Tag Archives: Islamophobia

Kuwait’s retail co-ops have pulled French products in boycott over the use of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a French school class on freedom of expression whose teacher was then beheaded by a Chechen teenager. In Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, a hashtag calling for the boycott …

In 2017, Emmy-winning actor and activist Riz Ahmed gave a speech in Parliament about diversity on screen. “Representation is not an added thrill [because] what people are looking for is a message that they belong,” he said. Soon after, the Riz test – the equivalent of the Bechdel test for the representation of Muslims in …

A New Zealand judge sentenced white supremacist Brenton Tarrant to life in prison without parole on Thursday for killing 51 Muslim worshippers in the country’s deadliest shooting, saying the sentence was not enough punishment for the “wicked” crimes. It was the first time a court in New Zealand had sentenced …

Israel will bar a visit by two of its sharpest critics in the U.S. Congress, Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who planned to tour the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the country’s deputy foreign minister said on Thursday. “The decision has been made, the decision is not to …

Four progressive Democratic members of Congress vilified by U.S. President Donald Trump are “fantastic”, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Thursday. Trump tweeted over the weekend that the representatives known as “the squad” – Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and …

A video showing a Hindu woman being beaten up by the police for being in the company of a Muslim man has set Twitter on fire. The video posted by journalist @PiyushRaiTOI received thousands of retweets in a few hours, with tweeps expressing outrage at the fact that the common …

China is installing QR codes on the homes of the Uighur Muslimcommunity in order to get instant access to the personal details of people living there, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The development comes as part of a mass security crackdownon minorities in Xinjiang province, the charity said, which includes arbitrary detentions, daily restrictions …

By Labib Taha*   Considering the Palestinian cause from one angle, it seems to be in the most difficult situation since the emergence of the Palestinian tragedy more than a hundred years ago. The dangers that face the Palestinian people represented in attempts towards making the political division between the West …

A court in Myanmar sentenced two journalists to seven years in prison Monday for illegal possession of official documents. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, both Myanmar nationals and journalists for the Reuters news service, were arrested for violation of the country’s Official Secrets Act, which dates back …

•  Rashida Tlaib won the Democratic Party nomination for the US House of Representatives in Michigan on Tuesday. •  She will run unopposed in November, putting her on course to become the first Muslim woman in Congress. •  The 42-year-old is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, having been …

The “Jewish nation state” bill downgrades Arabic as an official language and says advancing Jewish settlement is a national interest. It also states that the “whole and united” Jerusalem is its capital. Israeli Arab MPs condemned the legislation but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised it as a “defining moment”. The …

Opponents conceded the supreme court had delivered a significant blow to their efforts with its 5-4 ruling in favour of Donald Trump’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. But groups that challenged Trump’s policy told the Guardian they were already preparing “the next front” of legal challenges. Until then, travellers …

Austria will expel “several” foreign-funded imams and shut seven mosques in a crackdown on “political Islam”, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Friday. Kurz said the moves came after an investigation by the religious affairs authority into images which emerged in April of children in Turkish-backed mosques playing dead and reenacting …

Denmark has joined some other European countries in banning garments that cover the face, including Islamic veils such as the niqab or burqa. In a 75-30 vote with 74 absentees, Danish lawmakers on Thursday approved the law presented by Denmark’s centre-right governing coalition. The government says that it is not …

Two boys aged 12 and 15 were gunned down in broad daylight in London on Sunday, the day after another teen was shot dead, police said, as the British capital grapples with a surge in violent crime. London’s Metropolitan Police said the pair were taken to hospitals after officers found …

An Arkansas man has been convicted of malicious wounding for beating a black man during a white nationalist rally last year in Charlottesville, Va. Jacob Scott Goodwin, 23, will be sentenced in August. The jury is recommending 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, local TV station NBC 29 reports. …

Mike Pompeo, the CIA director who was tapped by President Trump to lead the State Department, faces a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday. For the White House, it couldn’t come sooner. It’s not an ideal moment for the post of the United States’ top diplomat to …

The anonymous letters arrived this weekend in plain white envelopes with second-class stamps, and were sent to people in at least five communities in England. Inside was a message so hateful that it has sent ripples of alarm across the country and prompted a national counterterrorism investigation. The message says …

By Geoffrey Cook*   The friendly ties between India and Israel are only about twenty years old whereas rapprochement  started haltingly five years earlier in 1992.  They have become most friendly with the rise of the Narendra Modi and his Islamophobic BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) during 2014. Today their ties …

A British man has been convicted of attempted murder for running over a Muslim woman in a hate crime he saw as revenge for extremist attacks. A jury found Paul Moore guilty on Friday of the Septembe 20 attack, which left 47-year-old Zaynab Hussein with life-changing injuries. Prosecutors say 21-year-old …

A science fair project at a California high school faced criticism earlier this week after it compared race and IQ levels in connection to participation in an elite program at the school, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. The project, titled “Race and IQ,” was put together by a C.K. McClatchy …

The sole surviving suspect from the 2015 Paris terror attacks is refusing to speak any further in a Belgian court, where he is on trial over the gunfight that led to his arrest. Salah Abdeslam has said he will not respond to questions from the judge. “My silence does not …

By Sarah Safa* — From the mocking of children victims in a time of war, on the example of how, in a very bigoted, xenophobic, and intolerant way, the Syrian child, “Aylan Kurdi” was by a fanatical “Charlie Hebdo” French magazine, without any objection or position registered by the French government …

An appointee of President Trump has resigned from the federal agency that runs AmeriCorps and other service programs after remarks he made disparaging blacks, Muslims, gays, women, veterans with PTSD and undocumented immigrants surfaced in the news media. Carl Higbie lasted less than six months as the chief of external affairs in the Corporation for …

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the third version of the Trump administration’s travel ban to go into effect while legal challenges against it continue. The decision was a victory for the administration after its mixed success before the court over the summer, when justices considered and eventually dismissed disputes …

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Myanmar’s military action against the minority Muslim Rohingya population constitutes ethnic cleansing. He said the Rohingya had suffered “horrendous atrocities” and as a result the US was considering targeted sanctions against those responsible. In September, UN human rights chief Zeid Raad Al Hussein also …

A United Nations war crimes tribunal convicted Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general, on Wednesday of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims during the breakup of Yugoslavia. From 1992 to 1995, the tribunal found, Mr. Mladic, 75, was the chief military organizer …

Irish musician and activist Bob Geldof called Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi “a hand maiden to genocide” on Monday as he returned his Freedom of the City of Dublin award in protest over his fellow recipient’s response to the repression of Rohingya Muslims. “I don’t want to be on …

Muslim and civil rights groups on Tuesday challenged a Quebec ban on officials or anyone receiving public services from covering their faces, arguing it infringes on women’s and Muslim religious rights. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the National Council of Canadian Muslims asked the Quebec Superior Court to …

White nationalists groups that rallied Saturday in Shelbyville, Tennessee, were met by a large police presence and dozens of shouting counterprotesters. Hours later, a second rally planned in nearby Murfreesboro was canceled. The demonstrations, which organizers called the “White Lives Matter” rally, were planned by The League of the South, …

A federal judge in Maryland early Wednesday issued a second halt on the latest version of President Trump’s travel ban, asserting that the president’s own comments on the campaign trail and on Twitter convinced him that the directive was akin to an unconstitutional Muslim ban. U.S. District Judge Theodore D. …

By Thomas L. Friedman If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him …

Britain will limit sales of sulphuric acid and outlaw the sale of such corrosive substances to children after a spate of assaults and its possible use to make bombs, interior minister Amber Rudd said on Tuesday. Much to public alarm, the number of incidents where assailants have used acid has …

Dozens of people were arrested on Saturday as neo-Nazis and anti-fascists clashed with police during a march by the extreme right-wing Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) in Gothenburg, Sweden on Saturday, police said. The NMR gathered hundreds of people for the march. Membership in Nazi organizations is not illegal in Sweden …

The Trump administration announced new restrictions Sunday on visitors from eight countries — an expansion of the preexisting travel ban that has spurred fierce legal debates over security, immigration and discrimination. In announcing the new rules, officials said they are meant to be both tough and targeted. The move comes …

Doctors treating some of the 429,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in recent weeks have seen dozens of women with injuries consistent with violent sexual attacks, U.N. clinicians and other health workers said. The medics’ accounts, backed in some cases by medical notes reviewed by Reuters, …

By Emad El-Din Aysha   I watched 6 Days initially with some hesitation since it was about a hostage situation involving Muslim terrorists. It tells the true story, the untold story, of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London and the technically brilliant SAS operation that saved the day. The …

German officials found lists with over 5,000 names of possible targets, including over 100 politicians, during the raids on the homes and workplaces of two terrorism suspects in the east German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern last week, Die Welt newspaper reported on Friday. The newspaper, citing security sources, said one of …

An Iraq-born gunman died in a shootout with German police early Sunday after killing one person in a nightclub in the southern city of Konstanz, police said, ruling out terrorism as a motive. “The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear,” Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told broadcaster …

A federal judge in Michigan halted on Monday the deportation of more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals from the United States, the latest legal victory for the Iraqi nationals facing deportation in a closely watched case. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith granted a preliminary injunction requested by American Civil Liberties Union lawyers, …

John Tomlin, 24, arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after Jameel Mukhtar and Resham Khan were left with life-changing injuries last month. The chief suspect in an alleged acid attack on two cousins in east London has handed himself in to police. John Tomlin, 24, has been arrested on …

Dozens of religious leaders boarded a bus on the Champs Elysees in Paris on Saturday to kick off a European tour of the sites of recent Islamist attacks to remember the victims and condemn violence.    Imams from countries including France, Belgium, Britain and Tunisia were joined by representatives of other …

Eight people have been injured in a shooting outside a mosque in southern France, officials have confirmed. Worshippers leaving the Arrahma mosque in Avignon were approached by two hooded suspects at about 22:30 local time (21:30 GMT) on Sunday. The suspects, carrying a handgun and a shotgun, arrived in a …

A British man has been jailed after hitting a Muslim teen with a slab of bacon after hurling insults at her and her mother. Alex Chivers was sentenced at a London court on Thursday to six months in jail for assault and a public order offense. The 36-year-old admitted to …