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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Facebook’s new Myanmar strategy baffles activists. In China, Uighurs are forced to eat pork during new year festivities even as 130 Muslim leaders and scholars condemn Chinese internment of the Muslim minority. Cubs fans call for action against Joe Ricketts after Islamophobic emails emerge, and Alabama prevents an imam from being present for a Muslim death row inmate’s execution. Our recommended read of the day explores the paradoxical impact of Islamophobia on Muslim youth, disenfranchising some but emboldening others to take part in activism. This, and more, below:
China
China Forces Uyghur Muslims to Eat Pork, Drink Alcohol During Lunar New Year
Local officials in the prefecture of Ili Kazakh in Xinjiang invited residents to a Lunar New Year dinner where pork was served, and threatened to send the invitees to the “re-education centers” if they refused, according to a Feb. 6 RFA report. Another resident told RFA that attempts to force Muslims to eat pork began in late 2018. Officials have been sticking Lunar New Year poetic couplets on the doors of Uyghur and Kazakh households and giving them pork, according to a woman by the name of Kesay who belongs to the Kazakh minority. “If we won’t put up the couplets or hang lanterns, they say we are two-faced, and they send us to re-education camps,” she said. read the complete article
130 American Muslim Imams, Scholars and Community Leaders sign a statement on the ongoing oppression of Uighur Muslims
With 3+ million Muslims targeted by the Communist Chinese regime, thousands dying everyday, Imams, scholars and leaders call on the Chinese government to free Uyghurs and other minorities from concentration camps. read the complete article
India
As India election looms, politics infiltrates the world's biggest religious festival
Politics was never far away at two conferences at the Kumbh last week. Hindu priests and religious leaders sang praises of Modi and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, for the “best ever” Kumbh. They also called for people to back the BJP to help it build the temple for Lord Ram at the Babri Mosque site in Ayodhya. “We must ensure that a nationalist government committed to building a Ram temple stays in power,” Mohan Bhagwat, head of BJP parent and Hindu-first group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), said to loud cheers of “Jai Shree Ram!” - “Hail Lord Ram!” read the complete article
Myanmar
'Overreacting to failure': Facebook's new Myanmar strategy baffles local activists
On Tuesday, Facebook announced in a blogpost that it had designated four separatist groups – the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Kachin Independence Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – as “dangerous organizations”. That designation, which Facebook applies to “organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence” – ie terrorist groups and criminal cartels – brings with it not just a ban on the group itself, but a ban on “all related praise, support and representation” of the groups, according to the company’s rules. “There is clear evidence that these organizations have been responsible for attacks against civilians and have engaged in violence in Myanmar, and we want to prevent them from using our services to further inflame tensions on the ground,” Facebook said in explaining the bans. “In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm, we do not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or engage in violence to have a presence on Facebook.” read the complete article
United States
Muslim inmate executed in Alabama after legal battle over imam's presence
The Supreme Court voted Thursday to lift a stay for the death row inmate. He had argued his religious rights were violated because he couldn't have his imam by his side at his execution. Alabama's policy is to have a Christian chaplain in the room, who often kneels next to the death row prisoner and will pray with the inmate if asked. The state argued that as a matter of security, all the people in the room when executions take place are department of corrections employees. The state said it was willing to hold the execution without a religious cleric in the room. It had asked the US Supreme Court to overturn the stay. read the complete article
Opinion | How 2-year-old American boy’s death exposed cruel waiver process of Trump’s Muslim ban
As Abdullah lay dying in a hospital bed in Oakland, he was denied — by his own government — the comfort and affection of his mother. Abdullah’s forced separation from his mother over the last three months of 2018 exposed Trump’s Muslim ban for what it is: A pillar of his xenophobic agenda targeting immigrants. Despite desperate pleas from family, elected officials and doctors for the State Department to grant Swileh a waiver to enter the country, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo refused to act because Swileh, as a Yemeni national, was barred from entry by the ban. Even though both her son and her husband are American citizens, the embassy ignored 28 frantic attempts by the family to explain the dire situation. read the complete article
Chicago Cubs' Muslim Fans Want Action After Team Patriarch's Islamophobic Emails
Cubs fans who are Muslim have been expressing their disappointment about Ricketts’ emails online. Kamran Hussain, president of Chicago’s Muslim Community Center and a self-professed “15 year season ticket-holder and lifelong die-hard Cub fan,” said Joe Ricketts’ apology seemed insincere. He asked the billionaire to attend a meeting with local Muslims next week. “I love the Cubs and I have loved them since 1983 and I have been with them through all the ups and downs and just as I want my children to be good Muslims, it is also very important that they grow up to be Cubs fans and enjoy their summers in Chicago at Wrigley Field,” Hussain wrote in an open letter on Tuesday. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Islamophobia has paradoxical effect on Young Muslims | Recommended Read
Researchers at Newcastle University found that young Muslims who engage with political issues do so through a variety of ways. This ranges from involvement with formal political organisations to direct, personal action in informal networks or social movements such as online campaigning, activism, volunteering and charity work. But for others, Islamophobic attitudes are a significant barrier to political participation and makes them anxious about voicing their opinion and appearing politicized. They also talked of how mainstream politics and representations of Muslims in the media makes them feel stigmatized, with the result that some are afraid to express their views for fear that they might be labelled as extremist. read the complete article
Canada
Opinion | Targeting hijabs brings out the haters
What I wear on my head is no one’s business, and certainly not the government’s. It is deeply regrettable that Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government is gaining popularity despite its dog-whistle politics, which emboldens racists, supremacists and Islamophobes - writes Fariha Naqvi for the Montreal Gazette. read the complete article
Quebec’s Muslim community weighs in on the eve of Alexandre Bissonnette’s sentencing
The first emotions Ehab Lotayef felt after Quebec City’s mosque attack in 2017 were shock and disbelief. In the two years since, there’s another sentiment he still hasn’t been able to shake. “The fear will not go away,” Lotayef said. “This can happen again.” Lotayef was one of the co-founders of Muslim Awareness Week, a week-long series of events commemorating the second anniversary of the mosque attack that left six men dead. Superior Court Justice François Huot is set to hand down Friday a sentence for gunman Alexandre Bissonnette. The 29-year-old pleaded guilty in March 2018 to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder. read the complete article
Australia
Lawyers back Muslim community after controversial comments from bench
The peak body for the legal profession in Australia has called for better "communication and understanding of the Islamic faith" by lawyers and judges, days after a NSW Supreme Court judge courted controversy by urging Muslims to publicly disavow violence in the Koran. Justice Desmond Fagan, who has presided over a number of terrorism-related cases, said last week the "unqualified acceptance" of the Koran by Australian Muslims "without explicit repudiation of verses which ordain intolerance, violence and domination ... will embolden terrorists to think they are in common cause with all believers". "If Australian followers of the religion, including those who profess deep knowledge, were to make a clear public disavowal of these verses, as not authoritative instructions from Allah, then the terrorists’ moral conviction might be weakened," he said. read the complete article