Restrictions on Muslims.

 

Islamophobia is one of the main causes for the justification of policies that feed into the breaking and division of society. Minorities in general have suffered from such policies but in the last few decades, Muslims, in particular, have been the target of legislation and media frenzy. In the West, Islamophobia has led to discrimination and denial of rights. Imam Mujahid says these include “the infamous Muslim ban by the US and the French ban on Muslim clothing. The Islamophobic rhetoric has translated into public policy in Europe. At least 12 European countries have some form of a hijab ban. There are 11 European countries that have effectively banned Halal meat slaughter. Discrimination againstMuslim minorities has led to genocide of Muslim minorities. The International Court of Justice has provisionally ruled that Rohingya faced genocide, and the genocidal policies of France in Central African Republic and China in Eastern Turkistan are widely reported. The Washington, DC-based Genocide Watch has issued two genocide alerts for India because of its treatment of Muslims.” Many French Muslims say they face ongoing pressure due to press articles, documentaries, biased reporting and debates, as well as laws that seem contradictory to the principle of secularism, a traditional pillar of French society. Secularism advocates for the neutrality of the state in religious matters and the separation of civil and religious spheres. This ensures individuals’ right to practise the religion of their choice and dress in accordance with their beliefs. Nevertheless, measures that appear to primarily target the Muslim community have been recently implemented, including the ban on burqas, street prayers, burkinis, veils in schools, and more.

Todd Green has written extensively about how Islamophobia has had a real impact on people. He summarises it in the following categories

This is increasingly prominent in European countries. It includes hijab and full-face veil bans in France and Belgium, full-face veil bans in other European countries (Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc.); bans on the construction of minarets (Switzerland), etc. The US legal system makes it more difficult to regulate what Muslims can wear or build, but even in the US, Muslims can face resistance from local communities when trying to build mosques or establish cemeteries. At the same time, at the state level, efforts have been made to ban Sharia, or Islamic law. These efforts started in 2010. In the course of a decade, the majority of US states considered legislation banning Sharia, and over a dozen states enacted such legislation (after some tweaking of the language of the proposed bills to circumvent overt 1st A m e n d m e n t challenges).

What immediately comes to mind here is France’s “separatism bill” in 2021, along with efforts to curb the activities of Muslim civil liberties groups and organisations critical of France’s Islamophobic policies. But the USA Patriot Act is also an example of a Western nation restricting the civil libertiesof Muslims.

Muslims are singled out by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in many Western nations under the assumption that they are a suspect population that needs to be monitored for possible violent tendencies. A notable example of this is the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) extensive surveillance of Muslims. The Prevent programme in the UK is another example of singling out Muslims as objects of suspicion. 

Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, CIA Black Sites - the broader tendency to frame Islam and Muslims as prone to violence and a threat to Western nations and values has undergirded the torture campaigns that Western nations and allied regimes in other parts of the world have conducted.