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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Tories face pressure to suspend councillors over anti- Islam tweets, while the World Bank ‘rewards’ ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. An op-ed weighs the dangers of surveillance technology, another looks at India post elections. Our recommended read of the day is a podcast episode from the Bridge Initiative titled “Why You Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism”. This, and more, below:
United States
Podcast | Why We Shouldn't Ask Muslims To Condemn Terrorism | Recommended Listen
When it comes to terrorism, there is no category of individuals who are asked to take collective blame for violence more than Muslims. In the United States, every time a perpetrator of an attack is reported to be Muslim, voices in the media are quick to call on Muslim leaders to condemn terrorism. On today’s episode, I sit down with Professor Todd Green to learn about his latest book, “Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism.” Dr. Green is an Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College. He is also a nationally recognized expert on Islamophobia, and has served as an advisor on anti-Muslim prejudice to federal employees at the U.S. Department of State, Homeland Security, and the FBI. read the complete article
Immigrant-run manufacturing co-op aims to change culture of fast fashion, starting with Muslims
With her latest project, Blue Tin Production, Katebi is making sure that U.S. Muslim designers, Islamic clothing companies and their customers have a way to put their money where their morals are. Billed as one of the country’s first clothing cooperatives run by refugee and immigrant women, Blue Tin aims to offer designers in the U.S. a transparently ethical manufacturing company, while creating well-paying work opportunities for skilled immigrant and refugee women – women like Mercy, a domestic violence survivor from Nigeria with mean sewing skills. Mercy and her two colleagues make collective business decisions and receive fair wages, but many local Muslim professionals have donated their own time and money to make sure the seamstresses receive benefits, too, providing child care, transportation and health care, as well as translation and legal help. All three worker-owners have volunteered to teach other women sewing skills so they can become employable. “We are like family here,” Mercy said. “It is a blessing to be able to give back.” read the complete article
San Francisco was right to ban facial recognition. Surveillance is a real danger
The concerns that motivated the San Francisco ban are rooted not just in the potential inaccuracy of facial recognition technology, but in a long national history of politicized and racially-biased state surveillance. Based on my years of working as a civil rights advocate and attorneyrepresenting Muslim Americans in the aftermath of September 11th, I recognize that the debate’s singular focus on the technology is a red herring. Even in an imaginary future where algorithmic discrimination does not exist, facial recognition software simply cannot de-bias the practice and impact of state surveillance. In fact, the public emphasis on curable algorithmic inaccuracies leaves the concerns that motivated the San Francisco ban historically and politically decontextualized. read the complete article
International
A Tale of Two Surveillance States
The Chinese government is brutalizing its Muslim Uyghur population in the western province of Xinjiang, in what Omer Kanat, the director of the Uyghur Human Rights Watch, calls a “genocide without the gas chambers.” Up to 2 million Uyghurs are reportedly being held in detention centers, where they have allegedly been separated from their families and in many cases tortured. This horrifying situation is built on the scaffolding of mass surveillance. Cameras fill the marketplaces and intersections of the key city of Kashgar. Recording devices are placed in homes and even in bathrooms. Checkpoints that limit the movement of Muslims are often outfitted with facial-recognition devices to vacuum up the population’s biometric data. As China seeks to export its suite of surveillance tech around the world, Xinjiang is a kind of R&D incubator, with the local Muslim population serving as guinea pigs in a laboratory for the deprivation of human rights. Nothing in the United States compares. But the use of novel surveillance tools to monitor, terrify, and even oppress minority citizens is not a foreign concept. The latest episode of Crazy/Genius, produced by Jesse Brenneman and Patricia Yacob, tells the tale of two surveillance states. The first is Xinjiang, China. The second is Brooklyn, New York. read the complete article
Islamophobia: from crusaders, to colonialists, to cartoonists
Islamophobia can be defined as the unjustified fear of all things Muslim based on preconceived notions that define it as a religion of violence. While many think this form of racism bears an inextricable correlation with modern-day terrorism, many Western thinkers say anti-Islam sentiment goes back more than a century, way before the media started creating and perpetuating stereotypes, especially after the September 11 attacks. read the complete article
Europe
Tories under pressure to suspend councillors over anti-Islam tweets
Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, said he had “lost confidence in the Conservative party’s disciplinary processes when the promotion of anti-Muslim hatred is the subject,” after the party said it was investigating John Moss and Nick Coultish. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has demanded the UK’s human rights watchdog launches an inquiry into Islamophobia in the Conservative party. Labour also criticised the party for “failing to take swift action in suspending councillors who have spouted clear Islamophobic comments”. read the complete article
Danish Muslims feel backlash as immigration becomes election issue
Growing numbers of Danish Muslims say they have faced verbal abuse, exclusion and hate crimes since mainstream political parties began adopting anti-immigrant policies previously the preserve of the far right. The ruling center-right Liberal Party and the opposition Social Democrats both say a tough stance in immigration is needed to protect Denmark’s cherished welfare system and to integrate the migrants and refugees already in the country. read the complete article
Rasmus Paludan: Meet the far-right leader who wants to deport all Muslims from Denmark
Danish lawyer Rasmus Paludan was little known a few months ago but his far-right party has gained traction ahead of a general election on June 5. His political movement — Stram Kurs (Hard Line) — calls itself the party for “ethnic Danes”, wants to ban Islam and deport all Muslims from Denmark. His party is forecast to win 2.3%, according to a recent poll published by Voxmeter, which would be enough to enter parliament. “Hard Line’s only agenda is to be extremely tough on refugees, immigrants and Muslims in particular, and that attracts a small group of voters who think anti-immigration policies can always get harder and more radical," said elections specialist and professor of political science at Copenhagen University, Kasper Møller Hansen. read the complete article
Myanmar
The World Bank is rewarding ethnic cleansing in Myanmar
This month, the World Bank published a proposal for a $100 million development project in Rakhine state, the region of western Myanmar that recently saw the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim community. The aim of the project is to fund credit for small businesses in the region and boost economic development. Aiding local economic development in a conflict-torn region sounds like a good idea on paper. But as many nongovernmental groups involved in the region point out, the World Bank is pushing ahead with its plans even though the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine is not even close to resolution. read the complete article
India
How India’s BJP cultivated a Muslim front for its Hindu nationalism
As it raced to victory in India’s general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party relied heavily on a sectarian strategy that demonized the country’s Muslim minority. What is more surprising is that the party has cultivated a Muslim wing to increase support for its Hindu nationalist agenda in Muslim communities — and with it, managed to create a modern Muslim face for Hindu nationalism. Founded in 2002 by a volunteer for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — a Hindu nationalist organization and BJP ally that wants to turn India into a Hindu “rashtra,” or state — the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM) is a Muslim social organization that supports Hindu nationalist objectives. read the complete article
China
Opinion | Does ‘Never Again!’ mean anything if we do nothing about China’s concentration camps?
In early 2017, she stopped hearing from her relatives altogether. The popular Chinese messaging app, WeChat, no longer worked. Mamut tried calling her sister and the phone cut off after a few seconds. So she called her older brother’s phone and his wife picked up to say she was at a police checkpoint and would call back. That was her final contact. Friends tell Mamut that intercepted phone calls or messages from the United States could cause the ever-watching Chinese authorities to target her loved ones — at a time when as many as 1 million Muslimsor more and other ethnic minorities have been rounded up and sent to what Beijing calls “education centers” and the rest of the world calls, justifiably, concentration camps. read the complete article