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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the U.S., Congresswoman Ilhan Omar sharply rebukes Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for threatening to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee, decrying this and other statements made by the GOP as Islamophobic, meanwhile in India, a new report published by the U.S. based Council on Minority Rights in India (CMRI) details numerous instances of Indian law enforcement’s culpability in anti-Muslim hate crimes, and in Canada, a new report alleges that several Canadian pension funds are found to have invested in Chinese companies complicit in the human rights abuses occurring in Xinjiang. Our recommended read of the day is by Ayman Mohyeldin for MSNBC on how western media coverage and criticism of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar reeks of “prejudice, performative outrage, and double standards.” This and more below:
International
Qatar hosting the World Cup highlights Western double standards | Recommended Read
What has played out over the past several years, and intensified in the final few months before the World Cup’s Sunday premiere, reveals the depths of Western prejudice, performative moral outrage and, perhaps most significantly, gross double standards. A barrage of negative and quite frankly racist commentary about the tiny Persian Gulf nation has included headlines suggesting that fans who were celebrating the buildup to the tournament were paid to appear, because they were South Asians. A French outlet published a cartoon depicting the Qatari national team as terrorists. The list goes on. But is this debate truly about migrant workers’ rights and human rights, or is it that European countries and Western pundits, who view themselves as the traditional gatekeepers of global soccer, can’t stomach the idea that an Arab Middle Eastern country will host such a venerable event? I wonder if any of these European and American commentators and pundits grandstanding about human rights will call for the U.S. to be stripped of hosting part of the 2026 World Cup for the way elected leaders and our judicial system have rolled back reproductive rights, moved to ban the word “gay” in public schools along with banning books they believe threaten a far-right political and religious narrative. As far as I can tell, no one is accusing the U.S. of trying to sportswash its anti-women policies in these conversations. read the complete article
Opinion: Islam didn’t start the Iranian protests
However, as a Muslim woman who personally chose to wear a hijab in public, I am a little confused about one thing. The media is suggesting that the primary intention of these protests is to speak out against the so-called religious control of Islam. There is an implication that Iranian women are rejecting the hijab and Islam. The media is missing the point, though — this isn’t entirely about the hijab. Yes, the hijab is related to Mahsa’s murder, but there has been a long and complicated history of political change in Iran since the early 1900s. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been controlling women’s bodies and their rights on education, autonomy and marriage for decades. The protests in Iran aren’t promoting the eradication of Islam or Muslim women from wearing the hijab. Iranian women are responding to the years of misogynistic principles and laws that have restricted their rights to live freely. They are fighting for autonomy in all aspects. It also hurts that the media does not always consider fighting for the right to continue wearing a headscarf as women’s autonomy. “It is misogynistic and hateful to force women to remove hijab — as much as it is misogynistic and hateful to force women to wear hijab,” opinion columnist Shaista Aziz wrote for CNN. read the complete article
Could your pension plan be funding human-rights abuses in China?
At least three federal and six provincial pension funds in Canada are investing in Chinese companies complicit in human rights abuses in Xinjiang, a new report alleges. Pension funds in a number of western countries have also invested in companies involved in a Chinese government labour-transfer program accused of subjecting the country’s Uyghur minority to forced labour or internment, according to the report by U.K.-based human rights organization Hong Kong Watch, in collaboration with Prof. Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam University. “Lawmakers and government officials must urgently consider how it could be morally defensible for federal employees’ pensions to be passively invested in companies complicit in gross human rights violations in the Uyghur Region,” argues the report, released Monday. The organization shared the report’s Canadian findings with the Star in advance of publication. But at least one major Canadian pension fund says it’s not actually invested in the companies in the index funds. read the complete article
India
New Report Sees Law Enforcement Agencies' Role in Furthering Hate Crimes in India
By helping offenders, detaining victims and failing to register first information reports (FIRs) in some cases, law enforcement agencies played a role in furthering hate crimes last year, a new report published by the United States-based NGO, Council on Minority Rights in India (CMRI), says. The ‘Religious Minorities in India’ report was launched by the CMRI at the Press Club of India in New Delhi on November 20 and covers a number of topics related to the condition of India’s religious minorities: instances of hate crimes against minorities; their portrayal in the media; the intersectional nature of oppression; and more. In a chapter on hate crimes, the report details the ways in which the actions of law enforcement agencies, in some cases, furthered hate crimes. In this chapter, the report records that based on both primary and secondary data, 294 cases of hate crimes against Christians, Muslims and Sikhs were recorded in India in 2021. Of these, the majority of crimes (192) were recorded against Muslims, 95 against Christians and seven against Sikhs. The Christian community was predominantly targeted on allegations of forceful conversion while the Muslim community was chiefly targeted for inter-faith relationships and allegations of cow slaughter, the report says. In most instances, the perpetrators were right-wing vigilantes or Hindu extremist groups, it says. “There is a clear pattern which suggests that incidents of hate crime against religious minorities have occurred largely in BJP-ruled states,” the report adds. read the complete article
Fake Rate Card Promising Cash Rewards For Muslim Men Committing Love Jihad Viral Again
An image of a rate card with alleged cash incentives for Muslim men for marrying outside of their religion and converting non-Muslim women to Islam is going viral across social media. The images of this rate card are going viral with the claim that they are evidence of cash benefits for Muslim men if they carry out 'Love Jihad', a conspiracy often touted by right-wing users across social media. read the complete article
United States
Ilhan Omar Slams Kevin McCarthy’s Threat to Yank Her From Committee Over Israel Comments
Rep. Ilhan Omar sharply criticized on Monday Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s promise to lead efforts to remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, decrying it as a continuation of Islamophobic rhetoric from the GOP. McCarthy, the likely next House speaker, told the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting that he would take the move as a punitive action over her previous criticism of Israel as well as her personal criticism of him. “From the moment I was elected, the Republican Party has made it their mission to use fear, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism to target me on the House Floor and through millions of dollars of campaign ads," Omar said in a statement, noting “whether it is Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a gun next to my head in campaign ads or Donald Trump threatening to ‘send me back’ to my country (despite the fact that I have been a proud citizen of the United States for more than 20 years), this constant stream of hate has led to hundreds of death threats and credible plots against me and my family.” The Minnesota congresswoman alleged that the Republican Party has “openly tolerated” antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and racism in their own party, citing McCarthy’s previous comments that Jewish billionaires were attempting to buy the 2018 midterm elections and the elevation of Rep. Tom Emmer, the newly elected third-ranking House Republican. read the complete article
"I was screaming and he was smiling": DeSantis ran Guantanamo torture
A recent episode of the Eyes Left Podcast reels in a first-person perspective testimony from a Yemeni ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee who was tortured at the hands of popular Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. The podcast was hosted by Mike Prysner, who is a US veteran that served in Iraq as a Specialist; his duties included ground surveillance and prisoner interrogation. What the podcast reveals is that DeSantis served as a JAG officer, which essentially means that he was a Judge Advocate General Corps. He was a law student, previously completing his undergraduate studies at Yale, where he was part of the Delta Cappa Epsilon like the two ‘Bushes’ – George HW Bush and his son, George Bush. Pro-Confederacy and blatantly racist, his political career with the Pentagon began immediately in his second year of law school. However, his job was never reduced to courtrooms, but rather to conduct rogue, clandestine operations – his official job, a guise, was to “ensure the human rights of detainees.” It was quite the opposite. In this podcast, Prysner interviews Mansoor Adayfi, who was deceived by DeSantis first-hand as the incumbent governor not only ordered his torture, but also sat, watched, and laughed. read the complete article