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SearchToday in Islamophobia: A Uyghur graveyard is destroyed by the Chinese government, and a new report finds Facebook India drowning in anti-Muslim hate speech. As Craig Hicks pleads guilty to the murder of three Muslims, a NYT headline asks: “But, did he commit a crime?” Our recommended read for today is by Rowaida Abdelaziz on the same event– specifically how mass media outlets covered the murders as a parking dispute rather than a hate crime. This, and more, below:
United States
He Murdered 3 Muslim College Students, But No One Wanted To Call It A Hate Crime | Recommended Read
Family members and friends of the victims were dismayed when authorities suggested the murders were connected to an argument over parking, a narrative the media adopted as well. Loved ones spoke in court not just about the loss of the victims, but about the injustice of having to fight to name the murders for what they were: hate crimes motivated by Islamophobia and bigotry. Even amid a rise of Islamophobic hate crimes, and increased examples of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the workplace and from governmentofficials, Muslims’ concerns about growing intolerance and hostility have largely gone unheeded. read the complete article
He Killed 3 Muslim Students. But Did He Commit a Hate Crime?
The man at the center of a case that caused a worldwide furor four years ago over anti-Muslim violence was filled with so much hate that he shot and killed three of his neighbors, all students of Middle Eastern descent, at his apartment complex in Chapel Hill, N.C. The case has tested the limitations of the legal system on the question of when a hateful crime becomes a hate crime. Across the country, reports of bias-based attacks are on the rise. But many such cases that get to court are not officially prosecuted as hate crimes, to the surprise and sometimes the dismay of those on the victims’ side, for whom the question can be as much a moral issue as a legal one. read the complete article
Uber and Lyft Made Big Promises During Trump’s 2017 Travel Ban. Did They Deliver?
Two days after Trump’s announcement, Lyft promised to donate $1 million over four years to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was working to fight the ban and aid those affected. Meanwhile, Uber said it would create a $3 million fund for legal defense and translation services for its affected drivers, help compensate drivers for lost earnings, and provide around-the-clock legal support for drivers trying to re-enter the U.S. Lyft’s money helped the ACLU with more than 200 legal actions, including lawsuits involving family separation, voting rights, and women’s issues, according to the ACLU. The donation, among the largest the ACLU received during that time, has also prompted the ACLU to create a division that handles corporate donations. read the complete article
North Carolina police chief apologizes for saying killing of 3 Muslim students was over a parking dispute
Chris Blue, the chief of the Chapel Hill, N.C., police department, apologized Wednesday for saying the killing of three Muslim college students in 2015 was over a parking dispute. “What we all know now and what I wish we had said four years ago is that the murders of Deah, Yusor, and Razan were about more than simply a parking dispute. The man who committed these murders undoubtedly did so with a hateful heart, and the murders represented the taking of three promising lives by someone who clearly chose not to see the humanity and the goodness in them,” Blue said in a statement. read the complete article
Muslim comedian awarded $4.1 million in defamation lawsuit against neo-Nazi site
A federal judge has ordered the publishers of a prominent white supremacist website, the Daily Stormer, to pay $4.1 million in damages to Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah for publishing false statements accusing him of terrorism. In 2017, Obeidallah filed a civil suit in Ohio federal court against the Daily Stormer’s founder, Andrew Anglin, over the neo-Nazi site’s false claims that Obeidallah was part of ISIS and was the “mastermind” behind the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people that year in Manchester, England. “American Muslims should be able to take part in public life without being threatened or attacked,” Obeidallah said in a statement after the award was announced Wednesday morning (June 12). “This ruling sends a clear message that Muslim voices will not be silenced by threats and hate.” read the complete article
India
Facebook in India Is Drowning in Anti-Muslim Hate Speech
Despite Facebook’s efforts, it’s barely made a dent in that department: 93 percent of all hate speech posts reported to Facebook by monitoring group Equality Labs remain on the platform — including content advocating violence, bullying and use of offensive slurs, according to a new report from the South Asian advocacy group, which is dedicated to ending caste-based discrimination, Islamophobia and religious intolerance. Facebook's inability to curb hate speech is disproportionately harming India's Muslim minorities and at times spilling over into real-world violence, according to the report, which draws worrying comparisons between the situation in India and the platform's failures in Myanmar, where it was used to fuel violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Sajid Javid Says Number 10 Refused To Let Him Attend The Trump State Banquet
Asked by the BBC’s Today programme on Thursday morning why he wasn’t invited to the palace for the banquet hosted by the queen, Javid replied: “I don’t know. I’ve asked but I don’t know. I was told that normally home secretaries aren’t invited”. But at the two state banquets held during his predecessor Amber Rudd’s tenure as home secretary — with the president of Colombia in November 2016 and the King of Spain in July 2017 — she did receive an invitation and attend. Asked by the BBC how he felt about the snub, Javid said: “I don’t like it. It is odd. My office did ask Number 10 and they said no”. read the complete article
Boris Johnson supporters jeer journalist for asking about his Islamophobic comments
A cabinet minister has sparked anger by defending the jeering of a journalist who quizzed Boris Johnson about his notorious description of Muslim women as “letterboxes”. Supporters of the Tory leadership favourite turned on a reporter who said the comment had brought “shame on your party” and made colleagues question if he was “fit to be prime minister”. read the complete article
Sajid Javid is ready for experts to examine Islamophobia claims in Tory party
Speaking at his campaign launch, the Home Secretary said: “I wouldn't say from what I have seen and my own experience and from what I know, that there is a real sort of particular issue in the Conservative Party with hate crime. “But it is absolutely essential that whenever we come across someone that does something that any one of us in this room would find completely unacceptable and they say something, that firm action is being taken and that's what always happens. “I would be very happy for someone externally – an organisation – to come and take a look as well and try and give some further, external reassurance, because I think we have got nothing to hide.” read the complete article
China
Chinese govt has destroyed graveyard of Uighur community: Historian
The Chinese government has destroyed a graveyard which belonged to Uighur community in Khotan town of Xinjiang Province, claimed historian Rian Thum on Wednesday. "The Chinese government has now destroyed the central Uyghur graveyard in Khotan. It was also the site of several sacred shrines," tweeted Thum, along with two images taken from satellite: First showing a land filled with structure and the second of barren land. Referring to a notice which appeared near the graveyard, the author of 'The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History', explained that the document was placed to warn the community to remove the corpses of their relatives in six days. "The document refers to this graveyard as the "property of the city" of Khotan. Bodies will be moved to Imam Musa Kazim graveyard. Relatives have a six-day window to ID graves for the gov, after which it will be "their own responsibility" if ancestors become "unclaimed corpses" he said in the series of tweet. He underlined that this notice was "smuggled" out of China. read the complete article