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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In Australia, a new report has found incidents of Islamophobia in Australia have increasingly moved from public places such as shopping centres to workplaces and schools, meanwhile in the UK, The UK government has said that it will deny entry into the country to far-right Danish-Swedish political Rasmus Paludan, who said he plans to burn the Quran in a public square in the British town of Wakefield this week, and in India, since November of last year, at least 50 ‘Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha’ rallies have been held across Maharashtra with anti-Muslim rhetoric taking center stage. Our recommended read of the day is by Dalia Mogahed for Al Jazeera on how contemporary feminists need to stand up and oppose hijab bans as much as hijab mandates across the globe. This and more below:
International
Feminists need to oppose hijab bans as much as hijab mandates | Recommended Read
A little piece of cloth is scaring big governments again. The latest instance is in India, where in early March the Supreme Court announced that it would set up a three-judge bench to hear a case challenging a hijab ban in educational institutions in the state of Karnataka. In October 2022, the top court had delivered a split verdict on the ban, which the Karnataka High Court had previously upheld. As a result of the Indian hijab ban in educational institutions, thousands of girls have not been able to attend school for a year, and were denied even a temporary lifting of the ban for their practical exams this year. And thanks to the same restrictions on religious dress in France, thousands of French women must choose between practising their sincerely held spiritual beliefs or pursuing their love for the sport of football. As always, these bans have been justified by supporters, in part, as acts aimed at the emancipation of women. Nothing says women’s empowerment like policing women’s dress. Why is it that the hijab is so often the obsession of bigots the world over? What is it about this piece of cloth that brings about so much passionate protest from detractors? And why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent when it comes to this type of state control of women’s bodies? read the complete article
4 months, 50 rallies in Maharashtra, one theme: ‘Love jihad’, ‘land jihad’ and economic boycott
Starting November last year, at least 50 ‘Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha’ rallies have been held across Maharashtra, in almost all of the state’s 36 districts. Each of these events has followed a set pattern: a brief march through the heart of the city, amid a sea of saffron flags and caps, followed by a short rally, where speakers on a makeshift dais attack minorities, invoke “love jihad”, “land jihad”, “forced conversions”, and call for the economic boycott of the Muslim community. For the record, the BJP distances itself from these rallies, saying they are by the Sakal Hindu Samaj, an umbrella body of Hindutva and Sangh organisations, but almost all of these events have had the presence of party leaders, including the local BJP MLA and MP. The speeches, however, are largely delivered by right-wing hardliners, including suspended BJP leader and Telangana MLA T Raja Singh, Kalicharan Maharaj and Kajal Hindustani — at least two of them (Singh and Maharaj) face hate speech cases both in the state and elsewhere. At one such rally, at Mumbai’s Mira Road on March 12, speeches were made against “Islamic aggression”, “love jihad” and “land jihad”, with some of the speakers calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. read the complete article
New EU coordinator against anti-Muslim hatred will focus on countries with large minorities
The newly appointed Coordinator on combating anti-Muslim hatred in the EU briefed journalists last week on her tasks and priorities. The post as coordinator against islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred was established already in 2015 but has been vacant for over a year. The European Commission announced on 1 February 2023 that is has appointed Marion Lalisse, an EU official with a background in oriental studies and experience of different posts in Muslim countries, including working with the Turkish-Cypriot community. According to her mandate, she will work with Member States, European institutions, civil society and academia to strengthen policy responses in the field of anti-Muslim hatred. In her new role, she will be the main point of contact for organisations working in this field in the EU. Expectations are already high. “Her work will ensure responses to hatred, as well as structural and individual discrimination against Muslims,” said Helena Dali, the Commissioner for equality. “We must fight anti-Muslim hatred in all areas of life including education, employment and social policy. We must also gather data about, monitor and tackle all instances of anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination.” read the complete article
India
4 months, 50 rallies in Maharashtra, one theme: ‘Love jihad’, ‘land jihad’ and economic boycott
Starting November last year, at least 50 ‘Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha’ rallies have been held across Maharashtra, in almost all of the state’s 36 districts. Each of these events has followed a set pattern: a brief march through the heart of the city, amid a sea of saffron flags and caps, followed by a short rally, where speakers on a makeshift dais attack minorities, invoke “love jihad”, “land jihad”, “forced conversions”, and call for the economic boycott of the Muslim community. For the record, the BJP distances itself from these rallies, saying they are by the Sakal Hindu Samaj, an umbrella body of Hindutva and Sangh organisations, but almost all of these events have had the presence of party leaders, including the local BJP MLA and MP. The speeches, however, are largely delivered by right-wing hardliners, including suspended BJP leader and Telangana MLA T Raja Singh, Kalicharan Maharaj and Kajal Hindustani — at least two of them (Singh and Maharaj) face hate speech cases both in the state and elsewhere. At one such rally, at Mumbai’s Mira Road on March 12, speeches were made against “Islamic aggression”, “love jihad” and “land jihad”, with some of the speakers calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Bacon placed in Muslim police officer’s boots as racist behaviour 'dismissed' by Met
A Muslim police officer described how he had bacon placed inside his boots while a Sikh colleague had his beard cut as part of racist behaviour written off in the Metropolitan Police as “pranks” and “banter”, a landmark review has found. Numerous examples of appalling racism and discrimination were highlighted in the report with serving officers describing the daily ordeal they faced at the hands of some of their colleagues. One officer, who was a practising Muslim, described how he had been targeted because of his faith but had been too afraid to speak up. He told the review team: “I found bacon left in my boots inside my locked locker. I was horrified but kept an open mind as to who this could be. “I was hoping to identify who the culprit was and take appropriate action. I didn’t want to be branded a person who played the race card and out of fear of reprisals did not tell anyone at the time.” read the complete article
UK denies entry to far-right Danish activist who planned 'to burn Quran'
The UK government said it denies entry to the far-right Danish-Swedish political activist Rasmus Paludan, who said he plans to burn the Quran in a public square in the English town of Wakefield this week. Wakefield Labour MP Simon Lightwood asked the Home Office Minister for Security Tom Tugendhat if the UK government will prevent Paludan from entering the country during a session in parliament on Monday. "Far-right Islamophobic Danish politician Rasmus Paludan said he's going to travel from Denmark to Wakefield for the sole purpose of burning a Quran in a public place," Lightwood said at the House of Commons. Tugendhat, minister of state for security, said that Paludan would be barred from entering the country. "Now I inform the house that Mr Paludan has been added to the warnings index and therefore, his travel to the United Kingdom would not be conducive with the public good, and he will not be allowed access," Tugendhat said. Paludan's efforts to burn the Quran would likely be considered a hate crime under UK law. The Crown Prosecution Service guidelines describe a hate crime as: "Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race." read the complete article
Canada
Anti-Islamophobia rep Amira Elghawaby says in London, Ont., she'll continue to call out discriminatory laws
A few weeks after apologizing for comments in a 2019 opinion piece, Canada's anti-Islamophobia representative began an official tour of communities with a stop in London, Ont., where a Muslim family was killed in June 2021 in what police describe as a hate-motivated attack. "The call for the creation of a special office to combat Islamophobia came from Muslim communities across Canada, but most strongly from London Muslim communities," Amira Elghawaby said in an interview with London Morning's Rebecca Zandbergen on Monday after her weekend stop. "I knew that I had to come to London." On the weekend, she met with about 200 members of London's Muslim community and told London Morning that she heard a variety of messages, about the support Muslims felt in the wake of the attack against the Afzaals and the progress the London is making — it recently hired a Muslim liaison officer — but also about the lingering fears in the community following the deadly truck attack of the Afzaal family. read the complete article
Australia
'Don’t blow yourself up’: A Muslim employee read a book at work. His manager’s reply left him in tears
A Muslim man was reading a foreign policy book at work, when his supervisor came over and asked him what the book was about. “I told him that it was a book about foreign policy and relations between the US and Pakistan and their involvement in Afghanistan,” the employee recalled. The supervisor’s response, the man says, was so “inappropriate” it left him in tears when he was later recalling the incident to a friend. “He said, ‘Don’t read books, such that you may end up blowing yourself up in Australia’,” the employee remembered his supervisor saying. “Right after that he said, ‘Do you read the Quran, have you read the Quran?” The incident is one of a number of workplace complaints of discrimination reported by Muslims to the Islamophobia Register of Australia. In its latest report released on Tuesday, the Register says the number of reports it’s received of discrimination at workplaces and school settings had increased in the past two years. In another incident, a 12-year-old Palestinian student was carrying a Palestinian flag when he was asked by a teacher why he was, “holding a terrorist’s flag”. The child reported feeling “mentally disturbed and … humiliated in front of his classmates,” the report said. read the complete article
United States
Lawyers and rights groups calls for greater scrutiny of DeSantis’s Guantanamo record
Lawyers and human rights activists have called for greater scrutiny of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s time serving as a Navy JAG lawyer at Guantanamo Bay, amid accusations from former detainees that he observed their torture. The calls come as a former detainee at the camp, Mansoor Adayfi, claimed in an interview with The Independent that Mr DeSantis witnessed his force-feeding, a practice he described as torture. Mr DeSantis served at Guantanamo between March 2006 and January 2007, a time when the notorious prison camp was rocked by riots, hunger strikes and death. Anas Mustapha, head of public advocacy at CAGE, which campaigns for communities impacted by the War on Terror, said Mr DeSantis’s rise to the governorship and frontrunner status for the 2024 GOP nomination “reveals a worrying lack of scrutiny into his tenure as a JAG Officer at Guantanamo Bay prison in 2006”. Mr Mustapha told The Independent that the allegations that Mr DeSantis witnessed torture at Guantanamo would do “incredible damage to the US’ standing and will critically undermine its claims to promote human rights” if he became president. “His behaviour is certainly cruel by any standard. It is unnerving considering he may be leading policy at the White House,” he added. read the complete article
China
The Witness: Why is global outrage about the Uyghur genocide muted? Human rights advocate Nury Turkel has some ideas.
Dressed in Hugo Boss suits with a home in the Virginia suburbs and an intimidating international travel schedule, Turkel is in many ways a prototypical man of Washington. Turkel came to the United States in 1995 to study first in Idaho before receiving his law degree from American University in Washington D.C. In 2020, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people for his efforts to raise the profile of China’s systematic repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in his native Xinjiang. That same year, he was appointed by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the USCIRF, a bipartisan agency that advises on issues pertaining to religious freedom around the world. All the same, Turkel is plagued with survivor’s guilt. Prison camps have once again appeared in his native Xinjiang in northwestern China—only unlike the Cultural Revolution, which was a nationwide purge, the brutality of the state this time has been trained on Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. More than a million people have been detained in the camps for arbitrary reasons, including having a beard, having contacts abroad, or having attended a Western university. Camp survivors and human rights groups have reported instances of torture, forced abortion and sterilization, rape, and slavery while the United States has deemed China’s campaign against the Uyghurs to be a genocide. Watching the largest arbitrary interment of a minority group since the Holocaust from afar, Turkel grapples with the question: What do you do when “never again” is happening once more? read the complete article