Islamophobia

British political commentator and journalist Sami Hamdi has been detained by federal authorities in the United States in what a US Muslim civil rights group has called an “abduction”.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Hamdi’s detention at San Francisco airport on Sunday as “a blatant affront to free speech”, attributing his arrest to his criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Hamdi, a frequent critic of US and Israeli policy, had addressed a CAIR gala in Sacramento on Saturday evening and was due to speak at another CAIR event in Florida the next day before his detention by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

CAIR said he was stopped at the airport following a coordinated “far-right, Israel First campaign”.

“Our nation must stop abducting critics of the Israeli government at the behest of unhinged Israel First bigots,” it said in a statement. “This is an Israel First policy, not an America First policy, and it must end.”

In a statement seen by Al Jazeera, friends of Hamdi called his arrest “a deeply troubling precedent for freedom of expression and the safety of British citizens abroad”.

The statement called for the United Kingdom Foreign Office to “demand urgent clarification from the US authorities regarding the grounds for Mr Hamdi’s detention”.

Al Jazeera was told that he remains in US custody and has not been deported.

“The detention of a British citizen for expressing political opinions sets a dangerous precedent that no democracy should tolerate,” the statement added.

Hamdi’s father, Mohamed El-Hachmi Hamdi, said in a post on X that his son “has no affiliation” with any political or religious group.

“His stance on Palestine is not aligned with any faction there, but rather with the people’s right to security, peace, freedom and dignity. He is, quite simply, one of the young dreamers of this generation, yearning for a world with more compassion, justice, and solidarity,” he added.

Earlier this morning, ICE agents abducted British Muslim journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco Airport, apparently in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during his ongoing speaking tour.

We can confirm that Mr. Hamdi has not been… https://t.co/dfcVGvz6UX

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 26, 2025

‘Proud Islamophobe’

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Hamdi’s detention on Sunday, claiming without evidence that he posed a national security threat. “This individual’s visa was revoked, and he is in ICE custody pending removal,” she wrote on X.

Hamdi has been outspoken in accusing US politicians of actively enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and has been widely quoted, challenging Western governments directly over arms transfers and diplomatic cover for Israeli war crimes.

His detention comes amid a wider pattern of US authorities blocking entry to Palestinian and pro-Palestine voices.

In June, two Palestinian men, Awdah Hathaleen and his cousin, Eid Hathaleen, were denied entry at the same airport and deported to Qatar. Weeks later, Awdah was reportedly killed by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank.

Far-right activist and ally of US President Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, who has publicly described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and “white advocate”, immediately celebrated online for playing a part in Hamdi’s detention.

“You’re lucky his only fate is being arrested and deported,” she wrote, falsely branding him “a supporter of HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Loomer has previously pushed conspiracy theories, including the claim that the September 11 attacks in the US were an inside job.

Loomer and others credited the escalation against Hamdi to the RAIR Foundation, a pro-Israel pressure network whose stated mission is to oppose “Islamic supremacy”. RAIR recently accused Hamdi of trying to “expand a foreign political network hostile to American interests” and urged authorities to expel him from the country.

On Sunday, Shaun Maguire, a partner at the tech investment firm Sequoia and a vocal defender of Israel, alleged without evidence that Hamdi had tried to get him fired through an AI-generated email campaign, claiming: “There are jihadists in America whose full time job is to silence us.”

Hamdi’s supporters and civil rights advocates say the opposite is true, and that this detention is yet another case of political retaliation against critics of Israel, enforced at the border level before a single public word is uttered.

CAIR says it intends to fight the deportation order, warning that the US is sending a chilling message to Muslim and Palestinian speakers across the country.

The emotional speech against Islamophobia from the NYC mayoral race frontrunner comes a day before early voting begins.

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave an emotional speech addressing “racist, baseless attacks” from his opponents, a day before early voting begins in the race he is projected to win.

Speaking outside a mosque in the Bronx on Friday, Mamdani criticised his opponents for bringing “hatred to the forefront”, noting that their Islamophobia not only affects him as the Democratic nominee for mayor but also close to one million Muslims living in New York.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” Mamdani said in his speech, less than two weeks ahead of the November 4 general election.

Mamdani, who is currently a member of the New York State Assembly, said that while he had tried to focus his election campaign on his core message of affordability, his opponents in recent days had shown that “Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement”.

His speech also came a day after his top opponent, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, laughed after radio host Sid Rosenberg said that Mamdani “would be cheering” if another September 11 attack occurred.

Cuomo, who is a member of the Democratic Party but lost the Democratic primary election to Mamdani in June, responded in agreement with Rosenberg: “That’s another problem.”

Basim Elkarra, the executive director of Muslim advocacy group CAIR Action, described Cuomo’s appearance on the radio programme as “despicable, dangerous, and disqualifying”.

“By agreeing with a racist radio host who suggested a Muslim elected official would ‘cheer’ another 9/11, Cuomo has crossed a moral line,” Elkarra said.

“Cuomo’s willingness to engage in this kind of hate speech, on this kind of platform, shows exactly the kind of leader he is: someone who would rather stoke fear than bring people together,” he said.

Speaking on Friday, Mamdani said he had also been “slandered” by Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa on the debate stage, “when he claimed that I support global jihad”, and faced advertisements from Super Political Action Committees that “imply that I am a terrorist, or mock the way I eat”.

He also shared his memories of his “aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab”, and a staff member who had the “word terrorist spray painted” on their garage, as well as the advice he had received that he “did not have to tell people” he was Muslim, if he wanted to win elections.

Top Democrat endorses Mamdani on eve of early voting

Earlier on Friday, Mamdani received a long-anticipated endorsement from Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives and the representative of New York’s eighth congressional district, which includes the Brooklyn neighbourhoods of East Flatbush, Coney Island and Brownsville.

While Mamdani has earned endorsements from top Democrats, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the vocally pro-Palestinian candidate has struggled to win over other top New York Democrats, such as Senator Chuck Schumer.

Despite the reluctance of some establishment figures within the Democratic Party, Mamdani resoundingly won the party’s primary election to choose its candidate for the general election back in June.

Current NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who did not contest the primary after facing corruption allegations, endorsed Cuomo this week after withdrawing from the race, although his name will still appear on the ballot.

A recently published poll from AARP and Gotham Polling and Analytics shows Mamdani well ahead of his opponents with the support of 43.2 percent of voters.

He is followed by Cuomo with 28.9 percent and Sliwa with 19.4 percent, while 8.4 percent said they were undecided or preferred another candidate.

Cost of living was the main issue for nearly two-thirds of voters, with public safety and housing affordability also areas of concern, in the same poll.

As the Netherlands gears up for a snap parliamentary election on October 29, less than halfway through parliament’s usual four-year term following the collapse of the ruling coalition, the likelihood of another win for the country’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is mounting.

An outright win is next to impossible. The Netherlands has always had a coalition government formed by a minimum of two parties due to its proportional representation electoral system, under which seats in parliament are awarded to parties in proportion to the number of votes they win.

The PVV, headed by Geert Wilders, also won the most votes in the last election in November 2023. It then partnered with three other far-right parties – the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), New Social Contract (NSC), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – to form a coalition government.

But in June, PVV made a dramatic exit from the coalition government over a disagreement on immigration policy. PVV had wanted to introduce a stricter asylum policy that included closing borders to new asylum seekers and deporting dual nationals convicted of crimes, but the other parties demanded further discussions.

In a dramatic move, Wilders took to X to announce that the failure by other parties to agree to PVV’s plans meant it would leave the coalition.

Coalition partners slammed this decision and accused Wilders of being driven by self-interest. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said at the time that Wilders “chooses his own ego and his own interests. I am astonished. He throws away the chance for a right-wing policy”.

Following the pull-out, Prime Minister Dick Schoof – an independent – announced that he would resign and a snap election would be held this month.

Then, in August, the NSC’s Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp also resigned after he failed to secure support for new sanctions against Israel over its war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in Gaza City. In solidarity with Veldkamp, other NSC party members left the coalition, leaving only two parties remaining.

Now, with an election imminent, opinion polls suggest the PVV will secure the most seats in the 150-seat parliament. While a winner needs 76 seats to form a government, no single party ever makes it to that figure, which has led to a history of coalitions.

According to a poll by the Dutch news outlet, EenVandaag, on October 14, the PVV is projected to secure 31 seats. The centre-left Green-Labour alliance (GroenLinks-PvdA) is polling at 25 seats, and the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is polling at 23.

PVV’s former coalition partner, the centre-right VVD, could take 14 seats and the BBB, four. So far, the NSC is not projected to secure any seats at all.

Immigration fears

At the end of September, EenVandaag polled 27,191 people and found that the main sticking point between voters – and, hence, between the leaders, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA – is immigration. Half of all voters said it was the key issue on which they would be voting this year. Housing was the second-most important issue at 46 percent, and “Dutch identity” came third at 37 percent.

While the PVV is firmly anti-immigration and wants to impose a much stricter border policy and asylum laws, GroenLinks-PvdA would prefer to allow a net migration figure of 40,000 and 60,000 migrants per year.

Tempers are running high over this issue. Last month at The Hague, a right-wing activist known as “Els Rechts” organised an anti-migration protest that attracted 1,500 attendees. According to reports, protesters threw stones and bottles at the police, set a police car alight and smashed windows of the left-wing Democrats 66 (D66) party offices.

While left-wingers argue that the immigration issue has been wildly hyped up by the far right, they are losing control of the narrative.

Esme Smithson Swain, a member of MiGreat, a Dutch non-governmental campaign group that calls for freedom of movement and equal treatment for migrants in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera that the far right in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom, more widely, had “constructed a narrative that there is a migration crisis”.

“They’ve managed to construct this idea of a crisis, and that distracts our attention away from populism, away from arms trades, away from social services and the welfare state being sold off.”

Whatever its merits, the right-wing message that immigration is at the root of many social ills seems to be taking hold. The far-left, pro-immigration BIJ1 party, which rejects this message, is not projected to win any seats at all in this election.

Immigration “is a key term especially for right-wing political parties to win the election”, Noura Oul Fakir, a candidate for the BIJ1 party, told Al Jazeera. “We don’t focus on it because we look at everything that’s been going on from a systemic point of view, that every form of oppression is interlinked … This fight for equality and justice, it’s about more than just immigration, but it’s also interlinked with other issues that we see nowadays.”

People ‘more emboldened to express racist views’

By January 1, 2024, the Netherlands was hosting 2.9 million migrants (16.2 percent of the population), compared to the average across European Union member states of 9.9 percent (44.7 million people in total).

Similarly, Germany hosts 16.9 million migrants (20.2 percent of the population); France, 9.3 million (13.6 percent of the population); Spain, 8.8 million (18.2 percent of the population); and Italy, 6.7 million (11.3 percent of the population), according to figures from the EU.

Mark van Ostaijen, an associate professor in public administration and sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, explained that immigration has become a mainstream talking point in “housing, care, educational and cultural policy domains”.

For instance, the Netherlands is currently short of 434,000 homes, including for 353,000 asylum seekers and 81,000 Dutch first-time buyers, according to figures commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VRO).

Immigration has, therefore, been blamed for what is seen as a housing crisis.

According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 316,000 migrants arrived in the country in 2024, 19,000 fewer than in 2023. But CBS also found that population growth is still mainly down to net migration, with the largest number of migrants coming from Ukraine and Syria.

“I think this is indeed something that will continue the electoral legitimacy of far-right parties, or right-wing parties, even more, given the fact that the Netherlands was already quite leaning towards the conservative angle,” van Ostaijen told Al Jazeera.

“This will be a topic that will haunt our politics and our democratic decision-making and discourse for quite a while,” he said.

Anecdotal evidence bears this out. Fakir has noticed a change in the experiences of immigrant residents she and her colleagues have spoken to in the country following the growth of the PVV.

“In their personal life [they have seen] a noticeable shift where people feel more free or emboldened to express racist views, both online and in real life. Others are telling them those classic things of ‘go back to your own country, or you’re not Dutch’,” she said.

For Nassreddin Taibi, a recent graduate who works as a political analyst and plans to vote for GroenLinks-PvdA, the anti-immigration protests at the Hague “further cemented polarisation among Dutch voters” and have caused centrist parties to fall into line with the right-wing narrative.

“These protests have influenced the discourse in the sense that centrist parties now say that cutting immigration is necessary to win back trust of voters in politics,” he said.

Nearly half of voters still undecided

While the far-right PVV is projected to win the most seats in this election, it will still face an uphill journey to form a government, as other parties such as the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) have ruled out joining a coalition government.

Furthermore, the PVV’s leader, Wilders, has not escaped controversy with his Islamophobic comments and anti-migration stance despite the rise in anti-immigration sentiment across the country as a whole.

Notable incidents over the years include Wilders’ likening of Islam to Nazism in 2007 and his reference to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as “fascist” in a letter to a Dutch news outlet. His letter and comments led to Wilders being prosecuted for inciting hatred and discrimination, which he denied. In 2011, he was acquitted by a judge who ruled that his comments had fallen within the scope of free speech.

More recently, in August this year, Wilders posted an image on X that depicted a smiling, blonde and blue-eyed woman, representing the PVV; and a wrinkled, angry-looking elderly woman wearing a headscarf, representing the PvdA. It was accompanied by the words: “The choice is yours on 29/10.”

Aan U de keuze op 29/10 pic.twitter.com/royhcInDlm

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) August 4, 2025

Fake news and misinformation have also driven the rise in far-right narratives, analysts say.

The Facebook page ‘Wij doen GEEN aangifte tegen Geert Wilders’ (We are NOT filing charges against Geert Wilders), which claims to be a PVV supporters’ page boasting 129,000 followers, said it does not intend to be “discriminatory, hateful, or incite violence”, but has nevertheless posted AI-generated images of this nature.

In one such image, which received 1,700 likes, a white family is seemingly being harassed by men of colour.

In another, a white woman is seen in a supermarket paying for groceries while surrounded by Muslim women wearing hijabs and niqabs, with the caption: “No mass immigration, no Islamisation, no backwardness of the Dutch.” The post received 885 likes.

While the outgoing home affairs minister, Judith Uitermark, has said the government is examining new ways to combat fake news, she added that the Netherlands is somewhat protected from the rise of extremism by its proportional representation system, under which no one party ever wins a majority.

Still, the Dutch Data Protection Authority has warned voters not to use AI chatbots to help them decide who to vote for.

And a large number are still deciding. EenVandaag found that some 48 percent of voters are still undecided about which candidate they will choose. If the GroenLinks-PvdA can disengage from right-wing talking points and, instead, focus on its own policies more, it may perform better than expected, analysts say.

This will be no easy task, however.

“We find ourselves doing this also as a civil society organisation, as campaigners, trying to fight off the narrative and fight off the kind of populist ideals of the far right faster than we can push for our own agenda as well. And I think a lot of the time that leaves left-wing parties in the Netherlands seeming a bit hollow,” Swain said.

Still, she says that she is holding out hope for this election, despite what feels like a “vast and growing far-right bulk of the population”.

“I think it’s very easy to kind of feel that division between ‘us and them’. Us campaigning on the left and this growing mass of the far right,” Swain said.

“We need to tackle fighting the influence of lobbying and of fake news in our political structures. And I think that becoming more united as a population would naturally fall from that.”

Lucknow, India – On the evening of September 4, an illuminated signboard lit up a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in Kanpur, an industrial town in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The signboard said: “I love Muhammad” – with a red heart standing in for the word, love.

It was the first time the mainly working-class residents in Kanpur’s Syed Nagar had put up such a sign as part of the decorations as they joined millions of Muslims around the world to celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

The day, marked as Eid Milad-un-Nabi across South Asia, involves the faithful organising religious gatherings, Quran recitations, and sermons about the prophet’s life and teachings. At some places, the celebrations include mass processions, with people carrying posters to express their love and reverence for the prophet.

In Syed Nagar, however, as soon as the words glowed, a group of Hindu men swooped in, objecting to the celebration. Police were called in, and following a ruckus that lasted hours, the signboard was removed late that night.

Charges related to promoting enmity between different religious groups, as well as deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of another community, were filed against nine Muslim men and 15 unidentified people from Syed Nagar. No arrests have been made so far.

Mohit Bajpayee, a Syed Nagar resident affiliated with a Hindu group named Sri Ramnavmi Samiti, said he had no objection to the text, ‘I love Muhammad’, but to the placement of the signboard at a place used by them for a Hindu festival.

“All religions have equal rights under the constitution,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the sign was put up at a location where our Ram Navami decorations are usually displayed. Everyone has a right to follow their religion, but new traditions should not be started in new locations.”

But the Muslim residents of Syed Nagar say the signboard was put up at a public place they converged at every year for the prophet’s birth anniversary.

“We had official permission for the decorations. Everyone has the right to practise their religion under the constitution,” said a 28-year-old resident who is one of those charged, unwilling to reveal his identity over fears of further action by the government.

MA Khan, the lawyer for the accused in Kanpur, told Al Jazeera that the Muslim men were also accused of tearing a banner of the Hindu community during the Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession on September 5.

“Many of those named were not even present in the procession,” he said.

‘Disturbing communal harmony’

Uttar Pradesh is home to 38 million Muslims – more than the entire population of Saudi Arabia – comprising nearly 20 percent of India’s most populous state. Since 2017, the politically crucial state has been governed by Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk known for his anti-Muslim speech and policies, and a prominent politician from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Days later, the spark from Kanpur ignited a fire some 270km (168 miles) away, in another Uttar Pradesh town called Bareilly – headquarters of the Barelvi sect of Sunni Muslims, who number between 200 million to 300 million across the world.

On September 10, the state police registered a first information report (FIR) against nine Muslims in Bareilly, including a religious scholar, accusing them of “disturbing communal harmony” and starting a “new tradition” that threatened public order.

On September 21, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, chief of a Muslim group called Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) and descendant of Imam Ahmed Raza Khan, the founder of the Barelvi sect, announced a protest over the FIRs filed in Bareilly and Kanpur, and urged his supporters to gather at a ground after Friday prayers on September 26 to denounce the police action.

The district administration denied Khan permission for the rally.

On September 25, the IMC issued a statement asking people not to gather for the protest. But hours later, Khan’s supporters allegedly circulated a social media message, claiming the IMC statement was fake and aimed at defaming the Muslim body.

The next day, thousands of Muslims assembled near a famous Muslim shrine in Bareilly after the Friday prayers, holding “I love Muhammad” posters and raising slogans against the police for their action in Kanpur.

District authorities alleged that the march was unauthorised and accused some participants of pelting stones at the police and vandalising public property. The police responded with a baton charge, and arrested Khan and dozens of others, as authorities shut down the internet in the town.

In a video message recorded before his arrest, Khan said the crackdown was a targeted suppression of religious expression. “Attempts to suppress our religious sentiments will backfire,” he warned.

A day later, while speaking at an event in the state capital, Lucknow, Chief Minister Adityanath condemned the Bareilly unrest as a “well-orchestrated attempt” to disturb social harmony.

“Sometimes, people are not able to shun their bad habits easily. For that, some denting-painting is required … You saw that in Bareilly yesterday. A maulana [Muslim scholar] forgot who is in power,” he said in Hindi, without naming anyone.

The “denting-painting” soon followed, as has been the pattern with Adityanath’s crackdown on Muslims accused of disrupting public order. A banquet hall belonging to one of the accused was bulldozed by the authorities in Bareilly.

‘Government wants to instil fear’

Demolition of homes and commercial properties belonging to Muslims accused of a range of crimes has become a common practice in Uttar Pradesh and other BJP-ruled states, despite India’s top court recently banning what it called the “bulldozer justice”. Rights groups say such demolitions are a form of extralegal punishment that bypasses judicial processes and devastates families economically.

While the Uttar Pradesh government claimed the demolitions in Bareilly targeted illegally-constructed buildings, the timing and targets suggest a clear strategy of intimidation.

“Police are registering cases against Muslims across the nation to suppress their legitimate protests … The BJP government wants to instil fear so Muslims lose the courage to speak for their religious and fundamental rights,” Sumaiya Rana, daughter of the famous Urdu poet late Munawwar Rana, told Al Jazeera.

Rana herself organised a protest outside the state assembly building in Lucknow, where more than a dozen demonstrators holding “I love Muhammad” placards were briefly detained by the police.

The Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), a rights group, says at least 22 FIRs have been filed across India in connection with the Muslim campaign, naming more than 2,500 individuals, with at least 89 arrested in Bareilly so far.

“Authorities have treated a slogan expressing love for the prophet as a criminal act and described it as provocative,” APCR secretary Nadeem Khan told Al Jazeera. “In many cases, the administration violated due process in registering cases and demolishing the properties of the accused, which has severe social and economic impacts on Muslim communities.”

SQR Ilyasi, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a prominent Muslim body, stressed that peaceful protest is not illegal for any community in India. “Expressing love for the prophet is our right,” he told Al Jazeera.

Activist Vandana Mishra of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a rights group, said the authorities frequently allow the Hindu community to “raise religious slogans freely, while the minority faces arrest for expressing love for the prophet”.

“This contravenes the secular and democratic ethos of our constitution,” she told Al Jazeera.

Opposition parties have also criticised the Uttar Pradesh government’s actions.

The Samajwadi Party, one of the state’s biggest political forces, said it attempted to send a delegation to Bareilly to meet the victims of the police crackdown, but claimed its members were prevented. “The government talks of democracy but acts in complete disregard of it,” the leader of the opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Mata Prasad Pandey, told reporters in Lucknow.

Lawyer Zia Jillani, who recently visited Bareilly and is representing some of the accused, told Al Jazeera that most of those arrested or facing charges “belong to the marginalised sections of society and earn on a daily wage basis”.

“For them, due to their financial incapability, pursuing and fighting legal cases against the injustices inflicted upon them is an unbearable task,” he said.

“This kind of hate politics preys on the poor, taking advantage of their vulnerability while ignoring justice and accountability.”

If bill is signed into law, Portugal would join several European countries which already have full or partial bans.

Portugal has approved a bill to ban face veils used for “gender or religious motives” in most public spaces that was proposed by the far-right Chega party and targets burqas and niqabs worn by Muslim women.

Under the bill, approved by parliament on Friday, proposed fines for wearing face veils in public would range from 200 to 4,000 euros ($234-$4,670). Forcing someone to wear one would be punishable with prison terms of up to three years.

Face veils would still be allowed in aeroplanes, diplomatic premises and places of worship.

According to local media reports, the bill is now set to be discussed in the parliamentary committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees – a body responsible for reviewing legislation related to constitutional matters.

If signed into law, it would put Portugal alongside European countries, including France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, which already have full or partial bans.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa could still veto the bill or send it to the Constitutional Court for checks.

During Friday’s parliamentary session, Chega leader Andre Ventura was confronted by several female lawmakers from left-wing parties who opposed the bill, but it passed with support from the centre-right coalition.

“We are today protecting female members of parliament, your daughters, our daughters, from having to use burqas in this country one day,” Ventura said.

In a post on X, he wrote: “Today is a historic day for our democracy and for the safeguarding of our values, our identity and women’s rights.”

Andreia Neto, a lawmaker from the ruling Social Democratic Party, said before the vote: “This is a debate on equality between men and women. No woman should be forced to veil her face.”

Two out of the 10 parties in parliament abstained from the vote – the People-Animals-Nature party, and the Together for the People party, according to local media reports.

The parties have suggested that the proposal incited discrimination.

Only a small minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, and in Portugal such veils are very rare.

But full-face coverings such as niqabs and burqas have become a polarising issue across Europe, with some arguing that they symbolise gender discrimination or can represent a security threat and should be outlawed.

New Delhi, India – For the last month, Indian police have raided multiple markets and homes, arresting Muslim men in states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party. Some of their homes have been bulldozed.

The genesis of their alleged crime is common: writing, “I Love Muhammad”, a reference to Prophet Muhammad, on posters, t-shirts, or in social media posts. The authorities say the expression is threatening “public order”.

So far, at least 22 cases have been registered against more than 2,500 Muslims. At least 40 people have been arrested across multiple states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to the nonprofit Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR).

So, what is happening? How and where did this start? And is it illegal to say ‘I Love Muhammad’ in India?

What’s happening?

On September 4, Muslims living in Kanpur city of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh were observing Eid al-Milad al-Nabi, the celebration of the birth of Prophet Muhammad, when a neighbourhood put up an illuminated board saying, “I love Muhammad”.

But the board, mimicking the popular “I Love New York” signage that has been copied all over the world, drew criticism from some local Hindus. Initially, their complaint alleged that the illuminated board was a new introduction to traditional festivities on the occasion, when Uttar Pradesh’s laws bar new additions to public religious celebrations. About 20 percent of Kanpur’s population is Muslim.

However, based on complaints, the police filed a case against two dozen people on much more serious charges: promoting enmity on the grounds of religion. The charge carries a punishment of up to five years in jail if the accused individual is convicted.

The Kanpur episode drew widespread criticism from Muslim political leaders, and protests against the police action spread to other states, including Telangana in southern India, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west, and in Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir in the north. The  “I love Muhammad” hoardings and writings came up across the country – from people’s social media handles to t-shirts.

Nearly 270km (168 miles) away from Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, a group of people participating in a demonstration called by a local imam against the Kanpur arrests, violently clashed with the police on September 26.

The police hit back with a crackdown, arresting 75 people, including the imam, Tauqeer Raza, his relatives and his aides. At least four buildings belonging to the accused individuals have been bulldozed by the local authorities.

In recent years, hundreds of Indian Muslims have lost their homes to such demolitions, which are often carried out without any notice issued by authorities, or any court order. India’s Supreme Court has observed that demolitions cannot be used as a form of extra-legal punishment, warning that state authorities must give prior notice before razing any property. Yet, on the ground, that order is often not followed, say activists.

Meanwhile, dozens of other Muslims have been arrested in different states – including some in Modi’s home state of Gujarat – for social media posts and videos carrying the “I love Muhammad” slogan.

Is it illegal?

India’s constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and the right to express it. Article 25 protects every individual’s freedom to practise their religion. Citizens are also protected under Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression, unless it directly incites violence or hatred.

In the cases of people arrested as part of the “I Love Muhammad” crackdown, the police have mostly charged them under legal provisions that bar large gatherings aimed at committing “mischief”, or for acts that allegedly provoke religious tensions. However, these provisions have been applied against those arrested for social media posts, or wearing t-shirts with “I Love Muhammad” emblazoned on them.

Nadeem Khan, the national coordinator of APCR, the nonprofit that has been tracking these cases, has fought previous lawsuits against government officials for similarly targeting Muslims for social media expressions, or when their homes have been bulldozed.

Khan told Al Jazeera that authorities were carefully using legal provisions that focus not on the “I Love Muhammad” expression itself, but on alleged offences carried out by those who used the expression or protested against related police crackdowns.

“They know that there is no law that criminalises just the mere expression of ‘I Love Muhammad’,” Khan said.

Khan noted that across India, images of Hindu gods wielding their traditional weapons have long been commonplace. “These images are at every corner of the country; should it also offend or threaten all Muslims then?” he asked. “Everyone should understand that the government cannot criminalise a religion like this,” he added, referring to Islam.

Since 2014, when Modi took over the power in New Delhi, India has consistently slid in a range of international democratic indices.

Criminalising people’s right to freedom of expression and religious belief sets a deeply troubling precedent, said Aakar Patel, the chair of Amnesty International India’s board.

“Targeting people for slogans such as ‘I Love Muhammad’, which is peaceful and devoid of any incitement or threat, does not meet the threshold for criminal restriction under either Indian constitutional law or international human rights law,” Patel told Al Jazeera.

“Public order concerns must be addressed proportionately and cannot justify the blanket suppression of religious identity or expression,” he added.

“The role of the state is to safeguard rights equally, not to police expressions of belief,” said Amnesty’s Patel. “Upholding constitutional and international commitments is not optional; it is a legal obligation.”

Is there a pattern?

Critics say that the crackdown is only the latest instance of Indian Muslims facing marginalisation, violence or the targeted brunt of the law since Modi came to power in 2014.

In the past 11 years, the incidents of hate speech targeting religious minorities have skyrocketed. Documented instances of hate speech jumped from 668 in 2023 to 1,165 last year, a rise of about 74 percent. A significant majority of these incidents happened in BJP-governed states, or places where elections were upcoming.

Increasingly, local Hindu-Muslim disputes now rapidly transform into national issues, said Asim Ali, a political analyst based in Delhi.

“There is an entire ecosystem in place, from pliant media to social media organisation, to spread this hate rapidly,” said Ali. “And the law is read in such a way that any expression of religious identity, especially of Muslims, can be seen as inciting religious hatred,” he added.

After the “I Love Muhammad” episode in Kanpur, BJP leaders in Modi’s own constituency, Varanasi, put up posters saying, “I Love Bulldozer” at major intersections of the city, in a reference to the bulldozing of houses of the accused.

How does it affect young Muslims?

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, said that the row over “I Love Muhammad” is “overtly very political, and not religious”.

And in India, there is growing frustration among Muslims, especially youth, where they see that one set of rules is not applied for all, when it comes to matters of cultural identity and eating habits, said Kidwai.

Several of the accused, or arrested, as part of the “I Love Muhammad” crackdown, include young adult Muslims, according to data from APCR, including those who were arrested for social media posts.

The crackdown on “I Love Muhammad” expression risks alienating young Muslim adults even more, said Ali. “In theory, everyone is already guilty and can face action for just being,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It is getting difficult to imagine what the future may hold now,” he said. “The tempo of hate is increasing day by day.”

Police in the United Kingdom are investigating a suspected arson attack on a mosque in southern England as a “hate crime” as a spate of violent crime against religious sites is reported.

Officers were called to the site of an arson attack on Phyllis Avenue in Peacehaven, East Sussex, just before 10pm (22:00 GMT) on Saturday, local police said.

The fire damaged the front entrance of the mosque and a car, they said, adding that no one was injured. Images and footage shared online show a burned-out car at the entrance of the mosque.

Sussex Police also shared images of two masked men dressed in dark clothing, and appealed for help from the public to identify them.

According to a report on CNN, which quoted a volunteer mosque manager, two people were inside the building when two people in balaclavas tried to force the mosque door open and poured petrol onto the steps, setting the building alight.

A spokesperson for the mosque said in a statement that the community was “deeply saddened” by the “shocking” attack. “While the incident has caused damage to our building and vehicles, we are profoundly grateful that no-one was injured.”

“This hateful act does not represent our community or our town. Peacehaven has always been a place of kindness, respect, and mutual support, and we will continue to embody those values,” the statement continued.

“We ask everyone to reject division and respond to hate with unity and compassion,” it added.

Detective Superintendent Karrie Bohanna said the attack had caused concerns within the Muslim community. “There is already an increased police presence at the scene, and there are also additional patrols taking place to provide reassurance at other places of worship across the county,” Bohanna said.

“Sussex Police takes a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime, and there is no place for hate across the county.”

Possible act of ‘terrorism’

Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party, said the police must establish the motives of the attack and whether it constitutes “an act of terrorism”.

“People were inside the mosque when it was firebombed and people in this community will be feeling frightened and targeted for their faith,” Ali said.

Chris Ward, the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, said he was “appalled” by the “disgusting” attack.

“That there were no injuries is purely by chance,” he said. “This violence and hatred has no place in our peaceful, tolerant local community. We will root it out, and we stand in solidarity with all affected.”

The attack comes after a ramming and stabbing at a synagogue in northern Manchester on Thursday. It killed two people and seriously injured three.

The Muslim Council of Britain condemned Saturday’s attack, saying it was “profoundly shocked and alarmed by the Islamophobic arson attack” and urged authorities to “provide robust protection for all places of worship”.

The mosque attack “follows a disturbing pattern of violence and intimidation”, it added. “Just last week, an Imam was stabbed in Hounslow, while mosques across the country have faced bomb threats and coordinated hate campaigns,” the council added in its statement.

Separately, the East London Mosque said on X that “our communities must remain united – Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of all faiths and none – in standing together against extremism, intolerance and violence.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews also condemned the mosque attack, saying on X that “every faith community has the right to worship free from fear. Our country is better than this.”

The attacks on religious sites come as the atmosphere in the UK remains tense after months of protests against asylum seekers and a social media campaign called #OperationRaisetheColours.

In recent weeks, those heeding the call have pinned the flag of England bearing St George’s Cross and Union Jacks to motorway bridges, lampposts, roundabouts and some shops across the UK. Red crosses have been spray-painted on the white stripes of zebra crossings.

While some supporters frame the project as patriotic, it has been tied to racist incidents including the appearance of racist graffiti.

Antifascist campaign group Hope Not Hate condemns speeches at Saturday’s rally in London as ‘extremely disturbing’.

Britain will “never surrender” to far-right protesters who use the national flag as cover for violence and intimidation, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer says after violent scenes at one of the country’s largest far-right demonstrations in decades.

More than 110,000 people marched through central London on Saturday in a protest against immigration led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Some attending the Unite the Kingdom rally clashed with police. Twenty-six officers were injured, and at least 24 people were arrested, according to the Metropolitan Police.

In his first public comments since the rally, Starmer said on Sunday that peaceful protest was a fundamental value in Britain, but he condemned assaults on police officers and intimidation against marginalised communities.

“People have a right to peaceful protest. It is core to our country’s values,” he said. “But we will not stand for assaults on police officers doing their job or for people feeling intimidated on our streets because of their background or the colour of their skin.”

He added: “Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country, and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.”

Islam is the ‘real enemy’

Saturday’s protest was marked by nationalist symbols, scuffles and inflammatory speeches. Footage showed police on horseback pelted with bottles while baton charges were used to push back Robinson supporters and allow about 5,000 counterdemonstrators to leave the Whitehall area of central London safely.

A stage was erected for speeches from a lineup of far-right figures. Leading the charge was Robinson, who told the crowd: “It’s not just Britain that is being invaded. It’s not just Britain that is being raped.”

“Every single Western nation faces the same problem: An orchestrated, organised invasion and replacement of European citizens is happening,” he added.

International speakers included French politician Eric Zemmour, who echoed the views put forward by Robinson. “We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European peoples by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture,” he said, citing the great replacement conspiracy theory that white Europeans are being deliberately replaced by people from other ethnicities.

“You and we are being colonised by our former colonies,” Zemmour added.

Similarly, Belgian far-right politician Filip Dewinter declared: “It has to be clear that Islam is our real enemy. We have to get rid of Islam. Islam does not belong in Europe, and Islam does not belong in the UK.”

Other speakers included Danish People’s Party leader Morten Messerschmidt, German Alternative for Germany MP Petr Bystron and Polish politician Dominik Tarczynski.

Tesla CEO and X Chairman Elon Musk also made an appearance by videolink, telling protesters the UK needed an “urgent change in government” and warning them to “fight back” or “die”.

Police, government and antifascist groups condemn violence

The rally came amid a wave of far-right violence in recent months, including arson attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers.

Experts said these incidents, fuelled by conspiracy theories, xenophobia and online disinformation, have intensified concerns over the rise of far-right movements across Britain and Europe, which often spill over into rioting and violence.

Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner Matt Twist said the violence directed at officers was “wholly unacceptable”. He added: “There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence.”

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood also condemned the violence, warning that anyone taking part in criminal acts would “face the full force of the law”.

Starmer’s remarks followed calls from the antifascist group Hope Not Hate and several MPs urging the government to act against the surge in far-right mobilisation. Hope Not Hate described the protest as “extremely disturbing”.

“While the turnout was significantly smaller than the millions claimed by Lennon and his supporters, it appears to be the largest far-right demonstration ever seen in Britain,” the group said.

“For anyone worried about the rise of far-right activism and the normalisation of viciously anti-migrant, anti-Muslim sentiment, it could be a sign of dark times to come,” it added.

Anti-Muslim incidents in person have increased by 150 percent – and by 250 percent online — according to an independent report.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said his government will “carefully consider” the recommendations of an independent report which found that anti-Muslim incidents in the country have “skyrocketed” since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.

During a media briefing at the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney on Friday, Albanese said targeting Australians based on their religious beliefs was an attack on the country’s core values.

“Australians should be able to feel safe at home in any community … we must stamp out the hate, fear and prejudice that drives Islamophobia and division in our society,” he said.

Aftab Malik, who has been serving as the government’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia since last October, was appointed to the three-year role to recommend steps to prevent anti-Muslim hatred. The appointment came as Australia had been experiencing a surge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

The independent report, released on Friday and Malik’s first since assuming the position, said the normalisation of Islamophobia has become so widespread in Australia that many incidents are not even getting reported.

“The reality is that Islamophobia in Australia has been persistent, at times ignored and other times denied, but never fully addressed,” said Malik, appearing alongside Albanese.

“We have seen public abuse, graffiti … we have seen Muslim women and children targeted, not for what they have done, but for who they are and what they wear.”

The 60-page report’s 54 recommendations to the government include a review of counterterrorism laws and procedures to investigate potential discrimination.

Malik also recommended a wide-ranging inquiry into Islamophobia to investigate its main drivers and potential discrimination in government policies.

Islamophobia had intensified since the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and had become entrenched, said Malik.

Islamophobic incidents in person had skyrocketed by 150 percent — and by 250 percent online — since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Malik said.

The Australian government has acknowledged steep rises in both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.

Jillian Segal was appointed envoy to combat anti-Semitism in July 2024.

Segal recommended, in her first report two months ago, that Australian universities lose government funding unless they address attacks on Jewish students, and that potential migrants be screened for political affiliations.

According to the 2021 Australian Census, 3.2 percent of the Australian population is Muslim.

Islamophobia has also risen across Europe, fuelled by political parties touting a populist anti-immigration stance.

The ban, originally proposed by far-right Vox party, affects Muslims celebrating religious holidays in sports centres in Jumilla.

A ban imposed by a southeastern Spanish town on religious gatherings in public sports centres, which will mainly affect members of the local Muslim community, has sparked criticism from the left-wing government and a United Nations official.

Spain’s Migration Minister Elma Saiz said on Friday that the ban, approved by the conservative local government of Jumilla last week, was “shameful”, urging local leaders to “take a step back” and apologise to residents.

The ban, approved by the mayor’s centre-right Popular Party, would be enacted in sports centres used by local Muslims in recent years to celebrate religious holidays like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

It was originally proposed by the far-right Vox party, with amendments passed before approval. Earlier this week, Vox’s branch in the Murcia region celebrated the measure, saying on X that “Spain is and always will be a land of Christian roots!”

The town’s mayor, Seve Gonzalez, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper that the measure did not single out any one group and that her government wanted to “promote cultural campaigns that defend our identity”.

But Mohamed El Ghaidouni, secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain, said it amounted to “institutionalised Islamophobia”, taking issue with the local government’s assertion that the Muslim festivals celebrated in the centres were “foreign to the town’s identity”.

The ban, he said, “clashes with the institutions of the Spanish state” that protect religious freedom.

Saiz told Spain’s Antena 3 broadcaster that policies like the ban in Jumilla harm “citizens who have been living for decades in our towns, in our cities, in our country, contributing and perfectly integrated without any problems of coexistence”.

Separately, Miguel Moratinos, the UN special envoy to combat Islamophobia, said he was “shocked” by the City Council of Jumilla’s decision and expressed “deep concern about the rise in xenophobic rhetoric and Islamophobic sentiments in some regions in Spain”.

I am shocked by the decision of the City Council of Jumilla to ban religious rituals and/or celebrations in municipal facilities in the municipality of Jumilla, region of Murcia, Spain.

🔗 Full Statement ⬇️https://t.co/WHADpxgITo pic.twitter.com/Rd92XMdpVF

— Miguel Ángel Moratinos (@MiguelMoratinos) August 8, 2025

“The decision undermines the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he said in a statement on Friday.

“Policies that single out or disproportionately affect one community pose a threat to social cohesion and erode the principle of living together in peace,” he added.

Far-right clashes with locals

For centuries, Spain was ruled by Muslims, whose influence is present both in the Spanish language and in many of the country’s most celebrated landmarks, including Granada’s famed Moorish Alhambra Palace.

Islamic rule ended in 1492 when the last Arab kingdom in Spain fell to the Catholics.

The ban stipulates that municipal sports facilities can only be used for athletic activities or events organised by local authorities. Under no circumstance, it said, can the centre be used for “cultural, social or religious activities foreign to the City Council”.

Its introduction follows clashes between far-right groups and residents and migrants that erupted last month in the southern Murcia region after an elderly resident in the town of Torre-Pacheco was beaten up by assailants believed to be of Moroccan origin.

Right-wing governments elsewhere in Europe have passed measures similar to the ban in Jumilla, striking at the heart of ongoing debates across the continent about nationalism and religious and cultural pluralism.

Last year in Monfalcone, a large industrial port city in northeastern Italy with a significant Bangladeshi immigrant population, far-right mayor Anna Maria Cisint banned prayers in a cultural centre.

The move led to protests involving some 8,000 people, and the city’s Muslim community is appealing it in a regional court.

The murder of Wadee Alfayoumi and attack on his mother stand as one of the worst hate crimes in the US since Gaza war began.

A United States landlord who was jailed for decades for the horrific October 2023 stabbing death of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, and for critically injuring his mother, has died in prison.

Joseph Czuba, 73, died on Thursday in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Saturday, citing the Will County Sheriff’s Office. The law enforcement agency did not return a call seeking comment on the death, according to the Associated Press news agency.

The murder of the boy, Wadee Alfayoumi, and the attack on his mother, Hanan Shaheen, was one of the earliest and worst hate crime incidents in the US since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Three months ago, Czuba was sentenced to 53 years in prison for the attack. He was found guilty in February of murder, attempted murder and hate-crime charges for Alfayoumi’s death and for wounding Shaheen.

Czuba attacked them on October 14, 2023, because they were Muslims, and as a response to the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel.

Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Chicago office, said in a statement on Saturday that “this depraved killer has died, but the hate is still alive and well”.

Evidence at trial included harrowing testimony from Shaheen and her frantic 911 call, along with bloody crime scene photos and a police video. Jurors deliberated for less than 90 minutes before handing in a verdict.

The family had been renting rooms in Czuba’s home in Plainfield, about 40 miles (64km) from Chicago, when the attack happened.

Central to the prosecutors’ case was harrowing testimony from the boy’s mother, who said Czuba attacked her before moving on to her son, insisting they had to leave because they were Muslim.

“He told me: ‘You, as a Muslim, must die,’” said Shaheen during her testimony.

Czuba’s ex-wife, Mary, also testified for the prosecution, saying he had become agitated about Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians.

Police said Czuba pulled a knife from a holder on a belt and stabbed the boy 26 times. Some of the bloody crime scene photos were so explicit that the judge agreed to turn television screens showing them away from the audience, which included Wadee’s relatives.

The case generated headlines around the world and deeply struck the Chicago area’s large and established Palestinian community amid rising hostility against Muslims and Palestinians in the US. Wadee’s funeral drew large crowds, and Plainfield officials have dedicated a park playground in his honour.

Other similarly-motivated incidents in the US include the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian-American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and a Florida shooting of two Israeli visitors whom the suspect mistook for Palestinians.

Three young Palestinian men were also shot near a university campus in Vermont just weeks after Alfayoumi was stabbed to death.

On June 27, El Hidaya Mosque in Roussillon in Southern France was attacked and vandalised. Windows were smashed and furniture overturned; the walls were plastered with racist flyers. Earlier the same month, a burned Quran was placed at the entrance of a mosque in Villeurbanne of Lyon.

Unfortunately, virulent Islamophobia in France has not stopped at vandalism.

On May 31, Hichem Miraoui, a Tunisian national, was shot dead by his French neighbour in a village near the French Riviera; another Muslim man was also shot but survived. A month earlier, Aboubakar Cisse, a Malian national, was stabbed to death in a mosque in the town of La Grand-Combeby by a French citizen.

There has been a significant spike in Islamophobic acts in France – something the French authorities remain reluctant to publicly comment on. One report showed a 72 percent increase in such incidents between January and March 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.

There are various factors that have contributed to this, but central among them is the French state’s own Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim policies.

The most recent iteration of this was the release of a report titled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France” by the French government. The document claims that the Muslim Brotherhood and “political Islamism” are infiltrating French institutions and threatening social cohesion and names organisations and mosques as having links to the group.

The report came out just days before Miraoui was shot dead and two weeks after the French authorities raided the homes of several founding members of the Brussels-based Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) living in France.

With the rise of anti-Muslim attacks and discrimination in France, it is increasingly hard to believe that the obsession of the French state and government with what they call “Islamist separatism” is not, in fact, inciting violence against the French Muslim population.

The idea that French Muslims are somehow threatening the French state through their identity expression has been championed by the French far right for decades. But it was in the late 2010s that it entered the mainstream by being embraced by centrist politicians and the media.

In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron, who also embraced the term “separatism”, called for the creation of a “French Islam”, a euphemism for domesticating and controlling Muslim institutions to serve the interest of the French state. At the heart of this project stood the idea of preserving “social cohesion”, which effectively meant suppressing dissent.

In the following years, the French state started acting on its obsession with controlling Muslims with more and tougher policies. Between  2018 and 2020, it shut down 672 Muslim-run entities, including schools and mosques.

In November 2020, the French authorities forced the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), a nonprofit organisation documenting Islamophobia, to dissolve; the organisation then reconstituted in Brussels. In December of that year, they targeted 76 mosques, accusing them of “Islamist separatism” and threatening them with closure.

In 2021, the French Parliament passed the so-called anti-separatism law, which included a variety of measures to supposedly combat “Islamist separatism”. Among them was an extension of the ban on religious symbols in the public sector, restrictions on home schooling and sports associations, new rules for organisations receiving state subsidies, more policing of places of worship, etc.

By January 2022, the French government reported that it had inspected more than 24,000 Muslim organisations and businesses, shut down more than 700 and seized 46 million euros ($54m) in assets.

The Muslim Brotherhood boogeyman

The report released in May, like many official statements and initiatives, was not aimed to clarify policy or ensure legal precision. It was supposed to politicise Muslim identity, delegitimise political dissent and facilitate a new wave of state attacks on the Muslim civil society.

The report names various Muslim organisations, accusing them of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. It also argues that campaigning against Islamophobia is a tool of the organisation. According to the report, the Muslim Brotherhood uses anti-Islamophobia activism to discredit secular policies and portray the state as racist.

This framing is aimed to invalidate legitimate critiques of discriminatory laws and practices, and frames any public recognition of anti-Muslim racism as a covert Islamist agenda. The implication is clear: Muslim visibility and dissent are not just suspect — they are dangerous.

The report also dives into the Islamo-gauchisme or Islamo-leftism conspiracy theories – the idea that “Islamists” and leftists have a strategic alliance. It claims that decolonial movement is challenneling Islamism and references the March Against Islamophobia of November 10, 2019, a mass mobilisation that drew participants from across the political spectrum, including the left.

The report that was commissioned under the hardline former Interior Minister and now Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who back in 2021 accused far-right leader Marine Le Pen of being “too soft” on Islam.

All of this – the report, the legislation, the police raids and rhetorical attacks against the French Muslim community – follows the long French colonial tradition of seeking to rule over and control Muslim populations. The French political centre has had to embrace Islamophobia to contain its falling popularity. It may help with narrow electoral victories over the rising far right, but those will be short-lived. The more lasting impact will be a sigmatised, alienated Muslim community which will increasingly face state-incited violence and hatred.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

For years, Muslim New Yorkers have gathered at Washington Square Park on the Eid holidays for prayer services, putting the city’s religious and ethnic diversity on display.

But this year, right-wing influencers have been sharing footage of the gatherings, presenting them as a nefarious “invasion” tied to Muslim American New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

“The fear-mongering is insane,” said Asad Dandia, a local historian and Muslim American activist who supports Mamdani’s campaign. “I think the community and our leadership know that we’re on the radar now.”

Muslim Americans in New York and across the United States said the country is seeing a spike in Islamophobic rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primaries.

Advocates said the wave of hateful comments shows that Islamophobia remains a tolerated form of bigotry in the US despite appearing to have receded in recent years.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Dandia said.

‘Islam is not a religion’

It is not just anonymous internet users and online anti-Muslim figures attacking Mamdani and his identity. A flood of politicians, including some in the orbit of President Donald Trump, have joined in.

Congressman Randy Fine went as far as to suggest without evidence that Mamdani will install a “caliphate” in New York City if elected while Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa on X.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn attacked the mayoral candidate, arguing that Islam is a political ideology and “not a religion”.

Others, like conservative activist Charlie Kirk invoked the 9/11 attacks and called Mamdani a “Muslim Maoist” while right-wing commentator Angie Wong told CNN that people in New York are “concerned about their safety, living here with a Muslim mayor”.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a Trump confidant, referred to the mayoral candidate as a “jihadist Muslim”, baselessly alleging that he has ties to both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

And Republican Representative Andy Ogles sent a letter to the Department of Justice, calling for Mamdani’s citizenship to be revoked and for him to be deported.

On Sunday, Congressman Brandon Gill posted a video of Mamdani eating biryani with his hand and called on him “to go back to the Third World”, saying that “civilized people” in the US “don’t eat like this”.

Calls for condemnation

“I’m getting flashbacks from after 9/11,” New York City Council member Shahana Hanif said. “I was a kid then, and still the bigotry and Islamophobia were horrifying as a child.”

Hanif, who represents a district in Brooklyn, comfortably won re-election last week in a race that focused on her advocacy for Palestinian rights and calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

She told Al Jazeera that the anti-Muslim rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s win aims to distract and derail the progressive energy that defeated the establishment to secure the Democratic nomination for him.

Hanif said Islamophobic comments should be condemned across the political spectrum, stressing that there is “so much more work to do” to undo racism in the US.

While several Democrats have denounced the campaign against Mamdani, leading figures in the party – including many in New York – have not released formal statements on the issue.

“We should all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed in the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary – some blatant, others latent,” US Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement.

“Shame on the members of Congress who have engaged in such bigotry and anyone who doesn’t challenge it.”

Our joint statement on the vile, anti-Muslim, racist attacks on Zohran Mamdani: pic.twitter.com/QRGOvh0jdG

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 27, 2025

Trump and Muslim voters

At the same time, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who represents New York, has been accused of fuelling bigotry against Mamdani. Last week, she falsely accused Mamdani of making “references to global jihad”.

Her office later told US media outlets that she “misspoke” and was raising concerns over Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”, a call for activism using the Arabic word for uprising.

Critics of the chant claimed that it makes Jews feel unsafe because it invokes the Palestinian uprisings of the late 1980s and early 2000s, which saw both peaceful opposition and armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.

While Mamdani, who is of South Asian descent, focused his campaign on making New York affordable, his support for Palestinian rights took centre stage in the criticism against him. Since the election, the attacks – particularly on the right – appear to have shifted to his Muslim identity.

That backlash comes after Trump and his allies courted Muslim voters during his bid for the presidency last year. In fact, the US president has nominated two Muslim mayors from Michigan as ambassadors to Tunisia and Kuwait.

In the lead-up to the elections, Trump called Muslim Americans “smart” and “good people”.

The Republican Party seemed to tone down the anti-Muslim language as it sought the socially conservative community’s votes.

But Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Islamophobia goes in cycles.

“Islamophobia is sort of baked into American society,” Saylor told Al Jazeera.

“It wasn’t front and centre, but all it required was something to flip the switch right back on, and I would say, we’re seeing that once again.”

Islamophobia ‘industry’

Negative portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the US media, pop culture and political discourse have persisted for decades.

That trend intensified after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 by al-Qaeda. In subsequent years, right-wing activists started to warn about what they said were plans to implement Islamic religious law in the West.

Muslims were also the subjects of conspiracy theories warning against the “Islamisation” of the US through immigration.

The early 2000s saw the rise of provocateurs, “counterterrorism experts” and think tanks dedicated to bashing Islam and drumming up fear against the religion in a loosely connected network that community advocates have described as an “industry”.

That atmosphere regularly seeped into mainstream political conversations. For example, then-candidate Trump called in 2015 for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

Even in liberal New York, where the 9/11 attacks killed more than 2,600 people at the World Trade Center in 2001, the Muslim community endured a backlash.

After the attacks, the New York Police Department established a network of undercover informants to surveil the Muslim community’s mosques, businesses and student associations.

The programme was disbanded in 2014, and a few years later, the city reached a legal settlement with the Muslim community, agreeing to implement stronger oversight on police investigations to prevent abuse.

In 2010, the city’s Muslim community burst into the national spotlight again after plans for a Muslim community centre in lower Manhattan faced intense opposition due to its proximity to the destroyed World Trade Center.

While many Republicans whipped up conspiracy theories against the community centre, several Democrats as well as the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent pro-Israel group, joined them in opposing the project, which was eventually scrapped.

‘We are above this’

Now New York Muslims find themselves once again in the eye of an Islamophobia storm. This time, however, advocates said their communities are more resilient than ever.

“We feel more confident in our community’s voice and our institutional power and in the support that we will have from allies,” Dandia said.

“Yes, we’re dealing with this Islamophobic backlash, but I don’t want to make it seem like we’re just victims because we are able to now fight back. The fact that this was the largest Muslim voter mobilisation in American history is a testament to that.”

Hanif echoed his comments.

“Over the last 25 years, we’ve built a strong coalition that includes our Jewish communities, that includes Asian, Latino, Black communities, to be able to say like we are above this and we will care for one another,” she told Al Jazeera.

An Iranian spokesperson called the move a sign of a ‘supremacist and racist mentality’ dominating US policy.

Iran has sharply criticised United States President Donald Trump’s travel ban on its nationals and those of several countries, calling it “racist” and a sign of deep-rooted hostility towards Iranians and Muslims.

Trump earlier this week signed an executive order that bars and restricts travellers from 19 countries, including several African and Middle Eastern nations.

The policy, set to take effect on Monday, echoes measures introduced during Trump’s previous term in office from 2017-2021. In the executive order, Trump said he “must act to protect the national security” of the US.

Alireza Hashemi-Raja, who heads the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ department for Iranians abroad, said on Saturday that the decision reveals “the dominance of a supremacist and racist mentality among American policymakers”.

“This measure indicates the deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian and Muslim people,” he said in a statement.

The latest restrictions cover nationals from Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. A limited ban has also been applied to travellers from seven other countries.

Hashemi-Raja argued that the policy breaches international legal norms and denies millions the basic right to travel, based solely on nationality or faith. He said the ban would “entail international responsibility for the US government”, without elaborating.

The US and Iran have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1980, following the Islamic Revolution.

Despite decades of strained ties, the US remains home to the world’s largest Iranian diaspora, with about 1.5 million Iranians living there as of 2020, according to Tehran’s Foreign Ministry.

Police say the trio espoused hatred for Muslims and immigrants and discussed attacking mosques or synagogues.

Police in the United Kingdom say three men have been convicted of planning to carry out an attack on mosques or synagogues in anticipation of a coming race war.

Brogan Stewart and Marco Pitzettu, both aged 25, and Christopher Ringrose, 34, all pleaded not guilty but were convicted of all charges by jurors at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday. Sentencing is scheduled for July 17.

“Stewart, Pitzettu, and Ringrose have today been rightfully convicted of multiple terrorism offences,” Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said in a statement.

“They were a group that espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence, all to support their extreme right-wing mindset.”

The convictions come amid a debate in the UK over immigration rights as the left-of-centre Labour Party adopts increasingly harsh rhetoric on migration amid increasing public support for the far right. Critics said a recent speech by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in which he said immigration threatened to turn the UK into an “island of strangers” helps legitimise a view perpetuated by the far right that immigration is a destructive and dangerous force.

The convicted far-right group was part of a Telegram channel named Einsatz 14, in which they talked about executing former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and torturing imams.

“It was their belief that there must soon come a time when there would be a race war between the white and other races,” prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford told jurors.

Conspiracy theories that Muslims and immigrants are carrying out a “great replacement” of white people in Western nations have become increasingly widespread on the right in recent years.

That conspiracy often involves an anti-Semitic angle, portraying Jews as supporters of pro-immigration policies meant to weaken Western nations from the inside.

All three men were convicted of planning an act of terrorism and multiple firearms offences. They were found guilty of two counts of collecting information that could be useful to someone preparing a terrorist act, and Ringrose was additionally charged with manufacturing a component for a 3D-printed FGC9 firearm.

Prosecutors said the group was preparing for an act of terrorism when they were arrested in February 2024. Their trial began in March.

“Some of their defence in court was that it was all fantasy or just part of harmless chat, however all three took real world steps to plan and prepare for carrying out an attack on innocent citizens,” Dunkerley said.