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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Scores of Rohingya are freed from prisons as the country grapples with the spread of coronavirus. A Muslim woman sues Yonkers, New York, claiming she was forced to remove her hijab after being arrested. Our recommended read today is by Carol Kuruvilla on ‘zoomboming” and how it is being used to disproportionately target religious minorities with hateful messages. This, and more, below:
United States
'Zoombombers' Target Religious Minorities With Hateful Messages | Recommended Read
Soumaya Khalifa logged on to Zoom early in the morning on March 30 to prepare for the first session of what she hoped would be an uplifting daily ritual during the coronavirus pandemic. As founder of the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta, Khalifa said she thought inviting mindfulness and positivity experts to lead virtual morning talks would strengthen her community in a time of uncertainty. But right after she signed on, about 20 people flooded the meeting and started to taunt her, she said ― calling out her name, commenting on her “hat” (she wears a hijab) and telling her to “take it off and let us see your hair.” Then, she said, pornographic images started popping up on the screen. “It was overwhelming. I was traumatized and physically shaking,” Khalifa told HuffPost. “It was like wolves coming at me from all directions. You get rid of one and 10 more pop up.” As schools, businesses and other social groups move online during the pandemic, incidents of “Zoombombing” ― the organized trolling of video conferences on platforms like Zoom ― are emerging nationwide. Using websites popular with the far-right, extremists are reportedly exploiting society’s sudden dependence on video conferencing technology to coordinate malicious attacks on religious and racial minorities. Last week, the FBI said it had reviewed over 1,200 complaints “related to COVID-19 scams” online, including multiple reports of video conferences being disrupted by “hate images and threatening language.” read the complete article
10 shocking things that Trump's new press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has actually said
The 31-year-old was a spokesperson for Trump's re-election campaign has contributed to CNN and is a graduate from the prestigious Harvard Law School. Despite being in her role for less than a day, many historic tweets and eye-opening quotes from McEnany have already resurfaced, ranging from subjects such as racism, birtherism, Islamophobia, coronavirus and pizza, lots of pizza. Throughout 2012, McEnany engaged with conspiracy theories that Obama was born in Kenya, rather than his actual birthplace of Hawaii, resulting in several tweets of an offensive nature. She has also used Obama as a scapegoat for Islamophobia. In 2016 she attacked his claimed that Islam was a peaceful religion by falsely claiming that Muslims were responsible for a 'genocide' against Christians in Iraq. Following on from that, in an article for The Hill, shortly after the 2017 London Bridge terror attack, she said that although most Muslims were peaceful, a 'political correctness' in Western Europe had allowed extremism to thrive. read the complete article
Five investigations to follow under lockdown
Millions of people across the globe are under lockdown as governments try to contain the spread of COVID-19. If you are looking for a way to spend your time, here are five groundbreaking investigations to watch. Islamophobia Inc. "Most people in America do believe Islam is bad but don't want to say anything." - Ruben Israel, a street preacher in Los Angeles Examine the tactics of groups that portray Islam as a threat and follow the trail of "dark money" fuelling the rapid growth of Islamophobia, including tens of millions of dollars funnelled through shadowy, anonymous donor funds. read the complete article
Muslim woman sues Yonkers, New York, says police forced her to remove hijab after arrest
Ihsan Malkawi says in the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York that she and her husband were arrested in Yonkers in Westchester County "on false allegations of abuse," which her attorney said were later concluded to be unfounded. As she was getting booked in jail, Malkawi was allegedly forced to remove her head covering, a "demeaning and humiliating" practice common in Yonkers although it has been ruled unconstitutional in other parts of the country, her attorney said. read the complete article
India
These Muslims Survived Mob Attacks by Indian Nationalists. Then Coronavirus Hit.
The relief camp was started on March 1 by the Delhi Waqf board, a body set up by the government to run the city’s Muslim holy places and support the community. It was a cluster of tents pitched in the Eidgah grounds — the assembly place where Muslims pray on the religious holiday Eid — with an adjacent graveyard. A few concrete steps and a large iron gate on the east side open into the ground, which was filled with hundreds of people — survivors of the riots, volunteers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, and Waqf employees — when we visited. There were 873 people from 266 families living there. On March 24, only a few days after VICE News visited, the government dismantled the relief camp. Two days before, the Delhi government had ordered a lockdown in the city in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and the camp was in violation of its conditions. A Waqf board official told VICE News that the board has to ask families to leave for their safety. “The threat of virus spreading in the camp, where hundreds of people were living, couldn't have been ruled out … They were given 3,000 rupees cash ($39) and whatever ration we had and asked to vacate the camp. They are now living in different places on rent, or with relatives or friends. Those whose houses were not burnt are living in their houses,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. read the complete article
Myanmar
Scores of detained Rohingya freed in Myanmar as virus fears mount
Cases against scores of Rohingya Muslims detained after fleeing Myanmar's restive Rakhine state have been dropped, as fears grow of a potential coronavirus outbreak in the country's overcrowded prisons. A military crackdown in 2017 forced some 750,000 Rohingya to escape to Bangladesh, where they languish in sprawling refugee cities. in recent months hundreds have been caught and detained in prisons -- charged with breaching immigration laws, offences which carry up to two years in jail. On Wednesday a court suddenly dropped cases against two of the largest groups of arrested Rohingya, totalling 128 people. "Charges against both adults and children are withdrawn and they are to be released," judge Khin Myat Myat Htun told Pathein court in Ayeyarwady Region. An AFP reporter confirmed four buses carrying the Rohingya and bound for Yangon left Pathein prison early Thursday morning. read the complete article
New Zealand
Christchurch mosque shootings: Philip Arps loses appeal against strict prison release conditions
A white supremacist banned from Christchurch's two mosques and from having contact with all Muslims has lost an appeal against his strict release conditions. Philip Neville Arps, 45, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison last June for spreading disturbing footage of the Al Noor Mosque massacre, was freed from custody on January 29. Release conditions included that Arps is electronically-monitored with a GPS tracker, an ankle bracelet that will trigger alerts if he enters "exclusion zones" around Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid in Christchurch where the shootings happened. It came after the Department of Corrections applied for extra release conditions, on top of the raft of conditions imposed on Arps when he was sentenced at Christchurch District Court on June 18 - including a blanket internet ban, inspections of any electronic device capable of accessing the internet, counselling, and drug or alcohol treatment programmes. read the complete article