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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Canada, an annual anti-hate campaign hosted by the city of Toronto called ‘Toronto For All’, which calls on city residents to both confront and eliminate Islamophobia, will appear on transit shelters as well as the city’s social media channels and website later this month, meanwhile in Germany, a copy of the Quran was burned and thrown at a Mosque from a moving vehicle, and lastly, a new report by Mediapart reveals that the United Arab Emirates was involved in a smear campaign that targeted over a thousand people and hundreds of organizations, alleging that they had links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Our recommended read of the day is by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess for Brisbane Times commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Bosnian genocide, her experience as a survivor of the massacre, and how increasing “narratives of othering, supremacy, and dehumanization” must be tackled as they could lead to mass atrocities. This and more below:
International
A generation after the Bosnian genocide, we still haven’t broken the cycle of hate | Recommended Read
Following the Holocaust, we vowed “never again”. However, in 1995, 8372 Bosnian Muslims were systematically murdered in the first genocide on European soil since World War II. On this day – July 11 – 28 years ago, Bosnian Serb forces methodically targeted and murdered thousands of Bosniak boys and men in and around Srebrenica. My family – in the town of Bihac – endured the horrors of starvation, bombings, dehumanisation, and a relentless siege by a dual military endeavour of Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces. To our disbelief, the perpetrators included individuals we had once considered teachers, classmates and even friends. Permanently scarred by nearly 1200 days of siege, I – aged 20 – left everything I knew to seek a better future in the United States. In the years since I have hoped that at the very least the horrors I and so many others encountered in Srebrenica, Bihać and many other sites of mass atrocities, would prevent future genocides. But my hopes were futile. The worsening xenophobic political discourse prevalent in places like the UK and the US resembles the narratives employed to rationalise the 1990s eradication of Bosniaks. Alarmingly, these narratives of othering, supremacy, and dehumanisation have been exploited by far-right actors to attract new recruits and condition their mindsets to perpetrate acts of violence in Australia and targeted killings in New Zealand, the United States, and Europe. read the complete article
Abu Dhabi Secrets: The Emirati 'smear campaign' explained
A new report has revealed that the United Arab Emirates was involved in a smear campaign that targeted over a thousand people and hundreds of organisations, alleging that they had links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Based on 78,000 confidential documents obtained by the French online newspaper Mediapart, the Abu Dhabi Secrets case reportedly involved people from 18 different European countries being spied on by Alp Services, a company hired by the Emirati government. The campaign was linked to around 1,000 individuals in Europe, all of whom were portrayed as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is described as a terrorist organisation by the UAE. Some of those targeted have since come out to distance themselves from the allegations, while others have expressed fear over being targeted again or losing everything. The investigations, which have been published across 13 different publications, found that Emirati authorities paid at least 5.7m euros for the campaign. read the complete article
India
INDIA HAS A LONG-STANDING HISTORY OF ISLAMOPHOBIA
As worsening reports of violence against Muslims in India continue to circulate, the origin of such deep hate in the country arises. How did Islamophobia gain a hold on India, a country with over 200 million Muslims? Muslims have been in India since the 13th century, with Muslim merchants, soldiers, and armies bringing the religion to the subcontinent. Muslim leaders, and Hindu leaders, controlled different parts of India at different times as they ran autonomous states. The work of the British colonial apparatus, such as the new additions of a census that forced people to identify with one religion over others, and segregation of religious groups into separate voting blocs, created long-lasting divisions where there previously had been none. These deliberate choices to help divide and rule the colony had impacts on society. By the 20th century, calls for separate homelands for Muslims and Hindus had grown, and relationships had deteriorated under the new colonial power structure. Various political parties vied for control of their respective religious group, and the division tore apart communities across India. The rise of the Hindutva movement significantly has exacerbated the tensions. Hindutva is a right-wing movement that advocates extreme Hindu nationalism. Hindutva is often the ideology behind many anti-Muslim actions in India. Riots such as the ones in the state of Gujarat, New Delhi, and other cities around India have periodically erupted in the years post-Partition, with extreme violence being used. Sexual violence is common, as seen in the 2002 Gujarat riots where over 1000 people were killed. The government often does little to control the rioters, allowing the anti-Muslim sentiment to grow. Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat at the time, was accused of being complicit in the violence of his state, just one example of a government’s failure to act. Modi, now Prime Minister of India, has propelled the Hindutva ideology to even higher levels across India. New laws against giving Muslim migrants Indian citizenship, and bans against wearing hijab to school in Karnataka, a state in Southern India, are just two examples of anti-Muslim sentiment in India. In a country that has a long-standing practice of Islamophobia, it seems that India will never accept Muslims with open arms. read the complete article
France
Misinformation And Islamophobia: The Alarming Racism In France
On 27 June, the eve of Eid Al-Adha, a 17-year-old in France of Algerian descent was driving through his neighbourhood of Nanterre in a rental car. At 8 AM that day, he was brutally shot and killed by a police officer. He was shot at for violation of traffic rules. This was not an isolated incident of police brutality but a symptom of the larger systemic issue of racism and intolerance that has plagued France as well as most of the world since the time of colonisation. Misinformation about the protests was circulated via social media such as Instagram and Twitter by far-right and anti-migrant users both from within as well as outside France’s borders. Paul Golding who is the leader of a far-right British party shared a video, captioned “Armed rioters show off their arsenal of weapons in France”, that went on to receive millions of views. In fact, the video was taken from another clash that had taken place three years ago. In India, misinformation manifested in the form of several social media users circulating fake images and video clips of ruined buildings, attributing them to the “Muslim rioters” in France. Such pictures and videos were mostly circulated by accounts having a history of Islamophobic and pro-Hindutva comments and posts. All of these images and video clips, though shared by different people belonging to different countries, were all united in their aim to spread intolerance and hatred against the migrant, the Muslim community in France. read the complete article
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Jews and Muslims come together at Srebrenica anniversary of Europe's only post-World War II genocide
Jews and Muslims came together on Monday in Bosnia on the eve of the 28th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust, to talk about ways of using their shared pain to help rid the world of hate and bigotry. More than 8,000 Bosniak — mainly Muslim — men and boys were killed in July 1995 in Srebrenica, after Bosnian Serb troops took hold of the eastern town. The carnage has been declared a genocide by two U.N. courts. “It is absolutely critical for the future of both the Jewish people and the (Muslim) Bosniak people, for us to join forces in remembrance in order to make sure that these type of atrocities not be allowed to occur in the future,” Menachem Rosensaft, the general counsel of the World Jewish Congress, told The Associated Press. In July 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a U.N.-protected safe haven in Srebrenica. They separated Muslim Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters, chased them through woods around the ill-fated town, and slaughtered them. The perpetrators then plowed their victims’ bodies into hastily made mass graves, which they later dug up with bulldozers, scattering the remains among other burial sites to hide the evidence of their war crimes. read the complete article
Germany
Quran burnt, thrown from moving vehicle outside mosque in Germany
Quran was burned and thrown from a moving vehicle in front of a mosque in southwestern Germany, the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) confirmed Monday. The incident happened in front of the Mimar Sinan Mosque in the town of Maulbronn, located in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, from a moving vehicle. Osman Adıbelli, director of the mosque association, said the incident took place on the night of Saturday, July 8. "After the incident, when we reviewed surveillance footage of our mosque, we saw that an object was thrown in front of the mosque from a vehicle on the main street. Around 4:45 a.m. (0245GMT), our congregation members who came for morning prayers noticed a burned Quran at the entrance of the mosque," he explained. The incident comes in the wake of multiple burnings or desecrations of Qurans in various European countries, including a recent high-profile Quran burning in front of a mosque in Sweden, allowed by the police, drawing international outrage. read the complete article
Canada
Toronto launches new anti-Islamophobia campaign
Toronto launched a new public education campaign today to raise awareness about Islamophobia and “remind Torontonians that acceptance comes without exceptions”. The latest ‘Toronto For All’ campaign, which calls on Torontonians to both confront and eliminate Islamophobia, will appear on transit shelters as well as the city’s social media channels and website. “I am proud to lend my support to this initiative as I believe it has the potential to make a profound impact on reducing Islamophobia in our city,” said Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie. “The Community Advisory Council, consisting of diverse Muslim community members and leaders, offered their invaluable expertise and insights to the outstanding creative team. Through their unwavering dedication, they worked together, across and through differences, alongside the committed staff, to shape this campaign and make it truly representative of our shared goals.”The City collaborated with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and a Community Advisory Council made up of diverse Muslim community members, educators and leaders to develop “a meaningful and impactful” the anti-Islamophobia design concept. read the complete article