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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Paypal bans Laura Loomer while family impacted by the Muslim Ban is invited to Trump’s State of the Union address. In Britain, young Muslims use art to reclaim their culture. In Bangladesh, the Rohingya crisis continues as Myanmar is accused of treating the Muslim minority ‘like cattle’. Our recommended read of the day is by Timothy McLaughlin, who writes about Kamal, a Rohingya who was forced to flee within his own country. This, and more, below:
United States
Cubs patriarch Joe Ricketts apologizes for leaked emails that said 'Muslims are naturally my enemy'
Emails have emerged of Joe Ricketts reportedly appearing to rail against Muslims, promoting conspiracy theories about former president Barack Obama and laughing at jokes which include punchlines about racial slurs and the deaths of people of color. In one such email to a family friend from 2012 in which he mentions he’s considering having a book written called “Islam, Religion or Cult,” Ricketts outright states that he considers Muslims to be his enemy. "Christians and Jews can have a mutual respect for each other to create a civil society. As you know, Islam cannot do that. Therefore we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society. Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy due to their deep antagonism and bias against non-Muslims." read the complete article
Chicago mayor condemns anti-Muslim emails written by Cubs family head
“The ignorance and intolerance he has espoused are not welcome in Chicago,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. “Hate has no home in Chicago.” Ricketts on Monday apologized for the emailed exchanges between him and various people, saying they did not accurately reflect his values. read the complete article
PayPal Bans Anti-Muslim Fanatic Laura Loomer
The ban is another blow for Loomer who has already been tossed off of a number of other tech platforms, including Venmo and GoFundMe, over attacks on Muslims that included calls for Muslims to be banned from working for rideshare companies. Before the ban, Loomer frequently asked her fans to support her with contributions to her PayPal account. She claims that she’s racked up $40,000 in credit debt in pursuit of her pro-Trump activism read the complete article
What These Muslim Activists Found at the Women’s March
Khadija Husain was one of scores of Muslim women who participated in the Women’s March in the nation’s capital in January, drawn there by a passion for a range of issues. The Chicago-based Muslim Women’s Alliance was an official partner of the event. The non-profit was founded in 2007 by a group of women frustrated with the lack of leadership opportunities for women in mosques, and the alliance has since broadened its scope beyond the mosque to become a voice for Muslim women’s empowerment. With 13,000 people on its mailing list, the MWA raises money for scholarships, runs a mentorship program for Muslim girls, hosts events, and works with the boards of mosques to build greater gender equity inside religious institutions. read the complete article
Family Affected By Travel Ban Invited To SOTU Address By Local Officials
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, will be accompanied by Shaima Swileh and Ali Hassan, a couple affected by Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries in January 2017. Swileh was only able to gain a visa to visit her terminally ill son after intense public outcry, according to Lofgren, and arrived in the United States a few weeks before he died. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, is also hosting the couple. “The Muslim ban separates families from their loved ones, harms businesses and creates a false notion that people are bad actors by virtue of their birthplace,” Lofgren said in a news release. “I am proud to invite Shaima to bring attention to this issue and to begin holding the Administration accountable for its un-American policies.” read the complete article
Opinion | Meet the Republicans who have suddenly discovered that racism is bad
Virginia and national Republicans have joined the bipartisan chorus demanding the resignation of Virginia’s Democratic governor. But many of the same people now decrying his racist behavior have done little to nothing to impede racists in their own party or to fight against legal discrimination. Since the news broke Friday that an image of two people, one in blackface and one dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman appeared on Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D-VA) medical school yearbook page, condemnations from Virginia and national politicians and activists have been swift. read the complete article
China
This man’s family vanished in China’s most oppressed region. Last month he saw his son for the first time in 2 years, in a Chinese propaganda video
Abdurahman Tohti, a 30-year-old Uighur man living in Turkey, hasn’t heard from his wife and kids since they disappeared after a visit to Xinjiang in 2016. Last month he saw a video of his 4-year-old son,Abduleziz, in what appeared to be a video filmed inside a state-run Chinese orphanage. In the video, Abduleziz can be found answering a series of questions posed by a man off camera in Mandarin Chinese – “What’s your name? How old are you? What is the name of the fatherland? What is on the fatherland’s flag?” – and answering in a way that seems rehearsed. The last time Tohti saw his son, he couldn’t even speak Uighur yet, let alone Chinese, he told INSIDER. read the complete article
Canada
Hate Groups Showed Up At Canada’s Oldest Mosque, Reigniting Familiar Fears
“Over the last three years we’ve seen a rise in two far-right movements in Canada, and those are the anti-Muslim and the alt-right neo-Nazi groups, which sometimes overlap but are two distinct things,” said Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. “We have had regular anti-Muslim demonstrations in cities across Canada, mostly in our largest cities, at least every month going back at least two years. This isn’t just an isolated incident. It’s just constant.” read the complete article
Myanmar
‘I Had No Options’: The Rohingya Man Who Smuggled Himself | Recommended Read
Kamal and his family were forced to flee Sittwe as roving mobs of Buddhists destroyed the homes of their Muslim neighbors. Violence had convulsed Rakhine State, where the Buddhist majority clashed with the Rohingya community, a minority Muslim group that has been the object of discrimination for decades here in Myanmar. The relative wealth of Kamal’s family was no factor—the violence had, in a way, served as a great equalizer, turning the Rohingya into a monolithic community, detested more than ever before. Kamal and his family were among about 140,000 mainly Rohingya Muslims who were displaced in the bloodshed of 2012, three years before he and I first talked. Most were rounded up into chaotic displacement camps in Rakhine, where most still reside, while others were held in government-controlled ghettos, barred from leaving. Then in 2017, more than 700,000 others headed to neighboring Bangladesh, searching for safety from a country where they had lived their entire lives but which refused to recognize them. United Nations investigators have called the most recent exodus the result of genocidal military actions. read the complete article
United Kingdom
The Hijabi Monologues: The young Muslims in Britain using the arts to reclaim their culture
“Do you know what it’s like to represent a billion human beings every day?” asks Zainab Hasan. “It’s exhausting,” she tells the audience, brows raised, incredulous that she’s expected to answer for an entire world religion. Shifting her abaya to show patterned pyjamas underneath, she rails against the pressure to pick outfits “for public relations purposes” and to prove that she isn’t an “oppressed” Muslim woman. This performance of I’m Tired, written by Sahar Ullah, is part of Hijabi Monologues London, a series of stories drawn from the experiences of Muslim women. The tales are sometimes funny, and sometimes angry or sad, as they recount the feeling of being watched on the Tube, confronted by strangers – or even instances when they’ve assumed the identity of an imaginary superhero to face the dangers of being a hijab-wearing woman in London. read the complete article