Indonesian Woman’s Jailing Over Mosque Noise Sparks Backlash
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s jailing of a woman for complaining about the volume of a mosque loudspeaker has sparked a wave of criticism, with a petition calling for her release gaining more than 100,000 supporters. Rights groups and the Muslim-majority country’s biggest religious organization slammed the 18-month blasphemy sentence handed out Tuesday to the defendant, an […]
Amid an Anti-Muslim Mood, a Museum Appeals for Understanding
FLORENCE, Italy — They were made in Syria six centuries ago, and stand elegantly in a row of vitrines at the Uffizi Gallery here: five ceramic jars that once contained treatments, ointments and scents from the faraway Orient. These “Albarelli” jars are decorated with an interlacing pattern of flower stems and foliage. And at the […]
Nazi fan wins Republican primary in Missouri
Steve West, an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist who said Hitler did nothing wrong, defeated three other GOP candidates in the party’s primary election for Missouri’s 15th district. He now faces Democratic incumbent Jon Carpenter in November. He won with 49.5 percent of the vote; the second-place finisher had 24.4 percent. “Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler […]
The Real Founders of Fake News? American Islamophobes
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com. Anti-Muslim activists in the United States were operating in a “post-truth era” and putting out “alternative facts” long before those phrases entered the language. For the last decade they have been spreading provable […]
Republican figures and clickbait websites have been promoting an anti-Islam fake news company on Facebook
A Media Matters study found that Facebook pages of some mainstream conservative media outlets, Republican media figures, and even apolitical clickbait sites are part of promotional campaigns involving websites with a history of promoting anti-Islam fake news and conspiracy theories. Liftable Media owns three sites that have pushed anti-Islam pieces: Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal, both […]
In Sri Lanka, hate speech and impunity fuel anti-Muslim violence
A day before anti-Muslim mobs swept through a peaceful hill town in central Sri Lanka, the leader of a Sinhala nationalist group took a stroll through the town’s centre. “We have been distributing leaflets and have now reached Digana,” Amith Weerasinghe said into the camera of his phone. “But the problem is we haven’t come […]
Counter-terror police investigate ‘punish a Muslim’ day letters
Counter-terrorism police in the UK are investigating a possible hate crime after several people received letters calling on them to attack Muslims on April 3, termed in the leaflet as “punish a Muslim” day. Several Britons in London, the West Midlands and Yorkshire said they received the printed letter through the post, according to reports. […]
Town Manager Fired for Anti-Muslim Comments to Get $30K
Tom Kawczynski, a town manager in Maine who was fired for posting anti-Muslim comments, will receive $30,000 to avoid a lawsuit, local outlets reported. The decision was made behind closed doors in an hour-long, private meeting between Kawczynski, the town lawyer and four members of the local government, the Bangor Daily News reported. Kawczynski came […]
What We Discovered During a Year of Documenting Hate
The days after Election Day last year seemed to bring with them a rise in hate crimes and bias incidents. Reports filled social media and appeared in local news. There were the letters calling for the genocide of Muslims that were sent to Islamic centers from California to Ohio. And the swastikas that were scrawled […]
Trump retweets anti-Muslim videos
President Donald Trump on Wednesday retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by the deputy head of a British far-right group who has been convicted of a hate crime. One of them purports to show a Muslim beating up a Dutch boy on crutches. Another is described as showing an Islamist mob pushing a teenager of a […]