How the manifestation of Islamophobia occurs?

 

Islamophobia is a combination of fear, hate, and prejudice against Islam, against Muslims, as well as against anything associated with the religion, such as Mosques, Islamic centres, Holy Qur’an, Hijab, etc. It also constitutes hatred, stigmatization, racism and discriminations in daily life, on Media, at workplace, in political sphere, etc. It rests in the mind and it reflects in attitudes, and could be manifested through violent actions, such as burning mosques, vandalizing properties, abusing women wearing veil, or insulting Prophet or sacred symbols of Islam. This part of the study elaborates those kinds of manifestation by looking at indicators comprise statements, events, and incidents that happened in different countries during the period under review. Such manifestations are being classified into Discrimination, Islamophobic policy, far right, verbal and physical assault, hate speech and online hate, and defamation of hijab, veil, and burqa.

Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated based on race, gender, age, religion, or sexual orientation, as well as other categories. Discrimination especially occurs when individuals or groups are unfairly treated in a way, which is worse than other people are treated, on the basis of their actual or perceived membership in certain groups or social categories. It involves restricting members of one group from opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group. Specific on the purpose of this report, such unjustified distinctions are targeting Muslim individual or a group on the ground of their faith or religion. The first instance of discrimination was in the US, when the Horn Lake, a city in north Mississippi, had rejected Mr. Ray Elk’s plan to build the first mosque in the area. The city’s planning commission recommended that the site plan be denied, and the Board of Aldermen voted 5-1 to uphold that recommendation, the Commercial Appeal reported. Elk, a Muslim who lived in the DeSoto County for 20 years, had said “I raised all my six children in DeSoto County, they all go to school there and they have a right to go to their mosque and pray and practice their faith like every Christian.” The aldermen said they denied the application because of concerns about insufficient water supply for fire sprinklers and the possibility of traffic and noise. On April 21, Elk told the Commercial Appeal that it wasn’t “rocket science” to see what was going on — that the aldermen would be willing to approve 400 homes that would cause traffic and noise, but not a mosque. “I think once a judge sees all the facts, I’m very confident this will be granted a permit,” Elk said. 

 Sam Rasoul, A Muslim political candidate for lieutenant governor in the US state of Virginia was asked a question in a televised debate that critics described as “Islamophobic”. During the campaign’s only televised political debate on May 25, WJLA TV anchor Dave Lucas, one of the moderators, asked Rasoul and said: “The Washington Post reported your fundraising effort is ‘category-leading,’ because of some out-of-state donors connected to Muslim advocacy groups – there’s nothing wrong with that – but that was the case…. Talk a little bit about your fundraising efforts and can you assure Virginians, if you’re elected, you’ll represent all of them regardless of faith and beliefs?” Lucas said during the debate which was held at George Mason University in Fairfax. Rasoul, responded that he was “proud to have a campaign that’s 100 percent funded by individuals, with the majority of contributors coming from Virginia”. Joshua Cole who was running for re-election in the Virginia House of Delegates said he was never asked about how much money he received from “Christian donors”. “I just want a Virginia where Sam Rasoul can be measured on the merit of his work and not the stereotype of his faith,” he said in a tweet. Sean Perryman, a fellow candidate for lieutenant governor, also condemned the question. “No other candidate was asked about their ability to serve all Virginians because of their faith,” he tweeted. Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Virginia, said the moderator’s question was a “major fail” and that faith-based questions were “discriminatory and inexcusable”. 

A Muslim passenger on Southwest Airlines was discriminated when she was allegedly told she could not sit in the aisle of the emergency exit door because she was wearing a hijab. Her sister, who was not wearing a hijab, said she was allowed to sit in the aisle. Fatima Altakrouri said at a news conference on June 1 that she and her sister wanted to sit next to each other in two empty seats on the emergency exit row as they were boarding the May 22 flight to Dallas. They returned to their original separate seats after the flight attendant allegedly denied Fatima. Altakrouri, who was born and raised in the U.S. and wore a hijab during the flight, claimed a flight attendant told her that she “couldn’t speak English and would bring the whole plane down in an emergency.” Fatima said that she spoke to the flight attendant in English. Her sister, Muna Kowni, said that she told the flight attendant twice that Altakrouri spoke English. “This is textbook religious discrimination and profiling,” Faizan Syed, the executive director of CAIR Texas DFW said in a statement. “You have two sisters, one who wears the hijab and the other who does not, and both board at the same time. One is denied the right to sit where she wants, while the other is encouraged to take a seat based on nothing else then perceived religiosity,” Syed continued. A representative for Southwest Airlines told WFAA in a statement that individuals in exit rows must be able to perform certain duties. “With that said, Southwest neither condones nor tolerates discrimination of any kind,” said Brandy King, the director of external communication. Owners of an Oklahoma gun range that once claimed to be “Muslim free” had announced that they would sell the property after they faced a lawsuit from a local Muslim resident that had lasted several years. In a Facebook post, the owners of Save Yourself Gun Club announced the sale of their two-acre property located in Muskogee County. The shooting range first gained national attention in 2015 when it posted a sign stating, “This privately owned business is a Muslim free establishment!!! We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone!!! Thank you!” Raja’ee Fatihah, a local Muslim man, filed a lawsuit against the business’s owners several months later, and claimed that he was turned away when he attempted to shoot there, according to Star-Telegram. 

Allan Goodson, from Utah had sued a Cedar City car dealership, where he accused his former employer of discrimination and dismissal because of his Muslim faith. When Goodson was hired as a mechanic at Bradshaw Chevrolet two years before, he was a Christian. He converted to Islam few months later, after which his supervisors denied his requests to take prayer breaks at work, the lawsuit said, and his colleagues began to harass him. Goodson sued Bradshaw Chevrolet over alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII, which prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The federal lawsuit was filed on August 2 on Goodson’s behalf in U.S. District Court in Utah by a Salt Lake City law firm, as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C. 

 The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments whether the US government could invoke the protection of “state secrets” to withhold information about its surveillance of Muslims at mosques in California. The dispute began a decade ago when three Muslim men filed suit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, alleging the top US law enforcement agency deployed a confidential informant who claimed to be a convert to Islam to spy on them based solely on their religious identity. The US Constitution guaranteed freedom of the practice of one’s religion; but the government was claiming that it could refuse to disclose information about its surveillance under authority granted it by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as its use of the state secrets privilege defense, which allowed the government to block the release of information it considered to be a risk to national security. The three Muslim men, Yassir Fazaga, Ali Malik and Yasser AbdelRahim, argued that the use of the surveillance law violated their religious rights and allowed the government to avoid accountability. 

Essma Bengasbia, one of the first hijab-wearing women to work on the trading floors of the world’s largest asset manager company, BlackRock, had faced several anti-muslim discriminatory incidents. Bengabsia, who was hired at BlackRock in 2018, explained that her workplace quickly turned into a hostile environment as she experienced frequent discrimination for her gender, race, and religion. In a first-person essay she wrote for Medium. com on February 2021, she detailed her allegations and titled it “#MeToo at BlackRock”. In one case, Bengasbia was called out for opting to not wear a Christmas-themed sweater at a work party. She was considered to be not wanting to be a part of the team and asked by a senior investor, “Why don’t you just be American for once?” In another case, Bengasbia had been mocked by a managing director at the firm for addressing calls with her parents with the common Muslim greeting “Assalamu Alaikum”. The discrimination mounted in her workplace and Bengasbia proceeded to file a report with human resources where she provided a detailed spreadsheet of each incident with information regarding the dates, times, and witnesses. Following her departure from BlackRock, she joined another financial firm as a senior associate, and launched a petition calling upon BlackRock to take matters at hand and hire an independent firm to address the harassment reports in the workplace and tackle racism. In response to Bengabsia letter, BlackRock released a statement subsequently denying any findings related to Bengabsia being the subject of harassment or discrimination. 

Case also happened in Canada, as a verbal racist attack against two Muslim people had come to light in the Kingston area, according to the family victimized and local police. Jena Badawi, who was 13 years old, was with her mother at the Canadian Tire on Division Street when they were harassed by a white customer. Jena, said she’s still shaken after been verbally attacked by the stranger while she waited in line for a curbside order at the Canadian Tire on Division Street. “She turned to me she started calling us names, saying we are not white, why are we over here, we don’t belong here,” Jena said. Both Jena and her mother wear a hijab and are visibly recognized as Muslim. The Kingston incident was reported to police, who had charged the woman in question and determined the incident was motivated by hate. “We take this seriously … We are treating this as a hate crime. We have a dedicated officer from the core office who is assigned to equity diversity and inclusion.” said Sgt. Steve Koopman. 

 Anis Ali, a train driver for Heathrow Express, took one of the UK’s biggest security firms on December 2020, to a tribunal hearing for a religious discrimination over an incident in 2017. Redline Assured Security, had planted a fake bomb at a Heathrow airport train station with the words “Allahu Akbar” written in Arabic on it during a training exercise in 2017. The company defended the decision at the employment tribunal, where they said, it was used to make the package look “suspicious”. Since then, the company had stopped using the phrase following the Ali’s complain. The tribunal found that the practice did not constitute direct discrimination but called the decision to no longer make the association between Islam and terrorism in exercises as “sensible”. The tribunal also heard that a train driver, duty station manager and Mr Ali’s then-employer, Heathrow Express, unlawfully harassed him, related to religion and belief, after colleagues told him that Muslims “groom and rape Sikh and white women”. They were ordered to pay compensation totaling £4,000. The complaint against the pair and Heathrow Express was upheld, and according to the judgment statement the tribunal said that the actions created a “hostile and degrading environment”. A Heathrow Express spokesperson said: “We apologise that we didn’t live up to that commitment on this occasion but we will review and fully address and implement the findings of the tribunal.” 

Lord Sharkey, a member of the UK’s House of Lords, on March 8, 2021 had challenged the British government over its disregard for British Muslims, who he said were being systematically deprived of a university education because of a refusal to introduce a student loan system that Muslims could access. In a debate about the Financial Services Bill, Lord Sharkey highlighted a seven-year-old promise made by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “Never again should a Muslim in Britain feel unable to go to university because they cannot get a student loan — simply because of their religion,” which he told a World Economic Forum conference in Davos in 2013. But Lord Sharkey said this promise had gone unfulfilled, and the government’s failure to act was excluding British Muslims. “Lords will know that Islam forbids interest-bearing loans. This prohibition can be and is a barrier to Muslim students going on to attend our universities,” Lord Sharkey said. A senior British politician with direct knowledge of the issue told Arab News that the government’s failure to introduce an alternative financing system was, in his view, inexplicable. “I genuinely do not understand why the government has taken seven years to do something about this. Six years ago the government not only recognized a problem, but recognized a solution: Takaful,” he said. Estelle Clarke, a student finance campaigner, told Arab News that she attributes the government’s failure to it being “indifferent” to the plight of students. “unfortunately, their inaction does suggest a systemic discrimination against certain students on the grounds of their religion, and that the government is indifferent to this discrimination,” she added.

A London based school that had threatened the parents of a Muslim schoolgirl with legal action after she wore a skirt that was deemed “too long” had dropped its legal challenge and apologised. Siham Hamud, a 12 years old student, had described been bullied for her religious beliefs after been sent home every day in December 2020 from Uxbridge high school in Hillingdon, west London, and told to only come back when she wore a shorter skirt. The school had threatened the family with legal action over their daughter’s alleged unauthorised absences. But Siham’s parents had always maintained that shorter skirts contravened the family’s religious beliefs. Three months after first issuing the family with the legal threat, the school had reversed its decision. In a statement released by the family lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, Hamud said he was pleased that the school had listened to the family’s concerns and concluded that they were justified in raising the issue. The statement revealed that the school had sent the family a letter of apology and had now confirmed that it would not be taking legal action for the time Siham was unable to attend school. “We thank the school for its willingness to work towards a fair and positive outcome… This has been a difficult period and we are relieved to now have the matter concluded. We are grateful for the support we have received from the wider community.” Hamud said. 

Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) had published On March 2, 2021 a report which provided a detailed analysis of Islamophobia, how it was defined and how it could be identified, and therefore how it could be tackled across various aspects of British society. Of importance to employers was the report’s section on Islamophobia in the workplace and its suggestions for building a more wholly inclusive working environment for Muslim employees. The report had identified that Muslim men were up to 76% less likely to be employed compared with white male British Christians of the same age and with the same qualifications. The report found that a job seeker with an English name was likely to be offered three times more interviews than someone with a Muslim name. The report recommended that existing HR protocols should be adapted to help address Islamophobia in the workplace.

 To achieve this, the report suggested that employers should: 

(a) Ensure that employee relations protocols were revised to include specific references to Islamophobia and consult an employee relations specialist and Muslim-led organisations when doing so; (b) Ensure an HR or employee relations member of staff had undergone faith and race based trainings; (c) Revise ethnic diversity and inclusion protocols and strategies to be conducive to a faith-friendly organisation culture; 

(d) Make unconscious and conscious bias training compulsory for leadership staff and line managers involved in recruitment and career progression; and 

(e) Foster a culture of dialogue in the workplace that encourages open conversations between leadership staff and employees and encourages employees from minority communities to actively be involved in that culture. 

High numbers of youngsters been monitored over right-wing extremism. Home Office statistics obtained by The Sun on June 13 show most of the right-wing cases referred to Government deradicalisation programmes came after concerns were raised by teachers or police. Of 302 people identified in 2019-20, 70 were 14 or younger while 105 were aged between 15 and 20. That was a 200 per cent increase in just four years. In the same period, figures for those at risk of Islamist radicalisation had fallen from 190 under 20s to 110. Nigel Bromage, founder of Exit UK, which helped people leave far-right sects, said extremists saw the internet as their “number one recruitment ground”. He added: “The far-right and other extremists are speaking to our children on their phones and in their bedrooms and the vast majority of parents have no idea what is going on.” 

 The Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf had reported a nursery to care watchdogs over concerns it discriminated against his daughter. Mr Yousaf said Little Scholars in Broughty Ferry claimed it had no availability when his wife applied for a space for two-year-old Amal. But he said applications submitted by friends and family for “White Scottish-sounding names” were accepted. The nursery had denied any allegations of discrimination. Following the initial concerns from Mr Yousaf and his wife Nadia ElNakla, a Daily Record investigation submitted applications with identical requirements to the nursery under the names Aqsa Akhtar and Susan Blake. The newspaper said Aksa Akhtar had her application rejected, but Susan Blake’s was accepted and offered spaces. 

Human Aid UK had accused the Charity Commission of clear bias against Muslim charities. The inquiry was triggered by the seizure of donations by UK border police on July 9, 2019 despite the fact that Human Aid repeatedly asserted the funds were lawful and for charitable purposes only. Human Aid UK raised complaints of police harassment and institutional Islamophobia numerous times. Chair of Human Aid UK, said: “After over two years of investigation, which has consumed resources that would have been better used to assist the needy in Syria, Gaza and Yemen, we are pleased that the Charity Commission has concluded with no further action against Human Aid UK. The Charity can now focus single-mindedly on serving its many beneficiaries around the world.” 16 Nusrat Ghani, A Muslim MP, said her faith was raised by a government whip as a reason why she was sacked as a minister in 2020. According to the Sunday Times, Ghani, a conservative party member, said when she asked for an explanation it was stated her “Muslimness was raised as an issue”. Conservative chief whip Mark Spencer said Ms Ghani was referring to him and added her claims were completely false and he considered them defamatory. Ms Ghani became the first Muslim woman to be a government minister when she was appointed to a post at the Department for Transport. She lost that job in a mini-reshuffle of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government in February 2020. According to the Sunday Times Ms Ghani said when she asked for an explanation a government whip said her “Muslimness was raised as an issue” during discussions about the reshuffle and her status as a “Muslim woman... was making colleagues uncomfortable”. 

Case in Germany, on December 2020, police officers in Wuppertal, a western German city, had handcuffed a woman in a Muslim headscarf in front of her toddler and put her on the ground for not wearing a mask, as seen in video that recently went viral. According to the video taken by eyewitnesses, there were seven police officers outside of the building the woman left after she had visited a dentist. The video had showed two police officers handcuffing the woman in front of her toddler, putting her on the ground, and pressing on her body while she screamed for help. When police tried to stop bystanders from filming, one said: “You have no right to stop me from shooting this video. The phone is mine. I can give my lawyer’s number.” When bystanders in the video made their opposition to the scene clear, the police removed the woman’s handcuffs and release her and left as if nothing had happened. The unidentified woman, who was born in Germany and converted to Islam, would file a criminal complaint against the police, according to anadolu agency.

Case in Switzerland, the Human Rights group, Amnesty International, said Switzerland’s vote to ban full face coverings was “needlessly fueling division and fear,” AI urged authorities to instead focus on measures that genuinely protect women. Cyriele Huguenot, head of women’s rights at Amnesty International Switzerland said “After the vote to ban minarets, Swiss voters have once again approved an initiative that discriminates against one religious community in particular …The ban on the full face veil cannot be viewed as a measure that liberates women. On the contrary, it is a dangerous and symbolic policy that violates the rights to freedom of expression and religion.” On March 7, Swiss voters had narrowly decided in a referendum to implement a ban on full face coverings, with 51.2 percent in favor and 48.8 percent against. “We call on the elected politicians and government to unequivocally support the fundamental rights of the country’s religious minorities and to commit to peaceful coexistence,” Huguenot said. 19 Israel authorities on February 26, 2021 had banned the raising of the Muslim call to prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron under the pretext that settlers were celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim. The Director and head of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Sheikh Hefzi Abu Sneina, said the ban came into effect at dusk on February 25 and will remain in place until the evening of February 27. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had condemned the ban and said these measures were an infringement on the freedom of worship guaranteed by international law. 

US Senator Bernie Sanders had condemned Israel authorities on February 25, 2021 for sending surplus coronavirus vaccines to friendly nations overseas instead of giving them to Palestinians. Sanders tweeted: “As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for the health of all the people under its control. It is outrageous that Netanyahu would use spare vaccines to reward his foreign allies while so many Palestinians in the occupied territories are still waiting.” Israel’s decision to send out surplus Covid-19 vaccines was acknowledged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 24. local media reported the list of recipients included 15 countries that received around 100,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine. The list included countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, Uganda, and the Czech Republic – those which had in some way supported Israel’s claim on Jerusalem as the capital. Israel claimed, that the vaccination of Palestinians was the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. Israeli officials said surplus vaccines could be shared with the Palestinians when local demand is met. 

On January 6, Amnesty International had called on Israel to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Amnesty said, saying the Jewish state was obligated to do so under international law. On 23 December, 2020, the Israeli Health Ministry began the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Israel had been hailed as the country had achieved the widest vaccination coverage in proportion to its population size. However, the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out plan was only for citizens of Israel, including Israeli settlers living inside the West Bank, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. It excluded the nearly 5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under Israeli military occupation. “Israel’s COVID-19 vaccine programme highlights the institutionalized discrimination that defines the Israeli government’s policy towards Palestinians. While Israel celebrates a record-setting vaccination drive, millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will receive no vaccine or have to wait much longer – there could hardly be a better illustration of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian ones,” said Saleh Higazi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

 The office of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on February 25, 2021 had halted the sending of Covid-19 jabs to other countries after the move sparked questions from the state attorney general and angered Defense Minister Benny Gantz. The suspension was announced, shortly after Israel’s attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, asked National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat for clarification on the program. Gantz had welcomed the freeze, writing on Twitter that Netanyahu’s order to send the surplus of Israeli vaccines to foreign nations was “made in an undemocratic manner, bypassing the procedures.” Israeli authorities had insisted that it was not their responsibility to provide vaccines to the West Bank and Gaza, despite criticism from Palestinian officials and international human rights groups. 

 The Israeli police had tightened the siege on the Yusufiya cemetery near Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, while the municipality and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority had demolished parts of the cemetery and tombstones since 25 October. Few days later, the Israeli authorities fenced the walls surrounding the cemetery and installed surveillance cameras, and on October 29, Israeli police fired tear gas to prevent dozens of Jerusalemites from visiting their dead. The Jerusalem municipality had been working overtime to demolish more parts of the cemetery since October 17, when the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court rejected a request submitted by the Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries in Jerusalem to suspend bulldozing the cemetery and exhuming graves. The Israeli authorities were seeking to turn this part of the cemetery, which included the Martyrs’ Monument where Palestinians and Jordanians who fought in the 1967 war were buried, into a public biblical park, around the walls of the Old City. The Yusufiya cemetery was established at the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, but it was restored and expanded during the reign of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and was named after him — Youssef bin Ayoub bin Shadi. After the city was occupied in 1967, the Jerusalem municipality took possession of the part that included the graves of the martyrs. 

A Muslim peace activist who had been jailed by Indian authorities after praying at a Hindu temple. Faisal Khan, an activist from Uttar Pradesh, had visited the temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in late October to encourage communal harmony during a period of heightened inter-religious tension. According to activists, The Temple’s priest invited Khan to pray at the back of the temple complex. However, on November 2, Khan was arrested in the city of Mathura after a photo of Khan and an associate praying in the temple went viral online. The same priest filed a complaint with local police where he had accused Khan of a slew of charges ـــ including promoting enmity between religious groups and defiling a place of worship. Sunita Viswanath, a New Yorker and progressive Hindu who had been raising awareness about the arrest, described Khan as an activist whose devotion to nonviolence and interfaith unity follows in the footsteps of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi. According to Viswanath, Khan’s arrest was another example of how Hindutva ـــ an ideology that underpins Hindu nationalism ـــ had produced a “version of Hinduism that I neither recognize nor accept,” she told HuffPost. “As a Hindu, I cannot accept that there is any problem if someone, anyone, prays inside a temple…There is no doubt in my mind that Faisal Khan’s arrest was due to the fact that a person who is Muslim, who devotes [his efforts] to an India which sees no difference between different communities, is not welcome in today’s Hindutva India,” Viswanath said in an email, according to huffpost.

Janmabhumi daily newspaper on December 6, 2020 published an article for RSS leader KR Umakanthan where he had called for unity among Hindus and Christians in the state of Kerala to deal with the threats of political Islam. In the article, Umakanthan argued that attempts at Islamisation were a threat to Hindus and Christians alike and a weak Hindu or Christian leadership alone cannot fight Islamic terrorists. According to the Times of India, The words of Umakanthan was a clear indication of the implementation of a long-term strategy of BJP to establish its base in the state. Since there was a considerable presence of Christians and Muslims across the state, BJP had found it difficult to register electoral wins through consolidation of Hindu votes alone. Umakanthan had been BJP’s organizational secretary of state until a few years ago. 

 Hindu nationalist groups targeted Indian-born language after clothing brand came up with a Diwali advertisement with Urdu words. Hindu rightwing forces in India forced a leading firm to withdraw its festive season advertisement after it featured a couple of words from the Urdu language, which in the popular imagination in the country was a “Muslim language”. The company, FabIndia, issued an advertisement for Diwali – a significant Hindu festival that fell a month after – displaying its latest collection of clothes. The text at the top read: “Jashn-e-Rivaaz”. “Jashn” in Urdu mean a celebration while “Riwaaz”, mean tradition. The title translated to “A Celebration of Tradition”. However, a parliament member belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Tejasvi Surya, was not happy. “Deepavali is not Jashn-e-Riwaaz,” he posted on Twitter, calling Diwali by its more traditional name. “This deliberate attempt of Abrahamisation of Hindu festivals, depicting models without traditional Hindu attires, must be called out.” FabIndia was a household name in India selling clothes, furniture, home furnishings and food items. It had hundreds of showrooms across the vast country and abroad. Surya said the company “must face economic costs for such deliberate misadventures”. Soon, other members of the BJP and other Hindu nationalist groups started attacking FabIndia on social media, accusing the brand of “hurting” the religious sentiments of Hindus.

A Muslim stand-up comedian in India, Munawar Faruqui, announced retirement after right-wing Hindu groups force cancellation of nearly a dozen shows in two months, while earlier in 2021. Faruqui posted on his Instagram profile after his show was again cancelled by the organisers in Bengaluru, the capital of southern Karnataka state. “We called off 12 shows in last two months because of the threats to venue and audience,” wrote the 29-year-old, whom the police in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-governed state called a ‘controversial figure’. In January 2021, Faruqui was heckled by right-wing Hindus and forced to stop his performance at a cafe in Indore in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The members of Hindu Rakshak Sangathan group in Indore alleged he had insulted Hindu gods during the rehearsals of his show. The son of a prominent local politician belonging to the BJP claimed he overheard Faruqui “passing indecent remarks” about Hindu gods and the powerful federal Home Minister Amit Shah, but he could not submit any evidence for his allegations. Still, Faruqui along with four others – Nalin Yadav, Prakhar Vyas, Priyam Vyas and Edwin Anthony – was roughed up and handed over to the police. Indore police initially claimed they had “enough evidence” on “objectionable comments” made against Hindu gods at the event. A senior police officer later told that Faruqui had not made the jokes at the show, but was “going to”. He ended up spending 37 days in jail for jokes he never told. In February, India’s Supreme Court said the allegations against Faruqui were vague and granted him interim bail after three lower courts refused to do so. Since then, right-wing Hindu groups had trained their guns on Faruqui. Over the past few months, the comedian’s shows had been cancelled in a number of Indian cities. 

Members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) performed a “purification ritual” at a lake garden in the posh Vastrapur area of Ahmedabad after they learnt that some Muslims had offered ‘namaz’ at the spot. VHP workers reached the garden to ‘purify’ the place. They chanted mantras and sprinkled ‘Ganga jal’. Few days before, a video showing four Muslim men and two burqa-clad women performing namaz at the garden of the Vastrapur lake, a popular hangout in the city, surfaced on social media platforms. Footage suggested the video might have been shot by a resident of a multi-storey building near the lake. 

 Soldiers of Cross’, a Christian Group, had shared a district-wise list of Hindu-Christian owned hotels that they asserted were ‘spit and mucus’ free. The lists were widely circulated on Facebook, Whatsapp groups, and other social media platforms. Earlier in November, a video of a Muslim man allegedly spitting in the plate of food had rekindled the debate surrounding the unhygienic practices adopted by some Muslim cooks while preparing food. After the video went viral on social media, Christian groups in Kerala reportedly launched a campaign to identify hotels owned by non-Muslims and urged their followers to visit only these hotels for ‘spit -free food’. Social media pages of Christian groups such as ‘Soldiers of Cross’ shared lists of Kerala hotels that served “spit-free food”. These lists included hotels owned by Hindus or Christians in different districts across the state that they call “spit-free hotels”. A report said both Hindu and Christian Groups had been leading the campaign against Muslim hotel-owners. As a part of its campaign, the group was also asking people to avoid hotels and restaurants with ‘halal’ signboards, asserting that ‘spit food’ being served in there. 

Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, attempts were been made to bring communal angle in the battle against the deadly virus. On May 4, 2021 such attempt was made when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Bangalore South, Tejasvi Surya, MLAs Satish Reddy and Ravi Subramanya raised questions over the recruitment of Muslim staff in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) run COVID war room. According to a report published in the Cognate, the MLAs along with Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya entered into the BBMP COVID war room and raised questions over the recruitment of Muslim staff and accused them of corruption in hospital bed allotment to COVID-19 patients. In a video that went viral on social media, the BJP MP could be seen when he selectively read out names of the 16 staff members who were Muslims, while the accompanied MLA’s asked if the BBMP was a madrasa or Hajj Bhavan. They, however, neglected the fact that the COVID war room had 205 staff members who work in shifts. Soon after the video went viral, some of the netizens started to spread hate. One of them wrote,” Dr Rehan is the in charge of Bed allotment in BBMP Bengaluru South Covid War Room. He and his team of terrorists listed below are involved in hospital bed booking scam”. Responding to the viral WhatsApp message accusing the Muslim staff for mismanagement, the BBMP Joint Commissioner Sarfaraz Khan, took to Facebook and claimed that “anti-social elements” were inciting communal tension and “spreading poison”. 

 In a tweet on January 5, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. had shared a state media report, which claimed that Muslim women in Xinjiang province were “no longer baby-making machines” and that the decrease in population growth throughout the province had led to a drop in terrorism. The tweet, which was later deleted by Twitter, garnered instead blowback, given the Chinese government’s campaign against Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. “Decreases in the birthrate and natural population growth rate in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2018 resulted from the eradication of religious extremism,” according to the article published by China Daily, the largest Chinese Communist Party-owned English language newspaper with circulation worldwide. The study and press releases from the Chinese government attributed the decrease in population growth to family planning programs and increased education, which religious extremism “incited people to resist,” according to another press release from the embassy. However, according to experts, Uighur women in Xinjiang were been sterilized. Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, research back in June 2020 provided substantial evidence for a “forced mass sterilization” campaign taking place in Xinjiang. “We first thought that internment and strict enforcement of family planning was greatly depressing population growth rates in Uighur regions … But then the shocker came when I dug deep and found plans to reduce natural birth or natural population growth to near zero by 2020.” China had strongly denied any claims of forced sterilization. 

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) had on January 7, 2021 called on the Myanmar authorities to release two groups of Rohingya who were arrested for allegedly traveling without documentation. The HRW said: “On January 6, Myanmar police had detained 99 ethnic Rohingya in Yangon for traveling without documentation in the country where they were born and lived all their lives.” They had reported that most of the arrested were women and children as young as 5 years old who were traveling to Malaysia. According to the right group “They sought to escape Myanmar’s longstanding oppression of the group … All 99 Rohingya were being held in government quarantine on the outskirts of Yangon, after which they would likely be transferred to immigration detention to await criminal charges.” In a separate incident, the right group had reported the arrest of 13 Rohingya in the Bago Region on December 24, 2020, after they left Maungdaw township. Following their detention, they would be transferred to an immigration police cell to await charges, according to the HRW. “Both groups of Rohingya should be released, allowed to self-isolate until their quarantine is over and they test negative, and permitted to travel freely, subject to Covid-19 restrictions applicable to everyone in Myanmar. Criminal charges should not be brought against them for simply being Rohingya and trying to move from one place to another.” the statement read. 

 Muslims who took to the streets in a bid to educate Kiwis about their faith had copped verbal abuse. Representatives of the Discover Islam NZ project had been visiting New Zealand towns to talk to everyday Kiwis and break down Muslim stereotypes. In Tokoroa on July 8, project member Haris Ahmed said “We were down in Whanganui and this couple came up to myself and one of my colleagues [who was] holding a board that said ‘Meet a Muslim’. They were about 45-50 years old … The guy said: ‘You know why the Christchurch attack happened … because you Muslims choose to come to our country, that is why you guys got killed, if you guys weren’t here, this wouldn’t have happened.’ The group had similar experiences in Huntly and Raglan, with comments such as “Go back to your country, I don’t want to see you Muslims,” Ahmed said. However, for Mirza Ahmad and campaign organiser Imam Sabah Al-Zafar, the handful of incidents was outweighed by the 90-95 per cent who “encourage us and try to hug us, and support our campaign”.