Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In the Netherlands, PEGIDA, an anti-Muslim group, is planning to hold deliberately provocative barbecues near mosques over the next several weeks, coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in which most believers fast from sunrise to sunset, meanwhile in India, a recent court ruling upholding a ban on Muslim students wearing hijabs in schools has sparked criticism from constitutional scholars and rights activists who say that judicial overreach threatens religious freedoms in officially secular India, and in Australia, PM Scott Morrison has been hit with fresh claims he sought to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment, with two witnesses to a shadow cabinet meeting in 2010 insisting there was a “blow up” with Malcolm Turnbull over the issue. Our recommended read of the day is by Linah Alsaafin for Al Jazeera on how far-right views have permeated mainstream public discourse on the Muslim community, immigration, and security, as campaigning for the French presidency wages on. This and more below:

France

Islamophobia on the rise as French presidential election nears | Recommended Read

The question of Islam has long been a thorn in the French establishment’s side. With France on the cusp of presidential elections, far-right views have permeated mainstream public discourse on the Muslim community, immigration, and security. For Anasse Kazib, the country’s series of measures and laws in recent decades have sought to curtail the Muslim way of life under the guise of fighting “terrorism” and “Islamism”. “When I was running for the election, the traces of Islamophobia and reactionary politics were there,” he said. “There were posters of my face in Paris, with the words ‘0% French, 100% Islamist’ written on it. When you’re a political activist you don’t have the right to be Muslim, or even Arab.” “It goes beyond the airtime issue; they denied our existence,” he continued. “When your name is something like ‘Anasse Kazib’, it’s even worse. There are Islamophobic and xenophobic bias at stake.” While he is proud to be a descendant of immigrants, and to be a worker and hail from a working-class area, he did not mince his words when asked where Muslims fit in French society. “The French identity does not include the Muslim community,” he said. “They never respected us as French people. They want to decide how French we are.” France has an estimated 5.7 million French Muslims, the largest Muslim population in western Europe. But according to academic researchers, the discrimination, racial violence, and reactionary politics against the community have prompted many of them – particularly those who are highly educated – to emigrate from France in order to seek better job opportunities and more freedom. Olivier Esteves, a professor of British Studies at the University of Lille and a researcher who has conducted interviews with 148 French Muslims living abroad, said the resultant “brain drain” is something that is “typically French”. “Of course, Islamophobia affects the majority of western democracies, but it’s a question of scope, of how strong hostility against Muslims is,” he said. “In France, it goes way beyond other countries." read the complete article

The rise and rise of France’s far-right Marine Le Pen

After a decade spent trying to detoxify the jack-booted image of the far-right, anti-immigration party she took over from her father, Le Pen this week reached her highest poll ratings and popularity. Polls show her not only reaching the second round final against the centrist president Emmanuel Macron on 24 April, but significantly closing the gap. An Ifop poll alarmed Macron’s camp by showing her reaching 47% against his 53%, the narrowest margin yet and far closer than when he defeated her with 66% in 2017. Political opponents still decry Le Pen’s National Rally party as racist, xenophobic, antisemitic and anti-Muslim, but polls show that, while society once rejected her as the “devil” of the republic, public perception of her has softened. On her third presidential bid, Le Pen, 53, has risen to become the second favourite political personality in France behind Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe in Elabe’s latest monthly survey. The presidential election campaign has been the most far-right in France’s modern history. In addition to Le Pen, another far-right candidate emerged: the former TV pundit Eric Zemmour, who has convictions for inciting racial hatred. Using more inflammatory language than Le Pen, he has anchored the discredited conspiracy theory of the “great replacement” - in which he claims local French populations could be replaced by newcomers, making France a majority Muslim country on the verge of civil war – in mainstream debate. Between them, Le Pen and Zemmour have about 30% of the vote in the first-round polls. Les Républicains on the traditional right, and their struggling candidate, Valérie Pécresse, have ramped up their rhetoric on immigration as they compete with Zemmour. Instead of damaging Le Pen, Zemmour has strengthened her. “Something quite amazing happened during this campaign. The radicality of Eric Zemmour has softened the image of Marine Le Pen,” said Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at Sciences-Po university in Paris. “She’s less radical to many voters, she looks less aggressive than Eric Zemmour, she’s got more respectability.” Le Pen’s hardline manifesto policies have not changed, and overlap with Zemmour’s. She has promised a referendum on immigration and a rewrite of the constitution to ensure “France for the French” — where native French people would be prioritised over non-French people for welfare benefits, housing, jobs and healthcare. The Muslim headscarf, which she calls “a uniform of totalitarian ideology”, would be banned from the streets and all public places. Le Pen’s key themes – concerns over insecurity and crime, a feeling of decline and social inequality, and her linking those issues to immigration and a percieved threat of Islamism – have taken up more space in the public debate in recent years. read the complete article

India

Why Journalist Rana Ayyub, Barred By The Govt From Leaving The Country, Won't Stop Writing Or Tweeting

“Disgusting,” “humiliating,” Rana Ayyub said, looking at the obscene caricatures of herself, shared on social media after the 37-year-old journalist was stopped from flying to London on 29 March 2022 to speak about online violence against women. When her face was morphed in a porn video in 2018, Ayyub recalled that right-wing handles deleted their Twitter posts when she called them out because there was still some fear of the law, but now there appears to be no stopping them. “Earlier they were sexualising me but people were still a bit scared of posting publicly, but now it seems to have become an okay thing. It’s normalised,” Ayyub told us in an interview on 31 March. “Every individual has a threshold. I’ve been tough on myself by calling myself resilient. I should not have called myself resilient. My mental health has only become worse.” The next day, Ayyub spent close to 12 hours at the office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in Delhi, in response to the summons she says were emailed to her an hour before her flight was to leave from Mumbai airport. Ayyub has denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations “baseless.” The ED has attached assets worth Rs 1.77 crores belonging to her. The special rapporteurs of the United Nations have condemned the bogus allegations that can be traced back to a far-right group—(the complainant is a co-founder of the Hindu IT Cell)—and called for ending the “judicial harassment.” As the persecution of Muslims in India has gone from bad to worse, Ayyub has used her column in The Washington Post her heft on Twitter, and her substack newsletter, to bring the grave human rights crisis to the world’s attention, and she has not shied away from laying the plight of her community at the door of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP. Her critiques of the Modi government have garnered wide international attention and accolades, and have made her among the most trolled woman journalist in the country, with a steady stream of abuse, misogyny, violence, profanity, and lies from the vast network of the Hindu rightwing. Her growing clout and appearances on some of the most influential global news programs have also given way to comments and criticism of her being the go-to journalist of the international media. read the complete article

Indian scholars, activists criticize school hijab ban ruling

A recent court ruling upholding a ban on Muslim students wearing head coverings in schools has sparked criticism from constitutional scholars and rights activists who say that judicial overreach threatens religious freedoms in officially secular India. Even though the ban is only imposed in the southern state of Karnataka, critics worry it could be used as a basis for wider curbs on Islamic expression in a country already witnessing a surge of Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party. “With this judgment, the rule you are making can restrict the religious freedom of every religion,” said Faizan Mustafa, a scholar of freedom of religion and vice chancellor at the Hyderabad-based Nalsar University of Law. “Courts should not decide what is essential to any religion. By doing so, you are privileging certain practices over others.” Before the verdict, more than 700 signatories including senior lawyers and rights advocates had expressed opposition to the ban in an open letter to the chief justice, saying that “the imposition of an absolute uniformity contrary to the autonomy, privacy and dignity of Muslim women is unconstitutional.” Muslims make up just 14% of India’s 1.4 billion people, but nonetheless constitute the world’s second-largest Muslim population for a nation. The hijab has historically not been prohibited or restricted in public spheres, and women donning the headscarf — like other outward expressions of faith, across religions — is common across the country. The dispute has further deepened sectarian fault lines, and many Muslims worry hijab bans could embolden Hindu nationalists and pave the way for more restrictions targeting Islam. “What if the ban goes national?” said Ayesha Hajeera Almas, one of the women who challenged the ban in the Karnataka courts. “Millions of Muslim women will suffer.” read the complete article

Anti-Muslim film ‘The Kashmir Files’ a dangerous step in India’s descent into hate

A new Indian movie on the long-running conflict in Kashmir is eliciting strong emotional reactions from Hindus, releasing pent-up resentment that is putting Muslims in danger. Based on a distortion of true events that included the harassment, torture and killings of Kashmiri Hindus by Pakistan-funded terrorists in the early 1990s, “The Kashmir Files” serves as a call to arms carrying one message: all Muslims are evil and the long-suffering Hindus of India — not just Kashmir — cannot remain silent any longer. The film, playing in theatres around the GTA, is a Goebbels-worthy piece of malevolent filmmaking. It was released with the full weight of the Indian government behind it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who enjoys a cult-like status among his voter base, endorsed the movie, saying it spoke the truth. In India, where the movie came out three weeks ago, it has elicited visceral reactions. Videos circulating on social media show audiences of mostly men shouting profanities at Muslims, calling them traitors, asking Hindus to pick up arms, calling for Muslims to be exterminated. But mastery does not appear to be the purpose of this film. Manipulation of emotion does. It frames Kashmiri independence as “a jihad against Indian heritage” and whips up sympathy for one side and hatred for the other. The Hindus are wide-eyed and helpless. Every single Muslim is extraordinarily bad. Neither neighbours nor children (who wave Kalashnikovs) nor politicians have anything but betrayal and evil intent at their disposal. read the complete article

Have attacks on minorities been normalised in India?

‘We don’t have the capacity to control mobs once they are unleashed,’ says the chair of Amnesty International India. “We’ve always had structural violence, and we’ve always had explicit violence on Dalits, on women, on tribal people, all of that. But earlier, I thought this operated on the margins of the state. These were feudal things that happened. I think that has changed now,” Shahrukh Alam, a lawyer for India’s Supreme Court, says of attacks on minorities, including Christians and Dalits. “The violence against Muslims now, and even Dalits now, it’s unapologetic. And it’s unapologetic because the courts, the media, public discourse, all paint them as people who are outsiders, who are aberrations.” “Do I feel that the fact that genocide might take place? I do,” says Aakar Patel, chair of Amnesty International India. “I think that what is happening in India is slow burn.” When asked about how anti-Muslim hate has been allowed to spread, journalist and author Rana Ayyub says the rhetoric of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has played a major role. On UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill discusses the treatment of minorities in India. read the complete article

Karnataka: Halal boycott campaign gathers pace, 5 from Bajrang Dal arrested over Shivamogga ‘attacks’

Five Bajrang Dal workers were arrested in Bhadravathi in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district on Thursday in connection with two incidents of assault over the sale of halal meat, the police said on Friday. Shivamogga Superintendent of Police B M Laxmi Prasad said a group of 10-15 men, including the accused, went to a butcher’s shop around 12.30 pm on Wednesday and asked for non-halal meat. When owner Syed Ansar’s relative Tousif asked them to go away, the accused allegedly assaulted the two. About an hour later, the accused went to a nearby hotel in the Old Bhadravathi area and confronted hotelier Osama Hunain over the sale of halal meat, said the police. The accused allegedly attacked both Hunain and his friend Aditya, who had tried to intervene. On the same day as the Shivamogga arrests, two right-wing workers visited a market in Bengaluru’s Chamarajpet area to urge people not to buy halal meat. As they were distributing pamphlets, local people confronted the two and sent them back. This latest Hindu right-wing campaign comes in the wake of the hijab controversy and a growing ban on Muslim traders from setting up stalls on temple premises or at temple fairs. Like in Shivamogga and Bengaluru, there have been reports of right-wing groups going door to door in other parts of the state such as Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikkamagaluru, and Mysuru, distributing leaflets and urging people to purchase groceries and meat only from “Hindu shops”. Sri Rama Sene founder Pramod Muthalik has been alleging that the money earned from selling halal products was being used to fund bail for jailed terrorists. On March 29, BJP national secretary and Chikmagalur MLA C T Ravi claimed that the sale of halal meat amounts to “economic jihad”. read the complete article

United States

U.S. Sends Algerian Man Home From Guantánamo Bay After 5-Year Delay

The U.S. military on Saturday delivered to Algeria a prisoner whose repatriation from Guantánamo Bay was arranged during the Obama administration but then delayed for five years. The prisoner, Sufyian Barhoumi, 48, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and soon taken to Guantánamo Bay, where he never faced trial. He was notified in August 2016 that he was eligible for release, but his case was sidelined by a Trump administration policy that generally halted transfers. The transfer was the second this year and the third since President Biden took office with the goal of closing Guantánamo. Now, 37 detainees remain, including 18 who are approved for release to the custody of another country if U.S. diplomats can arrange secure deals for them to go. Mr. Barhoumi’s lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, described the prisoner as one of Guantánamo’s most cooperative captives, a man who helped calm tensions between unruly or frustrated prisoners and Army guards who would typically serve nine-month tours of duty. Mr. Barhoumi’s father died while he was in detention. Once reunited with his family, he will become his ailing mother’s caretaker, Mr. Kadidal said. He should be home in plenty of time for his youngest brother’s wedding this year in Algiers. Algeria has typically held men returning from Guantánamo for a brief period of questioning. Typical security arrangements with the United States restrict their travel for several years. read the complete article

Undermining Judge Jackson's SCOTUS Confirmation: The GOP, Islamophobia, and Guantanamo

Even prior to the hearings, members of the GOP signaled that they would be focusing in part on her defense of Guantanamo prisoners during her time as a public defender and certain briefs filed while she was in private practice. Leading the charge, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) sought to discredit Judge Jackson’s work as a public defender by conflating her attempts to secure constitutional rights for the men who have been unlawfully detained, and subject to torture, at Guantanamo Bay, with support for violence. The Islamophobia on display in this line of questioning was sometimes shockingly blatant, as when Sen. Cotton asked Judge Jackson if she thought the detainees were terrorists or all “innocent goat farmers” (this was far from the first time Tom Cotton referred to Guantanamo prisoners as goat farmers). The fundamental injustice of these narratives being weaponized to diminish Judge Jackson’s considerable experience and credentials—makes this background of Islamophobia incredibly problematic. For more than two decades Guantanamo has been a monolith in the public imagination, constructed as a faraway site for containing a kind of faceless evil; the men held there are seen as presumptively guilty of the most heinous crimes. This presumption is baked into rhetorical questions such as Sen. Cotton’s, laced with racist and dehumanizing imagery. This kind of inferiorizing of Guantanamo detainees functions to preclude the possibility that any of the men, constructed as less than human, could ever be innocent. Would the US be safer, Cotton continued, if all the men at Guantanamo were released? The default assumption here is again that the detainees are either guilty, or, alternately, that their release would present a threat to the US’s national security regardless of guilt. And underlying this assumption is not only the notion that the US’s program of indefinite detention, and, more broadly, its “War on Terror” launched in the aftermath of 9/11 is valid, but that the conduct of the United States is beyond reproach. The logical fallacy of the War on Terror was fully borne out through Senator Graham’s questions and comments on Guantanamo. While Graham stated his support for the idea that everyone deserves defense, he quickly moved on from that rote talking point to the business of collectively condemning all of Guantanamo’s prisoners, past and present. In other contexts, perhaps the irony of this position would have been recognized, but when it comes to Guantanamo—a place where the government has over that past two decades, constructed and perpetuated so many toxic narratives on the inherent criminality of the men held there—this narrative was wholly consistent. read the complete article

This April, Chicago has a rare opportunity for interfaith cooperation

As leaders in our own faith communities and in inter-religious circles, we are anticipating a spring filled with holy days of multiple religious traditions. For the first time since 1991,Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Baha’is, Hindus, Buddhists and Indigenous nations will observe holidays simultaneously. In April, this includes celebrations of Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Vaisakhi, Mahavir Jayanti, Theravada New Year and the Gathering of Nations. This convergence, happening amid rising intolerance and discrimination, is the perfect time to connect, lift one another up and uphold our shared ideals: Treating our neighbors with dignity and respect, ensuring religious freedom for all. Our traditions, Islam and Christianity, call on us to know one another, welcome the stranger and to not slander one another. While the unprecedented global refugee crisis continues to grow, some say we must fear newcomers. Religious extremists and nationalists hijack our moral and ethical values, turning plowshares of cooperative living into swords. Coming together amid differences is not an easy path, but is rewarding for individuals and communities. We are better together than apart. The convergence of holy days this month provides an opportunity to strengthen relationships within our diverse Chicago communities. Learn about and celebrate a tradition other than your own, call out disinformation or hateful speech, and dig deeper into the meaning behind your own and others’ traditions. read the complete article

International

Tommy Robinson ‘arrested in Mexico and separated from three children for national security reasons’

Tommy Robinson claims he has been arrested in Mexico, separated from his children and faces deportation for “national security reasons”. The far-right English Defence League (EDL) co-founder, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has shared a video of himself allegedly being detained by security at Cancun Airport. In the footage, posted on his Telegram account, the 39-year-old says he flew to Mexico with his three children for an Easter holiday but was detained at the airport. The children have been left with Robinson’s friend, he said, and their mother is now flying out to collect them. Robinson tells the camera: “I have been arrested, separated from my kids and now I’m being deported as a matter of national security” as he shows what he says is a security holding cell. He is told the reason for his arrest is “confidential” and has come directly from Mexico City, in an interaction with what appears to be an airport staff member. “I’ve never broken a law here. All I do at home is talk about Islam”, says Robinson. In another clip, he complains about it being hard for him to live in England because he can’t open a bank account or rent a house. Robinson has been convicted in the UK for fraud, stalking, assault, using someone else’s passport, using threatening behaviour and contempt of court. Last week he failed to appear at the High Court for questioning over his finances in connection with unpaid legal bills after he lost a libel case brought against him by a Syrian teenager last year. read the complete article

Rights groups slam India for deporting Rohingya woman to Myanmar

The deportation of a 36-year-old Rohingya woman by Indian authorities and fresh detention of Rohingya refugees in Indian-administered Kashmir has been criticised by human rights groups, who called New Delhi’s forcible return of refugees a “cruel disregard for human life and international law”. Hasina Begum, 36, who was detained on March 6, 2021, along with more than 100 other Rohingya refugees from Jammu city, was deported to Myanmar on March 22. Since 2017, India has deported 16 Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, according to rights groups, in violation of the principle of non-refoulment – which states that refugees should not be deported to places where they may face persecution. India’s crackdown came less than two weeks after the United States said that Myanmar’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, who have long faced persecution in their homeland. “Indian authorities are well aware of the human rights violations Rohingya Muslims have had to face in Myanmar and it is outrageous to abandon them to their fates,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday. read the complete article

Global lawmakers call on Saudi to block forcible return of Uyghurs to China

A global alliance of global parliamentarians have written a letter to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud to express their concern about the ongoing cases of two men of Uyghur Muslim ethnicity in the country. Abduweli and Rozi, both originally from the Xinjiang province in China, were arrested on November 20, 2020, by the Saudi local police, while they were in Saudi Arabia for religious reasons. The arrest was allegedly carried out after the Chinese Embassy in Saudi Arabia had requested their extradition. "We, Co-Chairs of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), write to you to express our concern about the ongoing cases of Nurmemet Rozi and Hemdullah Abduweli," the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) wrote. "We understand that Abduweli and Rozi are currently detained in Saudi Arabia and are at imminent risk of being forcibly returned to China. Additionally, it has come to our attention that acts of reprisal have been taken against family members of the two men," IPAC added. The global parliamentarians said China is carrying out a global campaign of threats and intimidation against Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Chinese dissidents and other activists abroad. They argued that those extradited or deported to China will not face a fair trial and are at severe risk of persecution, arbitrary detention and torture. read the complete article

China

Chinese officials in Xinjiang restrict Uyghurs to observe Ramzan: Report

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are restricting Uyghurs to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, drawing heavy criticism from rights groups that see the government directive as the latest effort to diminish Uyghur culture in the region, local media reported. For years, officials in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have prohibited Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims from fully observing Ramzan including by banning civil servants, students and teachers from fasting, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. Some neighbourhood committees in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and some village officials in Kashgar (Kashi) and Hotan (Hetian) prefectures have received notices that only 10-50 Muslims will be allowed to fast during Ramzan, which runs from April 1 to May 1, and that those who do so must register with authorities, RFA cited local administrators and police in Xinjiang. In past years, authorities have warned Uyghur residents that they could be punished for fasting, including by being sent to one of the XUAR’s vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017, according to RFA. read the complete article

'The world must look back in shame': The courageous Uyghur women ensuring China's genocide is not erased from history

With every season that passes since all contact was severed from their homeland, Uyghur women mourn their children taken to state orphanages to be brought up as Han Chinese, their mothers who are getting older and frailer without the succour of daughters by their sides, and their husbands, unable to travel with them to freedom, now languishing who knows where. Will they ever meet again? A question that plagues them night and day. Human rights activists and scholars gathered online this year to highlight the persistent pain of a diaspora whose healing is slow to come and to speak about the latest horror visited on women in their homeland of incentivised marriage. As early as 2014 inter-ethnic marriage was beginning to be pushed and rewarded in the "troublesome" regions of Tibet and Xinjiang in a pilot project offering incentives of 10,000 yuan ($1,577) to consenting couples every year for five years. The plan was to encourage "mingling" of the races, stability and "Hanification". After negative Western press coverage, the idea was suspended with the state mouthpiece Global Times citing "wide external slander." But the crusade has continued nevertheless beneath the radar of global media, explained US researcher Andrea Worden at a webinar organised by the Uyghur Human Rights Project to flag up the phenomenon that is gaining momentum again in Xinjiang. In setting the scene for the accelerated campaign of inter-racial marriage since 2016, she described the climate of terror against which it is flourishing, and from which there is no escape. The "open prison" that is now Xinjiang and the continued extrajudicial detention of more than 1.5 million Turkic people ensures that all major life decisions are made against the backdrop of "the camps". The threat of incarceration for disobedience or insubordination, or worse still, a return to the black holes of abuse, torture and humiliation from which they barely escaped with their lives and their sanity the first time, is ever-present. Tursunay Ziyawudun, was tortured and raped three times by guards, teacher Sayragul Sauytbay, together with other inmates described how she was forced to watch the gang-rape of a young girl without flinching, Gulbahar Haitiwaji has described life in the camps that rendered her dead inside. These accounts and others, said Mahmut, would "ensure that the Uyghur genocide would not be erased from history." "It is so important that the world bears witness for this genocide to come to an end," she stressed. "The world must look back in shame at what the Uyghur people have had to endure. The camp survivors have ensured that there is an undeniable record of the Chinese government's atrocities," she said. read the complete article

Netherlands

Islamophobic Pegida plans provocative BBQs near Dutch mosques at Ramadan

An Islamophobic Dutch group is planning to hold deliberately provocative barbecues near mosques over the next several weeks, coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in which most believers fast from sunrise to sunset. According to PEGIDA, which stands for "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of West," the barbecues will be held in front of mosques at the sunset fast-breaking time in 12 cities across the country, for which they have applied for permits. In years past, similar PEGIDA barbecues have featured the roasting of pork, a food prohibited under Islam. The group argued that these events have not been allowed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that now there is no obstacle to what they call the "Ramadan Barbecue Tour." Starting in 2014, the far-right anti-Islam PEGIDA held its first protest in Dresden, Germany with some 350 people, including 12 organizers. read the complete article

Australia

‘Beyond the pale’: PM rocked by new claims he sought to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment

Scott Morrison has been hit with fresh claims he sought to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment, with two witnesses to a shadow cabinet meeting in 2010 insisting there was a “blow up” with Malcolm Turnbull over the issue. The Prime Minister has previously confirmed the discussion in an interview with The Project’s Waleed Aly, but insisted he sought to cool voter concerns over Muslim migration, not exploit it. However, two people who attended the meeting on December 1, 2010 have told news.com.au they did not believe he raised the issue purely to address voter sentiment. “Malcolm Turnbull genuinely ripped into him. Said it was ‘beyond the pale’,” a Liberal source said. Another Liberal shadow cabinet member at the time told news.com.au: “He absolutely did talk about the Muslim migration.” “He flagged it and I remember Phillip Ruddock was very scathing about it,” they said. Reports of the meeting first emerged in 2011, with claims Mr Morrison urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate. Then-opposition leader Tony Abbott was not at the meeting, but deputy leader, Julie Bishop, and the former immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, strongly disagreed with the suggestion, pointing out the Coalition had long supported a non-discriminatory immigration policy. Liberal sources said at the time Mr Morrison told the shadow cabinet meeting on December 1 at the Ryde Civic Centre that the Coalition should ramp up its questioning of “multiculturalism” amid deep voter concerns. Three years ago, when the claims surfaced again, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described them as “a disgusting lie”. read the complete article

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