Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalists win only 25 of 81 seats in Jharkhand, ending five years of rule
The Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has lost a key state election, a setback for the party as it faces huge anti-government protests against a new citizenship law.
According to results announced by country’s Election Commission late on Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, yielded power to an alliance forged among the opposition Congress party and powerful regional groups in eastern Jharkhand state, where the voting took place this month.
Related: The BJP wants to silence us. But our voices will only grow louder | Amit Chaudhuri
Continue reading...A few years ago, I was reporting a story about Prevent, the government’s counter-extremism programme. I interviewed various Muslims from around the UK who had interacted with the programme in one way or another. Many wanted to be anonymous. These were ordinary people, not activists, and for many it felt too risky to draw attention to themselves, even if they had not been accused of wrongdoing. “We’re already seen as terrorists,” one young woman told me. “Just look at the way people talk about our community.”
I thought about that young woman as it was announced that Boris Johnson would replace a promised inquiry into allegations of Islamophobia within the Conservatives with a more broad-brush review of how the party handles discrimination complaints. There is compelling evidence that the Conservative party has a specific problem with Islamophobia. During the election campaign, the party continued to back several candidates who had made Islamophobic statements; a dossier of social media comments found that 25 Tory councillors had posted racist material including descriptions of Muslims as “barbarian” and “the enemy within”. The prime minister himself has ridiculed burqa-wearing women as looking like “letterboxes”. A poll in June conducted by YouGov for the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate found that more than half of Conservative party members believe that Islam threatens “the British way of life”.
Related: When it comes to Islamophobia, Tory eyes are still wide shut | Nesrine Malik
Continue reading...Huge nationwide protests, involving people of various religions, professions, castes and classes, such as haven’t been seen since the freedom struggle, took place in India last week. To understand this outpouring of rage and euphoria connected specifically to the recent Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and more broadly to what it means to be an Indian, we must look to the re-election of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in May with an overwhelming majority.
Absolute power became for the BJP a licence to initiate one draconian change after another, all of them in some way to do with the status of Muslims in India, and, umbilically connected to this, with the status of democracy. Among these was the implementation of a national register of citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam, ostensibly to uncover illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. The real motive seemed to be to identify Muslim migrants. The government made a promise: once this was complete, it would happen in the rest of India.
Related: Gandhi’s great-grandson joins wave of protest at law isolating India’s Muslims
Related: India citizenship law: shock at crackdown may unite Modi opponents
Continue reading...PM denies law is anti-Muslim as police clash with demonstrators across India
Clashes have continued between Indian police and protesters angered by a new citizenship law that excludes Muslims, as the prime minister, Narendra Modi, used a rally for his Hindu nationalist party to defend the legislation, accusing the opposition of pushing the country into a “fear psychosis”.
Twenty-three people have been killed nationwide since the law was passed in parliament earlier this month in protests that represent the first major roadblock for Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda since his party’s landslide re-election last spring.
Related: ‘They will lock us up or just kill us’: Muslims fearful in West Bengal
Continue reading...Narendra Modi’s new Indian citizenship law is dangerous and offensive. It is dangerous because it institutionalises and encourages discrimination against Muslims, a minority of 200 million people that is already the target of daily, petty prejudice and periodic, violent persecution. It is offensive because, whatever the government says, it clearly undermines India’s post-independence constitutional commitment to a secular state.
Modi has overreached. Re-elected as prime minister in May, when his BJP party secured a large parliamentary majority, he has sought, with increasing vehemence, to impose his hardline Hindu nationalist views on a country that is rightly renowned for its ethnic and religious diversity. In August, in a sign of things to come, Modi revoked the special constitutional status of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state.
Continue reading...Authorities sanction strict Islamic fatwa that forbids boys and girls playing together on stage – but face strong criticism from teachers
Two orchestral concerts by students and graduates of Gaza’s decade-old music conservatory have been cancelled after the Hamas authorities insisted for the first time that they could not go ahead with girls and boys playing together on stage.
The Gaza music school, part of the Palestinian-wide Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, rejected a new single-sex condition which the conductor told the Observer would be a disaster for the 45-member orchestra if sustained by the de facto government.
They [the authorities] do not have more rights than the parents to stop them performing
Continue reading...Last week 25,000 protesters gathered in Mewat, in the Indian state of Haryana, to begin the historic five-mile walk to Ghasera village. It was here, 72 years ago, that Mahatma Gandhi made the same journey during the turmoil of partition, visiting the area with the promise of a dignified life for local Muslims.
While millions have retraced Gandhi’s steps before, this time felt different. Against the backdrop of a new Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) passed by the Indian parliament last week, which many believe is openly discriminatory against Muslims and relegates them to second-class citizens, honouring Gandhi’s words of religious harmony and reconciliation felt like a powerful political statement. “Mewat has witnessed many protests, but this is the biggest in our life,” resident Shahzad Khan told local media.
Today we are again fighting a battle of right against might, so it’s very natural that Gandhi becomes the icon of the protest
Continue reading...Muslim leaders say decision casts doubt on commitment by Tories to tackle Islamophobia
Boris Johnson has been accused of running a government that “rewards racism” after the appointment of Zac Goldsmith to the House of Lords and the decision to keep him on as environment minister.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which criticised Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign in 2016 for smearing Sadiq Khan, said honouring him with a lifetime peerage raised serious questions about the party’s commitment to tackling Islamophobia.
Related: Stormzy: UK is 'definitely racist' and Johnson has made it worse
Continue reading...Critics say Narendra Modi’s Citizenship Amendment Act ‘has declared war on Muslims’
Authorities have imposed an emergency law banning large gatherings in parts of India’s capital, Delhi, as nationwide protests escalated, injuring police and demonstrators.
A week after a controversial new citizenship law was passed by parliament, which has been accused of openly discriminating against Muslims, protests across the country showed no sign of abating.
Related: The Guardian view on Modi’s citizenship law: dangerous for all | Editorial
Continue reading...Swaran Singh’s neutrality in question over comments conflict is not Muslim-only tragedy
The newly appointed chair of the Conservative party’s inquiry into its handling of complaints about discrimination, including Islamophobia, has been plunged into a row over comments he made about the disputed Kashmir region.
The Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi questioned the views of Prof Swaran Singh, who was announced on Tuesday as the chair of the review, after he wrote a piece for an online publication whose editor has dismissed Islamophobia as a term designed to shut down criticism of Islam.
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you some views of the newly appointed Chairman of the “Independent review into all forms of discrimination and prejudice including Islamophobia”@Conservatives
I will let you make your own mind up pic.twitter.com/Jv5qMD7IxV
Related: Tories accused of ignoring Islamophobia after dropping inquiry
“You cannot seriously compare anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred and has killed millions of people. Islamophobia is a recently invented term that is mainly designed to shut down critical discussion about Islam.”
Brendan O’Neill on Sky pic.twitter.com/nNoLnolahq
Aida Shyef Al-Kadi describes ‘humiliating and harmful experience’ after officers allegedly made her strip and gave her bedsheet to wear
A Minnesota Muslim woman has received $120,000 to settle her lawsuit alleging she was forced to strip in jail and remove her hijab for a booking photo over a traffic offense, the woman and her attorneys said Tuesday.
Aida Shyef Al-Kadi appeared with her attorneys at the Minneapolis headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to announce the settlement approved last month.
Continue reading...Thousands nationwide have protested against India’s new citizenship law in recent days, facing a brutal police response. This is arguably the biggest display of opposition to Narendra Modi since he took power six years ago, and for good reason. Demonstrators have been urged into action not by the sense of a new direction being established, but of the confirmation of the country’s alarming trajectory. The legislation is the proof that Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist project is not a containable anomaly, but an enterprise that threatens the nation’s very foundations of pluralism and secularism. Fear overshadows the hopes of that seven-decade endeavour.
The prime minister has piously tweeted: “This is the time to maintain peace, unity and brotherhood.” Superficially this is, as the BJP government claims, a law that expands rather than removes rights. It creates a fast-track path to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees and Christians arriving from Muslim-majority states, who would otherwise spend years labelled as illegal immigrants. But no one considering either its text or context could seriously regard this as a measure of inclusion. It is inherently one of exclusion, which discriminates against Muslims fleeing persecution, and signals that Muslim citizens are not “truly” Indian. It undermines constitutional protections which apply to foreigners as well as citizens in India.
Continue reading...Students have condemned as 'barbaric' the tactics of Delhi police after they stormed a university campus to break up a peaceful protest, injuring dozens. Footage shot by students showed police firing teargas inside a library and beating people with batons. Demonstrators at the predominantly Muslim Jamia Millia Islamia University were protesting against a new law that will fast-track citizenship for migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, but excludes Muslims
Indian police storm main library of New Delhi's Jamia Millia University on Sunday, firing teargas at students barricaded inside. Footage shot inside the library shows people scrambling over desks and climbing through smashed windows to escape
Continue reading...Women form human shield around man in New Delhi and shout 'go back, go back' as officers attempt to beat him with sticks. Protests have erupted across India against law to fast-track citizenship for everyone except Muslim asylum seekers
Continue reading...Anger grows across country at new law which denies citizenship to Muslim migrants
Students in Delhi have condemned their “barbaric” treatment at the hands of police who stormed a peaceful protest against the new citizenship bill over the weekend, injuring dozens.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, students who were caught up in Sunday’s protest at Delhi’s predominately Muslim Jamia Millia Islamia University – which turned violent after police descended on the campus firing teargas and rubber bullets and beating demonstrators with batons – said it had turned into a “battlefield”.
How to rescue a victim during a #lynching incident.
Real life demo by women students of #Jamia
pic.twitter.com/cHavlAtxmH
Demonstrations against bill are most significant show of dissent in nearly six years of Modi in power
Student protests are not unusual in India. Nor is police violence. But the scenes of officers entering one of Delhi’s Muslim-majority universities, teargassing the library and beating demonstrators and bystanders have shocked a country thought to have become inured to both.
Fuelled by the apparent police brutality, protests against a controversial bill to fast-track citizenship for everyone but Muslim asylum seekers were spreading on Monday to other major universities and cities across the country, in what is becoming the most significant show of dissent in the nearly six years since Narendra Modi took office.
The legislation, passed by parliament in December 2019, allows Delhi to grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants who entered India from three neighbouring countries on or before 31 December 2014 – but not if they are Muslim.
Continue reading...Thousands chant ‘long live Assam’ during unrest sparked by MPs’ approval of a law that excludes Muslims
The death toll from bloody clashes sparked by contentious citizenship law has risen to six as protesters in north-east India vowed to continue demonstrations.
Tensions remained high at the epicentre of the unrest in Assam state’s biggest city, Guwahati, with troops patrolling the streets on Sunday.
Related: ‘They will lock us up or just kill us’: Muslims fearful in West Bengal
Continue reading...Bill accused of discriminating against Muslims and clashes are spreading to other regions
Violent clashes erupted in Delhi over a new citizenship bill that has been accused of discriminating against Muslims and undermining the secular foundations of India, with protests over the legislation spreading to other regions and leading Japan’s prime minister to cancel a visit to the country.
Thousands took to the streets of Assam’s capital Guwahati for the third day, following the death of two protesters who were caught in police fire on Thursday. The north-eastern state has been the epicentre of the protests against the citizenship amendment bill (CAB).
Related: Two shot dead in Indian protests over citizenship bill
Continue reading...Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to personally defend Myanmar in the genocide case at the international court of justice this week has torn away any scant remaining shreds of moral credibility from the figure once lauded as a champion of democracy and the fight against oppression. Yet what is at stake is far more than one woman’s reputation.
Nor is this even about the six military leaders – including the commander in chief – who UN-appointed investigators last year said should be prosecuted for the “gravest” crimes against civilians, including genocide. This is about the more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine state forced to flee to Bangladesh since late 2016, the 10,000 who UN investigators believe may have died in the crackdown, and the 600,000 still living in apartheid conditions, denied basic rights.
Continue reading...Bill will allow refugees from nearby states to become Indian but not if they are Muslims
Indian lawmakers have approved legislation granting citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – but not if they are Muslim. Critics of the government said the legislation undermines the country’s secular constitution, as protests against the law intensified in some parts of the country.
The citizenship amendment bill seeks to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled the three countries before 2015.
Related: North-east India gripped by protests over citizenship bill excluding Muslims
Continue reading...Muslims feel ‘stabbed in the back’ by the party over cancelled plans for a new mosque
Dudley central mosque doesn’t look like a building with the potential to help shape an election. Sitting in the shadow of the impressive Dudley castle, it is a crumbling former school with inadequate parking: depressing and dilapidated, the only hint to its true purpose are the two white domes stuck on its facade.
The Muslim population in here have historically been staunch Labour supporters: the party has seven Muslim councillors on the local authority. But after the community lost a 15-year battle to open a new mosque all that is up for grabs.
Continue reading...Lower house approves bill, drawing outcry amid claims prime minister Narendra Modi is seeking to sideline the faith
India’s lower house has passed controversial legislationthat will grant citizenship to religious minorities from neighbouring countries, but not Muslims, amid raucous scenes in parliament and protests in the country’s north-east.
The citizenship amendment bill provides that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians fleeing persecution in Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan can be granted citizenship.
Related: ‘The clock is ticking’: race to save 2 million from statelessness in Assam
Continue reading...Attack follows mass stabbings in Tahrir Square, a focus of the anti-government movement
At least 14 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded when gunmen in cars opened fire on a protest camp in Baghdad, sending people running for cover in nearby mosques. Three of the victims were police officers.
The attacks on Friday came a day after a string of suspicious stabbing incidents left at least 13 wounded in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the centre of Iraq’s leaderless protest movement.
Related: ‘It’s personal here': southern Iraq ablaze as protests rage
Continue reading...Islamophobia is apparently a “natural reaction” to Islam, with the faith being “the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers”. So wrote Boris Johnson in the Spectator in 2005.
Related: Sayeeda Warsi on Tory Islamophobia: 'It feels like I'm in an abusive relationship'
Related: Javid refuses to condemn PM's slurs against Muslim women
Continue reading...Facebook will never effectively regulate itself so we must consider drastic remedies
• Inside the hate factory: how Facebook fuels far-right profit
An investigation by the Guardian reveals that an online network has found a way to make money by pushing a steady stream of low-grade rightwing propaganda at low-information users around the world.
We might argue, then, that what they created was a miniature version of Facebook’s own business.
Related: Monetising hate: covert enterprise co-opts far-right Facebook pages to churn out anti-Islamic posts
Related: Breaking up social media giants an option to deal with misinformation, Labor says
Continue reading...Guardian investigation reveals a covert plot to control some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages and harvest Islamophobic hate for profit
The message from Israel arrived on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon for 36-year-old Beau Villereal.
At his family’s sprawling 42-acre property outside Live Oak in Florida’s rural north, Villereal sat alone in his bedroom trawling for news about Donald Trump to share on the rightwing Facebook page he runs with his mother and father.
Ariel1238a is not a web expert. He asks rudimentary questions including how to set up a business email domain and increase traffic to his sites.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Israel-based group has gained access to at least 21 pages, using them to launch coordinated false stories to their 1 million followers around the world
A mysterious group has used some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages to create a commercial enterprise that harvests anti-Islamic hate for profit and influences politics across the globe, a Guardian investigation has revealed.
For the past two years the Israel-based group has co-opted at least 21 organically grown far-right pages, using them to churn out thousands of coordinated posts to more than 1 million followers across four continents and funnelling audiences to a cluster of 10 advertisement-heavy websites to milk the traffic for profit.
Related: Fraser Anning will soon leave our parliament – but his xenophobic message will not | Amy Remeikis
Continue reading...The UK prime minister has apologised for any offence caused by his article comparing Muslim women wearing burqas to letterboxes during an interview on ITV's This Morning
Continue reading...The contrast could not have been sharper. David Merritt, the father of the first named victim of the London Bridge terrorist, responded: “My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or detaining people unnecessarily.”
But he had barely uttered the words before Boris Johnson was vowing to introduce a “tougher” sentencing regime that would, in the words of the headline writers, “lock terrorists up and throw away the key”.
Related: Jack Merritt: London Bridge attack victim described as 'best guy'
However long convicted terrorists are locked up, with the exception of a limited number, they are all going to have to be released eventually
Related: Boris Johnson blames Labour for release of London Bridge killer
Continue reading...MP Yvette Cooper asked why Usman Khan was freed despite being deemed dangerous
A row has broken out between the Conservatives and Labour over the practice of reducing jail terms for violent offenders following the London Bridge terrorist attack.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, blamed the previous Labour government after the party’s MP Yvette Cooper asked how the attacker, Usman Khan, could have been released when he was deemed dangerous.
Usman Khan was sentenced for serious terror offence in Feb 2012. Thought to be so dangerous by judge he was given IPP sentence to prevent release if still serious threat. Instead he was released 6 yrs later without Parole Board assessment. How cd this be allowed to happen? ...1
The Parole Board could not be involved in this decision @jeremycorbyn. Your party changed the law in 2008 so that Khan was automatically released irrespective of the danger he posed. Very concerning that you want to be PM but don’t understand this.https://t.co/uqUBggmEbg
Continue reading...Usman Khan had realised in prison that Islamist violence was wrong, says Vajahat Sharif
The London Bridge attacker had asked for help to be deradicalised while he was in prison, but none was forthcoming, his solicitor has claimed.
Vajahat Sharif told the Guardian Usman Khan had come to realise that violent extremism was wrong and accepted his understanding of Islam was deficient.
Related: Key questions about London Bridge terrorist Usman Khan answered
Continue reading...The Tories promised an investigation into anti-Muslim prejudice in the party – then watered it down. How high does the problem go? Disillusioned insiders – and the former party chair – speak out
In June, a message pinged on Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi’s phone. “Right, sorted out that Conservative party Islamophobia investigation!” it read triumphantly. The sender? Sajid Javid, who was then home secretary.
Earlier that evening, during a televised Tory leadership debate, Javid had bounced his fellow contenders, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, into apparently agreeing to the Conservatives holding an independent inquiry into Islamophobia.
Continue reading...Body seeks 10 pledges in election where Muslims could affect outcome in 31 marginals
Candidates and parties campaigning in the general election must commit to tackling racism and Islamophobia to win the support of Muslim voters, according to the Muslim Council of Britain.
A manifesto setting out how parties’ policies could affect Muslims has been published by the MCB after consulting its affiliates and communities across the UK.
There have been trials of voter ID in local elections and the Conservatives have stated that they want to bring in some form of UK-wide ID requirement for voting in the future, but for this election there is no change to the current system.
Continue reading...Chancellor insists Johnson has explained ‘letterbox’ and ‘bank robber’ remarks
Sajid Javid has refused seven times to condemn Boris Johnson’s use of the terms “bank robber” and “letterbox” to describe Muslim women who wear a burqa.
Speaking at a campaign event in Bolton on Tuesday, the Conservative chancellor was asked seven times whether he would use those terms to describe Muslim women and he declined to give a direct answer.
To vote in a UK general election you must:
Continue reading...The Scanlon Foundation’s annual report on social cohesion finds a country still largely welcoming of migrants, although 40% hold negative feelings towards Muslims
Something happened in 2017. Australia is second only to Canada in welcoming immigration on a large scale. Our faith in the benefits of accepting newcomers of all faiths and races is rock solid. But a couple of years ago we began to grow impatient about the government’s management of the immigration program, impatient in particular about overcrowding in our cities.
This is the verdict of the Scanlon Foundation’s 2019 Mapping Social Cohesion report, published on Tuesday. The mission of the foundation for the past decade or so has been to measure how this migrant nation hangs together. In that time an extraordinary 50,000 of us have been polled to track the hopes and fears that sweep Australia – and not just about immigration.
The education line cuts across the immigration debate like a mighty trench
90% of us have a sense of belonging to this place.
87% are proud of the Australian way of life.
85% agree multiculturalism has been good for Australia.
84% report having a happy 2019.
80% welcome resettlement in Australia of refugees assessed abroad.
79% oppose selecting immigrants by race.
73% believe Australia is a land of economic opportunity where, in the long run, hard work brings a better life.
71% believe globalisation is good for the country.
68% believe accepting immigrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger.
62% are optimistic about Australia’s future.
61% of Australians disapprove of asylum seekers making their way here by boat.
47% of us have little or no concern about the treatment we mete out to asylum seekers in PNG and Nauru.
40% in 2019 admit negative or very negative feelings towards Muslims.
The fundamentals are sound, even as about one in 10 of us continue to rage against this new Australia of many faiths and many cultures
Only 27% of university graduates say Australia takes too many immigrants, but for those who never finished high school the figure is 70%.
Nearly 90% of graduates applaud multiculturalism but only 61% of those who never finished school.
Among graduates, 58% worry we treat refugees too harshly, but their fears are shared by only 32% of who never finished school.
While a rump of 14% of graduates still wish immigrants could be chosen by race, support for the old White Australia position more than doubles to 35% who never finished school.
Related: Behrouz Boochani, brutalised but not beaten by Manus, says simply: 'I did my best'
Continue reading...Feroz Khan in hiding after nationalist group protested he ‘cannot teach us our religion’
A Muslim scholar of Sanskrit has gone into hiding after protests from some rightwing Hindu students claiming that, as a Muslim, he cannot teach Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of Hinduism.
Feroz Khan, 29, was the unanimous choice of a selection committee at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi for the post of assistant professor of Sanskrit literature. The committee members were impressed with his erudition, which stems from a childhood passion for the language that continued into further education.
Related: India’s Muslims quiver in the new dawn of an emboldened Narendra Modi
Related: Five more years of Narendra Modi will take India to a dark place | Kapil Komireddi
Continue reading...List of constituencies is released as mosques launch voter registration drive
Muslim voters could affect the outcome in more than 30 marginal constituencies in next month’s general election, according to research published as mosques prepare for a nationwide registration drive.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) released a list on Monday of 31 marginal seats in which Muslim voters could have “high” or “medium” impact.
Marginal seats are parliamentary constituencies that have had a history of changing hands between parties, or in which the incumbent MP has a very small majority. Eleven seats were won by fewer than 100 votes in 2017. Often parties will target marginal seats with extra campaigning resources, as they are the places where they feel they are most likely to affect the balance in the House of Commons.
There have been trials of voter ID in local elections and the Conservatives have stated that they want to bring in some form of UK-wide ID requirement for voting in the future, but for this election there is no change to the current system.
Continue reading...Marise Payne repeats calls for China to end arbitrary detention after internal documents reveal Xi Jinping’s call to ‘show no mercy’ in Xinjiang
Australia’s foreign affairs minister has labelled new details of China’s mass internment of Uighurs “disturbing” and reiterated demands for China to end arbitrary detention.
Marise Payne made the statement in response to internal Chinese government documents showing its mass detention of Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang came from directives by Xi Jinping to “show absolutely no mercy” in the “struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism”.
Related: China hits back at Australia's foreign minister for highlighting human rights abuses
Related: The world knows what is happening to the Uighurs. Why has it been so slow to act?
Continue reading...There are worse things than disappointment, as Sri Lankans may find out when they go to the polls on Saturday. The 2015 presidential election was heralded as the start of a new era. Strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa was unseated when Maithripala Sirisena, a senior figure within his own party, joined forces with the opposition United National party. The opportunity was largely squandered. The full extent of dysfunction was exposed last year when Mr Sirisena ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and installed his old foe Mr Rajapaksa – only for parliament to rebel and the supreme court to reinstate Mr Wickremesinghe. But the true cost became even clearer when Isis-inspired bombings killed 269 people this Easter, and catastrophic intelligence and police failures were subsequently revealed.
The fallout could see the Rajapaksa family return to power. Gotabaya “Gota” Rajapaksa of the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist SLPP, who served as defence minister under his brother, is one of two frontrunners. Mr Rajapaksa is subject to lawsuits relating to torture, fraud and corruption. He wants Mahinda, unable to run again due to term limits, as his prime minister. The Rajapaksas oversaw the end to the decades-long civil war, but one UN report suggested as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians died in its final months. Tamil politicians were murdered and thousands of Sri Lankans disappeared.
Continue reading...Exclusive: dossier on 25 current and former councillors adds to pressure on Boris Johnson to launch independent inquiry
Twenty-five sitting and former Conservative councillors have been exposed for posting Islamophobic and racist material on social media, according to a dossier obtained by the Guardian that intensifies the row over anti-Muslim sentiment in the party.
The disclosure that 15 current and 10 former Tory councillors have posted, shared or endorsed Islamophobic or other racist content on Facebook or Twitter will increase pressure on Boris Johnson after he backtracked on a pledge to hold an independent inquiry into the issue.
Continue reading...Matt Hancock’s dismissal of Sayeeda Warsi shows the party thinks prejudice against Muslims is a problem it can afford
The black protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man struggles to divine the correct norms and beliefs in a world where he is invisible because white people refuse to see him. “When they approach me,” he says, “they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their own imagination – indeed, everything and anything except me.” The problem, in other words, is not that white people look upon black people with a clear and knowing prejudice. It is that they have constructed what he calls “inner eyes”: “those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality”.
Related: Tory Islamophobia row: Warsi accuses Hancock of 'whitesplaining'
Continue reading...In 2011, visual artist Medina Dugger, from California, moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where she was inspired by local Muslim women to create her series Enshroud. “The series doesn’t take a stance in favour or against veiling, but supports both a woman’s right to choose and her religious expression,” she says. Each digital collage is created by layering two separate images: first, Dugger photographs the women in hijabs, then she superimposes them on top of plastic prayer mats. “I photographed them twirling, jumping and skipping to recreate moments I’d witnessed in the city, which were often incongruent with my previously held notions of women in hijab.”
See more at medinadugger.com
Continue reading...Supreme court says five acres where mosque was torn down in 1992 should become site of Hindu temple, with Muslims given other land
The Indian supreme court has ruled that India’s most hotly disputed piece of land rightfully belongs to Hindus, with judges granting permission for a temple to be built on the site in Ayodhya.
In their unanimous and historic judgement, the five supreme court judges stated that the site rightfully belonged to Hindus, based upon the claim it is the birthplace of their god Ram.
Related: Ayodhya ruling: Hindus win case over site disputed by Muslims
Related: India: Hindus demand building of temple on disputed Ayodhya site
Continue reading...Supreme court due to decide fate of Ayodhya, where mosque was torn down by Hindu hardliners in 1992
India’s supreme court is expected to make a historic ruling on Saturday over the highly disputed religious site of Ayodhya, which is claimed by Hindus and Muslims.
The site has been one of the country’s most controversial religious grounds since the Babri mosque, which had been standing since the 16th century, was reduced to rubble by Hindu fundamentalists during a 1992 riot in which more than 2,000 people died.
Related: Ayodhya: a history of violence
Continue reading...Roger Godsiff had backed protests against Birmingham school’s teaching policy
A former Labour MP has confirmed he will run as an independent in the general election after the party withdrew its support for him after he backed protesters in an LGBT teaching row.
Roger Godsiff, 73, who had been the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, was told this week by the national executive committee (NEC) that he would not be endorsed as a candidate in the December poll and someone else would run in his place.
Related: ‘We can’t give in’: the Birmingham school on the frontline of anti-LGBT protests
Continue reading...Bill 21 theoretically bans all symbols, but it mentions face coverings, and critics agree the main targets are Muslim women
Nour Farhat always dreamed of becoming a Crown prosecutor.
At 28, she is a newly minted lawyer with a master’s specialization in criminal law.
Related: Quebec's religious symbol ban targets minorities in the name of secularism | Martin Patriquin
The law doesn’t touch [most Quebecers] one bit, but for me, it has disastrous consequences on my whole life
Related: Quebec law banning hijab at work creates ‘politics of fear', say critics
Continue reading...A second and final term can free a leader, as Joko Widodo has acknowledged. The question is how he will use his new liberty. Five years ago, he was widely hailed as “Indonesia’s Obama”. His rise was seen as another step forward for the world’s fourth most populous country and biggest Muslim-majority nation. Its transition from dictatorship two decades ago had already made it an important and much-needed model of democracy in the region and to the Muslim world. But Jokowi, as he is popularly known, was also an outsider, the first president from a humble background. Unconnected to the authoritarian era, he had earned a reputation as a clean politician as governor of Jakarta. Like Mr Obama he stood for hope in a sullied political world.
Now he has begun his second term. His campaign slogan was “Indonesia advancing”. But many of those who once cheered him now see a country backsliding on critical issues including human rights, religious tolerance and the general quality of its democracy.
Continue reading...Crowds of dissenters in central Baghdad want to banish Iranian influence from Iraqi politics
The biggest protest movement in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein has pressed its demand for the removal of the elected government, staring down an embattled political elite and the widespread influence of Iran.
Friday’s rallies of tens of thousands came a day after supporters of Iraq’s embattled leader, Adil Abdul Mahdi, believed they had won the backing of one of two powerful figures that threatened his premiership, a development that appeared to stabilise his position on Thursday.
Continue reading...At the end of June 2014 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was announced as a caliph of all Muslims in a declaration that not only proclaimed a new “caliphate”, but also warned fellow believers in Islam that they must “pledge allegiance and support”. Baghdadi, the latest leader of so-called Islamic State, had made a name for his group with a murderous reign of terror culminating in the shock fall of the city of Mosul into his hands a fortnight earlier. His claims about “crushing the idol of democracy” and defeating “agents of the crusaders and atheists, and the guards of the Jews” were followed by a campaign of genocide, slavery, rape and ultra-violence against Muslims primarily. Baghdadi’s empire-building came to nothing when the “caliphate” collapsed in March this year. The world’s most-wanted terrorist ended his life as a fugitive who decided that he would kill himself rather than surrender to justice. He came to an ignominious end; reportedly cornered by US special forces, Baghdadi blew himself up in a tunnel in Syria, killing three of his children as well.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump could not resist the opportunity to make a series of questionable statements and promote himself. His claim that Baghdadi “died like a dog” was unpleasant, unnecessary and will cause unintended problems for the United States that will require undoing, especially in the Muslim world where canines are considered unclean. It would help first to get the facts straight, instead of shrouding them in the “fog of war”. When Osama bin Laden was killed under the Obama administration in 2011, days after the event it had to offer an account that contradicted its previous assertions. There’s good reason to expect that the Trump White House might have to correct a few self-serving myths in the coming days. The fact that Baghdadi took his own life means that the policy of killing members of terrorist groups as part of America’s war on terror continues without the necessary and long overdue debate about the ethics and legality of targeted assassinations.
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