#Comment Controversy Against Prophet Muhammad

[breaking-news-portal]

Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Prophet Remarks Row Latest News: Suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma did not appear before Mumbai Police on Saturday to record her statement in connection with the case registered against her for allegedly making objectionable remarks against Prophet Mohammad. An FIR was registered against Sharma at the Pydhuni police station on May 28 and the police had sent summons to him through email, an…

[beardedmrbean]

NEW DELHI —  India is scrambling to contain a diplomatic storm that has erupted in Islamic countries following controversial comments made about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad by two officials of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Pakistan have registered protests made by BJP’s national spokesperson during a recent televised debate.

Several of these countries summoned Indian ambassadors to denounce the derogatory statements. Calling the comments “Islamophobic,” Qatar has demanded a public apology from India. The controversy turned particularly embarrassing for India as it erupted while its vice president, Venkaiah Naidu, and business leaders were on a visit to the country.

Denouncing the statement, Saudi Arabia said it “reaffirms its permanent rejection of prejudice against the symbols of the Islamic religion.”

Besides official outrage, anger against the remarks poured out on social media in several Arab nations with some people calling for a boycott of Indian goods.

The influential Organization of Islamic Cooperation said they came in a "context of intensifying hatred and abuse towards Islam in India and the systematic harassment of Muslims." It also cited a decision by some states in India to ban the Muslim headscarf, the hijab, as well as incidents of violence against Muslims.

Rejecting the OIC’s comments as “misleading and mischievous,” the Indian foreign ministry said that the government accords the highest respect to all religions. In a statement, it said that the “offensive” comments and tweets “do not in any manner reflect the view of the government of India” and were made by individuals against whom action has been taken.

The foreign ministry criticized Pakistan, which had also condemned the remarks, calling it a “serial violator of minority rights” and saying that it should not engage in “alarmist propaganda.”

BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, who made the remarks, was suspended by the party while Naveen Jindal, the media head of the Delhi party unit, who had tweeted on the issue, was expelled on Sunday.

“The BJP strongly denounces insults of any religious personalities of any religion. The BJP is also against any ideology which insults or demeans any sect or religion. The BJP does not promote such people or philosophy," the party said in a statement.

Sharma said on Twitter that there was never any intention to hurt anyone’s feelings and that she spoke in response to comments made about a Hindu god.

Sporadic protests have also erupted in some Indian states as the remarks caused anger among Muslims, who are India’s largest minority, making up 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

The remarks are being seen in the context of what critics say is a rise in hate speech targeting Muslims since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.

In an editorial, The Indian Express newspaper said, “The truth is that it was no sudden eruption of bigotry. The BJP’s electoral victories since 2014, and especially after 2019, have emboldened party activists and others of the saffron brigade to an extent that they indulge in casual everyday anti-minority actions.” By saffron brigade, the paper was referring to Hindu nationalists.

Political commentators said such controversies could set back India’s effort to enhance ties with Persian Gulf countries, which has been a key focus of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Tens of thousands of Indians work in the UAE and in Gulf countries like Kuwait, and New Delhi is also trying to strengthen trade ties with these nations.

The U.S. State Department, in its latest annual report to the Congress on international religious freedom, named India as among countries that were violators of religious freedom. It alleged that attacks on members of minority communities, including killings, assaults and intimidation took place in India throughout 2021. __________________________

Had to dig around to find out what she said, can't find a quote but it's something about Aisha and her age when Muhammad married her and consummated that marriage.

Not sure which side she took.

[woman-loving]

Reception of Gender Diversity in Indonesia and Women’s Erotic Literature

Selections from "Between sastra wangi and perda sharia: debates over gendered citizenship in post-authoritarian Indonesia," Susanne Schröter, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs (RIMA), 48(1), 2014.

In Indonesia, we encounter a somewhat paradoxical situation where gender deviance is tolerated in many quarters while there is, at the same time, an increasingly repressive-patriarchal gender mainstream. This becomes particularly apparent in the issue of acceptance of queer lifestyles. After the end of the New Order period, the emerging liberalisation in the urban areas included that aspect as well. A group called Q-Munity has organised an annual queer film festival, the Q!Festival, in Jakarta since 2002 and activists join in public debates, trying to reduce prejudice and to put an end to discrimination. Within the women’s rights network, Kartini, a training manual was developed to strengthen the position of non-heteronormative life models (Bhaiya und Wieringa 2007), and Siti Musdah Mulia proclaimed in the newspaper Jakarta Globe of 23 September 2009 that lesbian desire was created by God just like its heterosexual counterpart and hence must be accepted as natural. Until today, her statement triggers controversial discussions within Indonesia and beyond.

As could be expected, this unusual awakening was criticised by Islamist hardliners as an adoption of Western decadence. Performance venues of the Q! Festival were repeatedly raided by ‘goon squads’ and in 2010 Surabaya became the site of an éclat that was even covered by the international media. It was sparked by plans of the Asian branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association to hold an international conference in March of that year. There had been similar conventions before in Mumbai, Cebu and Chiang Mai. The organisers were eager to be as discrete as possible in order to avoid protests. There was to be no Gay Pride Parade, and the organisers planned to publish a press release only on the last day of the event. Due to an unlucky coincidence, however, the local media learned about the planned event in its run-up and there were quick reactions by Islamic organisations. Statements were issued by religious authorities, claiming that homosexuality is irreconcilable with both Indonesian culture and Islam. Such language immediately mobilised the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam) and the Indonesian fraction of Hizb-ut Tahrir[14] to take militant action against the organisers. As a result, the local authorities prohibited the conference and those participants who had already arrived were besieged at their hotels by the mob until they were brought to safety under police protection (Vacano 2010).

These incidents appear to be at odds with the supposedly tolerant attitude towards gender variances in Indonesia as described by anthropologists such as Boellstorff (2005), Peletz (2009), Davis (2010) and Blackwood (2010). These scholars base their claims on the existence of so-called third and fourth genders rooted in local social orders. An often-cited example of this are the Bugis of South Sulawesi who use five gender terms: besides women and men, there are calalai (masculine women), calabai (feminine men), and bissu (ritual experts and shamans who are ambiguous in terms of gender). The bissu have always particularly attracted the attention of anthropologists, who interpreted them as a culturally-accepted variant of non-binary gender. In the Bugis system of gender categories, they are classified as calabai, that is, individuals with a male body and a feminine or ambivalent habitus. They are viewed as embodying a pre-Islamic, double-gendered Supreme Being which is attributed the ability to mediate between humans and spirits; hence, they act as healers and shamans. There is some debate, however, among anthropologists about whether the existence of this phenomenon can actually be interpreted as an indicator of tolerance and liberalism. Birgit Röttger-Rössler, who has done fieldwork among the Bugis, is sceptical, and even objects to applying the term ‘third gender’. According to her, calabai are ‘institutionalised, socially-accepted variants or subcategories of the male gender’ (Röttger-Rössler 2009:287, translation mine). She adds that these types of transgenderism can by no means be interpreted as a negation of heteronormative gender concepts. The reverse is true: they reinforce the latter. As Röttger-Rössler sees it, the order legitimated by this exception is not only ‘defined clearly and rigidly’(Röttger-Rössler 2009:287–8), but also asymmetrical, putting  women at a disadvantage.

On top if this, the mere existence of a local ‘third gender’ does not allow the conclusion that local communities are generally characterised by a liberal attitude towards gender issues. This becomes particularly evident when modern phenomena of transgression, which are usually referred to as queer, meet local forms of deviance. The mobilisation of queer activists in Indonesia and the resulting Islamic counteroffensive is a well-documented example of this.

The same applies to shifts in local gender structures that were triggered by the general climate of open-mindedness after the end of the New Order. In the year when the conference in Surabaya was wrecked by conservative moral ideas, there was also a remarkable public debate on local Indonesian transgenders who are subsumed by the collective term of waria.[15] The debate was sparked by a ‘Miss Aceh Transsexual’ beauty pageant held in February 2010. Many people in Aceh have ambivalent and contradictory attitudes towards waria. On the one hand, they view the latter’s existence as a disgrace for the community; on the other hand, waria are tolerated half-heartedly, not least because men secretly relish their sexual services. Waria often use their beauty parlours and hairdressing salons as brothels and engage in prostitution in the semi-clandestine red light district of the capital Banda Aceh. It is obvious that neither Aceh society nor the police intend to actually eliminate this option for extramarital sex, which is punishable under current legislation. Representatives of the authorities, however, take advantage of the waria’s extralegal status and arbitrary arrests as well as rape in police custody are common. Everyday discrimination, humiliation, and assaults by the sharia police are rampant. In the wake of the devastating tsunami in 2004, which was interpreted by Islamic clerics as a warning to disobedient believers, waria were repeatedly expelled from their homes and businesses because their neighbours feared that their presence might evoke the wrath of God to descend upon them again.

In Indonesia, both the human rights and the Qur’an and Sunna are invoked in the discussion about whether or not the existence of waria is legitimate. In Aceh, more importance is attached to the religious narratives of justification, however, than to secular reasoning, because Islam is viewed as the measure of all things. In the end, phenomena that are incompatible with the commandments of Allah will not gain acceptance. The experts disagree, however, about what is compatible with Islam, particularly if waria make their appearance in modern contexts. The pageant mentioned above, where they performed in burlesque costumes, sparked a pan-Indonesian controversy which dominated the headlines of the local and national press for several days. Well-known politicians, activists, and Islamic clerics piped up to express their opinion. The majority of the religious contributions condemned waria as being immoral and sinners, while secular commentators came to their defence, referring to minority rights.

I had the opportunity to discuss that issue in March 2010 with students at the State Islamic University (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) in Yogyakarta and at the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) which is also located in Yogyakarta. The Islamic students, in particular, engaged in a lively debate about whether the Qur’an makes a clear statement about the matter and what the prophet Muhammad said about it. This was their sole criterion for tolerating or condemning waria. On the personal level, the subject did not trigger any emotions in them; it was a purely matter-of-fact discussion without any recourse to moral categories. My colleague Sahiron Syamsuddin, a respected Islamic scholar with whom I held the event, eventually made an important point. He said that three gender categories were already known in Muhammad’s time: men, women, and khunta--transgenders who resembled the waria. He went on to explain that the third gender had fallen into oblivion due to subsequent patriarchal developments. This was acceptable to the students. Sahiron’s reasoning is typical of so-called ‘progressive’ Muslims who attempt to substantiate liberal ideas with little-known data from the Islamic past or new interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna.

As becomes apparent from the abovementioned examples, upon closer examination, the much-cited Indonesian open-mindedness with regard to gender variances turns out to be a restrictive straightjacket into which some phenomena can be fitted, while others cannot. Transgender individuals are tolerated and may even hold respected positions, provided that they stay within narrow, strictly-defined social confines or already-accepted cultural constructs. Above all, they are expected to be inconspicuous. As long as a beauty pageant is held in a village, whether or not the event is made into a scandal depends on the social relations between the individual actors. At the national level, it is not possible to rely on such local relations. Other narratives of justification then take effect, particularly narratives backed by Islam. It appears that only a minority of the Indonesian Muslims subscribe to progressive interpretations of the Qur’an and the Islamic traditions, and my colleague Syamsuddin would certainly have had a hard time if rhetorically-versed Islamists had participated in the discussion. According to a study conducted in 2013 by the Pew Research Center, 93 per cent of all Indonesians disapprove of homosexuality. Thus, in terms of tolerance, the country is behind Malaysia (86 per cent) and Pakistan (87 per cent) and at the same level as Palestine. As has been noted by Jamison Liang, homophobia is on the rise (Liang 2010). This development is due not only to the strength gained by a conservative, partly militant Islam, but also to the fact that by now there is a public debate on the issue of gender deviance.

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The virulently liberal face of Indonesian culture, despite Islamist zealotry, is also represented by the genre of female erotic literature. Called sastra wangi (fragrant literature) it caused an international sensation.[12] Writers such as Djenar Maesa Ayu, Ayu Utami, Fira Basuki, Dewi Lestari, and Nova Riyanti Yusuf picked out incest, extramarital sex, and homosexuality as central themes. They were not afraid of giving drastic descriptions of sexuality and they played offensively with the breach of all social conventions (Hatley 1999; Listyowulan 2010). One of the most prominent examples is Ayu Utami’s book Saman, of which more than one hundred thousand copies were sold in Indonesia. The novel is about the sexual adventures of three young women from good families, about split identities and the transgression of patriarchal moral ideas. Shakuntala, one of the protagonists, deflowers herself with a spoon and feeds the hymen to a dog. Later, she enters into a lesbian relationship in which she takes the male-connoted part. These are the scandal-provoking parts of the novel. It also has, however, another, political dimension which centres on the priest Saman. During a conflict, he takes sides with oppressed rubber farmers who are struggling against dispossession. He is denounced as their leader, arrested and tortured.

[cw for discussion of incest, child sexuality/assault]

In Djenar Maesa Ayu’s Menjusuh Ayah (Suckled by the Father), a woman recounts the sexual childhood experiences she had with older men, including her father. She states that as a baby she was not fed her mother’s milk, but her father’s semen. When she confronts her father with that story, he accuses her of lying and hits her with his belt. She insists, however, on her version of the past. The first-person narrator tells the reader that her father eventually refused to feed her any longer. Hence, she turned to his friends as a child. ‘I liked the way they slowly pushed down my head and allowed me to suckle there for a long time’ (Ayu 2008:95). When one of her father’s friends penetrates her, she kills him: ‘I am a woman, but I am not weaker than a man’, she writes, ‘because I have not suckled on mother’s breast’ (Ayu 2008:97).

[end cw]

The new erotic women’s literature led to a controversial discussion in Indonesia. The term sastra wangi itself alludes to the public erotic self-staging of the women, which was eagerly picked up by the media. Many stories about the young writers opened with exact descriptions of their looks, mentioning the high heels, the strapless t-shirts, the long loose hair, or the fact that the audience smoked and consumed alcohol during the readings. Like the provocative titles and texts, the media stagings brought fast fame and high sales figures. On the other hand, the women were accused of using sex as a marketing strategy. Not surprisingly, criticism of the taboo breaches came from the religious side, while secular-urban intellectuals mostly appreciated the new literary awakening. Saman won several awards, including a writing contest of the Jakarta Art Institute in 1997 and an award of the Jakarta Art Council (Dewan Kesenian Jakarta) for best novel in 1998. In 2000, Ayu Utami won the Claus Award in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, there has been some reserve on the part of literary scholars. Katrin Bandel criticises the unquestioned male perspective of the sastra wangi (Bandel 2006:115), Arnez and Dewojati find fault with the virulent phallocentrism (Arnez and Dewojati 2010).[13] Positive appraisal, however, prevails in the overall judgment. According to Arnez and Dewojati, the issue of whether sastra wangi can be called emancipatory is still controversial, but nevertheless ‘it can be claimed that in modern Indonesian literature such an open discussion of sexuality and female desire has not taken place before, especially not in such an outspoken language’ (Arnez and Dewojati 2010:20).

[writing-after-the-disaster]

Hisham Aidi writes:

Exactly 20 years ago I was running around Cairo trying to find people who had met Malcolm X. I spoke to Jamal al-Banna (liberation theologian, trade unionist & youngest brother of Hasan al Banna) and David Du Bois (journalist, Maoist & jazzhead and step-son of W.E.B. Du Bois. They were both very helpful in making sense of MX's thought.

(The image below is from Al Bilad, a Saudi newspaper (in July 1964) -- it's one of my favorite interviews with MX, where the interviewer tells Hajj Shabazz – I don’t understand why you describe yourself as black, when you’re actually “wheat-colored;” MX laughs and proceeds to explain the “one drop rule” and how race works in America.

In this long-acoming essay, I discuss the globalization of MX's image over the last 20 years; MX's time in Egypt, Ghana, and Saudi; his interest in setting up a branch of Al-Azhar in Harlem & how in Sept 1964 (following months of training) he was appointed an official representative of the (Salafi) Muslim World League and hoped to make Muslim Mosque Inc a "legal branch of the Muslim World League" - also in Harlem; also discussed -- the controversy surrounding the 2011 Marable biography, and the once published - now off the market - slightly redacted travel diary of MX.

==================

"‘I have difficulty praying. My big toe is not used to it,’ Malcolm told his diary on April 20, 1964 shortly after arriving in Mecca. Having recently left the Nation of Islam with their practices, he was still acclimating to sitting on his knees during prayer. Despite the pain, the following day he embarks on the journey to Mount Arafat, part of the hajj pilgrimage, joining ‘hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, all colors, buses, car, camel, donkey & foot.’ Mecca, he writes, is surrounded by the: "cruelest looking mts [mountains] I’ve ever seen. They seem to be made of the waste material from a blast furnace. No vegetation on them at all. The houses are old & modern. Some sections of the city are no different than when the Prophet Abraham was here over 4000 [years ago] – other sections look like a Miami suburb.

Wandering among the pilgrims, he describes the rituals, the seven stones cast at the devil, the circumambulating of the kaaba, and observes,‘This would be an anthropologist’s paradise.’

The diaries also provide a firsthand account of Malcolm’s travels in Egypt, Ghana, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia in 1964. There’s Malcolm crossing Tahrir Square to buy some lemonade at Groppi’s, a still-existing pastry shop; then he’s buying pajamas, picking up vitamin C tablets (because he’s feeling kind of “woozy”), going to the movies, and so on.

Malcolm X is a powerful optic through which to understand America’s post-war ascendance and expansion into the Middle East. His is the perspective of a ghetto-dweller who has transcended the borders drawn around him.‘[A]s though I had stepped out of prison,’ he writes, when he travels abroad. The diaries – several notebooks of single-spaced hand- writing – show an anthropologist’s eye. Malcolm comments on the landscape, the politics, cultural and religious differences, with humorous asides. When a friend arrives late, he quips, ‘Arab time!!’ At one point, he observes, ‘The worst most dangerous habit among Arab Muslims is cigarettes. They smoke constantly, even on the Hajj.’ There are also personal reflections on his mood, health and intense solitude.The words ‘lonesome’ and ‘alone’ appear on almost every other page. His thoughts on Saudi Arabia support the standard narrative that the hajj was transformative.

Yet the diaries show something else: when not in Arabia, Malcolm seemed to enjoy being away from his role as a religious leader, and away from religious strictures as well.Whether in Ghana, Guinea, Kenya or Egypt, he immerses himself in the cultural life of these newly independent states, and the younger Malcolm, the music aficionado, resurfaces, as he frequents night-clubs and dance centers again. In Nairobi, he goes to see his friend Gee Gee sing at the Equator Club, and then accompanies Vice-president Oginga Odinga to a party at the Goan Institute of Dance. (‘The PM is a good dancer, remarkably for his age,’ he writes.) In Guinea, he attends a wedding party, then goes to a nightclub and,‘watche[s] some Americans from the Ship-hope try to dance.’ He rejoices in seeing newly independent states shunt aside European colonial music and celebrate their own musical traditions. In Accra – accompanied by Maya Angelou – he attends a party at the Ghana Press Club and enjoys ‘Highlife,’ which would become the country’s national music (Angelou 1986, 134). But it’s mostly in Egypt, which he saw as the bridge between Africa and Asia, a key player in the Non-Aligned Movement, that he spent the most time and experienced the most cultural immersion.

The story of Egyptian jazz dates back to the Harlem Renaissance, when African-American musicians who had settled in Paris, ventured east. In December 1921, Eugene Bullard, the Georgia-born military pilot, drummer and prize fighter, traveled from Paris to Alexandria, Egypt. For six months, he played with the jazz ensemble at the Hotel Claridge, and fought two fights while in Egypt (Lloyd 2000, 79). A decade later, the blues singer Alberta Hunter followed suit, singing in Istanbul and Cairo (Shack 2001, 43). The trumpeter and vocalist Bill Coleman would live in Cairo from 1939 to 1940, leading the Harlem Rhythmakers/Swing Stars. As Islam began to take hold in American cities and within jazz circles, Muslim jazz musicians would journey to Egypt. In 1932, an African-American Muslim with a saxophone turned up in Cairo, saying that he was working his way to Mecca (Berger 1964). With America’s post-war ascent, jazz would spread around the world carried by servicemen, Hollywood and Voice of America broadcasts. In 1958, the bassist Jamil Nasir, trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, and pianist Oscar Dennard traveled to Tangier, where a VOA relay station would broadcast Willis Conover’s Jazz Hour to listeners behind the Iron Cur- tain, where they recorded an album. They then went on to Cairo. In the Egyptian capital, the thirty-two-year-old Dennard would fall ill and die from typhoid fever; he would be buried in the city, his grave a regular stop for visiting jazz musicians.

All to say, by the time David Du Bois arrived in Cairo in 1960, there was already a local jazz scene and the State Department had launched its jazz diplomacy tours aimed at countering Soviet propaganda. Du Bois and his friends – with the support of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture – would try to create a music culture different from that sponsored by the US government. The Egyptian government was also leery of the jazz tours, and turned back ‘jambassador’ Dizzy Gillespie at Cairo airport in 1956 following the Suez War.

This was the buoyant cultural moment that Malcolm X encounters when he arrives in July 1964. Egypt is flourishing culturally, a regional leader in music, cinema and litera- ture. Malcolm’s diary entries from Egypt confirm the events and personalities described in Du Bois’ novel. David Du Bois is working as an announcer at Radio Cairo, and lobbying Egyptian officials to have his father’s books – especially Black Flame Trilogy – translated. (Black Boy by Richard Wright was the only work of African-American literature available in Arabic, he would write to his mother in November 1960; he wanted the government to translate Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun and Langston Hughes’ primer on jazz.) The local jazz scene was feeding off musical trends in the US, as American jazz artists wrote compositions in honor of Africa and Afro-Asian solidarity. Malcolm would soak up the scene in Cairo and Alexandria, attending weddings and concerts, socializing at Cairo’s elite social clubs, sailing down the Nile to the Valley of Kings. It’s in Cairo that he meets Fifi, a Swiss woman who works for the UN, and who is quite smitten by him. All along, of course, he is networking with regime officials and scholars hoping to build a branch of Al-Azhar in Harlem.When he travels from Cairo to Saudi Arabia for hajj, he is struck by how culturally barren the kingdom is compared to Egypt.

The diaries in effect show a man who has landed smack in the middle of the ‘Arab Cold War’ of the early 1960s, which pitted Nasser’s Egypt and her socialist allies against Saudi Arabia and the conservative monarchies backed by the US. As part of the Non-Aligned Movement, Nasser had stepped up his rhetorical attacks on American-allied monarchies in the region, through Radio Cairo, denouncing the royals for their social conservatism and alliance with the West. Music was at the heart of this propaganda effort, as top musicians were enlisted to sing the praises of ‘our destiny’ and ‘historical leader.’ And the expat jazz artists were solidly on the Egyptian side. One of the musicians, saxophonist Othman Karim, would set up the Cairo Jazz Quartet and record a track called ‘Yayeesh Nasser’ (‘Long Live Nasser’) (Du Bois 1964, 47). Karim would go on to collaborate with Salah Ragab, a young drummer and major in the Egyptian army, who would become Egypt’s most famous jazz musician, working with Sun Ra and Randy Weston.2 When Malcolm X arrives in Cairo, he negotiates this cultural tug of war, hanging with the ‘bros’ but also listening to jazz with Morroe Berger, a Princeton Arabist, expert on Black Muslims and organizer of State Department jazz tours. This contest is subtly rendered in Du Bois’ novel. Both Ragab and Karim make appearances – as characters named Salah Janin and Muhammad X – performing at the Cairo Jazz Combo.The Saudis would soon respond to Nasser’s cultural diplomacy, creating a radio station with religious broadcasts. In 1964, they launched their own ideological offensive, setting up the Muslim World League, to mobilize various Islamist groups to counter the spread of socialism and secular Arab nationalism."

Hisham Aidi, “Du Bois, Ghana and Cairo Jazz: The Geo-Politics of Malcolm X” https://www.academia.edu/36710145/Du_Bois_Ghana_and_Cairo_Jazz_The_Geo-Politics_of_Malcolm_X

[theechudar]

‘Bring Nupur to justice’ for comments on Prophet: Al-Qaida’s India mouthpiece | India News

‘Bring Nupur to justice’ for comments on Prophet: Al-Qaida’s India mouthpiece | India News

NEW DELHI: Global terrorist organisation al-Qaida has exhorted Indian Muslims to bring Nupur Sharma to “justice” for alleged blasphemy, aggravating the worry of intelligence agencies about the safety of the former BJP spokesperson who has already been in the crosshairs of serious jihadi threats for her controversial comments against Prophet Muhammad. Al-Qaida, in its mouthpiece for the Indian…

[thenetionalnews]

Prophet row: Slew of FIRs filed, security bolstered in tense Ranchi | India News

Prophet row: Slew of FIRs filed, security bolstered in tense Ranchi | India News

RANCHI: Tension prevailed in Jharkhand capital Ranchi on Sunday, as police strengthened security in sensitive areas and registered 25 FIRs against “thousands” of people in the aftermath of violent protests over controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad, Internet services, however, were restored in the district after nearly 33 hours, Ranchi Deputy Commissioner Chhavi Ranjan said. Around 3,500…

[nasiknews]

Indonesia, Malaysia join other Muslim countries in condemning 'derogatory' remarks by two India politicians

Indonesia, Malaysia join other Muslim countries in condemning ‘derogatory’ remarks by two India politicians

JAKARTA/PUTRAJAYA: Indonesia and Malaysia have joined other Muslim countries in condemning controversial remarks made by two Indian politicians, calling the comments “derogatory”. “Indonesia strongly condemns the unacceptable derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by two Indian politicians,” said the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry in a tweet on Monday (Jun 6).  The…

[adminnewstrust24]

Prophet Mohammad Remarks Row: UAE condemns comments on Prophet, know what it said

Prophet Mohammad Remarks Row: UAE condemns comments on Prophet, know what it said

Prophet Mohammad Controversy: After Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, now uae has also condemned in the strongest terms over the controversial remarks against Prophet Mohammad. / File Photo UAE On Remarks On Prophet Muhammad After Qatar, Kuwait, Iran etc., now the UAE has also condemned the controversial remarks against Prophet Mohammad. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Monday saying…

[doonitedin]

UP clerics miffed over book authored by Wasim Rizvi

UP clerics miffed over book authored by Wasim Rizvi

LUCKNOW Former Shia Waqf Board chairman Wasim Rizvi’s book titled ‘Muhammad’ has sparked a fresh controversy with UP clerics condemning its cover page that portrays a man with a semi-naked woman. They also accused Rizvi of making objectionable comments against Prophet Muhammad. Some of the religious organisations, including the All-India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB), served notices on him,…

[nnamdiabana]

SHI'ITES SET FRENCH FLAG ABLAZE IN #ABUJA OBER PRESIDENT #MACRON'S 'CONTROVERSIAL' COMMENT Members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) popularly called Shi'ites on Tuesday November 3, burnt the French flag in the federal capital territory (FCT) over "anti-Islamic" comment linked to President Emmanuel Macron. Recall that there's been heightened tensions between the French government and the Muslim world over cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous. This is centered on the republications of Mohammed's caricatures by Charlie Hebdo magazine to mark the opening of the trial for a deadly attack against its staff in 2015 when the Paris-based publication’s cartoons were cited as a reason for the assault. Also French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to "quiet hero" Samuel Paty, the teacher who was beheaded on Friday October 16. Mr Paty was targeted close to his school near Paris for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class. His killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, was shot dead by police. Speaking at a televised memorial service on Wednesday, October 28, Mr Macron told viewers that France "will not give up our cartoons". According to BBC, Macron said Mr Paty had tried to teach his pupils how to become citizens. "He was killed precisely because he incarnated the Republic", Mr Macron said. "He was killed because the Islamists want our future. They know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it. Also, the president had defended the “right to blaspheme” under free speech rights at the time of the republication in September, weeks before he prompted backlash from Muslim activists on October 2 when he claimed in a speech that Islam was “in crisis globally” and announced his plan “to reform Islam” in order to make it more compatible with his country’s republican values. During their march which ended at Wuse market, the IMN members burnt France's flags while chanting songs. A member of the Islamic state, Sidi Munir described the publication as an attack on Muslims. Munir said; “We set France flag on fire in a reaction to the attack on Islam and Muslims by the President of France Emmanuel Macron since the heinous... https://www.instagram.com/p/CHJfpAvgqfC/?igshid=rkwcukwysl8f

[thenetionalnews]

Gulf: Remarks against Prophet: Incident not affecting NDA government, good relations will continue with Gulf countries, says Goyal | India News

Gulf: Remarks against Prophet: Incident not affecting NDA government, good relations will continue with Gulf countries, says Goyal | India News

KOCHI: Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said the controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad made by ousted BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharmahas not made any impact on the ruling NDA at the Center as she was not a government functional and asserted good relations will continue with the gulf countries that have reacted sharply to the issue. He said necessary action has been taken against Sharma,…

[creepingsharia]

Maryland: First Muslim judge reprimanded after sexual harassment complaint

via A Md. judge was reprimanded after a sexual harassment complaint. His discipline remains secret. – The Washington Post h/t @chillum

Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Hassan El-Amin was reprimanded last year after his former administrative assistant filed a sexual harassment complaint against him, according to a letter from the county’s administrative judge that acknowledged the discipline.

But the exact nature of the reprimand El-Amin received ­remains undisclosed, even to ­Denise Lowe-Williams, the woman who filed the grievance.

Williams now is seeking more transparency in the judicial discipline process, saying that as someone who struggled to speak out against a person in a position of power she is frustrated by the confidentiality that cloaks the outcome.

“If they want to keep it hush, at least tell the victim what has been done,” Williams, 52, said. “It can really ruin a person’s self-esteem, and it can make it seem like they did something wrong when they’re sticking their neck out.”

Williams filed the complaint against El-Amin in September, accusing him of subjecting her to a sexually charged work environment since at least 2012. Williams said the judge would call her while he was on vacation to tell her he missed her, according to copies of the complaint she shared with The Washington Post. The complaint was first reported by WRC-TV (NBC4).

More:  Former Staffer Accused Maryland Judge of Years of Sexual Harassment

Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Hassan El-Amin’s former administrative assistant Denise Lowe-Williams said she lived with ongoing harassment by her then-boss for years, but she felt like she had to deal with it because she was an at-will employee.

“He would take these pictures, and I asked him eventually, ‘What are you going to do with these pictures?’ and he said he was going to make a calendar,” Williams said.

Judge El-Amin once made a crude comment indicating he was aroused by a skirt she wore, Williams said. He also told Williams he liked the way her behind looked in a dress she wore, she said.

He also found a way to be inappropriate with evidence from a case over which he presided, she said.

“It had something to do with, I think, sexual abuse, or something like that, and he had explicit pictures, and he called me in his office to show me these pictures,” Williams said.

She finally became fed up, filed a complaint and hired an attorney. But his behavior got worse, she said.

“When he told me I wasn’t giving him enough attention, I just needed to seek help,” Williams said.

She said she began seeing a therapist.

After filing her complaint, a letter to Williams’ attorney from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office said, “Remedial action was taken to both address and prevent any potential harassing conduct.”

Williams feels there should be more transparency, as the letter said the discipline is confidential.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘Well, what’s going on Denise?’ You know, ‘What are they doing?’ I don’t know. You know why I don’t know? All I’m told is that he’s been sanctioned,” Williams said.

After she filed her complaint, all of the judges in the 7th Judicial Circuit–which includes Charles County, St. Mary’s County, Calvert County and Prince George’s County were trained again on appropriate office behavior.

Williams still works at the Prince George’s County courthouse, but she’s been reassigned so she no longer works with Judge El-Amin.

Creeping Sharia reader’s might remember el-Amin from this post, Maryland Governor names controversial Muslim to highest court

El-Amin was appointed to the District Court in 2000, becoming the first Muslim named to the bench in Maryland.

When asked how he feels as a Muslim American in his role, Judge El-Amin reflected how he was worried about conflicts when he first took his job as a judge. However, he had “great confidence in the constitution of America and the great principles and Quranic principles [within it], such as the sanctity of human life and the free will that every man and woman possesses.”

“In many, many ways the legal system in this country is more Islamic than in some Muslim countries,” says El-Amin.

In 2006, El-Amin organized and conducted a workshop entitled, “What Judges Need to Know About Islam” at a Maryland Judicial Conference in Cambridge, Maryland.

“There is so much misunderstanding [about Islam],” notes El-Amin. “A lot of exposure that judges and the judicial system get to Islam is through prisoners [who convert to Islam during incarceration for violent crimes]. Between ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminal converts’, a lot of people in the justice system get a very skewed perspective on Islam.”

Helping to skew the view of Muslims…from a position of authority. A pious Muslim sexual offender. Just like the so-called prophet Muhammad.

[newstfionline]

Pakistan is making concessions to religious extremists. What’s the cost?

By Pamela Constable, Washington Post, December 3, 2017

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan--In the past 10 days, two dramatic events--the government’s capitulation to a violent protest by radical Muslims and the release from house arrest of an anti-India militia leader--have crystallized the sway that hard-line Muslim groups increasingly hold in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state whose military leaders claim to be fighting extremist violence.

The freeing of Hafiz Saeed, an Islamist cleric accused of masterminding a deadly rampage in Mumbai nine years ago, came as no surprise. Although denounced as a terrorist by the United Nations and the United States, Saeed enjoys a large following in Pakistan as a fiery champion of Muslim rights in Kashmir, the disputed border region with India. He has been repeatedly detained and released by the courts, a sign of Pakistan’s often contradictory efforts to secure at once domestic Muslim loyalty and international support.

In contrast, the chaotic scenes in late November of Muslim demonstrators throwing stones at police near the capital, then rising up across the country to protest a minor change in an electoral law, shocked the nation and raised the specter of mass religious unrest--a permanent worry in an impoverished nation of 207 million, 95 percent of whom are Muslim and most from the same Sunni branch as the protesters.

But the quick resolution of the problem also raised worrisome questions about the long-term capability of the government of Pakistan, a fragile democracy whose prime minister was recently ousted, to push back against religious extremism and the risks of bringing in the powerful military to settle civilian disputes.

Saeed was released Nov. 24 after a provincial court found “insufficient evidence” to link him to the four-day Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 that killed 164 people. This time, the court action came amid intense pressure from the Trump administration on Pakistan to prove it is not harboring Islamist militias. It was also met with especially sharp denunciations from India.

American officials demanded that Saeed--who was detained in January under U.S. pressure--be arrested again. The U.S. Embassy here expressed “serious concerns” over his release and charged that his now-disbanded militia, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the deaths of “hundreds of innocent civilians” in numerous terrorist attacks. Six victims in the Mumbai bombing and shooting attack, which Indian and U.S. officials believe was carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos, were U.S. citizens.

In Pakistan, though, Saeed remains a force to be reckoned with and a political survivor who has continually reinvented his movement, changing its name and founding a charitable offshoot that helps people in emergencies. In August, after years of denouncing electoral politics, he formed a political party, and its candidate performed better than expected in a race for Parliament. After he was released, he triumphantly returned to his Friday pulpit in Lahore and demanded that his name be removed from the U.N. sanctions list.

While Saeed’s supporters were celebrating his return to the public arena, a tense drama was playing out in the capital between another religious firebrand and government security forces. The confrontation that erupted early Nov. 25 quickly escalated into a nationwide protest surge and ended 24 hours later in triumph for the protesters and embarrassment for the government, which accepted virtually all their demands.

In contrast to Saeed, an established though controversial leader in Pakistan, the recent protests thrust a little-known, rabble-rousing cleric into the news. Within 48 hours, Khadim Hussain Rizvi had exhorted his supporters to violence, sparked mini-protests across the country, stared down civilian officials, bargained hard with the army--and become a household name.

Unlike Saeed, Rizvi is not associated with armed militant groups. His movement is built around reverence and love for Muhammad as Islam’s final prophet. On Friday night, just days after the angry protests subsided, Pakistani Muslims everywhere jubilantly celebrated Muhammad’s birthday, thronging streets hung with dazzling lights and gathering around tents where devotees recited chants glorifying him.

But Rizvi’s movement is also harsh and extreme in its views. It has built a cult around a man who assassinated a provincial governor for religious reasons, believes blasphemers should be executed and crusades against Ahmedis, a small religious minority that follows a later prophet. The protests were raised against a change in electoral laws that softened requirements for candidates to avow Muhammad as the final prophet--a move Rizvi’s group suspected was aimed at increasing the political participation of Ahmedis.

The price of pacifying Rizvi and his followers, many Pakistani leaders and commentators said, may be the emboldening of other fanatical Muslim groups, a further weakening of civilian authority, an increased potential for the military to intervene, and a rise in both sectarian hatred and conflict between rival Sunni schools. Some warn that the foundations of Pakistan’s fragile democracy have been shaken.

“This is a steep descent into a bottomless pit for the state and society,” said Farhatullah Babar, a liberal senator. “It is the abject surrender of the constitutional government to a lawless mob” whose leaders seek to gain power through the “facade of religion.”

Others suggest that the episode signifies a growing confluence of interest between hard-line religious groups and the military, whose leaders have vowed to stay out of politics but are known to be unhappy with the ruling party and its top electoral rival, the movement led by cricket legend Imran Khan.

Imtiaz Alam, writing Thursday in the News International newspaper, noted that the state, which once encouraged militant groups such as Saeed’s to fight in India and Afghanistan, has now abetted the domestic agenda of a fanatical strain within Pakistan’s large, mainstream Sunni group, the Barelvis. “The law of the jungle is to prevail,” he warned. “The state has left its citizens ... at the mercy of demons.”

[islamiclife]

From Islamophobe to Muslim : German politician Joram van Klaveren converts to Islam

Former far-right Dutch politician Joram van Klaveren has converted to Islam. As a former member of Geert Wilders' PPV party he now says he was wrong. A former Dutch far-right MP and right-hand man to anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders revealed he has converted to Islam. He was known for saying that Islam is "a lie" and the Quran is "poison." For years, as a lawmaker for Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV), Joram van Klaveren fought a relentless campaign in the Lower House against Islam in the Netherlands. Back then, according to the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad (AD), the "hardliner pleaded for banning the burqa and minarets, saying 'we don't want any Islam, or at least as little as possible in the Netherlands.'"

However, the 40-year-old van Klaveren said he had changed his mind halfway through writing an anti-Islam book, which, he told the respected NRC Handelsblad "became a refutation of objections non-Muslims have" against the religion. In an interview with Tijs van den Brink on NPO Radio 1, van Klaveren explained his change of heart. "If you believe that there is one God and that Muhammad was one of the prophets, besides Jesus and Moses, then you are formally a Muslim," says van Klaveren. In the interview, NRC added that van Klaveren converted to Islam on October 26 last year, ahead of the release of his book titled: Apostate: From Christianity to Islam in the Time of Secular Terror.

Van Klaveren, who grew up in an orthodox Protestant Christian environment, said of his conversion that he "has been searching for a long time." "It feels a bit like a religious homecoming for me," he told Dutch newspapers. When asked how his wife felt about it, van Klaveren told NRC that she was OK with it. "My wife accepts that I am a Muslim. If you are happy with it, she said, I'm not going to stop you. Incidentally, she never felt the repugnance that I felt for Islam. She was less happy that I was with the PVV. But it is your journey, she said." Van Klaveren split with Wilders in 2014 after the PVV leader's controversial comments that year when asking supporters whether they wanted "fewer or more Moroccans in your city and the Netherlands." Wilders was found guilty in 2016 of discrimination charges. The sentence is currently being appealed.

Around five percent of the Dutch population of 17 million people or some 850,000 are Muslim, according to the Dutch Central Statistics Bureau (CBS). And despite Wilders' objections, the religion is growing, with experts expecting that number to double by 2050.

Courtesy : DW

[mysouthparkopinion-blog]

Here’s a paper I wrote on South Park in 10th grade

South Park- Breaking Barriers or Eliminating Them?

         The popular animated TV show South Park is known for its political satire and the many controversies that surround it. Politically, South Park ushered in a new political movement with supporters known as South Park Republicans. Controversies arise out of the show’s constant jokes and the creators’ disdain of censorship, even while being threatened by terrorists. People working within the show, such as Isaac Hayes, quit because of disagreements with views presented by South Park. Since its debut in 1997, the animated sitcom South Park swept and changed the nation with its satire and political messages. Stirring up controversy in just about every subject, even under the threat of terrorism, South Park affects the views of those who watch it.

         South Park, a show known for crossing lines and simply being offensive, went too far for Isaac Hayes, a singer who voiced the character of Chef for the first ten years that the show was on air. After a 2006 episode mocking Scientology, which happened to be Hayes’ religion, Hayes quit the show on the premise that “there is a time where satire ends, and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins” (“Singer Quits ‘South Park’ in Scientology Row”). Hayes ended his contract with South Park with the illogical argument that “as a civil rights activist for the past 40 years, [he] cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices” (“Singer Quits “South Park in Scientology Row”). Hayes fails to acknowledge that he was there when the show made fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Jews, and several other religions. He never once spoke out against that during the ten years that he was on the show, but when his own religion got put into the context of a typical South Park episode, he saw only that as offensive, showing that he sees his own religion as being more deserving of respect than other religions. That view does not support his own claim that he himself is a civil rights activist. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the co-creators of South Park, did not intend to personally offend anyone with the episode, or any other episodes that they had made in the past ten years, for that matter. They were aiming to make an episode of their comedy show, and put in it the type of content that they always use. It was only a matter of ten years and an episode making fun of Scientology that compelled Isaac Hayes to quit the show where he was loved for his role as the iconic Chef.

Isaac Hayes was not the only one who got insulted by South Park. In 2010, Parker and Stone received death threats from a terrorist group over a depiction of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in an episode (DeStefano). Jesse Curtis Morton, also known as Younus Abdullah Muhammed, the leader of the terrorist group Revolution Muslim, sent statements to the South Park creators that mentioned Osama Bin Laden and a Danish filmmaker who was killed in 2005 after criticizing an aspect of the Muslim faith (DeDtefano). Although Morton was arrested and no harm came to Parker and Stone, the incident sparked a big controversy over freedom of speech (DeStefano). Parker and Stone were willing to go through with airing the episode because, as Parker says, not airing the episode would be

“hypocritical against our own -- our own thoughts if we said, ‘OK, well, let's not make fun of them, because they might hurt us.’ Like, that -- that's messed up to have that kind of thought process. OK. Well, we'll make fun of the Catholics because they won't hurt us. But we won't make fun of them, because they might hurt us.” (Ingraham)

Parker and Stone wanted their episode to be based on what they wanted on the show, not what someone else who was hiding behind a computer screen wanted.

However, because of the terrorist threats, when Comedy Central aired the episode depicting Muhammad, any mention or depiction of him was censored, much to the discontent of Parker and Stone. In fact, not all members of the Muslim community agreed with Comedy Central’s decision. Laura Ingraham interviews Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Arab American News. In the interview, Ingraham asks Siblani if he thinks it is a good thing that the episode was censored, and Siblani replies with several reasons why he thinks the episode should not have been censored (Ingraham). Siblani states that “South Park has the thing they want to do,” and that he is against censoring” (Ingraham). He goes on to say that he is the publisher of a paper, and that he “appreciates the free speech that he was given” (Ingraham). As an American citizen, he has every right to enjoy his freedom of speech, as do the South Park creators (Ingraham). One of the precepts that America was founded on is freedom of speech, so Parker and Stone have every right to depict Muhammad in an episode of their cartoon show without it having to get censored.

South Park became more political as the years went on, and it ushered in a new political movement among young Americans. This group, called South Park Republicans, combines traditional Republican values, such as the free market, with liberal views. The show criticizes both conservatives and liberals, and although people try to put a label on the show’s politics, South Park does not fit with either group, and can be considered antipolitical. In his scholarly book Taking South Park Seriously, Weinstock explains how commentators of South Park viewed the show as being ‘reflective of the U.S. national consciousness” (Weinstock 149).   South Park’s politics appeal to Generation X, the generation in which its creators were born into. Characteristics of Generation X include “irony, apathy, feelings of disenfranchisement, and deep cynicism toward official political institutions” (Weinstock 148), which can be found in the episodes of South Park. One way that shows that South Park is aimed at Generation X is to “break taboos around topics that are culturally sensitive” (Weinstock 150). South Park’s offensiveness and the way that the show makes fun of anything that the creators want to make fun of are reflective of the attitudes of Generation X. The pop culture references in South Park also appeal to Generation X. There are pop culture references from the 1970’s and 1980’s, the era in which Generation X members were children. Celebrities are often made fun of, and Parker and Stone make fun of celebrities from both the political left and political right. Stone explains that he and Parker are more right- wing than most people in Hollywood, but that he “doesn’t subscribe to any political ticket” (Weinstock). Therefore, South Park covers a broad diversity of political topics because the creators do not identify with either political side, but instead aim the show at the members of their own generation.

The American animated sitcom South Park changed greatly since the pilot aired in 1997. Its political satire and willingness to make fun of anything, even while threatened, gained it its reputation and changed the political ideas of viewers. The show’s willingness to joke about anything that the creators want to include in the show lost them a prominent actor and character, Isaac Hayes. He played the role of Chef but quit the show after his religion was joked about in an episode and he got offended. South Park represents the political views of a generation, Generation X, and ushered in a new political way of thinking for young people, giving their group the name South Park Republicans. South Park culturally impacts the United States because of all the political views expressed, the satire, and the controversies. It gets the viewers to think politically while being entertained, something that isn’t often achieved with TV shows. South Park airs on Comedy Central every day, and there is always a controversy behind the screen. Viewers never know what to expect, but they can be sure that there will be a little bit of truth, a little bit of absurdity, and there will be full-fledged comedy throughout those twenty minutes of air time, with no sensitivity or exceptions whatsoever for anyone or anything. If a person or event can be put into a TV show, it becomes fair game for the South Park creators. There are two seasons left on the show’s contract, and the next two upcoming years will be noteworthy as the last ones for a show that has been the personification of America for nearly twenty years.

[khalilhumam]

Islamophobic post on Facebook leads to deadly violence in Bangalore

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/islamophobic-post-on-facebook-leads-to-deadly-violence-in-bangalore/

Islamophobic post on Facebook leads to deadly violence in Bangalore

India experiences another episode of real-life violence triggered by online hate speech

Image via Pexels by Pixabay. Free to use (CC0)

An inflammatory Facebook post provoked violent clashes between protesters and police in Bangalore on August 11, leaving three dead and dozens injured. The post alleged sexual offenses against a minor and was considered to be a smear of the Prophet Muhammad. It was shared by P Naveen, nephew of Srinivas Murthy, a politician by the opposition party Indian National Congress (INC). The post has since been deleted. Shortly after it was shared, a mob protested outside Murthy's house, located in the village of Devarajeevanahalli, in a rural area of Bangalore (officially known as Bengaluru). The mob also attempted to burn down two police stations. Around 60 police officers were injured in the episode along with several protesters. The images of the destruction were widely shared on social media, sparking reactions such as the one below by Twitter user Jiten:

https://t.co/GMXqHVXNRY what is happening … how can they destroy public property. why india cant be strict on these gundas. — jiten (@royaljiten) August 12, 2020

(“Gundas” means goons in Kannada and Hindi)

The clash escalated to large-scale protests in two other villagers in Bangalore, KG Halli, and DG Halli (Halli means “village” in Kannada). Soon afterward, the state government imposed a curfew in the area. Police arrested over 100 people. Media reports claim some of the protesters belonged to the Social Democratic Party of India, an Islamic political outfit. One of those arrested was Sayyad Nadeem, a 24-year-old mechanic who died of COVID-19 while in custody. Following the arrest, he was admitted to Bowring hospital in the city of Bangalore after complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. He died a few days later, according to the police. His COVID-19 test came back positive. The chief minister of the state of Karnataka, where Bangalore is located, BS. Yeddyurappa urged authorities to take strict action against those partaking in the protests. He added that his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government would “not tolerate such provocations and rumors”. While India's constitution is democratic and secular, violence between its Hindu and Muslim communities have long plagued the country. In recent years, the problem has worsened with online misinformation and harassment campaigns. Earlier this year, over 50 people were killed during riots in the capital New Delhi following protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The majority of the victims were Muslim.

Read More: ‘Delhi is burning': 17 dead and hundreds injured in clashes over anti-citizenship law protests

During the recent riots in Bangalore, at least five reporters were attacked by protesters and the police, as chronicled by NewsLaundry. Journalist Nolan Pinto highlighted reports of police brutality:

@CPBlr your police hit my head with a pole even though we kept yelling we are reporters. @prajwalmanipal was hit on the back. We had to run from your police to save ourselves when there was no mob present!! Thanks @path2shah for the first-aid. pic.twitter.com/GI8QLp36Vo — Nolan Pinto (@nolanentreeo) August 11, 2020

Journalist Arun Dev reported how the violence impacted the common citizenry of Bangalore who had no connection to either the rioters or the Congress MLA's nephew:

Even though close to the house of Naveen, who posted the derogatory content, the bar wasn't owned by anyone related to him. It was an act of vandalism. The occupants of the bar were chased out before burning the bar. #Bengalururiots pic.twitter.com/Ld1EjY1Kpe — Arun Dev (@ArunDev1) August 12, 2020

The blame game — and reactions

In the aftermath of the violence, numerous right-wing groups on social media claimed that P Naveen's post was a response to someone called Adyar Basheer Adyar who had allegedly posted derogatory comments against the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. But an investigation by the fact-checking organization AltNews established these claims as false. AltNews proved that Basheer's anti-Hindu post was from 2018, and P Naveen had never replied to it; the two images had been morphed to sustain the false claim. Basheer's post, in fact, had resulted in police action against him at the time it was posted, in 2018. Many condemned the violence perpetrated by Muslim groups, including journalist Anusha Ravi Sood:

Violence in Bengaluru on Tuesday night is quickly being given a ‘Dalit v/s Muslim’ colour while inflammatory posts that sparked d violence is being sidelined. This narrative being pushed at a time d country has witnessed both communities come together on many issues like NRC-CAA — Anusha Ravi Sood (@anusharavi10) August 12, 2020

Swara Bhaskar, a Bollywood actor, tweeted condemning the violence:

No excuses for violence and arson! No, hurt sentiments are not an excuse!! Highly condemnable, the violence by Muslim hooligans in #Bangalore Just proves religious fanaticism is a scourge in all communities. Guilty must be brought to book as per law. Shameful! #bangaloreriots — Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) August 12, 2020

Indian Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor highlighted a tweet by Indian Twitter user Muhammad Nuammir showing Muslims protecting a temple in Bangalore with a human chain:

Those who incited and perpetrated the #bangaloreriots must be found, arrested & given exemplary punishment. But they are not to be equated with an entire community any more than thugs & vigilantes represent all Hindus. This also happened in Bangalore: https://t.co/TCrfo6kU7k — Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 12, 2020

Still, right-wing accounts still peddled a false narrative:

#bengaluruviolence U muslims did riots because of prophet mohammed insult. Now what can we do with U. U made insult of our MATA [Mata means mother in Hindi] . This was a preplanned riots by muslims. Ur muslim man first did insult & then to reply Naveen posted prophet's photo. pic.twitter.com/rDmiFPIqWy — Aniruddha Ghadge (@AniruddhaGhadg1) August 13, 2020

Expat Indian Sandhya Subedi demanded punishment for the rioters:

Dear Prime Minister of India @PMOIndia please punish the Banglore rioters in the strictest way possible!A facebook post should be replied with facebook post,no one has the right to create riot and kill people for a facebook post! This intolerance should be condemned! — Sandhya Subedi (@HAMROCHANNEL_NP) August 12, 2020

Taking note of the situation, Bangalore Parliament member Tejasvi Surya from BJP advised the Karnataka government to follow Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath model and confiscate the properties of rioters as a way to compensate for the loss to public property. This is a measure Indian activists see as biased against minorities, and one that contributes to suppressing protests against legitimate issues.

Written by Vishal Yashoda · comments (0) Donate · Share this: twitter facebook reddit