In 2015, three Muslim-American students were executed while eating dinner at their home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime, filmmaker Tarek Albaba makes an impassioned case for justice for these innocents and for the Muslim-American community. The film charts the victims’ families’ agonizing overnight pivot from trauma to advocacy as they struggle to prevent their loved ones’ deaths from being dismissed as the result of a mere ‘parking dispute’. They courageously speak the truth about the hate crime that destroyed their lives, about the overt and insidious ways racism plays out in society, and about the need to reform a hate crime system that is broken. This is a project about grace and the will to fight for the truth in the worst of circumstances.

Zeteo proudly presents, exclusive to paid subscribers, this award-winning documentary available in a limited release until December 31 only. 36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime is only available to watch here during that time. Free subscribers are able to watch just a 10-minute preview.

Part of Zeteo’s mission is to serve as a platform for voices, perspectives, and stories that mainstream news has ignored. 36 Seconds is a film that isn’t just about what happened in 2015. Zeteo has chosen to license it for subscribers and to co-host a screening of it in Washington, D.C. this week (more information on that here, including a link to tickets) because the film reopens the essential and timely conversation of race-based violence in the US, and Islamophobia in particular. With the return of Donald Trump and his allies to the White House in just weeks, Americans will very soon have to grapple with the consequences when it comes to racial tensions and the emboldening of far-right white supremacists, including even individuals in Trump’s inner circle.

A Note from the Director

“As a Muslim/Arab American growing up in the South, I had experienced challenges our community continues to face. In the weeks post 9/11, I was bullied, physically assaulted, and called a terrorist during my high school soccer matches. I had seen hate and ignorance up close and knew this virulent mix could ultimately kill. When the tragedy happened on February 10th, 2015 our worst fears had been realized in my home state. Over the ensuing months, I watched the Abu-Salha and Barakat families struggle to convince the authorities to investigate the murders as a hate crime. Whether on the news or in front of thousands of grieving supporters, they were stoic, articulate and brave. I was deeply moved by their dignity in the face of so much pain. Our community rallied behind these families, to help amplify their voices by all means necessary.

“Through our research on the film, we have found a direct parallel between the election cycle and an increase in hate crimes. There has also been a wave of dangerous Islamophobia since the war started in Oct 2023. Many of these targeted attacks are focused on our community members protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We will not stand down and we will not be intimidated. Our stories matter and that is why we are so blessed and honored to partner with Zeteo. Mehdi and his team have been working around the clock to deliver bold, unfiltered news and independent films like 36 Seconds to people who demand the truth. I believe it is incredibly important to support platforms like Zeteo at a time when we desperately need reliable journalism.”

Source: Zeteo

Florida state Senator Randy Fine, who is running to fill the vacancy in Florida’s 6th U.S. congressional district, singled out Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on Tuesday. Quote-tweeting an endorsement from the Republican Jewish Coalition, Fine posted, “​​The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway.”

Tlaib and Omar are two of just three Muslim members of Congress, and the only two Muslim women.

Fine has a history of using demeaning rhetoric against Muslims and Palestinians and trafficking in Islamophobic tropes. In the past, he has said that “we have a Muslim problem in America” and that “while many Muslims are not terrorists, they are the radicals, not the mainstream.”

In August 2021, when Fine was a representative in Florida’s state House, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a complaint against him with the House Public Integrity and Ethics Committee, alleging that Fine “violated his duty as an elected official” by “encouraging his constituents to run over people at Palestinian advocacy protests,” “call[ing] for the annihilation of the Palestinian people,” and direct-messaging a Floridian to “blow yourself up,” among other instances of “egregious conduct.”

In September, Fine took to X to cheer the death of 26-year-old American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, an activist reportedly killed by the Israeli forces while peacefully protesting illegal settlements in the West Bank. “Throw rocks, get shot. One less #MuslimTerror ist. #FireAway,” Fine wrote.

Donald Trump threw his support behind Fine’s candidacy last week, referring to him as an “America First Patriot” in a Truth Social post.

Source: Yahoo News

Article by Imaan Khan

Islamophobia Awareness Month (IAM) is upon us once again. During these weeks, the pervasive and worrying issues of workplace discrimination, street violence, riots and hate crime impacting the Muslim community are all brought to the fore. However, what we often find is that the root causes, that is the structural nature of Islamophobia, tends to regularly receive less attention.

Consequently, even less discussion is allocated to exposing how this facilitates and manufactures consent for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This pervasive issue creates conditions that have allowed many in positions of power to either remain silent or openly commend the killing of thousands in Palestine.

Given it is the second IAM that takes place amid the ongoing genocide in Palestine, highlighting what Israel has been doing to Palestinians and how this links to the oppression of Muslims more widely, is all the more important to what the month is supposed to serve.

Threads of Oppression

Islamophobia is systemically entrenched and fundamentally rooted in spaces of political power, where policies and narratives are crafted. Limiting the discussions during IAM to hate crime statistics and street-level incidents can distract from its pervasive nature and prominence within the British political landscape.

The PREVENT (CVE) strategy is an example of how those in power have shaped the way that citizens interact with and perceive Islam. This dynamic reached its peak during the War on Terror, which served as a critical driver of global Islamophobia, supported by significant political and economic capital.

High-level discussions across political institutions and the media focused on distinguishing between “good” and “bad” Muslims, a tactic used to divide as well as police these communities. The creation of this binary, along with the punitive measures waged against those deemed “bad,” has been driven by a highly securitized and sensationalized discourse.

Muslims have since been increasingly portrayed as suspicious, which in turn has served to desensitize the public to the political violence being enacted on Muslims abroad under the guise of fighting terror.

Since October 7, we have witnessed these binaries playing out. From Palestinians facing ethnic cleansing being collectively represented as terrorists (or potential terrorists), to protestors being painted as sympathizers of terror for denouncing the assaults on Gaza. The aggressive targeting and even criminalization of solidarity efforts from the UK to Germany has shown that the definition of “good” amongst European states, is becoming increasingly narrow over time.

The demonization of those condemning the genocide and exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, is being used to increase the repression of all across the Western continent. Indeed, one only has to look at the cases of Majid Freeman in the UK, Elias d’Imzalene in France, and the treatment of organizations like Samidoun in Canada, Germany and the US to see how pervasive this attacks on freedoms is becoming. And of course, all of the cases made against these prominent activists are rooted in Islamophobic rhetoric.

Islamophobia in Britain

The UK has regularly demonstrated how entrenched Islamophobia is. This past summer we witnessed in horror as over 25 Islamophobic and anti-immigrant riots spilled out onto the streets nationwide, marking the most significant unrest since 2011.

These violent events revealed how normalized Islamophobia has become in the UK and how it has been allowed to fester for decades. Yet, instead of alarm being raised by the government, their response was notably dismissive. Both elected officials and the British media avoided using the term Islamophobia to describe the motivations of rioters, and they failed to address the root causes behind the violence entirely.

Worse still, in the wake of the anti-Muslim riots, prominent figures such as the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, called for the revision and strengthening of counter-extremism policies such as Prevent, disregarding the reality that this would only exacerbate Islamophobia and the criminalization of dissent. Not to mention, it would further marginalize Muslim communities.

Another recent example of the widespread Islamophobia that exists is MP Zara Sultana’s interview on Good Morning Britain. Her experience illustrated how readily the oppression of Muslims is downplayed in public discourse, with presenter Kate Garraway questioning Sultana on why the term Islamophobia is even necessary if words like ‘racist’ and ‘thuggery’ have already been used.

The resistance to naming Islamophobia, even when it threatens the country’s internal stability, reflects the extent to which it has become acceptable by both the state and media.

When viewers see prominent political figures and media personalities ignoring, justifying, or even encouraging violence against Muslims abroad—particularly in Palestine—it legitimizes the use of violence against Muslims at home.

Manufacturing Consent

Dehumanization has been a prerequisite for genocide. While this is starkly evident in Israeli discourse, it also occurs within our own borders in the UK. It is the result of decades of persistent dehumanization of Muslims that the killing of Palestinians has been allowed to take place with little opposition from those in power.

Labelling the people of Palestine with Islamophobic and racist tropes decontextualizes their resistance, framing them within an outdated narrative that suggests a primitive desire for violence as a driving force, rather than justice and liberation. Such portrayals depict Muslims as unruly and in need of control, creating justifications for the use of violence against them.

Furthermore, the murder of thousands of Palestinians is downplayed in an attempt to eliminate any potential lingering scrutiny in the minds of the public. We only have to look at how the killing of children is reported, like six-year old Hind Rajab who was referred to by a CNN reporter as a ‘woman killed in Gaza’ while Israeli soldiers are referred to in a since edited Sky News headline as ‘teenage victims’. These representations of violence lay bare the extent to which Islamophobic narratives, grounded in War on Terror rhetoric, are used amidst genocidal violence.

To effectively address Islamophobia, community focus and efforts must go towards dismantling the War on Terror and counterterrorism laws and policies. This involves standing firm against intimidation, knowing our rights, and continuing to advocate for Palestine without restriction.

Finally, we cannot uproot Islamophobia by collaborating with the very institutions that sustain it. We must speak truth to power and organize to defend our communities independently of the state. We must hold the media accountable for misrepresentation and the normalization of the injustice Muslims are constantly subjected to. We must prioritize the root causes of Islamophobia, rather than merely addressing its symptoms.

Source: The New Arab

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has quit the Tory party because, she believes, it has become too right wing and toxic. I know and like Baroness Warsi. She’s feisty and smart and speaks her mind. But I can’t abide her deeply held, low tax, small state, pro-austerity conservative values. Nor can I comprehend how she reconciles that ideology with her passionate commitment to Muslims in Britain, many of whom suffered horribly under successive Tory governments.

Here you see two highly politicized female Muslims, whose views, at times, converge, but mostly diverge.

Twenty years ago, barely any Muslim voted for the Tories. That changed. Some, like Warsi, became prosperous business people and avid Conservatives. The rest kept faith in Labour, faith that is breaking over Keir Starmer’s response to Israel’s illegal war. Now we have Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s chair, whose Muslim parents emigrated here from Sri Lanka. Times change.

Warsi’s new book, Muslims Don’t Matter, is out today. Cover quotes include this by the multiple award-winning actor Riz Ahmed: “Burns with righteous anger. An urgent read for our times.”

While she was working on the book, riots exploded across the country. Far-right extremists tried to set fire to places housing asylum seekers; black and brown people were assaulted, mosques damaged. Warsi holds right-wing journalists, politicians and intellectuals responsible for fostering that burning hostility. I am with her on that. As is the veteran journalist Peter Oborne, who writes: “Over the past 14 years, the Tory government has established a coercive architecture of control and surveillance over British Muslims, while granting legitimacy to what would traditionally have been regarded as the far right.’”

I also salute her for taking a brave stand against Britain’s inaction over Israel’s punitive violence in Gaza. However, I cannot go along with Warsi and other prominent Muslims who believe Islamophobia defines our lives.

Anti-Muslim prejudices sting us often. On Sunday, at a wedding party, a white guy noticed I was drinking water and asked loudly if I was a Muslim. I replied: “Have you questioned others swigging water?” “No,” was the gruff response. I was the only brown guest there. The encounter made me feel like an outsider. These moments happen a lot.

Across Europe, the demonisation of Muslims has led to a frightening political project which could lead to the religious and ethnic cleansing we saw in Bosnia. Robert Jenrick wants to arrest us for saying “God is Great” in Arabic, a phrase I incant every day. But panicked Muslims should remember the dark past.

Back in 1988, when The Satanic Verses divided the nation, I felt isolated and torn as the only Muslim working in the mainstream media. I was a lover of the arts, a believer in free expression, a Salman Rushdie devotee. But I also felt an obligation to oppose the attacks on believers by the intelligentsia. Tony Blair’s obsession with Muslim enemies within led to serious human rights violations. Muslims back then had no agency, no real influence. They have both now.

Four pro-Palestinian, independent Muslims defeated sitting MPs at the last election. Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch fears they have “alien ideas which have no place here”. And Jonathan Ashworth, the toppled MP for Leicester South, moaned about the result. They now resent those who campaigned and won on an issue that matters to millions of Britons of all backgrounds.

In the last election, 25 Muslim heritage MPs got into parliament, mostly for Labour. Two are independents and two Tories. Talented Muslims are rising high in the City, in the arts and sciences and other spheres. Muslim migrants yearn to come here because they see what is possible in spite of Islamophobia. Innumerable white Britons came out to protect the riot victims and thousands march every week for Gaza. We are friends and lovers. These are big, irreversible changes.

I come to my most serious disagreement with Baroness Warsi. Her intense focus on Islamophobia distracts attention from the harm and damage we cause to ourselves or the oppression of young Muslims, particularly females and young people, who crave freedoms and choices. Progressive Muslims need to confront conservative Islam as ferociously as they do Islamophobia.

Our continuing advancement depends on honesty, cultural liberation and productive alliances with human rights activists of all races. That is harder than simply fighting Islamophobia. And as crucial, in my view.

Source: iNews