Category Archives: Islam

Criticism as British Australian public servant Aftab Malik appointed new Islamophobia envoy

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Some question the appointment of an official who has worked on controversial countering violent extremism programs

The Albanese government has announced British Australian public servant Aftab Malik as the special envoy to combat Islamophobia in Australia after months of delays.

But it has also sparked criticism, with some people within the Muslim community calling into question the thinking behind the appointment.

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‘Quite shocking’ lack of government contact during UK riots, says MCB head

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Zara Mohammed calls for review of Downing Street’s non-engagement policy with Muslim Council of Britain

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an explanation and a review of the government’s policy of non-engagement with the body after her appeals for contact during the summer riots were ignored.

Zara Mohammed, who was elected more than three years ago as the MCB’s youngest and first female secretary general, said there had been a “quite shocking” lack of contact with the new government at a time when mobs were targeting Muslims and mosques.

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Religious groups ‘spending billions to counter gender-equality education’

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Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights

Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.

Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.

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Australian government won’t back public views of special envoys on antisemitism and Islamophobia

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Exclusive: Documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal ‘all communications’ will be solely attributed to special envoy

The Australian government is seeking to create some distance from its new special envoys on antisemitism and Islamophobia, suggesting they do not characterise their comments as official government policy.

Documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal the instructions the government has given its new special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, including the need to highlight “diverse Jewish Australian identities”.

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Labor will have itself to blame if it loses western Sydney over Gaza issue, says Muslim Vote convener

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Wesam Charkawi says Albanese’s party has ‘created this movement through their decisions’ as pro-Palestine communities feel Labor has failed them

A new Muslim political movement backing independent candidates says Labor will have itself to blame if Peter Dutton wins the next election, and that people should not assume the candidates they support will preference Labor.

Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, one of the conveners behind the Muslim Vote movement, said the group would be aiming to support “at least five candidates” in New South Wales and Victoria.

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Robert Jenrick criticised for saying people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ should be arrested

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Critics call Tory leadership candidate’s comments around far-right protests ‘nasty divisive rhetoric’

Robert Jenrick has been criticised by a rival for the Conservative leadership and Muslim parliamentarians for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

The former immigration minister was speaking on Sky News about the accusations that police have been treating far-right marches and violence more harshly than other protests.

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‘We got failed by the police’: how veterans of Leeds riots stepped in to defuse disorder

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A group of Muslim men put themselves in danger to calm unrest in Harehills over children being taken into care

Nadsy Qurban bent his neck to show how the crown of his head was ­covered in a number of burns, each the size of coins. “The smell was like I’m burning some goat or something, like I’m cooking some goat. That’s how bad it was,” he said.

Needless to say, it hurt. But a week on, the burns he gained while putting out fires during unrest in the Harehills area of Leeds are ­starting to heal.

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French athlete may swap hijab for a cap to avoid Olympic opening ceremony ban

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Sounkamba Sylla reportedly reaches compromise after France’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her

A French sprinter is expected to swap her headscarf for a cap in order to participate in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, in a compromise reportedly struck after the country’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her from the event.

Earlier this week Sounkamba Sylla, a Muslim member of France’s 400m women’s and mixed relay teams, said she would not be able to take part in Friday’s ceremony because she wears a hijab.

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Extremist Israeli minister makes provocative visit to al-Aqsa mosque

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Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to disrupt ceasefire talks, makes video at contested holy site in Jerusalem

Israel’s extremist national security minister has visited the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, recording a video saying he went to pray, in a provocative move as he seeks to disrupt ceasefire talks.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist and champion of the settler movement, recorded footage at al-Aqsa mosque compound, also known as the Temple Mount, a site holy to Muslims and Jews.

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Labor ‘clearly afraid’ of backlash after taking Islamic community for granted, Muslim Votes Matter says

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Exclusive: Muslim voters are ‘grossly underrepresented at all levels of government’, Ghaith Krayem says

One of the new organisations seeking to mobilise Australian Muslims at the next federal election has hit back at “almost farcical” attempts to discredit the movement, insisting the Labor government is “clearly afraid”.

Ghaith Krayem, a spokesperson for Muslim Votes Matter, said despite criticism from major party politicians and media, the movement was an “inclusive initiative that hopes to uplift representation for minority groups across the country”.

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Labour rejects JD Vance ‘first Islamist country with nuclear weapons’ remarks

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Deputy PM Angela Rayner says she does not recognise Donald Trump running mate’s ‘characterisation’ of Britain

Senior Labour figures have rejected comments by Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, that the UK could become the first “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon” under the party.

They were reacting to comments that were made by Vance, a junior senator for the state of Ohio who has been announced as Trump’s running mate, at a conference for US conservatives.

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Pakistani breast milk bank closes after Islamic clerics withdraw approval

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Doctors deplore decision and point to country’s high neonatal mortality rate as bank, which opened in June, forced to close without taking a single deposit

When he heard a hospital in Karachi was setting up a milk bank for babies, the news was a “huge relief” to Mohammad Munawwar.

With his wife very sick and their premature son Ayan in hospital, the 52-year-old father had had to collect milk five or six times a day from different female relatives who were breastfeeding their own babies.

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Independent Muslim who beat Labour in Leicester says victory was not ‘sectarian’

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Shockat Adam says he is not a single-issue MP, but will fight on NHS and housing as well as Gaza

The man who pulled off a shock victory at the general election by ousting shadow cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth has criticised claims that the wave of strong showings by independent Muslim candidates represents the rise of “sectarian” voting.

Shockat Adam, an optometrist, caused a huge upset by beating Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general and a familiar face in Labour’s election campaign, to become the new MP for Leicester South.

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‘Here I found respect for who I am’: the French citizens who choose to leave

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Scores of highly qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds have left the country in recent years

Even as she climbed up the corporate ladder in France, Ophélie Rizki’s after-work routine remained unchanged. Each evening as she got into her car to drive home, she would make a beeline for her headscarf, feeling herself slowly becoming whole again as she covered her hair.

She had never been explicitly told that she couldn’t wear her hijab at work, nor had she asked. But as politicians in France continued to spar over headscarves, two decades after parliament voted to ban them in school, she worried about the impact that choosing to keep her hair covered would have on her career. “You don’t ask the question, you know it’s not something you can do,” she said.

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At least 1,300 hajj pilgrims died during extreme heat, Saudi Arabia says

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Riyadh says more than four-fifths did not have permit to make pilgrimage to Mecca, where temperatures hit 51.8C

At least 1,300 people have died during the hajj pilgrimage, which took place during intense heat, Saudi Arabia has said, adding that most of the deceased did not have official permits.

“Regrettably, the number of mortalities reached 1,301, with 83% being unauthorised to perform hajj and having walked long distances under direct sunlight, without adequate shelter or comfort,” the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

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Egypt to prosecute travel agents for ‘fraudulent’ hajj trips

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PM orders 16 companies to be stripped of licences amid hundreds of deaths, many attributed to extreme heat

The Egyptian prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, has ordered 16 tourism companies to be stripped of their licences and referred their managers to the public prosecutor’s office for illegally facilitating pilgrims’ travel to Mecca, the cabinet has said.

The order came after various countries reported more than 1,100 deaths, many attributed to high heat, during this year’s hajj.

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‘They’re trying to divide us’: Muslims in France voice fears over rise of far right

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People in Lyon say country at dangerous juncture in snap elections after National Rally’s EU parliamentary gains

They marched through the narrow streets of Lyon’s medieval old town, about three dozen of them, emboldened after the French far-right gains in the European elections. Masks covering their faces, they wound past the hidden passageways that provided cover for the resistance during the second world war, chanting: “We are fucking Nazis” and “Islam out of Europe”.

For some in this French city, last week’s far-right demonstration, captured on video, was a chilling reminder of just how much is at stake in the snap parliamentary elections that could see the French far-right lead government.

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One man’s desperate search for wife as more than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die in extreme heat

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Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia while on Mecca pilgrimage

Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia when she told him that she needed to rest. The couple, who are in their 60s, had just scaled Mount Arafat, along with thousands of other white-robed pilgrims on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where temperatures as high as 51.8C have been recorded in the shade in recent days.

Nagib’s husband left her to perform a ritual known as the stoning of the devil. When he returned she had disappeared, their neighbour Walaa Roshdy explained.

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Search for missing pilgrims continues after hajj heat deaths

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Relatives seek news of missing loved ones after hundreds reported dead as temperatures hit 51.8C in Saudi Arabia

Friends and family of missing hajj pilgrims have been searching hospitals and pleading online for news, fearing the worst after hundreds died during the annual rites in Saudi Arabia.

Arab diplomats on Tuesday told Agence France-Presse at least 550 pilgrims had died this year, the majority due to heat-related illnesses after temperatures reached 51.8C (125F) in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.

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China has renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, say human rights groups

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Report finds that religious, historical and cultural references have been removed in crackdown by Beijing

Hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns have been renamed by Chinese authorities to remove religious or cultural references, with many replaced by names reflecting Communist party ideology, a report has found.

Research published on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the Norway-based organisation Uyghur Hjelp documents about 630 communities that have been renamed in this way by the government, mostly during the height of a crackdown on Uyghurs that several governments and human rights bodies have called a genocide.

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