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SearchToday in Islamophobia: House passes resolution condemning anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim discrimination, and the head of the Congressional black caucus discusses Ilhan Omar’s controversial comments. UN rights chief warns against harassment of Muslims in India, Amazon pulls Tommy Robinson’s book from site. Our recommended read of the day is on the plight faced by Rohingya women in the refugee camps of Bangladesh. This, and more, below:
Bangladesh
Life for Rohingya women, the real and hidden crisis | Recommended Read
Since August 2017, more than 706,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled for safety across the border into Bangladesh. Many had seen family members killed, have been shot, suffered burns or are survivors of sexual violence. The majority of people arrived in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar with nothing, and the trauma of their experiences has had a huge impact on their mental health. This International Women’s Day some of the UK’s leading international charities, working in the camps of Cox’s Bazaar, are putting a spotlight on the situation faced by Rohingya women and girls. read the complete article
United States
House passes resolution condemning anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim discrimination
Draft text of the resolution was originally written to focus specifically on condemning anti-Semitism following outrage over Omar's remarks, but the text was later revised to include a denunciation of other forms of bigotry, including anti-Muslim bias. Following the vote, Omar released a joint statement with Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Andre Carson of Indiana praising the passage of the resolution. The three lawmakers represent all the Muslim members of the US Congress. "Today is historic on many fronts," they wrote. "It's the first time we have voted on a resolution condemning Anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation's history." read the complete article
Head Of Congressional Black Caucus Discusses Rep. Ilhan Omar's Controversial Comments
"And in a time where we're trying to focus on many proactive pieces of legislation, we do not want to see our agenda diverted away from comments that people might make or accusations or threats. And so this was an opportunity to do a resolution that talked about white supremacy, that talked about anti-Semitism, about Islamophobia. If you look at the entire resolution, the majority of the resolution focuses on anti-Semitism. And I will tell you that the No. 1 co-sponsor of the resolution is Jamie Raskin. The other co-sponsor - who is Jewish - the other co-sponsor is Cedric Richmond, who's the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus." read the complete article
Muslim call center gets hundreds of hate calls for promoting hijabs on billboard
The Islamic Center of North America’s Dallas, Texas branch (INCA) and sister organization GainPeace say their hotline has been receiving over 200 hate calls per week since putting up the billboard on I-35, a highway in the area. The ad, which features an Islamic woman in a hijab along with the caption, “Hijab: the dress of modesty,” and the phrases “respect, honor, strength,” has a hotline number at the bottom to encourage passers by to call with questions. Out of the first 200 calls the call center received after the ad was put up, 180 were hate calls, Dr. Sabeel Ahmed, director of the GainPeace call center and a representative of INCA Dallas, told The Post. read the complete article
India
UN rights chief warns against harassment of Muslims in India
"We are receiving reports that indicate increasing harassment and targeting of minorities - in particular, Muslims and people from historically disadvantaged and marginalised groups, such as Dalits and Adivasis," Michelle Bachelet said in her annual report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday. Bachelet's warning came a day after Amnesty International's India chapter said it had recorded a "disturbing" number of hate crimes, including assault, rapeand murder, against marginalised groups in 2018. Relying on cases reported in mainstream English and Hindi media, the group on Tuesday said it had documented a total of 218 incidents of alleged hate crimes last year. Some 142 of them were against lower-caste Dalits, while 50 were against Muslims. Aakar Patel, executive director of Amnesty India, told Al Jazeera that there was "a culture of impunity for hate crimes" in India. read the complete article
India’s Top Court Orders Mediation on Contested Temple Site
India’s top court ordered petitioners to mediate and find a solution to a land-ownership case in the northern city of Ayodhya, the latest attempt to solve the nation’s most polarizing religious dispute over construction of a temple on the site of a demolished mosque. A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi appointed a panel to begin proceedings within a week. The decision came amid a Supreme Court hearing on an appeal against a 2010 lower court verdict that gave Muslims one-third of the land and the rest to Hindu groups. The Hindu groups claim the site is birth place of Lord Ram. read the complete article
United Kingdom
Opinion | The Tories’ Islamophobia will not be stopped from within
There has been a steady drip of cases of anti-Muslim bigotry in statements made by party members and councillors. Serving Conservative councillors such as Hashim Bhatti have talked about a deeper problem within the party, and the chair of the Conservative Muslim Forum, Mohammed Amin, said that the party has failed to take action against anti-Muslim bigotry. Over the past two years, both Labour and the Conservatives have become embroiled in issues of antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry. There is something deeper at work within both parties, and it goes far beyond how quickly someone is suspended or not. The key question to be addressed by the Conservatives is: how has a culture of anti-Muslim hate seeped into some party members and councillors? Why have they thought it acceptable to make social media posts that caricature Muslims as the “other”, as threats and as people undeserving of basic respect? How did it reach this point, given that the prime minister claims to care about collective shared values between communities? read the complete article
Andrea Leadsom Accused Of Undermining Fight Against Far-Right With Islamophobia Comments
In a letter to Theresa May seen by HuffPost UK, Labour’s Naz Shah said the Commons leader’s comments on Thursday “played into the idea that Muslims are less British” and “exposed a profound ignorance of race issues” at the top of government. Shah, the shadow equalities minister, insisted “this is not a trivial matter” given rising hate crime and an “emboldened far-right movement” in the UK. The Commons Leader replied: “The Conservative Party is taking very strong action in any cases of Islamophobia that we identify. “We have been extremely robust and urgent in our response to this.” On a definition of Islamophobia, Leadsom suggested “she can discuss with Foreign Office ministers whether that would be a useful way forward”. read the complete article
Opinion | British Muslims deserve better than a Tory party that’s deeply Islamophobic
More than three years ago, on November 15, 2015, I raised concerns about Islamophobic comments being made by individuals associated with the party, and since then I have done so again with three successive chairmen and Prime Minister Theresa May — each time to be met with well-meaning words but no action. Last year I finally decided to speak about this publicly. Islamophobia, which was recently defined by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims as “a form of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”, is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, one of my earliest speeches in Government challenged Britain to wake up to this growing form of bigotry and hatred — Islamophobia, I said, had passed “the dinner table test”, that it was sadly found in the most respectable of settings. My intervention was vilified by some in the press, who argued that Islamophobia simply did not exist. read the complete article
Amazon bans book co-written by Tommy Robinson from their website
His book, which he co-wrote with Peter McLoughlin, “Mohammed’s Koran: Why Muslims kill for Islam”, has now been pulled from the online retailer after being classed as “inappropriate content.” Robinson has repeatedly accused media outlets and major companies of censorship and his co-author,Mr McLoughlin, compared Amazon’s decision to those taken in Nazi Germany. The latest move comes after Robinson was banned from social media sites Facebook and Instagram. read the complete article
Denmark
Noura Bendali: The Muslim Dane fighting against Islamophobia
Noura Bendali is a midwife, mother of five, and divorced. She decided to enter politics a few years ago to underpin the voice of Muslims in her community. "We feel the discrimination more and more," said Bendali. "Muslim women are being yelled at for wearing a veil." Since 2015 and the establishment of a government coalition with the far right, parties across the political spectrum in Denmark have shifted right, leading to a worrying rise in anti-Muslim and anti-migrant sentiment. The government introduced a law to seize items of migrants coming into the country in 2016, a few months after they had taken adverts in Lebanese papers promoting their benefits cuts to migrants. They established stricter criminal laws for people living in so-called "ghettos" - poorer districts in Denmark, and imposed Danish classes on children there, in which they were taught Danish "values". The government also voted to send rejected asylum seekers to a deserted island off the coast of Denmark. read the complete article