Tag Archives: Islamophobia

The Dutch parliament on Thursday passed a non-binding motion saying the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in China amounts to genocide, the first such move by a European country. Activists and UN rights experts say at least one million Muslims are being detained in camps in the remote western …

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed on Friday to press ahead with laws to force Facebook Inc to pay news outlets for content, saying he had received support from world leaders after the social media giant blacked out all media. Facebook stripped the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets …

Social media is inundated with offensive content, including hate, anger, personal attacks and, of course, exaggerated and false claims. Much of it is driven by angry political hyperbole and partisan attacks. It can be nauseating. But every once in a while you come across a social media account that is …

Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday it would temporarily reduce political content appearing on New Feeds for some users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week and in the United States within the coming weeks. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in January that he wanted to “turn down the temperature” …

The U.S. Navy’s top admiral on Tuesday condemned two new racist incidents involving hate symbols on warships, which sources said included a noose that was left on a Black sailor’s bed. The incidents, which occurred in recent weeks, underscore deep concerns about racism in the ranks. The cases come as …

Florida lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, intensified their battle with Facebook, Twitter and Silicon Valley when they announced new proposals Tuesday aimed at reigning in platforms they accuse of squelching the free speech of conservatives. “Over the years, these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provide Americans with the …

Myanmar’s military seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in early morning raids. The army said it had carried out the detentions in …

A leading figure in the UK’s Muslim community has been appointed to chair one of the country’s largest independent food banks, vowing to confront the poverty that has spiked in his community since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. British-Pakistani Londoner Muddassar Ahmed rose to prominence by heading one of …

Israeli media have lashed out at BBC for airing a program on Jesus in which it claimed he was a Palestinian. The BBC World Service radio program Heart and Soul aired a program on December 18 in which presenter Robert Beckford noted that artistic depictions of Jesus as blonde and …

Children’s TV show “Sesame Street” has unveiled its first Rohingya Muppets to help thousands of refugee children overcome trauma and tackle the pandemic’s impact in the world’s largest refugee settlement in Bangladesh. Six-year-old twins, Noor and Aziz Yasmin, will feature alongside the show’s famous characters like Elmo and Louie in …

Austrian police seized a huge cache of automatic weapons, explosives and hand grenades intended to arm right-wing extremist groups in Germany, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said on Saturday. Five people were arrested following a series of house searches, Nehammer told a press conference in Vienna. “We have struck a massive …

More must be done by the international community to come to the aid of the Rohingya people and more pressure must be put on Myanmar to reform its behavior, experts said on Friday. Dr. Azeem Ibrahim and Prof. Michael Charney, speaking at a webinar hosted by the Arab News Research …

The creator of an animated film on blasphemy in Pakistan is hoping it will prompt discussion on tolerance at a time that rights advocates say hate speech on social media is increasingly triggering violence. The short film “Swipe” is about a boy obsessed with a hypothetical smartphone app that allows …

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he hoped France would soon get rid of President Emmanuel Macron, describing him as a burden on France which was going through dangerous times. Ties between Turkey and France, both NATO members, have been particularly tense in recent months over policy differences on …

Murtaza Khademi left his home in Afghanistan and smuggled himself into France because he thought he would be safe, but this week he encountered a different side of Europe: a police operation in which, he says, he was beaten with a truncheon. “The police forces had no mercy. We thought …

More than half of Muslim members of the UK’s main opposition Labour Party question its leaders’ ability to tackle Islamophobia, a new survey has found. The study, conducted by the Labour Muslim Network (LMN), revealed that 55 percent of Muslim members said they do not “trust the leadership to tackle …

With the spike in the number of podcast listeners this year, there has been an increase in podcasters as well. “Mo Show” is one such podcast, with just one goal: “To set the narrative about Saudi Arabia straight.” The “Mo Show” is a way to show Saudis and the outside …

A gun attack on the Saudi Embassy in the Netherlands was on Thursday condemned by Islamic organizations and the international community. Shots were fired at the Kingdom’s diplomatic mission in The Hague, a day after a bomb attack at a World War I remembrance service in Jeddah injured at least …

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 …