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SearchToday in Islamophobia: Islamophobia continues to rise in Sri Lanka. In the U.S, a North Dakota GOP member shares debunked photo calling Congresswoman Ilhan Omar a terrorist, even as a man accused of attacking 3 Muslim women appears in court in California. Our recommended listen today is Bridge’s latest podcast episode featuring Dr. James Zogby titled “Where do we go from here?” This, and more, below:
United States
Podcast | Where do we go from here? | Recommended Read
After the campaign was over, we decided, a group of us, what was precisely missing from the community. That if you’re weak and you have no political power, then you can get defamed, then you can get defined by those who have power. But if you are organized and you have political power, you define yourself. And so we realized the problem was: Arab-Americans did not have political power. In Dearborn, Michigan in ‘85, right after we started the Institute, [we wanted] to build on the work of the Jackson campaign. read the complete article
Muslim family says "Trump supporter" harassed them at TJ Maxx store, yelled "go back to your own country"
Mido Mourad, a journalist from Cairo, Egypt, who lives in New York City, said he was shopping with his wife and children in the TJ Maxx store in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday. He said they had been standing near the cash register when a woman approached and started cursing at his wife, who wears a hijab, a head covering worn by some Muslim women. Mourad said the woman yelled at his family to "go back to your country" in front of TJ Maxx employees and other customers. He claimed TJ Maxx employees didn't help and so he called police. While waiting for officers to arrive, he alleged that the woman assaulted him outside the store as he filmed her. Mourad later posted a brief clip of that incident on Facebook in which he referred to the woman as a "Trump supporter," which has been viewed more than 20,000 times. read the complete article
Muslim employee claims discrimination by New York DMV over Friday prayers
Last week, CAIR also filed two separate complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involving allegations of discrimination against Muslim workers. One involves a Delaware woman who claims she was prohibited from clocking-in to work at a detention center because of her hijab and was told she was “looking like a terrorist.” The other is a wrongful termination claim against Walmart on behalf of an Ohio employee whose coworkers and managers allegedly made hostile comments such as “Muslims should not be in America,” and “Muslims kill Americans … Trump will stop that.” The complaint against the New York DMV was brought on behalf of a 40-year-old Bengali man who has worked as a part-time Motor Vehicle representative since January. Soon after he was hired, the employee successfully requested a religious accommodation to use his 45-minute lunch break as part of a one-hour break to attend the Islamic congregational Jummah prayer on Friday afternoons. When that accommodation expired in May, the employee requested an extension of the accommodation. But because daily prayer times shift slightly throughout the year based on the lunar calendar in Islam, he asked that his break be shifted to 1:30–2:30 p.m. The DMV denied this second request, according to the employee’s complaint, as well as a third request that asked for the same accommodation. read the complete article
Murrow professor’s book examines America’s tumultuous relationship with Islam
A book by Washington State University professor Lawrence Pintak examines the damage caused by the anti‑Muslim rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign in the context of centuries of stereotyping of Muslims and decades of U.S. policies that brought simplistic solutions to the complex problems of the Middle East. “America & Islam: Soundbites, Suicide Bombs and the Road to Donald Trump” punctures key stereotypes that shape American perceptions of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims, such as the notion that Islam is a monolith, as epitomized by President Donald Trump’s comment during the campaign that “Islam hates us.” Pintak, a former CBS News Middle East correspondent and founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, also examines the role of the media in fueling anti‑Muslim sentiment. read the complete article
A Top DHS Staffer Who Defended The Muslim Travel Ban Now Works At Google
Miles Taylor, who previously served as chief of staff to former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, started at the search and advertising giant last month as a government affairs and public policy manager. His LinkedIn profile confirms the change, though he lists his title on the professional social network as "head of national security policy engagement." Google's employment of Taylor — who previously argued in favor of what he called a “tough” but “tailored” version of a controversial Trump administration rule that barred visitors from six Muslim-majority countries — follows heavy criticism of the travel ban from Google’s senior leadership and cofounders. In January 2017, following the announcement of the original travel ban, Google cofounder Sergey Brin joined protesters at San Francisco International Airport to object to the policy, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointedly voiced his displeasure on Twitter and in an email to staff. read the complete article
North Dakota GOP state lawmaker shares debunked photo, calls Omar a 'terrorist'
A North Dakota Republican state senator on Monday reportedly shared a debunked photo on Facebook that he claimed included Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) carrying a weapon at an al-Quaeda training camp. The post no longer appears on Sen. Oley Larsen’s Facebook page. Screenshots posted by the Grand Forks Herald show that he shared the picture with the caption: “Congresswoman at a Al’ Qaida training camp in Somalia. She is trying to get this picture blocked Share it everywhere.” read the complete article
Man Accused of Attacking 3 Muslim Women Appears in Court
Kyle Allen, 50, appeared before a judge for the first time on Monday, pleading not guilty to three counts of battery with an additional hate crime charge. That hate crime addition allows the three counts of battery to be classified as felonies instead of misdemeanors. If Allen is convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of 4 years and 4 months in prison. Though Trinh said more charges could be added. read the complete article
Sri lanka
(C)overt Islamophobia: the aftermath of the Sri Lanka Easter attacks
Using a methodology (Critical Discourse Analysis) that is designed to unveilthe dominant discourses that affect oppression, injustice and inequality and criticizes them, and particularly the Discourse-Historical Approach- I was able to detect the presence of recurrent patterns, specially topoi (in rhetoric, warrants that make a connection between the arguments and the conclusions) among other revealing linguistic patterns. However, while that was the Islamophobic discourse in the island’s media, when I studied the same chain of events (the ethnic problems in Digana and Ampara) in other social media platforms like YouTube the comments on the videos about those clashes ( posted by Sri Lankans but also by speakers out of the island who are probably not fully aware of the socio-political context there), - displayed painful endless threads of hate basically praising and supporting the attacks addressed at the Sri Lankan Muslim community. A common pattern in the comments is the demonization of Muslims as inherently guilty actors just because of their faith and consequently deserving all the attacks;some speakers even encouraging the extremist Buddhist attackers to make of Sri Lanka a second Myanmar: “I stand with Buddhist monks of Myanmar & Sri Lanka”, “ Purge the land, clean it”, “Muslims are violent against EVERYONE ELSE on the entire planet, but they sure cry a lot when people fight back.” read the complete article
China
China’s attacks on Uighur women are crimes against humanity
As Tursun’s translator, Zubayra Shamseden, who is also the outreach coordinator for the U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, wrote in an essay back in April, the Chinese government “wants to erase Uighur culture and identity by remaking its women.” Shamseden’s take — that if you want to eradicate a people, you must destroy its women — was not lost on the drafters of the Genocide Convention or the lawyers who shaped the doctrine of crimes against humanity. Both include nonlethal atrocities that are disproportionately perpetrated against women. Acts designed to prevent births and forcibly transfer children from their families could constitute genocide. Similarly, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization and sexual violence each constitute a crime against humanity. read the complete article