Here's what could be lost if Trump bombs Iran's cultural treasures | Sergio Beltrán-García

The US president has warned Iran he will obliterate its cultural sites. Here is our guide to the nation’s jewels, from hilltop citadels to a disco-ball mausoleum

If carried out, Donald Trump’s threat to target “cultural sites” in Iran would put him into an axis of architectural evil alongside the Taliban and Isis, both of which have wreaked similar forms of destruction this century. The Taliban dynamited Afghanistan’s sixth-century Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001; Isis has destroyed mosques, shrines and other structures across Iraq and Syria since 2014, some in the ancient city of Palmyra. Not, you might have thought, company the US president would prefer to be associated with.

Does Trump know what would be lost? Probably not – but he’s hardly the only one. The fact that the country is rarely visited by western tourists is not due to a lack of attractions. With a civilisation dating back 5,000 years, and over 20 Unesco world heritage sites, Iran’s cultural heritage is rich and unique, especially its religious architecture, which displays a mastery of geometry, abstract design and pre-industrial engineering practically unparalleled in civilisation. This is is not just Iran’s cultural heritage, it is humanity’s.

Continue reading...

from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/39G985T

Under Boris Johnson, Islamophobia will take on a sinister new level | Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

With the government’s plans – from immigration to counter-extremism – pandering to prejudice, Muslims will be unsafe

Boris Johnson is one of the most openly racist and Islamophobic politicians in recent British history. His own abhorrent statements aside, Johnson leads a party where multiple members have been excluded for Islamophobia, with a number subsequently readmitted. He has also U-turned on the promise to conduct an inquiry into the issue, instead now running a broader inquiry into “discrimination” which displaces the specific concerns Muslims have with the party – not to mention the lack of confidence many have with the chairman of the inquiry. Notorious Islamophobes such as Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins and Nick Griffin all praised his win. If this election was the “second Brexit referendum”, this should come as no surprise. The first was won by stoking the same racism and Islamophobia.

Islamophobia has now become part and parcel of mainstream political credibility. Johnson can say “Islam is the problem” and make comparisons between niqab-wearing women and letterboxes, and face scant political repercussions. Meanwhile Muslims experience surges in verbal and physical abuse in public spaces. Stories of violent attacks on hijab-wearing Muslim women abound – attackers have used Johnson’s rhetoric; I have personally observed increased aggression and physical intimidation in public, for instance, being followed on to empty tube platforms by men making threatening remarks. Public vitriol for Muslims has been bolstered and normalised.

Related: It’s shameful that Johnson has reneged on the inquiry into Tory Islamophobia | Samira Shackle

Related: Denial, obfuscation, apathy: why it’s so hard to get Islamophobia on the political agenda | Miqdaad Versi

Continue reading...

from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/35qAB8c

India citizenship law: 100,0000 attend Hyderabad protest

Demonstration was organised by umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organisations

More than 100,000 protesters have taken part in a peaceful march in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, chanting slogans against Narendra Modi’s new citizenship law.

The protest, labelled the Million March, was organised by an umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organisations. More than 40% of Hyderabad’s estimated population of nearly 7 million people are Muslims.

Related: India protests: students condemn 'barbaric' police

Continue reading...

from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2FqnpFP

'We are not safe': India's Muslims tell of wave of police brutality

Police in Uttar Pradesh state have embarked on ‘reign of terror’ against Muslims in wake of new citizenship law

It was midnight at a police barracks in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and in a freezing windowless room about 150 Muslim men and boys sat huddled, bloodied and bruised. Some of the shivering prisoners had raw gashes across their hands and faces, others had broken limbs splayed out at awkward angles. The beatings from police came frequently, according to multiple corresponding accounts; to those who asked for water or closed their eyes in drowsiness or simply did nothing at all. Over and over, metal rods and bamboo canes hit soft human skin. Some had been stripped of their clothes. The youngest among them was just 12 years old, said witnesses.

How hundreds of innocent Muslim residents of the city of Muzaffarnagar came to be rounded up on 20 December, before being tortured in police detention, is part of what Indian activist and academic Yogendra Yadav described as an unprecedented and ruthless “reign of terror” imposed upon the country’s most populous state over the past two weeks.

Continue reading...

from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2szcc3g