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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Activists and rights groups condemn raids on NGOs, activists, and journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir. In the United States, the war in Yemen and Trump’s Muslim ban drive Yemeni-American support for Democratic candidate Joe Biden. A former Pentagon official says that China is setting worst precedence of Uyghur genocide. Our recommended read today is by Rokhaya Diallo on France’s continuing crackdown on Muslims. This, and more, below:
France
After another tragedy, France should be combating terrorism, not criminalizing Muslims
A couple of days after the killing, Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, proclaimed “a war against the enemies from within.” He then launched a series of police operations and raids against Muslim organizations and individuals who, in his words, “were not linked with the investigation but to whom we are clearly willing to send a message.” Darmanin also announced his intention to immediately disband several anti-Islamophobia organizations, labeling one of them an “enemy of the republic.” read the complete article
Is France Fueling Muslim Terrorism by Trying to Prevent It?
Once again, terrorism strikes France — and once again, terrorism is exposing the country’s dangerous contradictions. Within days of Mr. Paty’s murder, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, announced a crackdown against people “who spread hate online.” BarakaCity, a humanitarian NGO that the government says “took pleasure in justifying terrorist acts,” has been dissolved. The government has threatened to ban Le Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France, a nonprofit organization that says it combats anti-Muslim racism: According to Mr. Darmanin, the C.C.I.F. is at work “against the Republic.” read the complete article
Macron Says He Understands Muslim Feelings on Prophet Image
French President Emmanuel Macron told Al-Jazeera Saturday he understood Muslim anger at cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad but violence was unacceptable and he’d defend his nation’s freedoms. He spoke as France faced terrorist attacks at home and boycott calls in Muslim countries. read the complete article
France’s Hardening Defense of Cartoons of Muhammad Could Lead to ‘a Trap’
French officials have not only defended the right to republish the cartoons, some have gone further — including regional leaders who announced that a booklet including those images would be handed out to high school students as a commitment “to defend the values of the Republic.” read the complete article
Macron’s Clash of Civilizations Is Misguided
The last thing the world needs amid a resurgent pandemic is a clash of civilizations. Yet this is what French President Emmanuel Macron seems intent on fomenting. And, in many Muslim leaders, he has found willing and eager partners for his venture. Macron chose to respond to the atrocity with an unprecedented crackdown on France’s Muslim community, accompanied by a vociferous critique of its religion — thereby “communalizing,” to use an Indian phrase, what is a widespread social pathology. read the complete article
United States
Election 2020: Trump and the rise of white supremacist extremism
In May 2017, Demetria Hester was on her way home from work on a train in Portland, Oregon when Jeremy Christian, an avowed white supremacist, boarded and began shouting racist abuse. She says she told him to shut up. When they had got off the train, he threw a bottle that struck her in the face. The next day he killed two men and grievously injured a third. Demetria describes to Anushka Asthana how she felt the police responded to the incident that night and how she watched her attacker walk away without being questioned. Earlier this year, a court in Portland found Jeremy Christian guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree attempted murder and sentenced to life without parole. But as the Guardian’s Lois Beckett tells Anushka, this is the extreme end of an ideology that has permeated all parts of US society, and that President Trump has repeatedly refused to condenm. As Americans go to the polls next week they must assess the record of a president who has professed to be the “least racist person”. His own Department of Homeland Security describes white supremacists as posing the most persistent and lethal terror threat in the country. read the complete article
For Muslim Americans, Trump has added fuel to the fire of Islamophobia
For Nihad Awad, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest non-profit Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, the last four years have consisted of fighting for justice and defending the civil rights of American Muslims in the face of discriminatory actions from the White House. Academics, legal rights experts, and advocates have all noted that Islamophobia has gone mainstream under the Trump administration. In a recent interview, Awad told The New Arab, that this has had a "devastating effect on American Muslims, in particular, young Muslim students who have been bullied by their peers and sometimes even their school officials, leading to a sharp rise in the reported cases of bullying" in the country. In addition to harassment, Muslims across the country witnessed their mosques become targets of vandalism and arson. "All of this because Islamophobia has been normalized and empowered by the most powerful people in the country, such as Trump. Trump has added fuel to the fire of Islamophobia," said Awad. read the complete article
Yemen war and Trump's Muslim ban drive Yemeni-American support for Biden
Southeast Michigan is home to a large Yemeni community that has been growing in size and influence over recent years. Alward, who lives in Dearborn - known as the capital of Arab America - said there appears to be a "consensus" on the candidates among Yemeni Americans. The war in their homeland, Trump's "Muslim ban" and a host of domestic issues are driving Yemeni Americans to heavily favor the Democrats. The Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen started in 2015 under the administration of Barack Obama, in which Biden served as vice-president. But the Democratic candidate has pledged to end US assistance for Riyadh's war efforts. "They helped legitimize the war," Alward said of the Democrats. "But we hope that Biden stays true to his word and ends US support for the Saudi-led coalition. That would benefit all Yemenis, no matter which side they are on. The Yemeni people, it is in their interest to end this war." read the complete article
International
'Nice attacker does not represent Islam', Canadian PM Trudeau says
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, deplored Thursday's deadly stabbings in the French city of Nice, saying that the perpetrators "do not get to define Muslims” and are unrepresentative of Islam. Twenty-one-year-old Brahim Aouissaoui is suspected to have carried out the stabbings outside a church, in what French anti-terror prosecutors labelled an “Islamo-fascist attack” that has been condemned widely in the Muslim world and beyond. read the complete article
Far from home, Rohingya refugees face a new peril on a remote island
After fleeing a brutal crackdown which left thousands dead in their homeland of Myanmar, the Rohingya are once again under threat. In Cox's Bazar, the massive refugee camp in Bangladesh to which many of the Rohingya refugees fled, violence and drug and human trafficking are on the rise. The Bangladeshi government has begun relocating hundreds of the refugees, against their will, to the small remote silt island of Bhasan Char. read the complete article
How Hindu Nationalism Could Shape the Election
Most Americans probably have never heard the word “Hindutva,” but it’s a common term among subsets of the Indian diaspora, particularly those who follow Hindu nationalism. To its advocates, Hindutva, or “Hindu-ness,” is a benign, catch-all term for Hindu culture that encompasses its history, language, civilization and religion. But its origins and deployment are rooted in a nationalist, and often violent, vision of Indian culture. read the complete article
Myanmar
Myanmar’s 2015 vote sparked hope for democracy. This election shows only backsliding.
The hope then was that the NLD and its Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader would use their newly acquired power to expand democracy and human rights in Myanmar, a nation of 57 million also known as Burma. So it is a dismal verdict on what has happened in the country that the new general elections scheduled for Nov. 8, the first since 2015, will be even less free and fair than that first landmark vote. read the complete article
China
China setting worst precedence of Uyghur genocide, says former Pentagon official
The worst danger of China's Uyghur Muslim genocide is the terrible precedent that Beijing has set which other countries might target and seek to eradicate their own Muslim majorities, said a former Pentagon official. "Not since Nazi Germany has there been such a systematic policy of internment and cultural eradication as what President Xi Jinping now wages against China's Muslim minority. The People's Liberation Army and other Chinese security forces may not push Uighurs into gas chambers, but the mass, forced sterilization of Uighur women has the same effect upon the population, only delayed," Michael Rubin in his article for the Washington Examiner. read the complete article
India
‘Himalayan lie’: India raids over Kashmir ‘terror funds’ slammed
Activists and rights groups have condemned Indian agency’s raids on non-governmental organizations, activists and journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir, national capital New Delhi and the southern city of Bengaluru over alleged “terror funding” in the disputed region. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted a series of raids in those places on Wednesday and Thursday, accusing several “non-profit groups and charitable trusts” of collecting funds and using them for “carrying out secessionist and separatist activities”. read the complete article
Canada
Canada: Court to hear challenge to ‘religious symbols’ law
The lawsuit against Bill 21 was filed by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and Ichrak Nourel Hak, a Muslim woman, and it will be heard in Quebec Superior Court on November 2. The law, passed in June 2019, bars some teachers, lawyers, police officers and others in the public sphere from wearing religious symbols on the job, including the hijab worn by Muslim women, kippahs worn by Jewish men, and turbans worn by Sikhs. The applicants say the law is discriminatory and creates “second-class citizenship” in Canada. read the complete article