Tuesday, December 26, 2017

2017: The Year Islamophobia Went Mainstream

Islamophobia is no longer extreme; the year 2017 saw it go mainstream in Europe, India, the United States and several other parts of the world.

Openly Islamophobic Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States in 2017. India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh elected rabidly anti-Muslim chief minister Yogi Adiyanath who was hand-picked by Muslim-hating Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017.  Neo-Nazis made significant electoral gains with their anti-Islam rhetoric in several European nations while Burma and Israel continued to get away with the murder of  innocent Muslim civilians in 2017.

These alarming trends are reminiscent of the rise of Nazi Party led by Germany's Adolf Hitler who brought disaster to Europe and the rest of the world less than a century ago.

Trump's Muslim Ban:

The year of Islamophobia began in earnest on January 20, 2017 with the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump who called for "total and complete shutdown" of  Muslims entering the United States during his successful electoral campaign. Among the first executive orders he signed was a "Muslim Ban" from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Then came an avalanche of a large number of Islamophobic tweets and retweets from Trump's twitter account. Some recent Trump retweets were of tweets from Britain First's Jayda Fransen. These tweets and retweets were swiftly denounced by top British and Dutch officials. Trump did not apologize.

Trump developed a pattern of using terror attacks to tweet against Muslims while ignoring similar or worse terror attacks by others.

Trump closed the year with recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a recognition that prior US administrations had withheld pending negotiations and final settlement of the issues between Israelis and Palestinians.

Hindu Nazis in India:

Yogi Adiyanath, known for his highly inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric, was hand-picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to head India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.

Yogi wants to "install statues of Goddess Gauri, Ganesh and Nandi in every mosque”.  Before his election, he said, “If one Hindu is killed, we won’t go to the police, we’ll kill 10 Muslims”.  He endorsed the beef lynching of Indian Muslim Mohammad Akhlaque and demanded that the victim's family be charged with cow slaughter.

In an op ed titled "Hitler's Hindus: The Rise and Rise of India's Nazi-Loving Nationalists" published by leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz, author Shrenik Rao has raised alarm bells about "large and growing community of Indian Hindu Nazis, who are digitally connected to neo-Nazi counterparts across the world".


Rao talks about Nagpur, a town he describes as the "epicenter of Hindu Nationalism", where he found  ‘Hitler’s Den’ pool parlor "that shocked me on a round-India trip 10 years ago was no outlier. Admiration for Nazism – often reframed with a genocidal hatred for Muslims – is rampant in the Hindu nationalist camp, which has never been as mainstream as it is now".

Hindu nationalists in India have a long history of admiration for the Nazi leader, including his "Final Solution". In his book "We" (1939), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the leader of the Hindu Nationalist RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) wrote, "To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

Golwalkar, considered the founder of the Hindu Nationalist movement in India, saw Islam and Muslims as enemies. He said: “Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting to shake off the despoilers".

Islamophobia in Europe:

Dutch expert Cas Mudde, an associate professor at the University of Georgia summed up the rise of Islamophobes in Europe well when he said: "The far right in Europe is more popular today than it was at any time in postwar history".

Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), a modern re-incarnation of Hitler's Nazi Party, stunned the world by becoming the third largest party in German Bundestag in 2017.

Last year, AFD's anti-Islam policies replaced its anti-EU focus with the slogan “Islam is not a part of Germany” emerging from the party’s spring 2017 conference.

In Austria, far-right Freedom Party candidate Sebastian Kurz was recently elected chancellor on the party's anti-Islam platform.

Earlier in 2017, the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders became the second largest force in parliament.

The French National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen received nearly 34 percent of votes in the May 2017 presidential run-off that was won by Emmanuel Macron.

Neo-Nazis and Hindu Nazis on Social Media:

The advent and growth of online social media have enabled a large and growing community of Indian Hindu Nazis connected to neo-Nazi counterparts in Europe and America.  This came to light a few years ago when the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto against the "Islamization of Western Europe" was heavily influenced by the kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric which is typical of the Nazi-loving Hindu Nationalists like late Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973), and his present-day Sangh Parivar followers and sympathizers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who currently rule several Indian states. This Hindutva rhetoric which infected Breivik has been spreading like a virus on the Internet, particularly on many of the well-known Islamophobic hate sites that have sprouted up in Europe and America in recent years. In fact, much of the Breivik manifesto is cut-and-pastes of anti-Muslim blog posts and columns that validated his worldview.

"It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical," Breivick wrote in his manifesto. The Christian Science Monitor has reported that "in the case of India, there is significant overlap between Breivik’s rhetoric and strains of Hindu nationalism – or Hindutva – on the question of coexistence with Muslims. Human rights monitors have long decried such rhetoric in India for creating a milieu for communal violence, and the Norway incidents are prompting calls here to confront the issue."

Indian Textbooks Praise Nazis:

Adulation for for Hitler has found its way into Indian textbooks to influence young impressionable minds. Here's how Rao describes it:

In 2004, when now-Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, school textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board portrayed Hitler as a hero, and glorified fascism.

The tenth-grade social studies textbook had chapters entitled "Hitler, the Supremo," and "Internal Achievements of Nazism." The section on the "Ideology of Nazism" reads: "Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race." The tenth-grade social studies textbook, published by the state of Tamil Nadu in 2011 (with multiple revised editions until 2017) includes chapters glorifying Hitler, praising his "inspiring leadership," "achievements" and how the Nazis "glorified the German state" so, "to maintain a German race with Nordic elements, [Hitler] ordered the Jews to be persecuted."

Mein Kampf has also gone mainstream, becoming a "must-read" management strategy book for India’s business school students. Professors teaching strategy lecture about how a short, depressed man in prison made a goal of taking over the world and built a strategy to achieve it.

Modi and Trump:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has built his entire political career on the intense hatred of  Muslims. US President Donald Trump built his successful presidential campaign on Islamophobia and xenophobia. That's what the two men have in common.

Just as white racists form the core of Trump's support base in America, the Modi phenomenon in India has been fueled by Hindu Nationalists whose leaders have praised Adolph Hitler for his hatred of Jews.

M.S. Golwalkar, a Hindu Nationalist who Mr. Modi has described as "worthy of worship" wrote the following about Muslims in his book "We":

 "Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”

"To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

Summary:

The simultaneous rise of Neo Nazis in the West and the Hindu Nazis in India represents a very serious and growing threat to world peace. Their combined menace can lead to a devastating third world war with nuclear weapons if these trends are not halted and reversed soon. I hope good sense prevails among the voters in these countries to pull the world back from the brink of human catastrophe.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Hindu Nationalists Love Nazis

A Conversation With White Nationalist Jared Taylor on Race in America

Lynchistan: India is the Lynching Capital of the World

Modi and Trump

Anders Breivik: Islamophobia in Europe and India

Hindu Nationalism Goes Global

Hindutva: The Legacy of the British Raj


61 comments:

Ejaz N. said...

Most polls show Americans have negative perception of Islam and Muslims. The data from Pew Research Center and other studies will surprise many

Riaz Haq said...

Ejaz: "Most polls show Americans have negative perception of Islam and Muslims. The data from Pew Research Center and other studies will surprise many"

CNN's Van Jones on American Muslims: "American Muslim community has the lowest crime rate, the highest entrepreneurship, the highest educational attainment for women in the country (US). They are the model American community. And so, when you have people who are now afraid to come here--that's starting to happen--you have geniuses from Pakistan, who are from Indonesia, who now (think to themselves) "I'm not safe here". That becomes an economic problem for America long term. So that we're starting to do stuff here that doesn't make good sense for what has made us great so far."

http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/12/van-jones-on-muslims-model-american.html

Ravi Krishna said...

Will Riaz try to explain why muslims are universally hated?

Riaz Haq said...

RK: "Will Riaz try to explain why muslims are universally hated?"

First, I challenge the premise of your question. There's been a lot of resistance from large numbers of Americans and Europeans against anti-Muslim hate groups. Many Muslims and Pakistanis have been elected as mayors and members of parliament across the Western world in the last few years. The most prominent is British Pakistani Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan of London.

Second, blaming victims of hate is as old as as the history of hate itself; only the victims have changed over the years.
The oldest form of this is mysogeny: blaming women for discrimination and violence against them.
An entire field of study called "victimology" has been devoted to it.

Let me quote Martin Niemöller who's is perhaps best remembered for the following quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Haseeb R. said...

There are open minded Hindus in India. Here is one:
A truthful post on FB by Priyanka Goenka, an unbiased hindu from India... :

"Under Muslims rule India was the richest country, amounting to almost 27% of world GDP, Muslims united this nation into one entity, gave it an identity. Prior to Muslims arrival for almost 1000 years India was divided into several nations fighting each other. Muslims gave most beautiful architectural building of the world.

Muslims gave education system, specially prior to Muslims there was no history recording except stories.

While half the world in 11th to 13th century was being plundered, burnt, raped, destroyed by Mongols including Muslim lands, it was Muslims who fought, sacrificed their lives and protected India from the savage Mongols. This in itself is a great service to India.

Today the stupid HINDUTVA don't remember the brutal role of British which plundered India for 200 years and reduced GDP from 27% of world to less than 4%. British policies killed over 4 million Indians. It is their legacy of "Divide & Rule" which BJP is following.

Muslims are nothing to be ashamed of their history, infact they are the makers of India!"

Parvati Goenka post 👇🏽
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=451150461948846&id=100011616883687

Riaz Haq said...

India’s pre-colonial economy considered as a golden age of prosperity under Mughal period, amounting to almost 27% of world GDP, said former union minister Shashi Tharoor on a recent visit to Australia for Melbourne Writers Festivals 2017.
The Congress MP appearing on national channel ABC’s #QandA (Question and Answer) on September 04, 2017, described at length how India’s textiles, dominated mostly by Muslims, were systematically destroyed by the British.

“The British came to one of the richest countries in the world when the GDP was almost 27% in the 17th century, 23% in the18th. But, over 200 years of exploitation, loot and destruction reduced India to a poster child for third world poverty”, he said in reply to a question about the British rule in India.

“But when they left India in 1947, 90% of the population was living under below poverty level. Literacy rate was below 17% and growth rate from 1900 to 1947 was a meager 0.001%”, he said.
“The fact is in the name of free trade the British came in and destroyed the free trade that had made India leading exporter of textiles.

“The British soldiers smashed looms so people couldn’t practice their craft. They imposed punitive duties and taxes on the export of Indian textiles while lifting duties on import of British cloth”, he said.

“Cities like Dhaka and Murshidabad were depopulated. In one notorious incident weavers’ thumbs were cut so that they could not operate on looms.

“India’s textile industry was systematically destroyed by the British”, he added.

India’s trade was in a healthy state and it became the largest economy by 1700, amounting to almost 27% of world GDP, until the mid-18th century, prior to British rule.

This is not the first time Tharoor praises for Muslim rulers. Earlier in August 2017, speaking at Mountain Echoes Literary Festival in Bhutan’s capital Thimpu, Tharoor said that he did not regard Muslim rulers as foreigners.

“I am talking about the British who came and ruled us for the benefit of a country far away. For the Prime Minister, Muslim rulers who originally came to India to rule but stayed in India, assimilated and intermarried are also considered foreigners. To me they are not foreigners. If they stole and looted, they spent their loot here. They did not send it back to another country like the British,” Tharoor is quoted as saying in a report by NDTV.

“To me they are not foreigners. If they stole and looted, they spent their loot here. They did not send it back to another country like the British,” Tharoor said in a direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated claim of “1,200 years of foreign rule”.

https://www.siasat.com/news/muslim-rule-india-richest-country-27-world-gdp-shashi-tharoor-1245760/

Riaz Haq said...

A leading member of #Germany's anti-#Islam AfD has resigned after converting to Islam. #Islamophobia

http://www.newsweek.com/anti-islam-party-politician-resigns-converts-islam-789238

A German politician who was a member of a controversial far-right party that believes "Islam is not a part of Germany" has resigned amid reports that he has converted to Islam.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported that Arthur Wagner left the Alternative for Germany (AfD), where he was a member in the eastern state of Brandenburg, citing personal reasons for his decision.

But speaking to Germany’s Berliner Zeitung newspaper on Tuesday, AfD spokesman Daniel Friese claimed that Wanger had converted to Islam and that the AfD had “no problem with that.”

The anti-immigration party received a surge in support in Germany's 2017 election, securing a record 12.6% of the vote and raising pressure on embattled Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had been outspoken in her support for refugees and migrants settling in the country.

Starting out as a Eurosceptic party less than a decade ago, the AfD capitalized on popular discontent about Merkel's policy on refugees, particularly in her home state of Bavaria, using openly anti-Muslim rhetoric in its campaign material. The party won 94 seats in parliament, although two of those members have since left.

While widely perceived as anti-Muslim, AfD officials have argued that while they reject multiculturalism, they support freedom of religion.

Wagner, who was once a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), joined the AfD in 2015, as the party began ramping up its anti-Muslim rhetoric. A manifesto approved by the party a year later even called for banning the call to prayer and the full face veil in public.

The Russian-German politician was tight-lipped on the reasons for his reported conversion, telling national newspaper Der Tagesspiegel that the matter was “my private business” but insisted that the AfD had not pressured him to leave their ranks.

The AfD’s stances are on the fringes of German politics but polls show they have only increased their popularity since the September election, while Merkel's winning CDU has failed to assemble a majority coalition. Polling at 14 percent, the AfD are only four points adrift from the second biggest party in Germany—the Social Democrats, Politico reported.

The left wing party initially ruled out joining Merkel in a coalition government for another term but as other possibilities for a deal with non-AfD parties in parliament have been unsuccessful, the Social Democrats have voted to begin coalition talks again.

Riaz Haq said...

Anti #Muslim protest gets prayer room scrapped at #PeyongChang2018 Winter Olympics #Islamophobia

https://sports.yahoo.com/anti-muslim-protests-pyeongchang-get-winter-olympics-prayer-room-scrapped-141802474.html

By and large, PyeongChang has gone out of its way to welcome the world for the 2018 Winter Olympics. But not everyone in the South Korean host city is feeling the Olympic spirit.

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has announced that it will no longer go forward with plans to set up a mobile multi-faith prayer room for spectators in Gangneung, where all of the Games’ indoor events are taking place, following “strong opposition” from anti-Muslim protestors, according to Al Jazeera’s Haeyoon Kim and Faras Ghani.

“We sat down with them for talks, but in the end, we had to cancel the plans,” Gangneung city government tourism division chief Kang Suk-ho told Al Jazeera.

The KTO’s Kim Yeong-ju told Korea Exposé’s Ho Kyeong Jang that opposition to the prayer rooms was so strong that local officials “could no longer do their jobs.”

Much of the hostility has flowed from the PyeongChang Olympics Gangwon Citizens’ Islam Countermeasure Association, a relatively new group that pushed a petition against the prayer room via Google. The petition — which stoked fear about radical Islam in the South Korean province of Gangwon — has collected more than 56,000 digital signatures.

“The government has already spent too much of the taxpayers’ money on the Games, and we shouldn’t spend more building a prayer room,” Seo Ji-hyun, the director of operations at the Islam Countermeasure Association, told Al Jazeera. He also suggested that Muslims should refrain from prayer at the Olympic Games as they supposedly would while flying or driving.

Islamophobia is nothing new in South Korea, where Muslims comprise just 0.2 percent of an overall population of 51 million. The Citizens’ Association for a Proper Country, a civic group led by Jeong Hyeong-man, has advocated against halal-friendly establishments and warned against “the increase of Muslim terrorist bases in Korea.”

Muslim athletes in PyeongChang still have access to a cafeteria serving certified halal food. And all visitors to the Winter Games who adhere to the faith can count on vociferous support from the Korean Muslim Federation.

“This decision demonstrates that we, as a host country, lack thoughtful understanding,” Lee Ju-hwa, a KMF representative, told Al Jazeera in a statement, before adding, “Instead of claiming that the installation of a prayer room is preferential treatment given to a certain religion, we need to raise awareness that it was to consider others with different faith and beliefs.”

The move comes as another blow to the host country’s attempts to bolster its image as a “Muslim-friendly Korea.” According to the KTO, South Korea saw a 33-percent year-over-year increase in Muslim tourists between 2015 and 2016, and welcomed 1.7 million members of the faith as visitors in 2017.

Riaz Haq said...

By rewriting history, #Hindu nationalists lay claim to #India. #Modi has appointed committee of #Hindutva "scholars" to change #India's national identity to one based on #Hindu religion. #Islamophobia #Pakistan http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture … via @SpecialReports

By RUPAM JAIN and TOM LASSETER Filed March 6, 2018, 11 a.m. GMT

NEW DELHI - During the first week of January last year, a group of Indian scholars gathered in a white bungalow on a leafy boulevard in central New Delhi. The focus of their discussion: how to rewrite the history of the nation.

The government of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi had quietly appointed the committee of scholars about six months earlier. Details of its existence are reported here for the first time.

Minutes of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, and interviews with committee members set out its aims: to use evidence such as archaeological finds and DNA to prove that today’s Hindus are directly descended from the land’s first inhabitants many thousands of years ago, and make the case that ancient Hindu scriptures are fact not myth.

Interviews with members of the 14-person committee and ministers in Modi’s government suggest the ambitions of Hindu nationalists extend beyond holding political power in this nation of 1.3 billion people - a kaleidoscope of religions. They want ultimately to shape the national identity to match their religious views, that India is a nation of and for Hindus.

In doing so, they are challenging a more multicultural narrative that has dominated since the time of British rule, that modern-day India is a tapestry born of migrations, invasions and conversions. That view is rooted in demographic fact. While the majority of Indians are Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths account for some 240 million, or a fifth, of the populace.

The committee’s chairman, K.N. Dikshit, told Reuters, “I have been asked to present a report that will help the government rewrite certain aspects of ancient history.” The committee’s creator, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, confirmed in an interview that the group’s work was part of larger plans to revise India’s history.

For India’s Muslims, who have pointed to incidents of religious violence and discrimination since Modi took office in 2014, the development is ominous. The head of Muslim party All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, Asaduddin Owaisi, said his people had “never felt so marginalised in the independent history of India.”

“The government,” he said, “wants Muslims to live in India as second-class citizens.”

Modi did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

INTO THE CLASSROOM

Helping to drive the debate over Indian history is an ideological, nationalist Hindu group called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It helped sweep Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 2014 and now counts among its members the ministers in charge of agriculture, highways and internal security.

The RSS asserts that ancestors of all people of Indian origin - including 172 million Muslims - were Hindu and that they must accept their common ancestry as part of Bharat Mata, or Mother India. Modi has been a member of the RSS since childhood. An official biography of Culture Minister Sharma says he too has been a “dedicated follower” of the RSS for many years.

Referring to the emblematic colour of the Hindu nationalist movement, RSS spokesman Manmohan Vaidya told Reuters that “the true colour of Indian history is saffron and to bring about cultural changes we have to rewrite history.”

Riaz Haq said...

#India is a ‘republic of fear’. #Modi's guru Savarkar writes that the #rape of #Muslim women is justifiable and that not to do so when the occasion permits is not virtuous or chivalrous, but cowardly. #Islamophobia #AsifaBano #Kashmir

India is a ‘republic of fear’. The UK must keep the pressure on Modi
Amrit Wilson
The Indian PM is in Britain. Let’s hold him to account for the horrific rapes committed in the name of Hindu nationalism

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/18/india-republic-fear-narendra-modi-britain?__twitter_impression=true

The writings of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the revered icon of the Hindu right make Hindutva ideology and the notion of a Hindu nation crystal clear. In the context of rape, for example, he writes that the rape of Muslim women is justifiable and that not to do so when the occasion permits is not virtuous or chivalrous, but cowardly.

Such writings legitimised the rapes and murders of Muslim women in Gujarat in 2002, and the recent Kathua child-rape case. As feminist academic Tanika Sarkar wrote about Gujarat, “the pattern of cruelty suggests three things: One that a women’s body was a site of almost inexhaustible violence, with infinitely plural and innovative forms of torture. Second, their sexual and reproductive organs were attacked with a special savagery. Third, their children born and unborn shared the attacks and were killed before their eyes.”

----------

It would be wrong however to see these cases as simply part of the violence against women which has been endemic in India. In Kathua, in Jammu and Kashmir state, an eight-year-old Muslim girl was abducted, drugged and brutally gang-raped and murdered in a Hindu temple by a group of men. According to the charge sheet of those arrested, it was planned and executed in order to terrorise the nomadic Muslim Bakarwal community to which she belonged and drive them out of the region. The attempt to lodge the charge sheet against the accused at a local court was followed by violent protests in their defence by a pro-Modi Hindu rightwing outfit, the Hindu Ekta Manch. Two BJP ministers attended the protests and urged the crowd to obstruct the prosecution of the accused.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/18/india-republic-fear-narendra-modi-britain?__twitter_impression=true

Riaz Haq said...

Rape as a political tool in India
The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from a Muslim minority group is not just about gender violence.

Mariya Salim by Mariya Salim


https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/rape-political-tool-india-180419091411624.html


The gruesome rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua district of Indian-administered Kashmir is a chilling reminder of how sexual assault is used as a tool to instil fear among those belonging to the minority communities in India.

There have been many Indians, especially on social media platforms, who have repeatedly claimed that one must look at this rape as a gender violence crime. But to turn a blind eye to the events that took place before and after her murder and to her belonging to the Bakarwal nomadic minority would be grossly unfair.

The official investigation has already shown that there is a hate crime element to the rape and murder - in other words, the victim being attacked by her murderers had a lot to do with her being a Muslim Bakarwal.

The charge sheet reads:

In the course of investigation, it transpired that [one of the accused] was against the settlement of Bakarwals in Rasana Kootah, and Dhamyal area, and always kept on motivating the members of his community of the area not to provide land for grazing or any other kind of assistance…

[Two of the accused] were also against the settlement of Bakarwals in Rasana, Kootah and Dhamyal area who had already discussed this issue [...] to Chalk out a strategy for dislodging the Bakarwals from the area. They were blaming the Bakarwals on one pretext or the other and used to threaten them...

This apart during investigation it transpired that a particular community had a general impression that the Bakarwals indulge in cow slaughter and drug trafficking and that their children were turning into drug addicts...

Thus during investigation it has become abundantly clear that the accused had a reason to act against the Bakarwal Community and hence the conspiracy ultimately resulting into the gruesome rape and brutal murder …"



One could easily see in these lines elements of the demonising stereotypes that have provoked attacks on minorities across India in recent years. In 2017 alone, accusations of cow slaughter (forbidden in most Indian states) against minority communities resulted in dozens of mob lynching and 11 deaths.

Furthermore, tensions between the Hindu majority and minorities have also resulted in communal violence in the past in which women and girls have been specifically targeted, as was the case in Gujarat in 2002 and Uttar Pradesh in 2013.

In this sense, it is difficult to see the sexual assault and murder in Kathua only in the framework of gender violence. Unfortunately, we live at a time when rape has become a political tool to instil fear among minority groups in India.

Riaz Haq said...

Why India's rape crisis is getting worse under Narendra Modi
Shashank Bengali


http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-india-rape-2018-story.html


An 8-year-old Muslim girl was locked in a Hindu shrine, drugged, gang-raped for several days and bludgeoned to death with a stone.

As if the January killing in northern India weren't horrifying enough, lawyers and right-wing Hindus this month marched in defense of her assailants. Prime Minister Narendra Modi waited several days before condemning the crime, which was reported by police this month, then accused his critics of politicizing the issue.

The case has provoked nationwide outrage not seen since 2012, when a 23-year-old physiotherapist was gang-raped and killed on a bus in New Delhi. That crime prompted calls for tougher laws to address the nearly 39,000 sexual assaults that occur in this country every year.

But more than five years later, the number of rapes reported to police is rising. And the attack on the girl is just one of a series of recent cases that suggest India's religious and political divisions — which are widening under Modi's Hindu nationalist government — are making the crisis worse.

Who is the victim?
Eight-year-old Asifa was a member of a nomadic Muslim community that takes its sheep and goats to graze during the winter in a part of India's Jammu and Kashmir state that is dominated by Hindus, India's predominant religion.

Tensions had been building for years over whether the nomads, known as Bakarwals, should have grazing rights. Jammu and Kashmir is India's only majority-Muslim state, its northern end home to a long-running separatist insurgency.

According to authorities, Sanji Ram, a retired bureaucrat, hatched a conspiracy to kill the girl in an effort to drive the nomads from the area. One day in January, when Asifa went to bring home the family's horses, Ram's nephew abducted her and locked her in the temple, where Ram is the caretaker.

Sedated with local drugs, she was raped repeatedly — including by Ram's son, who was summoned from 300 miles away to "satisfy his lust" — before being bashed in the head with a 2-pound stone and dumped in a forest, where her body lay for three days, police said. Two local police officers accepted nearly $5,000 in bribes from Ram to destroy evidence, according to police.

A backdrop of communal violence
The case received little attention until the police report became public this month, its grisly details and motive for the crime adding to the atrocities suffered by Muslims under Modi's government.

Hindu extremists have been accused of killing Muslims whom they falsely accused of possessing beef, which is anathema to orthodox Hindus. Others have claimed a plot by Muslims to overtake the country — which is 80% Hindu — by forcibly converting Hindu brides to Islam, a practice they dub "love jihad."

In this case, a newly formed right-wing group called Hindu Ekta Manch, or Forum for Hindu Unity, organized rallies in defense of the eight men arrested in the Asifa case, arguing they had been framed. Some demonstrators waved the tricolor Indian flag. Among the participants were two state officials with Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, who later were forced to resign.

Last week, when police attempted to submit charges against the men — who pleaded not guilty — the courthouse was blocked by a group of lawyers who said the investigation was harassing Hindus. Misinformation on right-wing social media channels contended that Asifa hadn't been raped, prompting state police to issue a statement over the weekend saying that the facts of the case were "established beyond doubt."

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of India's foremost public intellectuals, wrote that the public responses suggested that the country's moral compass had been destroyed and that "state, law, civil society, now understand only a sectarian language."

Riaz Haq said...

Savarkar’s Sanction to Use Rape as Political Weapon
Sangh Parivar’s silent support to accused in Kathua case derives from their icon Savarkar’s exhortation.

https://www.newsclick.in/savarkars-sanction-use-rape-political-weapon


Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, in one of his books Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History clearly explains why raping of Muslim women is justifiable and not to do so when the occasion permits is not virtuous or chivalrous but cowardly. (See Chapter VIII of the online edition made available by Mumbai-based Swatantryaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak)

Savarkar explains at length that Hindus in the past had suffered from a ‘suicidal’ (para 452) sense of virtuousness and chivalry in showing mercy towards Muslim women by letting them off easily. He gives examples (para 450) of such famous figures as Chhatrapati Shivaji who reportedly let off the daughter in law of Muslim governor of Kalyan, and Peshwa Chimaji Apte who similarly allowed the wife of Portuguese governor of Bassein to leave unscathed.

In passionate tones Savarkar argues that since Muslim oppressors had been punishing Hindu women, the same treatment should be meted out to vanquished Muslim women by Hindu victors.

“Once they are haunted with this dreadful apprehension that the Muslim women too, stand in the same predicament in case the Hindus win, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women,” he writes (para 451).

He argues that had Hindus adopted this policy of ravishing Muslim women from earlier times, their condition would have been far better than today:

“Suppose if from the earliest Muslim invasions of India, the Hindus also, whenever they were victors on the battlefields, had decided to pay the Muslim fair sex in the same coin or punished them in some other ways, i.e., by conversion even with force, and then absorbed them in their fold, then? Then with this horrible apprehension at their heart they would have desisted from their evil designs against any Hindu lady.” (para 455)

Apart from the erroneous notion which “every Hindu seems to have been made to suck, along with his mother's milk” (para 429-430) that religious tolerance is a virtue, Savarkar also identifies the “foolish notion” among Hindus that to have “any sort of relations with a Muslim woman meant their own conversion to Islam” (para 453) as the reason for avoiding raping them. He writes that this notion restrained Hindu men from punishing “Muslim feminine class” (para 454).

In case somebody starts feeling sympathetic towards Muslim women, Savarkar takes us on an unsubstantiated ride through all the wrongs that Muslim women have committed which include enticing Hindu girls and sending them to “Muslim centers in masjids and mosques” and generally supporting Muslim men in their violence against Hindus.

This is the kind of stuff RSS and its fronts have been propagating over the years and Veer Savarkar remains a much admired hero among Sangh parivar followers. It has inspired Hindu rioters to commit horrendous atrocities on Muslim women in Gujarat (2002) and Muzaffarnagar (2013), and many others.

So, for the rapists and murderers of Kathua or Unnao, whatever be their psychological compulsions, the ethical and ideological sustenance is drawn from none other than Veer Savarkar. Small wonder that it becomes so difficult for the Sangh Parivar to condemn them or take action. Small wonder that the list of BJP/Sangh members committing crimes against women goes on extending.

Riaz Haq said...

“SAY NO TO RSS SAKHA IN AMU”, Writes AMUSU President (Maskoor Ahmad Usmani)

http://ironyofindia.com/say-no-to-rss-sakha-in-amu-writes-amusu-president/

1925 marks the birth year of the hateful and terror breading organization Rastriya Swayam Sewak Sangh, founded by Dr. K. B. Hegedwar and the coward V. D. Savarkar. The much exaggerated ‘veer’ Savarker was the same person who pleaded and begged to the British numerous times from jail for mercy and his release. Later, these fanatics shared by common ideology came under the banner of RSS. The tail of espionage and working hand in glove with the British is much known in the history of pre-independent India. From exchanging outfits and staging violence to spiting venom in public meetings there have been no stone unturned by the RSS to break down the social fabric of India.


It was on 30th January, 1947 (1948) when Ganghiji was gunned down by the Hindu fanatic and member of the RSS Nathu Ram Godse at Birla House, Delhi. Soon after the death of Gandhiji, in a letter to Golwaker dated 11th September, 1948 Sardar Patel the then home minister of India pointed out “Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death.” What does this vindicates? And why was RSS so much happy that it had to distribute sweets after the killing of Gandhi?

In a letter dated 14th March, 1948, Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Sardar Patel:

“I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create conflagration.”

Among RSS’s ideological forefathers the so called ‘Guru’ Golwalkar occupies a big space, in his book ‘Bunch Of Thoughts’ M. S. Golwalkar spits out venom in the following words:

“Even to this day there are so many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all, they have no other place to go and they are bound to remain loyal’… It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan on the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country”

How the narrative for Indian Muslims having nexus with Pakistan has come to fore in contemporary times we need to look back of how virulent this notion was treatised by Golwalkar in his book, “…within the country there are so many Pakistans’… The conclusion is that, in practically every place, there are Muslims who are in constant touch with Pakistan over transmitter…”

There are some serious questions that need to be answered; it is a deep travesty for our country that the heads of incumbent dispensation are members of the same traitor organization.

RSS, which was responsible for pre and post-independence rioting, conspiring and spreading communal hatred, paradoxically in contemporary India claims itself to be nationalist and seek others patriotism for the nation. After seventy years of Independence it is bemoaning to see that elected BJP MPs like Sakshi Maharaj demands to declare Nathu Ram Godse as a national patriot.

Riaz Haq said...

#US govt report on #ReligiousFreedom says #Muslims, #minorities threatened in #India. #India doesn’t prosecute #cow vigilantes, notes #BJP’s role in violence. #Modi #Hindutva https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/us-govt-report-on-religious-freedom-says-india-doesnt-prosecute-cow-vigilantes-notes-bjps-role

The International Religious Freedom Report, 2017, says that BJP leaders, including Raman Singh and Adityanath, had been accused of making remarks that could be interpreted as condoning violence.
The United States government has claimed in an annual report that Indian authorities “frequently did not prosecute members of vigilante cow-protection groups who attacked alleged smugglers, consumers, or traders of beef, usually Muslims, despite an increase in attacks compared to previous years.”The International Religious Freedom Report for 2017, put together by the US State Department every year, was released by US’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday.“Advancing liberty and religious freedom advances America’s interests. Where fundamental freedoms of religion, expression, press, and peaceful assembly are under attack, we find conflict, instability, and terrorism,” Pompeo said in his opening remarks at the time of releasing the report.“On the other hand, governments and societies that champion these freedoms are more secure, stable, and peaceful,” added Pompeo. The Secretary of State also said that he would host leaders from across the world at a conference on religious liberty over July 25 and 26.The yearly report took a critical view of certain leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh and UP’s Yogi Adityanath, for making “public remarks that individuals could interpret as condoning violence.”“On April 2, Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Raman Singh said anyone who killed a cow in his state would be hanged,” it mentions. The document also refers to then parliamentarian, and currently Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) chief minister, Yogi Adityanath for saying that “Mother Teresa had been on a mission to Christianize India.”The report further highlights that BJP leaders were tacitly backing people accused of carrying out mob-lynchings of Muslims, as it mentioned the September 2015 incident involving the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh.“In October 2017 media reported a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state legislator in Uttar Pradesh was working to help the 18 charged individuals out on bail secure employment and the family of one of the accused that died in jail would receive 800,000 rupees ($12,500),” it said.The report also notes, “Members of civil society and religious minorities stated that under the current government, religious minority communities felt increasingly vulnerable due to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and their places of worship.”The religious liberty report also mentions the surge in attacks on Christians under the current government, noting that they had jumped from 348 in 2016 to 736 in 2017. The figures were taken from the Union of Catholic Asian News, as per the US report.

The report goes on to scrutinise the role of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Ministry of Home Affairs, noting that the government agencies had been accused of coming out with misleading reports on communal violence on several occasions.Dwelling on the sectarian violence in Kairana in 2013, the report says that the National Human Rights’ Commission’s (NHRC) claims that members of Muslims community were responsible for driving out Hindus from the affected areas had been disputed by human rights activists.“Human rights activists acting on behalf of the Muslim community in Kairana, such as Harsh Mander, disputed the NHRC’s findings that Hindus had been driven out by Muslim crime and called on the NHRC to withdraw and apologize for the report, which the human rights activists stated had been used to spread prejudice against the Muslim community,” it states.

Riaz Haq said...

Study: One in two #Indian #Muslims fears being falsely accused in #terrorism cases. #Modi #Hindutva #Islamophobia

https://theprint.in/governance/one-in-two-indian-muslims-fears-being-falsely-accused-in-terrorism-cases-finds-study/69295/

A survey by NGO Common Cause and Lokniti shows Adivasis are most afraid of being framed for Maoist activities, while Dalits are afraid of being falsely accused of petty thefts.

New Delhi: The sense of being discriminated against by police is strongest among Muslims, especially those in Bihar, said a study that seeks to analyse the perception about police along state and community lines.

The survey was carried out by NGO Common Cause and Lokniti, a research initiative of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), among 15,563 respondents across 22 states in June and July 2017.

“Among the total number of respondents, 26 per cent of Muslims were of the view that police discriminated on the basis of religion, while less than 18 per cent of Hindus and 16 per cent of Sikhs thought the same,” the report added.

The researchers also discovered that as many as 44 per cent of Indians were fearful of being beaten up by police, a finding reported by ThePrint Monday in the first of its series of reports on the study.

According to the survey, over 47 per cent of Muslims across the country said they feared being falsely accused of terrorist activities. Trying to explain the perception, the researchers cited the “large proportion” of Muslims in the country’s jails. This sentiment was said to be most widely prevalent in Telangana.

The percentage of Muslims in jails is higher than the community’s share in the population of India, a fact, critics said, that stems from an alleged “systemic bias” against them.

The 2011 census pegged the Muslim population at 14.23 per cent; and, in 2014, the government told Rajya Sabha that people from the community comprised 16.68 per cent of convicts and 21.05 per cent of undertrials.

What Adivasis and Dalits fear
The report suggested a similar fear among the Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) and the Scheduled Castes (Dalits). According to the survey, 27 per cent of the Adivasis said they feared being framed for anti-state Maoist activities, while 35 per cent of Dalits held a similar fear regarding petty thefts.

“Nearly two in every five… respondents said police falsely implicated members of backward castes such as Dalits in petty crimes including theft, robbery, dacoity,” the report said.

“One in four… was of the opinion that such a false implication of Adivasis and Muslims did occur,” it added.

The results of the survey also suggested a perception that caste-based discrimination among police personnel was most prevalent in Bihar, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

It said people were more likely to report class-based discriminatory attitudes of police, followed by gender- and caste-based discrimination.

Riaz Haq said...

A wave of #religious intolerance is hitting big business in #India. A wave of religious intolerance as India heads toward elections is emerging as a new risk for its top companies. #Hindutva #Islamophobia #Modi #BJP https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-01/online-bigotry-is-becoming-a-risk-for-india-s-biggest-companies via @bpolitics

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1013796775285555201

Over the past weeks, a telecom giant, the Indian lender led by Asia’s richest banker, and the local rival of Uber Technologies Inc. have been roiled by controversies linked to comments on Facebook and Twitter involving a minority community in the Hindu-dominated nation. All these started as social media posts, then gained a life of their own as people backed or vilified the comments, eventually forcing the companies to react to contain any damage.

Tensions on social media are mounting as the world’s largest democracy approaches elections early next year that will pit the Hindu nationalist beliefs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party against the main opposition, which often spotlights secularism and rising religious intolerance. Risk consultancy Kroll Inc. says it’s seeing an “exponential increase” in questions from corporate clients on how to manage the fallout from incidents on social media.

“It doesn’t just carry reputational and business risk, it can snowball into business continuity risks that can spread faster than a forest fire,” said Tarun Bhatia, a Mumbai-based managing director at Kroll. “Companies can’t choose their customers or control what they say. So it comes down to how companies manage these incidents, how quickly they react.”

Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s biggest telecommunications provider thanks to its 304 million subscribers, was tested on that recently. This is how it began: Around noon on June 18, Twitter user Pooja Singh complained about an Airtel customer service representative. An Airtel employee replied, promising to get back with more information, and signed off as “Shoaib.”

This is a recognizable Muslim name in a country currently riven by passionate teams of social media trolls, akin to the U.S. experience where political discourse often degenerates into hate-filled accusations.

“Dear Shohaib, as you’re a Muslim and I have no faith in your working ethics... requesting you to assign a Hindu representative for my request. Thanks,” Singh responded. Soon after, another Airtel rep named Gaganjot -- a clearly non-Muslim name -- promised to resolve Singh’s concern.

On the morning of June 20, Airtel published a statement on twitter refuting accusations that it gave in to Singh’s alleged discriminatory demand, something that had already attracted severe criticism of the carrier and threats to discontinue its services, including from opposition lawmakers. The statement said that both Shoaib and Gaganjot were just following established workflow processes that “got read as ‘bowing down to bigotry.”’

“Airtel has been resolute for 23 years” and “our training manuals will never carry instructions to pause and check one’s identity before serving a query,” the statement read. The company didn’t reply to an email from Bloomberg seeking further comment.

Riaz Haq said...

Tulsi Gabbard for President 2020 is rising progressive star, despite her support for #Hindu Nationalists. Her progressive domestic politics at odds with her support for #Modi, #Sisi, Bashar al-#Assad. #Islamophobia #India #Gabbard2020 #BJP https://interc.pt/2F7z1zv by @shankarmya

Modi’s ascent has normalized nationalist rhetoric, the silencing of dissent, and violence against religious minorities in India — and it’s also had global implications. Elected prime minister in 2014, he was one of the first of a class of populist autocrats who’ve risen to power in recent years. That group includes Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was elected in the same month as Modi; Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who’s been in office for more than a decade but has been increasingly consolidating power; Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose war on drugs has killed thousands of people; Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in October despite his pro-military dictatorship stance; and, of course, America’s Donald Trump.

In the United States, Modi’s reputation has been helped by a group of Hindu-American supporters with links to the RSS and other Hindu nationalist organizations, who’ve been working in tandem with a peculiar congressional ally: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, the first Hindu in Congress.

Gabbard — a member of the House committees on Foreign Affairs and Armed Services, and co-chair of the India Caucus — is an oddity in American politics. Ever since her 2016 resignation from the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders for president, she has been a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Last year, she racked up endorsements from groups like Progressive Democrats of America and Our Revolution, and she sailed to re-election.

But she has also become a polarizing figure. Her progressive domestic politics are at odds with her support for authoritarians abroad, including Modi, Sisi, and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. As right-wing nationalism rises across the globe, it is beginning to be recognized as an existential threat to a world order rooted in liberal democratic values, and Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, is now being pushed to choose sides. (Gabbard did not respond to The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment.)

Gabbard was embraced early on by pro-Modi elements of the Hindu-American diaspora in the U.S., who have donated generously to her campaigns. But as she flirts with the idea of running for president, she has publicly cut ties with those fervent supporters on at least one occasion, while continuing to court them in private.

IN JUNE 2014, after Modi won the election, nearly 700 of his supporters gathered at a Hindu temple in Atlanta to celebrate and plan their path forward. To mobilize their community, the speakers laid out a plan that included a call for donations to Gabbard’s re-election campaign. They described the Hawaii Democrat as an “American Hindu” who “has fought against the anti-Modi resolution introduced recently by some members” of Congress.

The event was organized by the Overseas Friends of the BJP, the American chapter of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Gabbard had landed on the group’s radar as one of America’s few pro-Modi lawmakers. In December 2013, she had voiced her opposition to House Resolution 417, which chided India to protect “the rights and freedoms of religions minorities” and referred to incidents of mass violence against minority Muslims that had taken place under Modi’s watch. Gabbard later told the press that “there was a lot of misinformation that surrounded the event in 2002.”

Also in 2014, Gabbard attended an OFBJP event, where Vijay Jolly, a senior politician of Modi’s government, was present. He took to the stage and told Gabbard that “with the support of … non-resident Indians … your victory later this year is a foregone conclusion.” She cruised to re-election.

Riaz Haq said...

#Israel lobby #AIPAC gave $60K to group that inspired #Trump's #MuslimBan. The unusual contribution to the Center for Security Policy, headed by Frank Gaffney, was used for ads against the #Iran nuclear deal. #Islamophobia https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-aipac-gave-60k-to-group-that-inspired-trump-s-muslim-ban-1.5449373

An organization operating under AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a right-wing think tank that has been accused of promoting a racist agenda against Muslims. The funds were donated to the Center for Security Policy in 2015, as part of the fight against the nuclear deal with Iran. The contribution was revealed Wednesday by the website Lobelog.

As part of its public fight against the nuclear deal, AIPAC set up in 2015 Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, an organization that invested close to $20 million in ads, publications and other initiatives meant to influence U.S. public opinion against the deal. Tax filings show that $60,000 of the group's budget went to the controversial Center for Security Policy.

An AIPAC official told Haaretz that the money was used for ads against the nulcear deal, stressing that it was a relatively small amount out of the organization's overall $20 million budget.

The CSP, headed by Frank Gaffney, has been accused by its critics of promoting anti-Muslim policies and conspiracy theories. Gaffney's work was cited by U.S. President Donald Trump during the Republican primaries in December 2015, when Trump first began calling for a total ban on Muslims entering the United States. Gaffney later served as an adviser to Trump's transition team, and was involved in the push by some of the president's staff to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

The contribution from Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran to Gaffney's think tank is unusual, since AIPAC is known for its adherence to bipartisanship and tries to portray itself as a centrist group. Gaffney's CSP is considered far to the right of center, and is therefore an unusual candidate to receive such a contribution from a group operating under AIPAC – especially at a time when AIPAC is concerned about Israel's standing among minorities and liberal-leaning Americans.

Last December, Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer received an award from Gaffney's organization and used his acceptance speech to strongly defend Gaffney against accusations of racism. "I have known Frank Gaffney for many years, and while I don't agree with everything he says and believes, Frank is no hater and no bigot," Dermer said in his speech. Dermer also blasted the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks racism in the United States and has harshly criticized Gaffney's center.

Riaz Haq said...

In a speech last year #DalaiLama said that refugees to the #EuropeanUnion should ultimately return home, adding that "Europe is for Europeans" "A limited number is OK, but the whole of #Europe [will] eventually become #Muslim country, #African country:. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48772175

The Dalai Lama's world view is inherently global. When we discuss Brexit he tells me that he is "an admirer of the European Union" pointing out that global partnerships have been key in avoiding major conflicts.

But the world's most famous refugee has some surprising views on immigration.

In a speech last year he said that refugees to the European Union should ultimately return home, adding that "Europe is for Europeans", a statement he stood by when I challenged him on it.

"European countries should take these refugees and give them education and training, and the aim is return to their own land with certain skills," he said.

The Dalai Lama believes the end game should be to rebuild the countries people have fled. But with some 70 million people displaced across the world according to the latest figures, what if people want to stay?

"A limited number is OK, but the whole of Europe [will] eventually become Muslim country, African country - impossible," he said. A controversial viewpoint, and a reminder that while the Dalai Lama is a spiritual figurehead he is also a politician with views and opinions like everyone else.

Later in our conversation I also challenged him on another remark he made in 2015, when he said if he was followed by a female Dalai Lama she would have to be attractive.

In another surprise, he reaffirmed his belief that beauty matters as much as brains. "If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive," he told me while laughing.

His message seemed at odds for a man who preaches a message of tolerance and inner confidence, but the Dalai Lama told me that in Buddhist literature both inner and outer beauty matter. He also said that equality was important and was keen to stress that he supported women's rights and equal pay in the workplace.

As the interview drew to a close, I was struck by how unexpectedly frank our discussion had been, which reminded me of something the Dalai Lama had told me earlier in the day.

One advantage of not being able to return home to Tibet, he said, was that India is a free country where he can express himself openly.

The Dalai Lama's message of unity is universal - but for a man famed for his compassion, he can also be controversial.

Riaz Haq said...

Why Does #Trump Fan Flames of #Race-Based #Terrorism? Since October, #FBI has made 90 arrests in domestic terrorism cases including violence by Americans who belong to anti-government militias and #WhiteSupremacists not connected to #Islamic extremism. https://nyti.ms/2ypZ6nZ


By Frank Figliuzzi
Mr. Figliuzzi is a former assistant F.B.I. director for counterintelligence.


Reporting indicates that Mr. Trump’s rants emboldened white hate groups and reinforced racist blogs, news sites and social media platforms. In response to his tweets, one of the four lawmakers, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, said: “This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it’s happening on national TV. And now it’s reached the White House garden.” She’s right.

-----------------
If I learned anything from 25 years in the F.B.I., including a stint as head of counterintelligence, it was to trust my gut when I see a threat unfolding. Those of us who were part of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence community had a duty to sound the alarm about an impending threat.

Now, instinct and experience tell me we’re headed for trouble in the form of white hate violence stoked by a racially divisive president. I hope I’m wrong.

Since October, the F.B.I. has made 90 arrests in domestic terrorism cases. Domestic terrorism includes violence by Americans who belong to anti-government militias, white supremacist groups or individuals who ascribe to similar ideologies not connected to Islamic extremism. In fact, the F.B.I. says that of its 850 pending domestic terror investigations, about 40 percent involve racially motivated extremism. In 2017 and 2018, the F.B.I. made more arrests connected to domestic terror than to international terrorism, which includes groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and their lone-wolf recruits.

Last weekend, a young man with a rifle took the lives of three people and injured at least a dozen others at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. Preliminary reports indicated that among the gunman’s social media postings was an exhortation to read the obscure 1890 novel “Might Is Right,” which justifies racism and asserts that people of color are biologically inferior

Riaz Haq said...

'Colloquially Speaking, BJP is Fascist': Karan Thapar Interviews Pratap Bhanu Mehta
In an outspoken and hard-hitting interview, the former Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University speaks at length about Modi 2.0 and says that this government is “more insidious” than Indira Gandhi’s government of 1975-77.

https://thewire.in/video/karan-thapar-pratap-bhanu-mehta-interview


https://youtu.be/5hiDcd2GiDA

n an outspoken and hard-hitting interview, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the former Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University and one of contemporary India’s most highly regarded political thinkers, has said the Narendra Modi government, “colloquially speaking, is fascist”.

Mehta said even though the government is committed to winning elections to secure power, “in every other way it ticks the checklist of fascist qualities”. After specifying in detail what these are, Mehta concludes that “colloquially speaking, this is a fascist government and it is, therefore, not incorrect to use that term”.

Asked whether it was justified or exaggerated to compare the Modi government with Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, Mehta said that in many ways this government is “more insidious” than Indira Gandhi’s government of 1975-77. He said this was clearly discernible when you look at the intent behind the behaviour of the two governments. In the 1970s, Indira Gandhi’s intent was to secure her position and consolidate her individual authority. Today, Modi’s intent is to push his majoritarian and authoritarian agenda as well as Hindutva.

In a 60-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, his first for television in recent years, Mehta spoke at length about the second Modi government.

He said: “India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point and crush it by brute force… It now legitimises itself, not by its positive accomplishments, but by using the enemy as a rallying point. Three consequences flow from this. First, the government’s strategy is to divide people and remain in power. The government’s strategy is not to solve old issues; it is to divert attention by bringing in new adversaries in the hope that we remain divided.”

“The second consequence is the government’s intolerance of those who disagree with it or oppose it. “All that matters is the crushing of real and imaginary enemies, by hook or by crook… The state will… encourage violence against anyone who is not in tune with it,” he said. “Finally, the third consequence is the impact such a government has on the people of the country. It annihilates our will, our reason, our spirit, so that we all become willing supplicants in its ideological project.”

Mehta said that he feared that the clear and obvious majoritarian and authoritarian agenda of the Modi government would change the sort of people we are and he was not sure that it would be easy or even possible for some future governments to reverse the process and return India to what it used to be.

Asked what India would look and feel like two-three years down the road if things continue like this, Mehta said that he believed we are going back to the 1970s. India is exhibiting the same divisiveness, the same protests and the same lack of confidence in our future. At another point in the interview he said that for the first time after decades he couldn’t say with confidence that younger generations would lead a better life than our generation.

Mehta said that at this critical point, India’s elite are letting down the country. They are either complicit in what is happening or unwilling to stand up, possibly out of cowardice. He first spoke broadly about the middle class but then, specifically, about the Courts and business leaders whose silence was emboldening the government. Speaking about the Supreme Court, Mehta said that it has simply failed to stand up for the constitutional values and principles that it’s committed to uphold. In particular he spoke about the court’s failure to hear habeas corpus cases which he said define the core of a democracy. He said this is “inexplicable”.

Riaz Haq said...

#Harvard Alum #Hindutva Leader Dr. Subramanian Swamy:“All people are not equal. Muslims of India are not equal to others!” Showtime's 'Vice' Exposes #HumanRights Crisis as #Muslims Are Targeted in #India. #Modi #BJP #Islamophobia https://www.thewrap.com/showtimes-vice-exposes-human-rights-crisis-as-muslims-are-targeted-in-india-exclusive-video/#.XoaPaAkHHkE.twitter

The second season of “Vice” Showtime is full of shocking global stories that will remind viewers there are still crises beyond the coronavirus. Some crises are compounded by it, too, which “Vice” correspondent Isobel Yeung explained to TheWrap by phone this week.

Episode 2 — which airs Sunday, April 5 — outlines an ongoing human rights crisis in India, where Muslims are treated like second-class citizens. Beyond looking at the building of detention camps for the Muslims targeted by the Indian government, Yeung sat down with Dr. Subramanian Swamy — a member of India’s parliament — to get the government’s rationale for it. That clip, exclusive to TheWrap, can be seen above.

“On this issue, the country is with us,” he told Yeung. “Most people like our hardline approach to solving pending problems.”

He went on to say that “where the Muslim population is large, there is always trouble,” which Yeung countered by pointing out that with 200 million Muslim residents, India has the second-largest Islamic population in the world. When Swamy stuck to his position, she told him his comments sounded “like hatred,” but he said he was being “kind.”

Once Yeung cited Article 14 of India’s constitution — “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India” — he told her she was misinterpreting it and, in fact, Muslims are “not in an equal category” to non-Muslims.

In a subsequent chat with TheWrap, Yeung expanded on what’s happened to Muslims in India since she went there to talk to Swamy. The country, she said, is on lockdown for three weeks due to the coronavirus, and while there are relatively low numbers of confirmed cases, that’s likely because of a lack of testing.

At the end of February, there were violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims that resulted in over 50 deaths, with the majority of casualties Muslim people who were targeted for their religion. There were hundreds of injuries and many Muslims remain missing. As a result of these riots, a lot of Muslims lost their belongings and housing, Yeung explained.

“And now the government has said that there is this national lockdown, this national emergency,” she continued. “so they don’t necessarily have anywhere to turn so they are definitely one of the populations that are definitely going to struggle through this.”

Riaz Haq said...

#India’s #lockdowns and #Islamophobia. Vitriol against #Muslims—and all of #Islam—from “bhakts” (staunch #Modi supporters), flowed online. Hashtags like #BioJihad and #CoronoJihad trended on Twitter seen by up to as many as 165 million people. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/the-tow-center-covid-19-newsletter-indias-lockdowns-and-islamophobia.php via @cjr

On April 21, Facebook announced a $5.7 billion investment in Jio Platforms Limited, India’s largest—and the world’s third-largest—mobile network operator, with over 370 million subscribers. In their official announcement, representatives of Facebook wrote, “India is in the midst of one of the most dynamic social and economic transformations the world has ever seen, driven by the rapid adoption of digital technologies.” The rest of the announcement focused on how this collaboration would seek to empower Indian businesses.

But in augmenting its association with India, where it already has 280 million users, Facebook must also come to reckon with India’s fraught and divided media.

Indian publications are divided on their portrayal of Narendra Modi’s BJP government. In August 2019, the government annexed Jammu and Kashmir and subsequently imposed an internet shutdown in the region (at 213 days, the longest ever Internet shutdown in a democracy). Outlets differed in their portrayal of the situation in Kashmir, some arguing that things were rapidly returning to normal, others drawing attention to human rights violations running rampant. The December 19th 2019 passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which expedites Indian citizenship for migrants from three of India’s neighbours of any regional religion except Islam, was met with similarly polarized coverage.

Recently, this division has shaped Indian coverage of COVID-19. On April 5, the government claimed to link more than a thousand positive COVID-19 cases to the annual meeting of a Muslim missionary group, the Tablighi Jamaat between March 8th and 10th.

Vitriol against the group—and all of Islam—from “bhakts” (staunch Modi supporters), flowed online. Hashtags like #BioJihad and #CoronoJihad trended on Twitter, the latter seen by up to as many as 165 million people according to an analysis by Equality Labs, an activist organization in the US. Understandably, missionaries who were at the meeting were required by law to report to health authorities in their home states. Less understandably, in some states they were told they would be charged with attempted murder if they failed to do so. Many in the media blamed the spread of Coronavirus on India’s Muslims.

In the midst of this frenzy of hate, The Wire, a publication often critical of the Modi government’s Hindu nationalism, published a story on March 31 pointing out that the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Yogi Adityanath, okayed and attended a Hindu religious ceremony on March 25 along with dozens of others in violation of a nationwide lockdown. A day after the story ran, the UP government registered 2 FIRs—requests for information that might lead to future arrest—against The Wire’s editor, Siddharth Varadrajan. Varadrajan had misattributed a quote by another person associated with the event to Adityanath. For this single, misquote Varadrajan was charged with five violations of four different laws, including transmission of obscene material and computerized identity theft.

Riaz Haq said...

Islamophobia Goes Global
Hindu nationalism has helped spread a distinct brand of anti-Islam around the world, and famously multicultural Canada may have a problem on its hands.


https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/india-islamophobia-global-bjp-hindu-nationalism-canada/

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has long been criticized for discriminating against India’s estimated 200 million Muslims. Tensions between this large minority and the Hindu nationalists who support Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been mounting in recent years, resulting in worrying laws, dangerous harassment, and deadly mob violence in India. Now, the hostility has moved outside of India’s borders. Thanks to social media and a dedicated diaspora, antagonism toward Muslims by supporters of India’s right-wing, Hindu nationalist government has gone global. And the international spread of domestic prejudices is causing diplomatic ripple effects for India’s allies.

This has been particularly apparent in the Persian Gulf region, home to millions of Indian expatriates. Modi’s carefully cultivated ties to the Gulf regimes are now threatened by instances of ultra-nationalist Indian expats spewing Islamophobic rhetoric online. While much of the vitriol has been aimed at the Muslim population back home in India, it has also taken the form of social media posts that denigrated Islam more generally, as well as the Prophet Mohammed. The situation has led to rare criticism of Modi by Gulf elites. In April, the government of Kuwait, along with a member of the Sharjah royal family in the United Arab Emirates, criticized widespread Islamophobic social media posts in India accusing the country’s Muslims of deliberately spreading the coronavirus and engaging in a “corona jihad.” Modi eventually responded by tweeting that the virus “does not see race [or] religion,” although his government’s rhetoric says otherwise. A month later, the UAE Federal Public Prosecution issued a public warning against discrimination after scores of Indian expats were fired from their jobs for anti-Muslim social media posts. This and similar incidents led the Dubai-based Gulf News to run an editorial in May calling for India to stop “exporting hate” to the Gulf.

Some members of Canada’s Indian diaspora echoed such sentiments, tweeting comments about how the prayer call broadcasts are part of an Islamist “strategical campaign through out the world” or that “blaring loudspeakers” can never be “peaceful.” Several of the tweeters have quietly lost their jobs since then, amid pressure from anti-hate groups.


But few cases have garnered much attention. The exception is that of Ravi Hooda, who sat on a regional school board in the Toronto area and tweeted that allowing the prayer calls to be broadcast opens the door for “Separate lanes for camel & goat riders” or laws “requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents.” When Hooda’s tweet was called out by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a Twitter war ensued. Dozens of pro-Indian accounts, often with usernames containing an eight-digit string of numbers—a common indicator of a bot account—came to Hooda’s defense. A local controversy instantly took on an international character.

Hooda, for his part, is a volunteer for the local branch of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, which represents the overseas interests of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization that promotes the Hindutva (literally, “Hindu-ness”) ideology that India is a purely Hindu nation at its core. Modi himself is a lifelong RSS member, and a majority of his ministers have a background in the organization. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh opened its first chapter in 1947, in Kenya, and today has more than 500 branches in 39 countries. The group’s chapters are called shakhas (branches) and, in addition to offering community services, help organize the diaspora through lectures, camps, and other organizational sessions that are aligned with the RSS’s ideological outlook.

Riaz Haq said...

Before #India’s elections in 2019, #Facebook took down inauthentic pages tied to #Pakistan’s military & #Indian Opposition Congress party, but it didn't remove #BJP accounts spewing anti-#Muslim #hate & #fakenews. Why? FB executive Ankhi Das intervened. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346

In 2017, Ms. Das wrote an essay, illustrated with Facebook’s thumbs-up logo, praising Mr. Modi. It was posted to his website and featured in his mobile app.

On her own Facebook page, Ms. Das shared a post from a former police official, who said he is Muslim, in which he called India’s Muslims traditionally a “degenerate community” for whom “Nothing except purity of religion and implementation of Shariah matter.”

---------

In Facebook posts and public appearances, Indian politician T. Raja Singh has said Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, called Muslims traitors and threatened to raze mosques.

Facebook Inc. employees charged with policing the platform were watching. By March of this year, they concluded Mr. Singh not only had violated the company’s hate-speech rules but qualified as dangerous, a designation that takes into account a person’s off-platform activities, according to current and former Facebook employees familiar with the matter.

---

Yet Mr. Singh, a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, is still active on Facebook and Instagram, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers. The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to Mr. Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence, said the current and former employees.

Ms. Das, whose job also includes lobbying India’s government on Facebook’s behalf, told staff members that punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country, Facebook’s biggest global market by number of users, the current and former employees said.

---------------
India is a vital market for Facebook, which isn’t allowed to operate in China, the only other nation with more than one billion people. India has more Facebook and WhatsApp users than any other country, and Facebook has chosen it as the market in which to introduce payments, encryption and initiatives to tie its products together in new ways that Mr. Zuckerberg has said will occupy Facebook for the next decade. In April, Facebook said it would spend $5.7 billion on a new partnership with an Indian telecom operator to expand operations in the country—its biggest foreign investment.

-----------
Another BJP legislator, a member of Parliament named Anantkumar Hegde, has posted essays and cartoons to his Facebook page alleging that Muslims are spreading Covid-19 in the country in a conspiracy to wage “Corona Jihad.” Human-rights groups say such unfounded allegations, which violate Facebook’s hate speech rules barring direct attacks on people based on “protected characteristics” such as religion, are linked to attacks on Muslims in India, and have been designated as hate speech by Twitter Inc.

While Twitter has suspended Mr. Hegde’s account as a result of such posts, prompting him to call for an investigation of the company, Facebook took no action until the Journal sought comment from the company about his “Corona Jihad” posts. Facebook removed some of them on Thursday. Mr. Hegde didn’t respond to a request for comment.

------------

Within hours of the videotaped message, which Mr. Mishra uploaded to Facebook, rioting broke out that left dozens of people dead. Most of the victims were Muslims, and some of their killings were organized via Facebook’s WhatsApp

Riaz Haq said...

‘Boycott French products’ launched over #Macron’s anti-#Islam comments. #boycottfranceproducts #CharlieHebdo #MacronGoneMad https://aje.io/l9gyr via @AJEnglish

Several Arab trade associations have announced the boycott of French products, protesting the recent comments made by President Emmanuel Macron on Islam.

Earlier this month, Macron pledged to fight “Islamist separatism”, which he said was threatening to take control in some Muslim communities around France.

He also described Islam as a religion “in crisis” worldwide and said the government would present a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France.

His comments, in addition to his backing of satirical outlets publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, has led to a social media campaign calling for the boycott of French products from supermarkets in Arab countries and Turkey.


Hashtags such as the #BoycottFrenchProducts in English and the Arabic #ExceptGodsMessenger trended across countries including Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In Kuwait, the chairman and members of the board of directors of the Al-Naeem Cooperative Society decided to boycott all French products and to remove them from supermarket shelves.

The Dahiyat al-Thuhr association took the same step, saying: “Based on the position of French President Emmanuel Macron and his support for the offensive cartoons against our beloved prophet, we decided to remove all French products from the market and branches until further notice.”


In Qatar, the Wajbah Dairy company announced a boycott of French products and pledged to provide alternatives, according to their Twitter account.

Al Meera Consumer Goods Company, a Qatari joint stock company, announced on Twitter: “We have immediately withdrawn French products from our shelves until further notice.”


“We affirm that as a national company, we work according to a vision consistent with our true religion, our established customs and traditions, and in a way that serves our country and our faith and meets the aspirations of our customers.”

Qatar University also joined the campaign. Its administration has postponed a French Cultural Week event indefinitely, citing the “deliberate abuse of Islam and its symbols”


In a statement on Twitter, the university said any prejudice against Islamic belief, sanctities and symbols is “totally unacceptable, as these offences harm universal human values ​​and the highest moral principles that contemporary societies highly regard”.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) described Macron’s statements as “irresponsible”, and said they are aimed at spreading a culture of hatred among peoples.

“At a time when efforts must be directed towards promoting culture, tolerance and dialogue between cultures and religions, such rejected statements and calls for publishing insulting images of the Prophet (Muhammad) – may blessings and peace be upon him – are published,” said the council’s secretary-general, Nayef al-Hajraf.

Al-Hajraf called on world leaders, thinkers and opinion leaders to reject hate speech and contempt of religions and their symbols, and to respect the feelings of Muslims, instead of falling captive to Islamophobia.

In a statement, Kuwait’s foreign ministry warned against the support of abuses and discriminatory policies that link Islam to terrorism, saying it “represents a falsification of reality, insults the teachings of Islam, and offends the feelings of Muslims around the world”.

On Friday, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned what it said was France’s continued attack against Muslims by insulting religious symbols.

The secretariat of the Jeddah-based organisation said in a statement it is surprised at the official political rhetoric issued by some French officials that offend French-Islamic relations and fuels feelings of hatred for political party gains.

Riaz Haq said...

Face masks are mandatory but "Muslim" face covering is banned in #France. #coronavirus #Islamophobia #MacronGoneMad #CharlieHebdo #BoycottFrenchBrands https://www.milligazette.com/news/Opinions/33733-replacement-democracy-hypocrisy/ Outwardly seen as a country of equality, liberty and fraternity, upholding the epitome of cultural unity, many marginalised minorities within France would beg to differ. From the racial injustice and economic inequalities that disproportionately affect the subordinated within society, France has been one of the realms of precisely this. Amongst the global pandemic, France’s democracy, the equitable inclusion of all citizens within the State has been replaced by hypocrisy. An absurd ruling that although facial masks are mandatory in public spaces, the full-face veils will remain persistent in criminalising disproportionately Muslim women.
An incomparable injustice, purely ruthless oppression through the State, is the restriction of a Muslim women’s liberty. Perpetrated through the antagonistic relationship between France and Islam, between acculturation and religious tradition, the garment that covers a Muslim woman’s face to preserve her modesty, the burqa has been suppressed in France through the law. It had been in the forefront scrutiny, until, in 2011, France’s assimilationist beliefs turned into State-mandated Islamophobia, thereby outlawing the full-face veils to be worn in public. Unfortunately, this verdict was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights merely on the basis that it infringed the French principle of ‘living together. In unprecedented times with the Coronavirus, France, has seen almost 33,200 deaths from it. Consequently, the country has mandated face masks in public areas. Materials of fabric that cover citizens’ faces by government order for health reasons showcases explicitly that the argument of the French principle of ‘living together’ should not suffice in maintaining the face-veil ban. It is hypocrisy in its prime.
‘Living together’ has proved in these unusual times to be undisturbed and if anything, as stated by the the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, there has been incredible European solidarity in the face of the pandemic and France has played a crucial role in creating this supposed unity. Therefore, penalising women for covering their faces or not covering their faces to fulfil religious faithfulness or for health precautions, is France’s attempt to criminalise and assimilate minorities by force. It is the essence of hypocrisy because it is clear that it is an attack on religious freedoms. It manifests the irrefutable truth that whilst both facial coverings shield one’s face yet allows society to ‘live together,’ France is unambiguously unwilling to include easily observable Muslims into the country’s identity. The Coronavirus demonstrates how unease caused through the fear of lack of social integration through wearing a ‘facial-covering’ has miraculously proved wrong. However, within society, surgeons, dentists, and individuals wearing scarves to cover their faces from the cold have always been observed and accepted. Nevertheless, these were never criminalised nor seen as a barrier to liberal democratic citizens’ living together in harmony. Instead, facial coverings for those purposes have been indisputably upheld. The French ban on facial coverings has shown that this restriction on liberty has always been targeted towards Muslim women who wear the burqa. With innumerable French citizens at present protecting their faces from the public guise, it is permissible so long as the justification is health as opposed to religiosity -- so long as it is for France and not for Islam. This is reinforced through US philosophy Professor Martha Nussbaum who states, “Many beloved, trusted professionals cover their faces all year. What inspires fear and mistrust in Europe is not covering per se, but Muslim covering” (Nussbaum, 2010).

Riaz Haq said...

#France ramps up protective mask enforcement but retains its ban on #Muslim face covering. #Islamophobia #MacronGoneMad #boycottfrenchproducts | The Daily Social Distancing... https://youtu.be/OUhvV-NdXQs via @YouTube

Riaz Haq said...

#Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel: Freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. #FreeSpeech #Macron #France #CharlieHebdo #cartoons #Islamophobia https://youtu.be/RZhVq1M3bhs via @YouTube 

Riaz Haq said...

Pfizer has announced today that its COVID19 vaccine has been found to be more than 90% effective in its recently concluded large-scale trial. The two key scientists who developed this vaccine are Turkish-born Muslims named Dr. Ugur Sahin and his wife Dr. Ozlem Tureci, according to media reports. The couple started BioNTech, a technology startup based in Germany, to develop treatments using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. A Morocco-born Muslim scientist Dr. Moncef Mohamad Slaoui is leading Operation WARP Speed announced by President Donald Trump to rapidly develop and distribute a coronavirus vaccine in the United States. Covid19 pandemic is the biggest challenge the world faces today. Muslim scientists are in the forefront of dealing with this challenge. This is particularly notable in a world where Islamophobia has gone mainstream in recent years.

https://www.southasiainvestor.com/2020/11/turkish-born-muslim-scientists-behind.html

Riaz Haq said...

NBC Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin's (
@AymanM) proposed edit to New York Times headline on #Nashville Christmas Day bombing! #nashvillebomber #Islamophobia #terrorism

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1343577495585476610?s=20

From NY Times:

"A Quiet Life, a Thunderous Death, and a Nightmare That Shook Nashville
DNA tests show that Anthony Warner blew himself up along with a chunk of downtown Nashville on Christmas morning"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/us/anthony-quinn-warner-dead.html

NASHVILLE — Anthony Warner had a solitary job as an information technology specialist, stopping in to various offices to fix computers. He was 63. He was not married. His neighbors barely knew him.

He sent an email to one of his clients three weeks ago to say he was retiring. He started shedding possessions: He told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car. Records show that he signed away his home on the day before Thanksgiving.

But he made sure to hold on to one last thing: His R.V., a Thor Motor Coach Chateau that he kept in his back yard.

He parked the vehicle around 1:22 a.m. Christmas morning on Second Avenue North in downtown Nashville, in the heart of a district of honky-tonks, restaurants and boot shops that would often be packed but was quiet in the small hours of a holiday morning. The R.V. had been rigged with explosives and a speaker set to play a warning and a song: “Downtown” by Petula Clark, a hit released in 1964 celebrating the bright lights and bustle of a vibrant city.

Riaz Haq said...

No, We Don’t Have the “Right to Be Islamophobic”


After a speaker at France Insoumise’s summer school invoked the “right to be Islamophobic,” the French left is again at war over secularism. But the real problem is a failure to take sides with the victims of racism — and defend Muslims against attempts to stigmatize them.

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/09/france-insoumise-islamophobia-racism-melenchon-pena-ruiz


For political parties in France, it’s traditional to hold an université d’été — what English speakers might call a summer school. These are public activist meetups, devoted to lectures, debates, and rallying members together after the return from the holidays. For La France Insoumise (LFI) — the main organization of the anti-austerity left in France, whose leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, scored 19.6 percent at the 2017 presidential election — the 2019 université d’été thus ought to have represented an opportunity to regroup after the bad result in May’s European contest, where its 6.3 percent result fell far beneath expectations.

With Mélenchon himself away, touring Latin America, this was also an opportunity for LFI to show that it can get on with things even without the presence of its presidential candidate. Yet things didn’t play out as planned. And at fault was a recurring problem of the French left — Islamophobia.

The controversy came thanks to a talk by Henri Peña-Ruiz on laïcité — France’s brand of state secularism. The philosophy professor’s statement that “one has the right to be Islamophobic” had a truly explosive effect, sparking sharp criticisms against Peña-Ruiz and the fact that he had been allowed to speak at the France Insoumise event without there being anyone to debate — and challenge — him.

Peña-Ruiz is, after all, hardly an unknown quantity. He comes from the Left Party, of which Mélenchon is himself a member, and which is the largest party within LFI, though he called for a vote for the Communist Party (PCF) in the European election. Among Left Party circles, which occupy a central role in LFI’s organization, he is considered a “specialist” on laïcité.

These latter replied to the controversy by claiming that Peña-Ruiz’s words had been taken out of context and insisting that he had been targeted by a malicious campaign of invective against LFI. Yet at the same time, they rejected the very word “Islamophobia,” as if such a thing could not exist. Once again, the French left is displaying its inability to take sides on this issue — and to clearly stand up for the victims of racism.

Riaz Haq said...

#UNHRC (Human Rights Council) : Institutional suspicion and fear of #Muslims has escalated to epidemic proportions. Muslims are targeted based on stereotypical ‘Muslim’ characteristics, such as names, skin color and clothing. #Islamophobia #France #India https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086452

In a report to the Council, he cited European surveys in 2018 and 2019 that showed that nearly four in 10 people held unfavourable views about Muslims. In 2017, 30 per cent of Americans viewed Muslims “in a negative light”, the Special Rapporteur added.

He said that States had responded to security threats “by adopting measures which disproportionately target Muslims and define Muslims as both high risk and at risk of radicalization”.

These measures include restricting Muslims from living according to their belief system, the securitization of religious communities, limits on access to citizenship, socioeconomic exclusion and pervasive stigmatization of Muslim communities.

Mr Shaheed noted that these developments followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and other acts of terrorism purportedly carried out in the name of Islam.

Harmful tropes
He further raised concerns that in States where Muslims are in the minority, they are frequently targeted based on stereotypical ‘Muslim’ characteristics, such as names, skin colour and clothing, including religious attire, such as headscarves.

The independent expert said that “Islamophobic” discrimination and hostility were often intersectional, such as where “Muslim women may face a ‘triple penalty’ as women, minority ethnic and Muslim…Harmful stereotypes and tropes about Muslims and Islam are chronically reinforced by mainstream media, powerful politicians, influencers of popular culture and in academic discourse”, he added.

The report emphasised that critiques of Islam should never be conflated with Islamophobia, adding that international human rights law protects individuals, not religions. The criticism of the ideas, leaders, symbols or practices of Islam is not Islamophobic in itself, the Special Rapporteur stressed, unless it is accompanied by hatred or bias towards Muslims in general.

Take ‘all necessary measures’
“I strongly encourage States to take all necessary measures to combat direct and indirect forms of discrimination against Muslims and prohibit any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to violence”, the UN expert said.

Special Rapporteurs are part of the so-called Special Procedures mandate of the Human Rights Council and are not UN staff, nor do they receive a salary. They serve entirely in their individual capacity.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan joins first-ever 'Int'l Day to Combat Islamophobia'. #ImranKhan reaffirmed Pak support to continue to lead international efforts for building bridges between cultures and civilizations. #Islamophobia #Xenophobia #Modi #Hindutva #WhiteSupremacy http://sabahdai.ly/_nyl


The OIC has decided to designate March 15 as a day to fight against Islamophobia globally each year.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan said the OIC's unanimous support for the designation of this day is a reflection of the sentiments of billions of Muslims around the world.

"Today, joins members of the OIC in observing for the first time the ‘International Day to Combat Islamophobia.' Marking this occasion, the OIC Group will hold a High-Level Event in New York on 17 March 2021," it said.

Last November, the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in its 47th session, held in Niamey, Niger, unanimously adopted a resolution moved by Pakistan and Turkey to observe March 15 as the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia."

The Islamic group is now working with the international community to commemorate the day at the global level.

"Prime Minister Imran Khan has been the leading international voice in raising awareness on the grave consequences of rising systematic Islamophobia and in promoting inter-faith harmony," said the ministry, adding that the scourge of Islamophobia, fueled by populism, hate speech, and lack of knowledge and disinformation, is causing unimaginable suffering to Muslim minorities around the world.

Pakistan reaffirmed its support to continue to lead international efforts for building bridges between cultures and civilizations.

"Through the observance of this Day, we want to build better understanding of Islam and Islamic precepts. We intend to send a message of international solidarity and cooperation. We remain determined to promote values of peaceful co-existence as well as inter-faith and cultural harmony," the Pakistani Foreign Ministry further said.

The OIC in its report presented in the foreign ministers meeting in Niger last year said the spread of Islamophobia, both in momentum and outreach, is particularly alarming these days, for it has emerged as "a new form of racism" characterized by xenophobia, negative profiling and stereotyping of Muslims.

"The rise in hate crimes against Muslims both offline and online, as well as discrimination in education, employment, housing and healthcare sector, among others are well documented," said the global Muslim body in its report.

Studies in Europe and elsewhere have also revealed that Islamophobia is most visible in media and the discourse of right-wing political parties and groups who tend to exploit and build on the general fear of Islam for electoral gains.

In European countries and the U.S., anti-immigration and anti-refugee rhetoric has taken an anti-Muslim overtone and often becomes the central theme of campaigns by far-right parties.

"Pertinent to note that Islamophobia is also on the rise in some non-western countries where the Muslim communities and minorities face discrimination, hatred and violence, including in Kashmir," according to the OIC.

The OIC further reported that during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, there has been a perceivable rise in negative narratives and hate speech in some countries holding the Muslim minorities responsible for spreading the COVID-19, as part of a disinformation campaign and "fake news,” mainly on social media.

Riaz Haq said...

Building a #Mosque in #France, Never Easy, May Get Even Harder. About 2 million practicing #Muslims have only 2,500 mosques that receive little or no public money, France's 3.2 million practicing Catholics have 45,000 church buildings funded by government https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/world/europe/france-islam-law-mosques.html?smid=tw-share

The disparities also touch on everything from government subsidies to private schools to credits on personal income for donations, which overwhelmingly favor Catholics and high-income taxpayers. But they are perhaps most glaring in physical structures. Even as Mr. Macron has pledged to nurture an “Islam of France,” followers of the faith suffer from an acute shortage of proper mosques across the country.

“It’s a total paradox,” Saïd Aït-Laama, an imam, said in an interview before Friday Prayer.

Unable to finance mosque-building themselves, generally unassisted by the state, Muslim communities have turned to governments abroad for help.

But that may now become more difficult under Mr. Macron’s new law, which is intended to combat Islamism by toughening rules on secularism and controls over religious organizations, including tightening the flow of foreign donations.

Last week, the government said that the new law would allow it to oppose the public financing of a large mosque in Strasbourg, in the eastern region of Alsace, where, for historical reasons, the construction of religious buildings can still qualify for government subsidies.

------------

As the temperature hovered around freezing, hundreds of men trickled into a former slaughterhouse on a recent Friday. In the overflow crowd outside, scores more unfurled their prayer mats on the asphalt as the imam’s voice intoned through loudspeakers.

The old slaughterhouse has served as a temporary mosque for the past 21 years for many Muslims in Angers, a city in western France. Construction on a permanent home has stalled since last fall when the City Council unanimously rejected a proposal by Muslim leaders to hand ownership of their unfinished mosque to the government of Morocco in return for its completion. Local members, after donating more than $2.8 million, were tapped out.

Building a mosque in France is a tortuous endeavor at the best of times. Members tend to be poorer than other French people. Turning to foreign donors raises a host of concerns — both inside and outside Muslim communities — that are coming under intensifying scrutiny with President Emmanuel Macron’s new law against Islamism, which is expected to get final approval in the Senate in coming weeks.

Complicating matters for Muslims has been France’s principle of secularism, called laïcité, which established a firewall between state and church. While the government regards itself as strictly neutral before all faiths, the law effectively made the state the biggest landlord of Roman Catholic churches in France and the guardian of cultural Roman Catholicism.

Muslim communities find the decks stacked against them. Today, critics of the system note, taxpayer money effectively subsidizes a shrinking religion, Catholicism, while the system disadvantages France’s fastest-growing faith, Islam.

While insignificant in 1905, France’s Muslim population has grown rapidly since the 1970s, and is believed to now number about six million, or around 10 percent of the total population. About two million of them practice their faith in 2,500 mosques that receive little or no public money, according to a 2015 Senate report.


By contrast, France has 3.2 million practicing Catholics who have access to about 45,000 church buildings, 40,000 of which are owned by the government and maintained with taxpayer money, according to the report.

Riaz Haq said...

The far-right’s influence in Europe is much greater than its new EU Parliamentary group suggests

https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-elections-2019/opinion/the-far-rights-influence-in-europe-is-much-greater-than-its-new-eu-parliamentary-group-suggests/

Next week, for the first time, the EU will have a major far-right political grouping in the European Parliament. And although it will only rank fifth in size, its influence reaches well beyond the ballot box, writes Faisal Al Yafai.

Faisal Al Yafai is currently writing a book on the Middle East and is a frequent commentator on international TV news networks. He has worked for news outlets such as The Guardian and the BBC, and reported on the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. He contributed this op-ed for the Syndication Bureau, an opinion and analysis article syndication service that focuses exclusively on the Middle East.

At the start of next week, the new session of the European Parliament will begin, after elections at the end of May. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) traditionally sit not in the political parties belonging to their national governments, but in wider, cross-national political groups.

Next week, for the first time, the EU will have a major far-right political grouping. Identity and Democracy (ID), as the new group is called, is the brainchild of the two largest far-right parties in the parliament, Italy’s The League and France’s National Rally. They will be joined by far-right MEPs from seven other EU countries. Together, they will be the fifth-largest grouping.


From one perspective, the new grouping is alarming: 73 lawmakers openly adhering to far-right politics. From another, however, it is less dramatic, and only 10% of all the MEPs will belong to ID. However, merely looking at the number of seats is misleading. The influence of the far-right is far more widespread across Europe’s political parties.

It is the most successful political trend in Europe today, with clear and growing momentum. It has achieved that by espousing straightforward – if ultimately unworkable – solutions to real, concrete problems.

The success of the far-right’s ideas is not rooted merely in rhetoric: they address hard realities in the lives of many in Europe today.

The reasons for their remarkable reach lie in a multitude of factors: the sophisticated use of social media, simple political messaging and charismatic leaders. But more than that, it is grounded in the hard realities of Europe’s recent history. Three major shocks have taken place across the European Union this century, which taken together have shaken the established political tribes.

The first was the major EU enlargement of 2004, when 10 countries joined, swiftly followed three years later by Romania and Bulgaria. The effect on the richer, western countries of the EU was enormous: within a few years, millions had moved westwards from the former eastern bloc.

Then came the financial crash of 2008, which stagnated wages and ushered in austerity measures, which hurt already disadvantaged communities. Within a few years, the migrant crisis had begun, culminating in the mass movement of hundreds of thousands of people to Europe, predominantly from African and Asian countries.

Taken together, these shocks have created political conditions that centrist parties could not easily respond to – and to which far-right and populist rhetoric appear to have clear answers.

At the top of that list is immigration. An influx of migrants, both from the Christian east of Europe and majority-Muslim countries, have changed predominantly white working-class districts, bringing with them economic and cultural dislocation.

Riaz Haq said...

France Battles Over Whether to Cancel or Celebrate Napoleon
President Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath at the emperor’s tomb on the 200th anniversary of his death, stepping into a national debate over the legacy of Napoleon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/europe/france-napoleon-macron.html


Jacques Chirac couldn’t stand him. Nicolas Sarkozy kept his distance. François Hollande shunned him. But on the 200th anniversary this week of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death, Emmanuel Macron has chosen to do what most recent presidents of France have avoided: honor the man who in 1799 destroyed the nascent French Republic in a putsch.

By choosing to lay a wreath Wednesday at Napoleon’s tomb under the golden dome of Les Invalides, Mr. Macron stepped into the heart of France’s culture wars. Napoleon, always a contested figure, has become a Rorschach test for the French at a moment of tense cultural confrontation.

Was Napoleon a modernizing reformer whose legal code, lycée school system, central bank and centralized administrative framework laid the basis for post-revolutionary France? Or was he a retrograde racist, imperialist and misogynist?

By paying his respects to Napoleon, Mr. Macron will please a restive French right dreaming of lost glory and of a moment when, under its turbulent emperor, France stood at the center of the world. The French obsession with the romantic epic of Napoleon’s rise and fall is undying, as countless magazine covers and talk shows have underscored in recent weeks.

But in the current zeitgeist, Napoleon’s decisive role as founder of the modern French state tends to pale beside his record as colonizer, warmonger and enslaver. Mr. Macron is taking a risk. Officials close to him have portrayed his speech as an attempt to look Napoleon “in the face,” light and shadow. Others, however, insist Napoleon should be condemned rather than commemorated.

“How can we celebrate a man who was the enemy of the French Republic, of a number of European peoples and also the enemy of humanity in that he was an enslaver?” Louis-Georges Tin, an author and activist, and Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, a political scientist, wrote last month in Le Monde.

They argued that Les Invalides should be turned into a museum of France’s five republics and that Napoleon’s remains, like Franco’s in Spain, be returned to his family. The remains have already journeyed a long way. It took 19 years for them to reach France in 1840, after Napoleon’s lonely death at the age of 51 in British-imposed exile on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena.

“Yes, the head of state, the commander in chief, must bow down at the tomb of the victor of Austerlitz,” Jean d’Orléans, a descendant of the French monarchy, wrote in Le Figaro, referring to one of Napoleon’s greatest military triumphs. Honoring Napoleon amounts to “honoring the French people, honoring ourselves.”

Riaz Haq said...

Welcome to Germany
Thomas Rogers
Since Angela Merkel admitted 1.2 million refugees in 2015 and 2016, the dire predictions about their impact on the country have not materialized.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/04/29/welcome-to-germany/

In 2014 Emad Kendakji’s hometown of Hama became a center of fighting between Syrian rebel and government forces, and he was terrified of being conscripted into the army. “I knew I had to fight or get out,” he recently told me. So, like many other Syrians, the twenty-eight-year-old law school graduate embarked on a perilous journey to Europe. He traveled across much of North Africa to Melilla, a Spanish territory on the Moroccan coast. The official at the Spanish refugee office, however, told him, “Just go to Germany. There is a better life and work there. We are poor.” He took the man’s advice and a few days later arrived in Düsseldorf.

Kendakji was part of the so-called refugee wave of 2015 and 2016, when more than two million migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and Eritrea, among other countries, made their way to Europe within a span of months. Driven by a confluence of events including the war in Syria, fallout from the Arab Spring, and worsening conditions in refugee camps in the Middle East, the mass migration prompted a crisis in Europe. Many countries refused to bear the burden of housing and feeding the new arrivals, producing bitter disagreement among European Union member states. According to the Pew Research Center, ultimately about 45 percent of the refugees ended up in Germany, which took in over 1.2 million of them, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the country’s population.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to allow the migrants in was initially greeted with widespread praise. It seemed to encourage a vision of a new, inclusive Germany and a burgeoning moral superpower, bolstering Merkel’s reputation as the “leader of the free world.” But it also drew scorn and schadenfreude from right-wing populists, who argued that it would lead to Germany’s social and economic ruin. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán later said, “If I would pursue a refugee policy like the chancellor, the people would chase me out of office the same day.” Just before his inauguration in early 2017, President-elect Trump said it was a “catastrophic mistake” for Merkel to have taken in “all of those illegals.”

Now, more than five years after the refugee crisis, the apocalyptic predictions have not materialized. According to numbers released last summer, the migrants from that period have integrated faster than previous refugee influxes. Approximately half of them have jobs, and another 50,000 are taking part in apprenticeship programs. The federal education minister has stated that more than 10,000 are enrolled in university. Three quarters of them now live in their own apartment or house and feel “welcome” or “very welcome” in Germany. The financial cost to the German government of taking in the migrants—including housing, food, and education—is likely to be recovered, in taxes, earlier than many had predicted.

Riaz Haq said...

The terrorism concerns proved to be massively overblown, and allows us by the French think tank Fondapol found that since 2015, Germany has experienced only a fraction of the Islamic terror attacks that France has. While taking in far more migrants.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2105/09/fzgps.01.html

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. On Tuesday, Germany's interior minister made a disturbing announcement for right crime in his country hit a record high last year with more than 23,000 incidents. A university have also study of far right terror attacks in Europe shows that over the past 30 years, Germany has had the most far right terrorist incidents on the continent by far.


In the most troubling recent incident near Frankfurt, a far right gunman killed 10 people in two shisha bars last February. Politically motivated crimes like that one were up and alarming 10.8 percent with national elections just four months away, authorities wanted to particularly unstable time. They're worried that far right groups will use frustration with repeated lockdowns and a botched vaccine rollout to stir up resentment toward the government and encouraged sedition.

All this comes at a time of major political transition. After 15 years of Angela Merkel steadying influence at the helm, Germany will be electing a new chancellor come September.

The record breaking year the Germany just experienced as the latest in a years long upward trend. And that trend is made even more striking by the fact that it seems to have emerged in reaction to an imaginary crisis.

Official data shows that far right crimes saw the first major spike in 2015. The year Merkel decided to open her country's borders to a large number of migrants, many fleeing war torn Syria. Eventually over 1.2 million people amounting to 1.5 percent of the German population were allowed to settle in the country under that policy.

And that fueled intense anxieties about how out of control immigration could lead to integration problems and Islamist terrorism.

Before the far right fears about impending Sharia doom, today most of those 1.2 million refugees have already assimilated nicely into German society. As Thomas Rogers wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, the migrants from that period have integrated faster than previous refugee influxes.

Approximately half of them have jobs and another 50,000 are taking part in apprenticeship programs. The federal education minister has stated then more than 10,000 are enrolled in university. Three quarters of them now live in their own apartment or house and feel welcome or very welcome in Germany.

In the German institutions and German society have both been quite welcoming.

[10:55:01]

As Rogers writes, German companies created purpose built jobs for the newcomers. And over half of Germans say they have volunteered or donated in some capacity to help the migrants make a new home in their country.

The terrorism concerns proved to be massively overblown, and allows us by the French think tank Fondapol found that since 2015, Germany has experienced only a fraction of the Islamic terror attacks that France has. While taking in far more migrants.

The German public seems to have noticed. Polls showed that the biggest rivals to Merkel's political errs will be the pro-immigrant, pro- asylum Green Party, while the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party is at the back of the pack.

Let's hope the Germans realized that while they were constantly warned about Islamist terror, the violence that actually materialized came from the far right, and is still on the rise even now.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.


https://youtu.be/dNVh7qWH5g0

Riaz Haq said...

Muslim family killed in #hatecrime in #London, #Ontario. A 20-year-old White supremacist man driving a pick-up truck slams into and kills 4 members of a #Muslim family in what police say was an attack "motivated by hate." #Islamophobia #Canada @TRTWorld https://www.trtworld.com/americas/canada-police-ontario-muslim-family-killed-in-anti-islam-hate-crime-47328

Four people killed after a car jumped the curb and ran into them were deliberately targeted in an anti-Islamic hate crime, Canadian police has said.

"It was pre-planned and premeditated and that's why first degree murder charges were laid," London Detective Superintendent Paul Waight told reporters on Monday.

"There is evidence that this was ... motivated by hate. It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslim," Waight said.

Waight said police in London, about 200 km southwest of Toronto, were liaising with the Royal Mounted Canadian Police on potentially filing terrorism charges.

A Canadian man Nathaniel Veltman has been arrested.

The 20-year-old suspect was arrested at a mall seven kilometres from the intersection crosswalk in London, Ontario where it happened, and has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.


Canadian PM said he was "horrified" by the news of killings.

"To the Muslim community in London and to Muslims across the country, know that we stand with you. Islamophobia has no place in any of our communities. This hate is insidious and despicable - and it must stop," Justin Trudeau tweeted.

Riaz Haq said...

They shared a video of a #Muslim man being attacked in #India. Now they're being investigated by police. #Indian police opened an investigation into 3 Muslim journalists & 3 Muslim members of the opposition Congress party who had shared the video.#Hindutva https://ti.me/3gwnLhy


Indian authorities have launched a fresh attack on freedom of expression, escalating a crackdown on press freedom and social media platforms. It’s yet another indicator that India, often called the world’s largest democracy, is lurching toward authoritarianism.

The trigger was a video of a violent assault on a Muslim man that went viral on Twitter, which ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials say was used to spread misinformation aimed at stoking religious tensions.

Late Tuesday night, Indian police opened an investigation into three Muslim journalists and three Muslim members of the opposition Congress party who had shared the video, along with Twitter and news site The Wire—one of the few media outlets in India that have remained independent.

India’s IT Minister also accused Twitter of failing to comply with the government’s new Internet rules on Wednesday, intensifying an ongoing confrontation that some observers have speculated could culminate in the social media platform being banned in the country.

The video in question showed a group of men attacking an elderly Muslim man in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The individuals named in the police investigation had shared comments from the victim, who said that his attackers had cut off his beard and forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” (Glory to Lord Ram), an expression that has become a rallying cry for Hindu nationalists, in a suggestion that the attack was religiously motivated. Many mainstream Indian media organizations also reported the victim’s comments but were not named in the investigation.

Police investigating the case denied that the incident was motivated by religion, saying Tuesday that some of the attackers were Muslim. In a statement announcing the investigation, police said that those named had “tried to create animosity between Hindus and Muslims,” and “did not make an attempt to establish the truth in the case,” adding that they had spread “false news.” Police said the six individuals would be investigated for several possible offenses including attempting to provoke a riot, promoting enmity between religious groups, public mischief, and criminal conspiracy.

The move has been heavily criticized by journalists and free speech organizations. “The accusation brought by the Uttar Pradesh police is based on absolutely no tangible element and clearly amounts to judicial harassment,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement on Thursday. “Reporters Without Borders calls on the police of northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state to immediately withdraw the absurd charges.”

The Uttar Pradesh state government had not responded to a TIME request for comment at the time of publication.

Intimidation of journalists
One of the journalists named in the police investigation was TIME and Washington Post contributor Rana Ayyub, an award-winning journalist who recently reported from overstretched Indian hospitals for a TIME story arguing that governmental failures were to blame for the country’s devastating second wave of COVID-19. Others include Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, which regularly debunks misinformation shared by the government and its supporters, and Saba Naqvi, an author and journalist. The other three people named were members of the opposition Congress party.

In an interview with TIME, Ayyub said that, while the victim’s comments that the attack was religiously motivated had been reported by many newspapers across the country, she believed police had targeted her and other prominent Muslims in order to intimidate them. “It shames the Indian government that they are targeting journalists for reporting basic facts,” Ayyub says.

Riaz Haq said...

Welham Boys' School Officials Booked for Seeking #Halal #Meat Suppliers. Welham is a prominent school in Dehradun #India. Complaint was filed by #BJP-allied Bajrang Dal's convener Vikas Verma for 'promoting enmity between groups'. #Hindutva #Islamophobia https://www.thequint.com/news/india/dehradun-welham-boys-school-booked-for-halal-meat-ad

Authorities of the Welham Boys' School, a prominent school in Dehradun, were booked on Friday, 3 July, for 'inviting halal meat suppliers for the mess'.

The complaint was filed by Bajrang Dal's convener Vikas Verma for 'promoting enmity between groups', reported The Times of India. The principal, vice principal and the manager of the residential school have been booked under Section 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code which pertains to statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes.

"The school has issued a tender for serving halal meat in the school canteen with the intention of religious conversion of students. Due to this act, the religious sentiments of Hindu community have been hurt," the complaint read, reported the Times of India.

Riaz Haq said...

Unmasking Hindutva - Frontline
Inbox

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/unmasking-hindutva-looking-back-on-dismantling-global-hindutva-online-conference-september-2021/article36628499.ece


SOCIAL science academics associated with American and European universities organised a three-day online conference titled “Dismantling Global Hindutva” from September 10 to 12 with the stated aim of bringing together “scholars of South Asia specialising in gender, economics, political science, caste, religion, health care, and media in order to try to understand the complex and multifaceted phenomenon of Hindutva”. The conference was co-sponsored by academic units of more than 50 universities worldwide.

As soon as the announcement pertaining to the conference was made sometime in August, the organisers and the invited speakers were threatened, trolled and intimidated on social media. Hindu groups based in the United States such as the Hindu Mandir Executives Conference, which describes itself as an initiative of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America, the Coalition of Hindus of North America and the Hindu American Foundation pressured participating universities to withdraw their support for the event. Niraj Antani, a Republican State Senator from Ohio, condemned the conference, terming it as “Hinduphobia”. In India, the event attracted massive opposition, with several media outlets taking the lead in campaigning against it.

The speakers acknowledged the “bravery” and “fortitude” of the organisers in staying the course and proceeding with the conference. The conference had nine thematic sessions with 45 speakers (including the moderators) presenting their ideas and analyses. While the participating scholars (the majority of them were of Indian heritage) were mainly from the U.S., there were speakers from the United Kingdom, France and Germany as well. A handful of Indian activists, who were subjected to virulent online attacks, including death threats, also spoke at the conference. The organisers deserve to be congratulated because it is hard to imagine an academic event that rigorously interrogates the idea of Hindutva taking place in India with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in government at the Centre.

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Two scholars from the Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, Shana Sippy and Sailaja Krishnamuti, asserted that “not all Hinduism is Hindutva but Hindutva is, in fact, Hinduism…. Hindutva is a powerful, vocal, insidious form of Hinduism.” In a powerful presentation, Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, spoke about her engagement with a more casteless and inclusive form of Hinduism. Identifying herself as a practising Hindu who “loves Sita and Ram”, she decried how “Jai Shri Ram has become a murder slogan”. The geographer Brij Maharaj argued how the RSS and its ideology of Hindutva had found it difficult to pervade Indian diasporas in South Africa, Mauritius, Guyana and Fiji because of their origins as indentured labour.

In the last session, on “Islamophobia, Hindutva and White Supremacy”, the historians Anupama Rao and Anjali Arondekar and the media studies scholar Deepa Kumar shared their perspectives. Deepa Kumar commented on the shrinking academic space in Indian universities, quoting her own experience: In May 2021, her talk on Islamophobia at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education was cancelled following protests by Hindu right-wing activists. Deepa Kumar drew on her past work to show the commonality of “tactics, strategies and rhetoric” among white supremacists, Zionists and espousers of Hindutva.

Riaz Haq said...

"While the Bidens of this world still talk about Gandhi, India’s role models have changed. ..(Anti-#Muslim) #Genocide is now openly demanded at public rallies. The “need” for ethnic cleansing can pop up in casual conversations" #India #Modi #Hindutva https://time.com/6103284/india-hindu-supremacy-extremism-genocide-bjp-modi/

And it is only the beginning. In neighboring Bihar, the government is asking people to report “suspected illegal migrants” and officials have been ordered to create awareness of the issue on “an urgent basis.” The state’s high court has demanded a detention center to house migrants, reminding the government that “deportation of illegal migrants is of paramount importance and in the national interest.” Bihar’s 17 million Muslims are on edge about their future. In next-door Bengal, which borders Bangladesh and is home to nearly 25 million Muslims, the BJP has been promising an Assam-like citizenship verification drive if it comes to power in the state.

The chief minister of India’s biggest and most politically important state, Uttar Pradesh, recently blamed Muslims for cornering government-subsidized food. Uttar Pradesh, along with Assam, has introduced a two-child policy blaming Muslims for a supposedly runaway population growth that officials say accounts for the backwardness of these states. The claim is not rooted in reality. Fertility rates among Muslims have in fact been falling rapidly.

But reality is no longer important. It bends to the requirements of the ruling party’s dehumanizing narrative against Muslims. As Jews in Nazi Germany were called “rats” and Tutsis in Rwanda in the 1990s were called “cockroaches,” so BJP members now refer to Indian Muslims as “termites” eating away at India’s resources, denying Hindus what is due to them in their own land.

The destruction of Gandhi’s legacy
The foundations of the secular republic that Gandhi died defending are thus being hollowed out ever more frantically. While Modi pays ritualistic homage to Gandhi, BJP leaders openly glorify Gandhi’s killer, who was a Hindu fanatic. Modi’s ministers and legislators freely call on people to shoot “traitors” and start pogroms, and are promoted rather than penalized for their actions. Modi himself partly owes his fan following and ascent to his lack of remorse over the 2002 pogroms in Gujarat in 2002, when he was chief minister. Hundreds of Muslims were killed and thousands rendered homeless.

Noticeably, not only did the current chief minister of Assam not apologize for the police excesses, he in fact trivialized the deaths of Hoque and Farid, calling Hoque’s death “just 30 seconds” of a three minute video. He also carried on with the eviction drive and even proudly tweeted photos of the rubble of the four mosques destroyed in it.

While the Bidens of this world still talk about Gandhi, India’s role models have changed. So have the standards of acceptable discourse in public and social life. Genocide is now openly demanded at public rallies. The “need” for ethnic cleansing can pop up in casual conversations on politics among friends or family. Death threats are used like punctuation marks in debates on social media.

On Oct. 2, Gandhi’s birthday was celebrated with much fanfare as the International Day of Non-Violence. Two new books on his assassination in 1948 were launched. In Karnataka, meanwhile, a 25-year-old Muslim man was found beheaded for his affair with a Hindu girl, allegedly by a local Hindu vigilante group.

Gandhi continues to be killed in a million ways in today’s India. Bijoy Baniya just added a flourish to it.

Riaz Haq said...

Idaho state Lt Governor Janice McGeachin waves gun and Bible in video questioning existence of #COVID19 #pandemic. #Republican legislators are calling for an end to #coronavirus restrictions in the #US state of #Idaho. #guns #religion #Christianity https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/idaho-governor-janice-mcgeachin-gun-bible-coronavirus-existence-b1480933.html

Idaho Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin waved a gun and a Bible during a video in which she and other legislators seemed to question the existence of a global pandemic that has claimed some 230,000 lives in the US.

Ms McGeachin, 57, appeared alongside 10 other GOP figures in a short clip published by the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a libertarian think-tank....

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan National Security Policy document emphasizes the need for #economic security. It also highlights #Modi's threat: “The rise of Hindutva-driven politics in India is deeply concerning and impacts Pakistan’s immediate security.” #Kashmir #trade https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/explained/article/3164176/what-does-pakistans-first-national-security-policy-say-about

On China and Pakistan, the document talks about deep-rooted historical ties, shared interests, mutual understanding and strategic convergence. The mega infrastructure project ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ is described as one with support across Pakistan and one that can jump-start Pakistan’s economy and domestic growth.


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However, there is a deliberate attempt to downgrade China’s importance, according to Kugelman. “Pakistan may be trying to send a message that Beijing doesn’t occupy as dominant a role in its national security calculations as many believe it does,” he said.
Regarding the US, there seems to be an attempt to ignore the current strain in bilateral ties. Although the Pakistani Prime Minister has not received a call from US President Joe Biden since he assumed office, the document talks about the long history of bilateral cooperation between the two sides. It also describes the US as “critical” for regional peace and stability and glosses over its current tussle with China.

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The document acknowledges that cooperation between the US and Pakistan has narrowed down to counterterrorism only, and hoped other areas can also be worked on together soon.
Iran and Afghanistan are mentioned, but most countries in the Gulf and West Asia are clubbed together as are Russia and Central Asia.


Since the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan last year and the Taliban coming to power, Pakistan has seen several fatal attacks, according to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
Most of the violence has been attributed to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an offshoot of the Afghan militant group, encouraged by developments next door. Chinese assets have also been targeted, including attacks in northern Pakistan and the southern port of Gwadar.

Riaz Haq said...

Juan E Mendez, the first #UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, on the #genocide call against #India’s #Muslims: ‘UNSC should step in to protect Indian minorities’ #Islamophobia #Hindutva #Modi https://aje.io/mv3b8t via @AJEnglish

Dozens of Hindu religious leaders and politicians gathered last month for a meeting in Haridwar, a prominent pilgrimage site for Hindus in the northern Uttarakhand state, where multiple speakers called on the community to arm themselves for a genocide against the Muslim minority.

“Even if just 100 of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious,” Sadhvi Annapurna Maa of the far-right Hindu Mahasabha (Grand Assembly of Hindus) told a cheering crowd at the event.

The videos of the meeting went viral on social media, sparking outrage and prompting calls for the arrest of those who openly called for the killings. In the month since, two speakers have been arrested while others roam free as the police say they are investigating the matter.

Meanwhile, experts have raised an alarm. During a congressional briefing in the United States, Professor Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, warned in unambiguous words that a “genocide could very well happen in India”.


In August last year, Stanton, who has modelled 10 Stages of Genocide, put India on the 8th stage, i.e. persecution of a community. The remaining two stages are extermination and denial.

Juan E Mendez is the first United Nations Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide (2004-2007), appointed by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He also served as the president and commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and as the UN Special Rapporteur on torture. Currently, he is a professor of human rights law at the American University in Washington, DC.

Mendez has termed the situation in India, home to 200 million Muslims, “dangerous” and “deeply disturbing”. Al Jazeera spoke to him about the explicit calls for genocide against the minority and what the international community, including the UN, can do to prevent it.


Juan E Mendez: I see them with a lot of concern, especially in the context where there have been decades of hostility towards the minority communities. The calls for active violence are much more dangerous and part of the equation, and particularly in this context, it could lead to some people taking those calls seriously, acting on them, and provoking others, too.

In this case, I would look for the worse, which is noting that these speeches were made by non-state actors, i.e. people who claim to represent their ethnic group, who act as if it is protected speech and under freedom of expression, like if it was just an opinion.

After all, making calls for killing millions in any legal context is a crime, the crime of threats at the very least. And so, if there is no appropriate response to it by the government, then I think the international community needs to demand action to limit the possible effects of speech of that sort.

Riaz Haq said...

Expert warns of impending ‘genocide’ of Muslims in India

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/16/expert-warns-of-possible-genocide-against-muslims-in-india

Stanton said genocide was not an event but a process and drew parallels between the policies pursued by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government against Rohingya Muslims in 2017.

Among the policies he cited were the revocation of the special autonomous status of Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019 – which stripped Kashmiris of the special autonomy they had for seven decades – and the Citizenship Amendment Act the same year, which granted citizenship to religious minorities but excluded Muslims.

Stanton, a former lecturer in genocide studies and prevention at the George Mason University in Virginia, said he feared a similar scenario to Myanmar, where the Rohingya were first legally declared non-citizens and then expelled through violence and genocide.

“What we are now facing is a very similar kind of a plot,” he said.

Riaz Haq said...

Does the advent of machine learning mean the classic methodology of hypothesise, predict and test has had its day?

by Laura Spinney

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/09/are-we-witnessing-the-dawn-of-post-theory-science


Isaac Newton apocryphally discovered his second law – the one about gravity – after an apple fell on his head. Much experimentation and data analysis later, he realised there was a fundamental relationship between force, mass and acceleration. He formulated a theory to describe that relationship – one that could be expressed as an equation, F=ma – and used it to predict the behaviour of objects other than apples. His predictions turned out to be right (if not always precise enough for those who came later).

Contrast how science is increasingly done today. Facebook’s machine learning tools predict your preferences better than any psychologist. AlphaFold, a program built by DeepMind, has produced the most accurate predictions yet of protein structures based on the amino acids they contain. Both are completely silent on why they work: why you prefer this or that information; why this sequence generates that structure.

You can’t lift a curtain and peer into the mechanism. They offer up no explanation, no set of rules for converting this into that – no theory, in a word. They just work and do so well. We witness the social effects of Facebook’s predictions daily. AlphaFold has yet to make its impact felt, but many are convinced it will change medicine.

Somewhere between Newton and Mark Zuckerberg, theory took a back seat. In 2008, Chris Anderson, the then editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, predicted its demise. So much data had accumulated, he argued, and computers were already so much better than us at finding relationships within it, that our theories were being exposed for what they were – oversimplifications of reality. Soon, the old scientific method – hypothesise, predict, test – would be relegated to the dustbin of history. We’d stop looking for the causes of things and be satisfied with correlations.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that what Anderson saw is true (he wasn’t alone). The complexity that this wealth of data has revealed to us cannot be captured by theory as traditionally understood. “We have leapfrogged over our ability to even write the theories that are going to be useful for description,” says computational neuroscientist Peter Dayan, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany. “We don’t even know what they would look like.”

But Anderson’s prediction of the end of theory looks to have been premature – or maybe his thesis was itself an oversimplification. There are several reasons why theory refuses to die, despite the successes of such theory-free prediction engines as Facebook and AlphaFold. All are illuminating, because they force us to ask: what’s the best way to acquire knowledge and where does science go from here?

The first reason is that we’ve realised that artificial intelligences (AIs), particularly a form of machine learning called neural networks, which learn from data without having to be fed explicit instructions, are themselves fallible. Think of the prejudice that has been documented in Google’s search engines and Amazon’s hiring tools.

The second is that humans turn out to be deeply uncomfortable with theory-free science. We don’t like dealing with a black box – we want to know why.

And third, there may still be plenty of theory of the traditional kind – that is, graspable by humans – that usefully explains much but has yet to be uncovered.

----------

In 2022, therefore, there is almost no stage of the scientific process where AI hasn’t left its footprint. And the more we draw it into our quest for knowledge, the more it changes that quest. We’ll have to learn to live with that, but we can reassure ourselves about one thing: we’re still asking the questions. As Pablo Picasso put it in the 1960s, “computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”

Riaz Haq said...

Islam is the second largest religion in America

Buddhism, Islam and Judaism have the most followers after Christianity in most of states.

By Reid Wilson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/04/the-second-largest-religion-in-each-state/


In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.


Christianity is by far the largest religion in the United States; more than three-quarters of Americans identify as Christians. A little more than half of us identify as Protestants, about 23 percent as Catholic and about 2 percent as Mormon.

But what about the rest of us? In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious bloc in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.


All these data come from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which conducts a U.S. Religion Census every 10 years.

The data the ASARB release every 10 years are revealing: Adherents to any religious faith — that is, those who actually attend religious services — make up more than half the population in 28 states. Utah has the highest percentage of adherents, at 79 percent of the population, while just over a quarter of Mainers are adherents. North Dakota, Alabama and Louisiana are near the top of the list, while Oregon, Vermont, Alaska, Nevada and Washington sit near the bottom of the rankings.


Catholicism dominates the Northeast and the Southwest, and Southern Baptists have a strong foothold in the South. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominates Utah and surrounding counties in Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Nevada. Lutheranism has a strong following in Minnesota and the Dakotas, while Methodists make their presence felt in parts of West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

Riaz Haq said...

Qatar hosting the World Cup highlights Western double standards
Is this truly about human rights, or is it that Western pundits can’t stomach the idea that an Arab Middle East country will host the World Cup?

by Ayman Mohyeldin

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna57891

From the moment Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, there have been criticisms surrounding its capacity and deservedness to hold the event. And rightfully so; any country that plans to welcome people from around the world for a globally important affair should be subject to intense scrutiny.

But what has played out over the past several years, and intensified in the final few months before the World Cup’s Sunday premiere, reveals the depths of Western prejudice, performative moral outrage and, perhaps most significantly, gross double standards.

A barrage of negative and quite frankly racist commentary about the tiny Persian Gulf nation has included headlines suggesting that fans who were celebrating the buildup to the tournament were paid to appear, because they were South Asians. A French outlet published a cartoon depicting the Qatari national team as terrorists. The list goes on.

But is this debate truly about migrant workers’ rights and human rights, or is it that European countries and Western pundits, who view themselves as the traditional gatekeepers of global soccer, can’t stomach the idea that an Arab Middle Eastern country will host such a venerable event?

-------------


Piers Morgan
@piersmorgan
Yes, and we tortured innocent Iraqi civilians when we illegally invaded that country. Britain’s in no position to play the moral superiority card vs Qatar.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1594274105309945856?s=20&t=BrrB8MI5SIpGWwWjEydpFg

------------

#Fifa President Gianni Infantino:"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons" #soccer #football #Colonialism #slavery #Qatar #alcoholban https://www.npr.org/2022/11/19/1137962269/fifa-president-gianni-infantino-qatar-world-cup-hypocrisy

DOHA, Qatar — FIFA president Gianni Infantino used his opening press conference before the start of the monthlong World Cup to deliver a blistering tirade at the West for continued criticism of host country Qatar and its human rights record.

For an hour, Infantino lectured the international press assembled at the Qatar National Convention Centre and then took questions for 45 minutes. In lengthy, and at times angry remarks, Infantino blasted the criticism of Qatar and FIFA.

"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons," he said.

He furthered the defense by saying, "Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker."

Infantino said he has difficulties understanding the criticism and called it hypocrisy. "We have to invest in helping these people, in education and to give them a better future and more hope. We should all educate ourselves, many things are not perfect, but reform and change takes time."

Since FIFA chose Qatar to stage this tournament in 2010, soccer's governing body and the host country have endured withering criticism. It's the first time a Middle Eastern country has hosted a World Cup. A report released this month from the London-based rights group Equidem said the migrant laborers who built the World Cup stadiums worked long hours and under harsh conditions. The report said they were subjected to discrimination, wage theft and other abuses.

Infantino's news conference comes a day after FIFA and Qatar announced that the sale of beer would be banned at the eight stadiums. FIFA said the decision would ensure "the stadiums and surrounding areas provide an enjoyable, respectful and pleasant experience for all fans."

Riaz Haq said...

Tweet from Ashok Swain:

“Hindu supremacists in India are openly praising Hitler - Claiming that Hitler was considering Hindus superior than Germans and sending German women to India to get babies with Hindus so they could be brave & strong! In which world, are these bigot living?”


https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1604467216023695360?s=61&t=q2TcOa3zJV6Ys1npwRU5fg

Riaz Haq said...

This week marks a watershed moment in a decade of discussion of “grooming gangs”: a much-anticipated Home Office report has concluded that there is no credible evidence that any one ethnic group is over-represented in cases of child sexual exploitation.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/19/home-office-report-grooming-gangs-not-muslim

For many in Britain today the term “grooming gang” immediately suggests Pakistani-heritage Muslim men abusing white girls, but the Home Office researchers now tell us that “research has found that group-based offenders are most commonly White”.


A powerful modern racial myth has been exploded. What started as a far-right trope had migrated into the mainstream, meeting little resistance along the way. In 2011, the Times and its chief investigative reporter, Andrew Norfolk, claimed to have uncovered a new ethnic crime threat, shrouded until then in a supposed “conspiracy of silence”.

The racial stereotype gained credence when the Quilliam Foundation, a controversial “counter-extremism” group, claimed that 84% of “grooming gang offenders” were Asian.

The “grooming gangs” narrative fed into the agenda of the far right, but it was not only there that the issue was racialised: the Labour MP Sarah Champion, for one, wrote a now notorious article in the Sun in 2017, for which she resigned as shadow equalities minister.

The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim.



The horrific and widely reported crimes committed in places such as Rochdale, Oxford and Telford were real: but racist stereotyping and demonisation deflected from that.


The claims that “grooming gangs” were not properly investigated due to “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism are heavily undermined by decades of research highlighting the consistent over-policing of minority communities. What’s more, the whole history of the UK’s responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse is littered with failings – as shown by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Operation Yewtree and numerous other investigations and inquiries. There were also regrettable consequences for child protection, since victims and offenders who don’t fit the stereotype can be overlooked.




This misdirected focus can be found in the Home Office report itself. Its title and executive summary both imply it covers “group-based child sexual exploitation” in the whole. But it fails to include a whole range of problems that might reasonably fit into that category, such as abuse that occurs online, and in schools, care homes and other institutions. Instead, it follows the crowd by dwelling on child sexual exploitation “in the community”. This construct is vaguely defined and poorly justified, although certainly more acceptable sounding than “grooming gangs” – the broadly equivalent term that has no legal meaning but plenty of racial and political baggage.



It might be tempting to think that, if nothing else, a decade of outrage had stimulated wider concern about child sexual exploitation. In truth, it has diverted resources and effort into wasteful paths while opportunities to address systemic barriers to prevention and improve victim support have been missed.



The claims that “grooming gangs” were not properly investigated due to “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism are heavily undermined by decades of research highlighting the consistent over-policing of minority communities. What’s more, the whole history of the UK’s responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse is littered with failings – as shown by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Operation Yewtree and numerous other investigations and inquiries. There were also regrettable consequences for child protection, since victims and offenders who don’t fit the stereotype can be overlooked.

Riaz Haq said...

In Pictures

Gallery
|
Islamophobia
The Rise and Rise of Islamophobia in India
Muslims have been subjected to violence for decades, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has only made things worse.

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/4/18/history-illustrated-the-rise-of-islamophobia-in-india

By Danylo Hawaleshka
Published On 18 Apr 2023
18 Apr 2023
History Illustrated is a weekly series of insightful perspectives that puts news events and current affairs into an historical context using graphics generated with artificial intelligence.

Muslims in India are being targeted by vile propaganda, intense intimidation and mob violence.

For instance, Hindu nationalists in 1992 destroyed the 16th century Babri Mosque. Nationwide riots then killed about 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

In 2002, 59 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a train fire in Gujarat state, which was blamed on Muslims.

Narendra Modi, who headed the state at that time, was accused of doing little to stop the violence.

In 2019, Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party enacted a citizenship law, seen to discriminate against Muslims.

Human Rights Watch said ensuing riots in New Delhi over that law killed 53 people, mostly Muslims, and that Hindu mobs injured over 200.

Propaganda films like The Kashmir Files demonise Muslims, a film Modi endorsed.

Today, mosques are often attacked, like the 300-year-old one in Uttar Pradesh razed for a highway.

This cycle of violence and vilification directed at a religious group is something history has seen before—and it never ends well.

Riaz Haq said...

A new #Modi government-approved #Indian schoolbook no longer says why Nathuram #Godse killed #Gandhi and omits references to #Hindu hard-liners affiliated with #RSS who opposed his vision of religious pluralism. #Islamophobia #Hindutva #BJP https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-was-gandhi-killed-after-official-edit-indias-textbooks-dont-say-d5b86e77?st=gnzmnvpkv53jw42 via @WSJ

NEW DELHI—For years, government-prescribed high-school textbooks in India included a few telling details about Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin: The man worked for an extremist Hindu newspaper and had denounced Gandhi, the iconic freedom fighter, as “an appeaser of Muslims.”

A revised version of the Class 12 history book, whose printed copies became available this year, no longer says that. It identifies Nathuram Godse as Gandhi’s killer, but provides no information about him or his motive. Also deleted are broader references to Hindu hard-liners who opposed Gandhi’s vision of religious pluralism for newly independent India 75 years ago.

The edits are among recent changes under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to what students learn about their country’s past. Members of his political party—which is linked to a decades-old movement to shape India into a Hindu-dominant nation—have long criticized school curriculum as unbalanced and biased against Hindus.

It does little, they say, to instill pride in young Indians, and particularly the country’s Hindu majority, in their history and heritage.

Underlying their grievances is a broader ideological debate. Modi supporters accuse the left-leaning, liberal forces that shaped India after independence in 1947 of representing Westernized values and of pandering to Muslims, India’s largest minority. To them, Modi’s rise symbolizes Hindu revival.

Critics accuse Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party of promoting a divisive Hindu nationalist ideology that threatens India’s secular foundations.


The changes to textbooks “go against the idea that education should encourage an open mind and a liberal outlook,” said Krishna Kumar, an academic under whose leadership they were originally written. The books, he said, have been “mutilated so crudely.”

Modi’s supporters say revisions were long overdue. Teaching of India’s precolonial history overemphasized Islamic empires established on its territory and sidelined Hindu kingdoms, they say. Too much importance was given, they say, to the Mughal dynasty, a vastly wealthy empire during the 16th and 17th centuries whose Muslim rulers built the Taj Mahal and left a lasting cultural imprint on the region’s architecture, food and literature.

Hindu nationalists see the Mughal era as a period of temple destruction, religious conversion and the subjugation of Hindu customs.

A chapter on Mughal courts is gone from the Class 12 history book, though another on agrarian life during the empire remains. A two-page table on the battlefield triumphs of Mughal emperors, from Akbar to Aurangzeb, has been removed from a Class 7 book. A chapter on the 13th century Muslim conquest of northern India has also been pruned.

In a public letter, more than 250 historians and academics criticized the move.

“The selective deletion in this round of textbook revision reflects the sway of divisive politics,” they said. Indian history cannot be seen as consisting of Hindu and Muslim periods, they said, adding: “These categories are uncritically imposed on what has historically been a very diverse social fabric.”

The changes were made by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, an autonomous body whose members are mostly appointed by the government. It said it rationalized textbooks to help students catch up after the Covid-19 pandemic and to make space for critical thinking.

The books are used by schools aligned with the central government’s education board and some state-level boards.

College freshman Shivam Kumar, a Modi supporter, welcomes the changes.

Riaz Haq said...

Racist French Police Union: “Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can no longer bear the tyranny of these violent minorities. The time is not for union action, but for combat against these "pests". Surrendering, capitulating, and pleasing them by laying down arms are not the solutions in light of the gravity of the situation “

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1674959206422806528?s=20


Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
We're truly witnessing a radicalization on both sides in France.

This is an unreal communiqué by the main French police unions, essentially declaring France is in a civil war and that the police is in the "resistance" against the government.

This is the translation:

"Now that's enough...

Facing these savage hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, it must be imposed!

Restoring the republican order and putting the apprehended beyond the capacity to harm should be the only political signals to give.

In the face of such exactions, the police family must stand together.

Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can no longer bear the tyranny of these violent minorities.

The time is not for union action, but for combat against these "pests". Surrendering, capitulating, and pleasing them by laying down arms are not the solutions in light of the gravity of the situation.

All means must be put in place to restore the rule of law as quickly as possible.

Once restored, we already know that we will relive this mess that we have been enduring for decades.

For these reasons, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police will take their responsibilities and warn the government from now on that at the end, we will be in action and without concrete measures for the legal protection of the Police, an appropriate penal response, significant means provided, the police will judge the extent of the consideration given.

Today the police are in combat because we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government will have to become aware of it."

Riaz Haq said...

At Funeral for Nahel M. Near Paris, Anguish, Anger and Racial Tensions

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/world/europe/nahel-funeral-france-protests.html

For many in the crowd, including hundreds who could not fit in the mosque to mourn the teenager killed by a police officer, his story felt familiar.

For two hours, in a mood of anguish and anger, hundreds of members of the large French Muslim community lined up outside the Ibn Badis mosque in Nanterre to mourn a teenager, one of their own, fatally shot by a police officer at a traffic stop.

The shooting of Nahel M. took place on Tuesday, followed by four nights of violent rioting in major French cities, and nothing suggested any return to calm as the young man’s funeral unfolded. His uncle, flanked by friends and security agents employed by the mosque, yelled abuse at anyone trying to film the proceedings. There were scuffles.

The police were nowhere to be seen, after 45,000 officers had been deployed overnight to confront the tide of rage provoked by a shooting at close range not far from the mosque that was caught on video. It would have been a dangerous provocation for any uniformed French police officer to appear.

For Ahmed Djamai, 58, it was a familiar story. The police lied, he said, alluding to initial news media reports that the young man had plowed into officers. They would have gotten away with it, he said, but for the appearance of the apparently incriminating video that went viral. “The government always protects the police, a state within the state,” he said.

---------

The mutual incomprehension and tensions between the French state, and the many citizens who are convinced the protests have a legitimacy founded in a pattern of police violence against minorities, was palpable in Nanterre.

“Nahel helped me carry my shopping upstairs, and I would give him some change,” said Thérèse Lorto, a nurse. “He delivered pizzas. He did some stupid adolescent stuff. But the police, they are full of hatred. It is far too easy to kill and get away with it.”

After the service, men carried a white coffin out of the mosque and placed it on a vehicle. A long procession formed behind it of cars, motorbikes and people walking. A young man wearing a “Justice for Nahel” shirt rode a motorbike on one wheel as the crowd moved toward the Mont Valérien cemetery, which only the men were allowed to enter.

Women sat outside. “It’s terrible,” said one. “Only God should give and take away lives.”

Riaz Haq said...

UN rights office calls on France to address ‘deep issues’ of racism in policing

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1138247


In a statement released in Geneva on Friday, OHCHR Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani expressed concern over the death of 17-year-old Nahel M on Tuesday, after he was shot dead driving away from a traffic stop in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.

According to news reports, at least 875 people were arrested in major cities around the country on Thursday night, after around 40,000 police officers were deployed to quell protests and rioting over the killing.

President Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep their children off the streets, while in Paris, shots have been ransacked and cars set alight, despite the heavy police presence.

Voluntary homicide charge
The officer who shot the youth has reportedly apologized to the family and has been officially charged with voluntary homicide.

Ms. Shamdasani noted that an investigation has been launched into the alleged voluntary homicide.

“This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement”, she said.

Proportional use of force
“We also emphasize the importance of peaceful assembly. We call on the authorities to ensure use of force by police to address violent elements in demonstrations always respects the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, precaution and accountability.

She called for any allegations of disproportionate use of force by people exercising their rights to protest, to be swiftly investigated.

According to latest figures released by France’s police regulator, there were 37 deaths during police operations recorded in 2021, of whom ten were shot dead.

Riaz Haq said...

Speaking at an event, (Bollywood Actor) Kajol said, “…Chnage especially in a country like India is slow. It’s very very slow because for one we are steeped in our tradition, steeped in our thought process and, of course, it has to be with tradition. You have political leaders who do not have educational system background. I’m sorry I’m going to go out and say that.”


https://www.jantakareporter.com/entertainment/kajol-issues-clarification-after-modi-supporters-attack-actor-for-uneducated-leaders-comments/405895/

She added, “We are being ruled by leaders, so many of them, who do not have that viewpoint which I think education gives you.”

Kajol’s comments evoked angry reactions from BJP supporters who felt that the popular actor was taking a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose educational qualification has been a matter of intense scrutiny for many years. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had recently accused him of being ‘uneducated’ while others raised questions on his alleged fake degree.

Modi and his administration have refused all attempts to make his degree public fearing that this could expose the Indian PM’s educational qualification.

BJP supporters launched brutal attack on Kajol for her comments. Many accused her being influenced by the thought process of Muslim actors particularly Shah Rukh Khan. The pair of Shah Rukh and Kajol ruled the box office in the late 90s and 2020s.

Facing backlash from BJP supporters, Kajol issued a clarification stating that she wasn’t pointing at anyone in particular. She wrote, “I was merely making a point about education and its importance. My intention was not to demean any political leaders, we have some great leaders who are guiding the country on the right path.”

Kajol, meanwhile, has found plenty of support from netizens, who wondered why her comments had irked only Modi supporters even though the actor did not name anyone.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote, “So Kajol says we are governed by leaders who are uneducated and have no vision. Nobody outraging since its her opinion not necessarily a fact and also has named nobody but all Bhakts are outraged. Please don’t Yale your Entire Political Science knowledge.”

Comedian Kunal Kamra tweeted, “Everyone is pointing out that Actress Kajol hasn’t finished her education & I believe that’s the only reason that she feels an educated leadership can help our country.”

Riaz Haq said...

The Crisis in the Western world and deceptive Indian media
in World — by Vidya Bhushan Rawat — 02/07/2023

https://countercurrents.org/2023/07/the-crisis-in-the-western-world-and-deceptive-indian-media/


The crisis in France is not known to those who understand that a falsehood is being played in the name of ‘liberalism’ and ‘secularism’. The ‘experts’ cleverly project this as an “Islamic’ invasion on ‘secular’ and ‘liberal’ France but it is a pity that we don’t understand how colonialism worked through destroying the culture and heritage of local communities everywhere. French colonialism destroyed Africa and still wanted African labour to work in France. Anyone can see who are the people cleaning and sweeping the streets in France or who are the taxi drivers. A majority of these workforce actually come from Africa particularly Algeria where French brutalities are still remembered.

While, it is easier to say that French ‘constitution’ is secular and it does not discriminate against people on the basis of ‘religion’ but that can be termed as a ‘secular’ rhetoric very much like the ‘Pradhan Sevak’ speaking that in India there is no discrimination and laws apply to all the citizens in the similar way but an independent analysis of the jails and the people inside them can reveal and expose all ‘secular’, ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’ and every variety of political thoughts in various countries. You don’t need to speak about the constitution and liberalism. Let that fight be kept aside and investigate who are the people suffering and languishing in jail in France, in America or in India. The commonality would be the people victim of racial and caste apartheid apart from Muslim minorities.

The racial discrimination in the Western World is a powerful issue which takes shape in the form of Islamophobia and many times takes shelter in the name of ‘liberalism’. The American Supreme Court’s recent ruling against affirmative action reflects the serious prejudices in the system. These are not isolated incidents if we see how an African American person can face severe retaliation against so-called violation of law unlike their white compatriots. The crisis in France happened very much like atrocious murder of George Floyed in the United States. The White police are ready to kill any black American with much bigger ferocity than we can imagine. American ‘liberalism’ has a ‘dirty’ and ‘dark’ chapter of suppression, isolation and absolute disempowerment of the African American. A few famed people in the Hollywood and elsewhere can’t hide the dirty fact that the representation of blacks in the US top services, judiciary,

The situation in France is no different. The bogey of ‘secularism’ is often used to suppress the racial question. You have ‘right to offend’ the sensibilities of the marginalised by mocking at their practices but you don’t question the atrocious, horrific track record of your country by looting the resources of Africa and other places.

If you look at what happened on the day of Eid in Sweden then you will realise how Europeans right wings as well as so-called liberals have vastly ignored the issues out of the colonial brutalities in Africa, Asia and Latin America by portraying the native communities as uncultured, ignorant and living in knee depth superstitions. They forget how the Church was used to keep the people further subjugated. The question is not merely whether some one is rational or not but to use humanism and rationalism to hide the dirty fact of racial discrimination is definitely a crime against humanity. It is not for unknown reasons that the Swedish authorities allowed the protesters to burn the Quran in front of a mosque on Eid Day. Can we justify this act in the name of ‘freedom of expression’? Definitely, the track record of the Islamic countries and societies in dealing with diversity is not great and ordinary Muslim pay the price for living in other countries for no fault of theirs.