persecution
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world on the first international day to remember the victims of religious persecution to “step up to stamp out anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred, the persecution of Christians and other religious groups.” The U.N. chief on Thursday cited a rise in attacks against individuals and groups around the world, saying: “Jews have been murdered in synagogues, their gravestones defaced with swastikas; Muslims gunned down in mosques, their religious sites vandalized; Christians killed at prayer, their churches torched.” read the complete article