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SearchToday 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
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
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
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
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
‘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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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