Today in Islamophobia

A daily list of headlines about Islamophobia
compiled by the Bridge Initiative

Each day, the Bridge Initiative aims to bring you the news you need to know about Islamophobia. This resource will be updated every weekday at approximately 11:00 AM EST.

Today in Islamophobia Newsletter

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24 Nov 2020

Today in Islamophobia: In discussion with the New York Times on her new book, “Muslim Women Are Everything,” Dr. Seema Yasmin says the book was born out of a “frustration that the narratives about Muslim women were so one-sided, so narrow, so unimaginative.” Pope Francis has for the first time publicly named China’s Uyghur minority among a list of the world’s persecuted peoples. A Netflix show concerning a love story between a Muslim and a Hindu couple in the 1950s draws heated rebukes from Hindu nationalists in India, and a Uighur Muslim religious scholar is arrested in Saudi Arabia amid fears that he could be deported back to China. Our recommended read of the day is by Mira Kamdar on how the Macron government has taken legislative steps to curb core aspects of liberty in France. This and more below:


France

24 Nov 2020

France Is About to Become Less Free

In the name of upholding the core values of the French Republic, however, Macron’s government and members of his party have introduced new legislation that effectively restricts them. Unless the proposed laws are modified or scrapped, France will soon be a far less free country than it is now. read the complete article

Our recommended read of the day
23 Nov 2020

Olivier Roy: France's government fails to understand the nature of radicalisation

His arguments may go unheard among top government circles, but Olivier Roy, a French political scientist and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, is a prominent figure in the French intellectual world. His work sheds light on the mechanisms and complexities of radicalisation processes. In 2015, he coined the phrase the "Islamicisation of radicalism" as opposed to the "radicalisation of Islam", a theory put forward by another leading scholar of Islam, Gilles Kepel, who in a 2018 column accused Roy of being a "jihad de-negationist". read the complete article


United States

23 Nov 2020

On Accountability and the Next Presidency, Starting With the Cabinet

If the United States is truly to “Build Back Better,” as Biden has promised, the new administration must not nominate, appoint, or otherwise hire for its staff anyone responsible for serious abuses of power – whether during Trump’s presidency or preceding it – especially anyone complicit in torture or who frustrated oversight and accountability for torture. read the complete article

14 Nov 2020

The Mercer Family Is Funding the Right-Wing Social Network Parler: WSJ

Robert and Rebekah Mercer are funding the moderation-free Twitter alternative Parler, The Wall Street Journal reports. Neither the hedge fund billionaire nor his daughter commented to the Journal on why, but both have financed many of the highest-profile ultra-conservative causes of recent years like Cambridge Analytica, Breitbart News, and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The app has grown to 10 million users thanks in large part to conservatives chafing against other social networks’ content moderation policies, which, among other things, prohibit false claims that the election was stolen. read the complete article

23 Nov 2020

‘Muslim Women Are Everything’ Turns the Page on Stereotypes

More than 40 profiles of Muslim women — illustrated by Fahmida Azim — aim to tear down the tiresome tropes of what Muslim women are: what they look like, what they wear and what they do or don’t do. Page after page dares the reader to say these women cannot, or should not. As for Dr. Yasmin: She is a Cambridge-trained medical doctor, a specialist in epidemiology, a journalist and the director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. She teaches at Stanford and is a visiting professor at U.C.L.A. She didn’t get there easily. read the complete article

23 Nov 2020

Muslims reel over a prayer app that sold user data: ‘A betrayal from within our own community’

These features make it easier to practice the many daily rituals prescribed in Islam, turning Muslim Pro into the most popular Muslim app in the world, according to the app’s maker, Singapore-based BitsMedia. But revelations about the app’s data collection and sales practices have left some users wondering if the convenience is worth the risk. read the complete article

23 Nov 2020

MUSLIMS, TRUMP, AND ISLAMIC POLITICAL ETHICS

His disdain for Muslims, moreover, was not just a demagogic strategy to win votes: immediately upon assuming office, he issued an executive order banning immigration from thirteen predominantly Muslim countries, a ban colloquially known as “the Muslim Ban.” read the complete article

23 Nov 2020

Imagine if Kyle Rittenhouse was Muslim

On Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager accused of killing two people during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, posted his $2 million bail. My first reaction: Imagine if Rittenhouse was Muslim. Imagine if the 17-year-old's name was not Kyle Rittenhouse but, say, Khalid Rehman. read the complete article


India

23 Nov 2020

With a Kiss, Netflix Gets Tangled in India’s Religious Tensions

On television, Lata and Kabir are clandestine lovers thwarted by faith and history. She is Hindu and he a Muslim in India in the early 1950s, in the wake of bloody sectarian clashes that echo through the country to this day. At one point, in a secluded spot with a Hindu temple as the backdrop, the two young college students share a furtive but passionate kiss. read the complete article

24 Nov 2020

In India, a vocal Muslim party expands its base

Mudassir Nazar’s family has traditionally voted for opposition parties that espouse secularism but in the recently concluded elections in the eastern Indian state of Bihar they instead cast their ballot for the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) party which advocates for the rights of Muslims and other marginalised groups. read the complete article


International

24 Nov 2020

Pope Francis refers to China's Uyghurs as 'persecuted' for the first time

Pope Francis has for the first time publicly named China's Uyghur minority among a list of the world's persecuted peoples, breaking his silence on allegations of widespread human rights abuses in the country's far-western Xinjiang region. "I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uyghurs, the Yazidi -- what ISIS did to them was truly cruel -- or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church," Francis says in a new book, "Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future," published on Monday. read the complete article

23 Nov 2020

Uighur scholar arrested in Saudi Arabia at risk of deportation to China

A Uighur Muslim religious scholar was arrested in Saudi Arabia on Friday amid fears that he could be deported back to China. Activists fear that Aimadoula Waili, also known as Hemdullah Abduweli, who originates from the Xinjiang province in China, will be sent back to his home country following his arrest in the Gulf kingdom. read the complete article


Austria

23 Nov 2020

Austrian crackdown on Palestinian NGOs signals slide into tyranny

When hundreds of Austrian security and police personnel swooped on 70 addresses in Vienna at dawn on 9 November, leaving dozens of Austrian Muslim families terrorised, shocked and distraught, the initial assumption was that it was in response to an armed attack a week earlier which left four dead and 20 injured in central Vienna. read the complete article


Malaysia

Malaysian lawmaker calls for hate speech law after Reuters' Rohingya report

In opposition lawmaker called on Tuesday for Malaysia to outlaw online hate speech, accusing authorities of downplaying the gravity of an issue highlighted by a Reuters investigation into abuse on Facebook of Rohingya refugees and undocumented migrants. read the complete article


Myanmar

Myanmar's genocide against Rohingya not over, says rights group

The ICJ ordered Myanmar to cease the commission of genocidal acts, prevent the destruction of evidence of crimes against the Rohingya and report back to the UN every six months. “The genocide is still ongoing,” Tun Khin, president of Burma Rohingya Organisation UK, said in a statement on Monday, the deadline for the second report. The group is one of the most prominent Rohingya rights organisations. “The Myanmar government and military are calculating that they can safely ignore the provisional measures and not face any consequences,” he said. read the complete article

Today in Islamophobia, 24 Nov 2020 Edition

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March 13, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, President Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, meanwhile in the United Kingdom, a group of students at the University of Essex are facing potential expulsion after sharing a series of social media posts, including a video published by Middle East Eye marking the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and in France, a new promotional video by a Dutch clothing brand featuring the Eiffel Tower draped in an Islamic headscarf has sparked a barrage of anti-Muslim criticism and commentary. Our recommended read of the day is by Daisy Dumas for The Guardian on how the newest Islamophobia in Australia Report indicates that there were 309 in-person incidents between early 2023 and 2024, with girls and women being the most recurring victims. This and more below:

Regions: AustraliaEuropeFrancePalestineUKUnited States

March 12, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, released its 2024 civil rights report noting a record number of complaints of discrimination and Islamophobic attacks, while the White House is defending it’s arrest of pro-Palestinian protest leader and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, saying the Department of Homeland Security plans to arrest more protesters moving forward. Our recommended read of the day is by Imran Mulla for Middle East Eye on why Tell MAMA, an organization founded in 2012 to document Islamophobia cases in the UK, is losing its funding following accusations of severely under-reporting hate crimes. This and more below:

Regions: UKUnited States

March 11, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, a report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday said that the 8,658 complaints regarding anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents last year – representing a 7.4 percent rise year on year – was the highest number since the group began compiling data in 1996, while Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who helped organize on-campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, has been seized by ICE for “espousing pro-Hamas views” according to the Trump Administration, and in Canada, the University of Toronto’s Muslim Law Students’ Association (MLSA) released a statement expressing concerns over an online Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training course assigned to first-year law students that contained Islamophobic content. Our recommended read of the day is by Soumaya Ghannoushi for Middle East Eye on how, in his desperation for diplomatic support, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has aligned with far-right movements steeped in xenophobia and anti-Muslim hatred, who beneath their pro-Israel rhetoric still carry the same historical antisemitism. This and more below:

Regions: CanadaEuropeFranceSpainSwedenUKUnited States

March 10, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In Australia, Meta has blamed a “technical glitch” after an individual who reported an alleged threat against a Sydney mosque on Instagram received a notification saying it had not breached the platform’s community standards on violence, meanwhile in Israel, the country’s Justice Ministry has refused to include an explicit ban on racial discrimination by real estate agents in the new code of ethics for brokers set to take effect next week, and in the U.S., a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card. Our recommended read of the day is by Lizzie Dearden for The Guardian on the UK government’s decision to cut all funding for the Islamophobia reporting group Tell MAMA, leaving the organization in jeopardy of closure only weeks after the group reported on record rates of anti-Muslim activity in the country. This and more below:

Regions: AustraliaCanadaIsraelUKUnited States

March 7, 2025

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, the No BAN Act, introduced to Congress last month by Rep. Judy Chu and Senator Chris Coons, could stand as a challenge if passed against a potential Trump Muslim Ban 2.0, while the U.S. military is having trouble carrying out President Donald Trump’s order to hold 30,000 migrants in Guantánamo Bay, according to Defense Department Officials, and in Australia, the University of Sydney has apologized after initially telling a transgender international student she could face suspension after she allegedly wrote messages accusing the university of complicity in genocide in Gaza on campus whiteboards. Our recommended read of the day is by Jessica Buxbaum for The New Arab, who notes that the Israeli government engages with far-right parties in Europe because they both embrace Islamophobia. This and more below:

Regions: AustraliaEuropeIsraelUnited States

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