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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Hungary fuels xenophobia with anti-migrant rhetoric, and a Birmingham aid worker in Syria is stripped of UK citizenship. In Sri Lanka, Muslims find themselves ostracized, and India steels itself for five more years of Modi. Our recommended read of the day is by Josh Chin on the German data driver who exposed China’s crackdown on Uyghurs. This, and more, below:
China
The German Data Diver Who Exposed China’s Muslim Crackdown | Recommended Read
Doggedly hunting down data in obscure corners of the Chinese internet, Adrian Zenz revealed a security buildup in China’s remote Xinjiang region and illuminated the mass detention and policing of Turkic Muslims that followed. His research showed how China spent billions of dollars building internment camps and high-tech surveillance networks in Xinjiang, and recruited police officers to run them. read the complete article
Europe
Birmingham aid worker in Syria stripped of UK citizenship
A veteran aid worker from Birmingham is among scores of British nationals stripped of their citizenship because of suspicion surrounding their activities in Syria, Middle East Eye can reveal. Mohammed Shakiel Shabir, who has been based in opposition-held Idlib province for the past four years, said he had been informed by the government that his citizenship had been revoked on the grounds that his return to the UK would “present a risk to national security”. read the complete article
Hungary accused of fuelling xenophobia with anti-migrant rhetoric
A damning report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, concluded: “Human rights violations in Hungary have a negative effect on the whole protection system and the rule of law” and should “be addressed as a matter of urgency”. The commissioner, whose report is based on meeting government ministers and civil society groups during a five-day visit to Hungary in February, issued a devastating critique of the Hungarian asylum system that has resulted in “practically systemic rejection of asylum applications”. Voicing alarm at the “excessive use of violence” by police in removing foreign nationals, she criticised a policy of denying food to those refused asylum. read the complete article
Far-right Facebook groups 'spreading hate to millions in Europe'
A web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz. Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and salvage its reputation, has already taken down accounts with about 6 million followers before voting in the European elections begins on Thursday. It was still investigating hundreds of other accounts with an additional 26 million followers, Avaaz said. read the complete article
India
Opinion | Five more years of Narendra Modi will take India to a dark place
None of the big promises that delivered Modi’s Hindu-first Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) an absolute majority in parliament in 2014 – the first time in 30 years that a single party was voted into power – have been honoured. The myth of Modi as a technocratic moderniser – crafted by an ensemble of intellectuals and industrialists who devoted themselves to the cause of deodorising Modi, a Hindu supremacist who as chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 presided over a pogrom of Muslims – collapsed early on under the burden of the incompetence, vainglory and innate viciousness of the man who once described refugee camps housing displaced Muslims as “baby-producing centres”. read the complete article
Tampering with history: how India’s ruling party is erasing the Muslim heritage of the nation’s cities
Allahabad is no longer on the map of India. In October 2018, officials of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) changed its name to Prayagraj. Allahabad was founded by the Mughals, Muslim rulers from Central Asia who governed India from the 16th to the 19th centuries. This name change emphasises the primacy of the Hindu gathering over the city’s Mughal heritage. This renaming is part of a growing trend in the lead-up to India’s current general election, which is expected to return the BJP government. To appeal to its voter base of Hindu nationalists, the BJP is attempting to erase India’s Mughal legacy both from the landscape and from the history books. read the complete article
Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, Muslims say Sinhala neighbours turned against them
In spite of a state of emergency being in place following the deadly Easter Sunday bombings, on May 12 and 13, Sinhala mobs rampaged through at least 24 towns in western Sri Lanka, looting and attacking Muslim properties with stones, swords and petrol bombs. In addition to killing Ameer, the mobs wounded at least 14 other Muslims and destroyed over 540 Muslim-owned houses, shops, and mosques as well as nearly 100 vehicles, according to an assessment by local charities. read the complete article
United States
Trump Administration Could Blacklist China’s Hikvision, a Surveillance Firm
The Trump administration is considering limits to a Chinese video surveillance giant’s ability to buy American technology, people familiar with the matter said, the latest attempt to counter Beijing’s global economic ambitions. The move would effectively place the company, Hikvision, on a United States blacklist. It also would mark the first time the Trump administration punished a Chinese company for its role in the surveillance and mass detention of Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority. read the complete article
More Than 500 Attacks on Muslims in America This Year
Islamophobia watchdogs have identified more than 500 potentially anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S. since the start of the year. And that’s probably a low estimate. In the two months since a white supremacist allegedly murdered 51 worshippers in a New Zealand mosque, American Muslims have faced a series of high-profile threats. An arson at a California mosque was later linked to a white supremacist accused of opening fire in a murderous rampage at a synagogue. A New Haven, Connecticut, mosque suffered significant damages from an arson attack last Sunday. On Thursday, a Queens, New York, man was indicted on hate crime charges for allegedly trashing a mosque during an anti-Muslim tirade. And on Monday, a Florida man was arrested for allegedly targeting a mosque and threatening to kill Muslims. read the complete article
Podcast | Ilhan Omar: ‘There’s a Reason That I Got Elected to Be in Congress and It Has Nothing to Do With the Fact That I’m a Refugee’
From the grassroots to the ballot box, we are witnessing an explosion of progressive political energy. New candidates are running for offices high and low—and they’re winning. In Next Left, a new podcast from The Nation hosted by national-affairs correspondent John Nichols, these insurgent politicians let us into their lives, tell us their stories, and explain how they plan to change our country for the better. The first guest on Next Left is Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. We spoke in her Capitol Hill office, where visitors are greeted by an image of Shirley Chisholm, who 50 years ago was the first African-American woman elected to Congress. read the complete article