Category Archives: Islam

Muslim groups reject push for new Islamophobia definition at Australian universities

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Groups call for a unified anti-racism standard and say separate definition would ‘shield’ universities from criticism of the antisemitism definition

A coalition of Muslim and Palestinian organisations have rejected a push by universities to adopt a new definition of Islamophobia, arguing it would “shield” the institutions from criticism of their contentious new antisemitism definition, and that a unified standard that rejects all racism is what is needed.

Last month, Australia’s universities confirmed they would unilaterally enforce a new definition of antisemitism on campuses after an inquiry recommended higher education providers “closely align” with the contentious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition.

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NSW police say off-duty officers’ shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar boom’ after dispute with Muslim man were ‘banter between friends’

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‘The chanting you heard was not directed at you in any way,’ inspector tells Sydney man who complained about neighbour’s Christmas party in Glenmore Park

A NSW police internal investigation has found that off-duty officers who allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar boom” and “Hezbollah” at a Christmas party after a verbal dispute with a Muslim man who lived next door were indulging in “banter between friends”.

The incident allegedly took place on 13 December at Glenmore Park in western Sydney, after the man complained to his neighbours about water from their swimming pool leaking into his property.

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Islamophobia charity Tell Mama facing closure after funding pulled by government

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Police sources raise alarm over cut as anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain hit record high

The government is cutting all funding for the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, leaving it facing closure weeks after it revealed a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain.

Since its foundation in 2012, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to run its reporting service, which received almost 11,000 reports in 2023-4, and support victims of Islamophobia.

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Thailand condemned for ‘shameful’ mass deportation of Uyghur refugees to China

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Amid claims that deportees may face torture, family of one man say he was forcibly repatriated and will never see his children again

The family of one of dozens of Uyghurs feared to have been forcibly deported from Thailand to China have condemned the decision as “shameful”. The deportations came despite a UN statement saying those being sent to China faced a “real risk of torture” on their return.

Thailand ignored protests by the UN refugee agency, EU and US in deporting 40 Uyghurs who had been detained in the country for a decade, claiming they had returned voluntarily “to their normal lives” with their families.

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Life without parole for Nice church attacker who murdered three

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Brahim Aouissaoui claimed the fatal stabbings at a church in southern French city were revenge on westerners

A Tunisian man who fatally stabbed three people in a terrorist attack at a church in Nice, almost decapitating one victim, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in France.

Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, had told the special court in Paris he had no recollection of the attack in October 2020. He later admitted he was taking revenge on “you [westerners] who kill Muslims every day”.

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Sayeeda Warsi and Mishal Husain back new lobby group for British Muslims

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British Muslim Network aims to bring together experts to identify challenges the community faces to policymakers

Prominent British Muslims in politics, media, business and sport have come together to influence government policy on behalf of 4 million British Muslims.

The minister for faith Wajid Khan, the Tory MP and deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani, the former Conservative party chair Sayeeda Warsi, the broadcaster Mishal Husain, the ex-England cricketer Azeem Rafiq and the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate are backing the newly formed British Muslim Network (BMN).

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Muhsin Hendricks, world’s ‘first openly gay imam’, shot dead in South Africa

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Police say motive for killing of Hendricks, who ran a mosque for LGBTQ+ Muslims near Cape Town, is unknown

Muhsin Hendricks, considered the world’s “first openly gay imam”, has been shot dead near the southern city of Gqeberha, South African police have said.

The imam, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was in a car with another person on Saturday when a vehicle stopped in front of them and blocked their exit, police said.

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Sweden points to ‘foreign power’ after Iraqi refugee on trial for Qur’an burnings shot dead

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Five arrested after Salwan Momika reportedly killed during TikTok live stream, hours before trial verdict due

Sweden’s prime minister has said a foreign power may have been involved in the fatal shooting of an anti-Islam campaigner just hours before a trial verdict over his burning of the Qur’an was due.

Police arrested five people over the killing of Salwan Momika, 38, who was shot late on Wednesday in a house in the town of Södertälje, near Stockholm. Authorities did not say whether the shooter was among those detained.

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Tory and Reform MPs accused of ‘weaponising trauma’ of grooming victims, as Farage calls for inquiry into Pakistani men – UK politics live

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Prime minister told Commons any new inquiry into child abuse would delay progress however spokesperson says he has not ruled one out

Reform UK has also tabled a reasoned amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill motion tonight. It says:

That this house declines to give a second reading to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill because the secretary of state for the Home Department has not launched a UK-wide public inquiry into grooming gangs and has not committed to updating Members of this House every quarter on the progress of the inquiry.

The Conservatives are using the victims of this scandal as a political football.

The Conservatives alongside Reform, goaded along by Elon Musk will be voting for a motion which will not secure a national inquiry for victims of child sexual abuse, but instead it would kill these crucial child protection measures completely.

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UK watchdog bans ‘offensive’ adverts showing banknotes in flames

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ASA acts on poster campaign by Wahed, urging people to join a ‘money revolution’, after receiving 75 complaints

The UK’s advertising watchdog has banned a campaign by an online investment company predominantly targeting Muslims that featured images of euros and US dollars and the words “The United States of America” in flames alongside a call to “join the money revolution”.

Wahed Invest Ltd, an online investment platform, ran six posters on various Transport for London (TfL) services, including the London Underground and on buses, last September and October.

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Charlie Hebdo marks 10 years after terror attack with special issue

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Gunmen stormed satirical paper’s Paris offices, killing 11 people, over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad

Ten years on from the Islamist terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, France will ask: “Are we all still Charlie?”

The #JeSuisCharlie hashtag spread around the world in January 2015 after brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the paper’s offices killing 11 people in retaliation for it printing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

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Trump Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth’s books foreground anti-Muslim rhetoric

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Hegseth’s conspiracy theory- and falsehood-laden book American Crusade depicts Islam as historic enemy of west

Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, who has the crusader motto “deus vult” tattooed on his arm, has put bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric at the center of several of his published books, according to a Guardian review of the materials.

Hegseth, especially in 2020’s American Crusade, depicts Islam as a natural, historic enemy of the west; presents distorted versions of Muslim doctrine in “great replacement”-style racist conspiracy theories; treats leftists and Muslims as bound together in their efforts to subvert the US; and idolises medieval crusaders.

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Ex-official exits running for Trump team over Sebastian Gorka appointment

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Michael Anton, national security official in first Trump term, reportedly removed name from contention over feud

A frontrunner to be deputy national security adviser in Donald Trump’s administration reportedly withdrew from the running after learning that he would have to work with Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect’s choice as counter-terrorism adviser.

Michael Anton, a conservative speech writer and national security official in Trump’s first presidency, removed his name from contention over Gorka’s appointment against a backdrop of acrimonious past relations between the pair, the Washington Post reported.

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Hundreds flee deadly sectarian violence in north-west Pakistan

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About 300 families relocate after fresh violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims kills 32 people

About 300 families have fled sectarian violence in north-west Pakistan as fresh clashes killed 32 people.

Sporadic fighting between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan has killed about 150 over the past months.

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More than 40 killed in north-west Pakistan in gun attack on Shia convoy

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Violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa follows killing of dozens of people in clashes between Sunnis and minority Shias

At least 42 people have been killed and 20 wounded after gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shia Muslims in Pakistan’s restive north-west, in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.

The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias have killed dozens of people in recent months.

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Muslims face ‘bleak and dystopian’ climate in UK, says head of thinktank

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Shabna Begum says racist riots will return if Islamophobia continues to be ‘an acceptable currency’ in politics

Islamophobia has become “brutally divisive” in the UK and failure to challenge its root causes will lead to more racist riots, the head of the UK’s leading race equality thinktank has said.

Shabna Begum, who became the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust earlier this year, said the country was entering a new phase in how it talks about Muslims.

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Many NHS staff would use conscience clause if assisted dying is legalised, say doctors

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Christian and Muslim groups say medics who refuse to help patients die not protected in England and Wales bill

A significant proportion of NHS medical staff are likely to exercise a conscience clause if assisted dying is legalised by parliament.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill stipulates that no doctor would be under any obligation to participate in assisted dying.

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Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws

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The move has been described as ‘chilling’ by activists and rights groups as arrests mount over dress code breaches

The Iranian state has said that it plans to open a treatment clinic for women who defy the mandatory hijab laws that require women to cover their heads in public.

The opening of a “hijab removal treatment clinic” was announced by Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. She said the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”.

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Swedish court jails far-right leader who burned Qur’an

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Danish politician Rasmus Paludan sentenced to four months for incitement against ethnic group

A far-right Danish-Swedish politician has been sentenced to prison on charges of incitement against an ethnic group for burning copies of the Qur’an and making offensive statements about Muslims.

Rasmus Paludan was the first person to go on trial in Sweden – and is now the first to be sentenced – for burning the Qur’an during an organised demonstration.

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French pupil’s father on trial for spreading lies that led to teacher’s Islamist beheading

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Eight charged in connection with murder of Samuel Paty in Paris suburbs in 2020

It was a killing that started with a lie. In October 2020, an Islamist terrorist tracked down and decapitated professor Samuel Paty as he left school on the last day before half-term holidays.

In the days preceding his murder, Paty, 47, who taught geography and history, had been the subject of an intense campaign of online harassment sparked when a 13-year-old student claimed he had discriminated against his Muslim pupils during a class on moral and civic education.

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