Why do Sikhs also experience anti-Muslim violence and hate?

A decision not to charge a 17-year-old with a hate crime contradicts Illinois hate crimes law, according to the Sikh Coalition. On September 8, Inderjit Singh Mukker, 53, and a father of two, faced of torrent of racist abuse when driving down a Chicago suburb. Shouts of “Terrorist!” “Bin Laden!” “Go back to your country!”came from the car behind. Mukker pulled over when the vehicle began tailgaiting; instead of passing by, the driver got out and reached into Mukker’s car to assault him. The Coalition claim that Mukker required treatment for a fractured cheekbone, bruising and blood loss and six stitches for the lacerations on his face. In a statement, Harsimran Kaur, of the Sikh Coalition said: “In fact, in my many years of representing hate crime victims, the hate crimes charge is as clear and as obvious as it gets. To ignore the racial element of the crime sends a clear message that State’s Attorney Robert Berlin is not interested in protecting vulnerable communities.” “I am appalled and disgusted by this decision,” said the victim, Mr Mukker. “What happened to me on Tuesday night is the definition of hate.” The attack on Mukker is a synechode. It forms the [...]

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Skeletons of Jewish victims of Inquisition discovered in Portugal

A dozen skeletons found in a rubbish dump were Jewish victims of Portugal’s Inquisition, according to researchers. The excavation team uncovered the remains in Evora, east of Lisbon, at the former Jail Cleaning Yard of the Inquisition Court. The dump functioned between 1568 and 1634. Inquisition manuscripts confirmed that 87 prisoners died when the jail was in use. The three male and nine female victims died with no funeral rights or burial goods. Researchers noted that “the sediment surrounding the skeletons is indistinguishable from the household waste layer where they were placed, suggesting that the bodies were deposited directly in the dump”. In death, the humiliation compounded those accused of being Jewish or heretics. Pope Gregory IX created the Inquisition in 1233, after a period of consolidation in Europe,  to ensure heretics did not undermine papal authority. For example, they branded the Cathers and Waldensians heretics for their metaphysical Christian beliefs. Suspicion followed Jewish converts; some believed they continued to practice Judaism in secret. A converso faced fines, imprisonment or burning at the stake if found guilty of practising their old faith. Under the Inquisition, the accused had no right to face or question their accuser; it validated the testimonies [...]

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Danish police arrest man for promoting mosque arsons on Facebook

Danish police arrested a man for incitement in response to a recent Islamic Centre arson in Copenhagen. Facebook breifly shutdown ‘No to mosques – sincerely’ (Nej til moskéer – oprigtigt) as police investigated a slew of hateful messages. “I’m happy to donate a can of gasoline,” wrote one individual. Another posted “Good. Respect. Burn down that camel shit,” comments that brought about incitement charges. In a local radio interview, the individual expressed a desire to ‘shoot all the Muslims’ with an assault rifle. Police charged the man under article 136, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. The page recycles the myth of Islamisation in Denmark. It maintains that Islam is a political ideology, not religion. One post rallied their right of free speech until ‘the last mosque is torn down’ and the last Muslim ‘returned’. Upon returning to Facebook, the admins posted “We welcome you back after a minor bump on the road towards a Fatherland free of mosques and Islam”. Memes compare mosques to the human cost of tsunamis. One post promotes the far-right Danskernes Partie (The Danes’ Party), founded in 2011 by Daniel Carlsen. Carlsen used to be a member of the neo-Nazi Danish National Socialists (DNSB). At [...]

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Islamic State Releases 22 Assyrian Christian Captives

News reports have highlighted the fact that the so-called Islamic State has released 22 elderly Assyrian Christians that it had kidnapped from villages in the North-East of Syria. The captives were taken earlier in 2015 , though according to the UK ba...

Palestinian toddler killed in ‘price tag’ arson attack

A Palestinian toddler died in an arson attack, suspected to have been carried out by far-right settlers. The deceased, an 18-month-old child, Ali Saad Dawabsha slept alongside his family, oblivious to an impending peril. In the early hours of Friday morning, two masked men entered the village of Duma, in the northern area of the West Bank, outside the city of Nablus. They smashed the windows of two properties (one of which was empty) and threw Molotov cocktails inside. The perpetrators also daubed the buildings with graffiti. The Hebrew text read “revenge” and “long live the Messiah”. As the flames burned, his father, Sa’ad, escorted his wife, Reham, and four-year-old son Ahmed to safety. But according to witnesses, a lack of electricity prevented him from finding Ali. The family visited a hospital in Nablus in the West Bank and then the burn unit at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Reports suggest that Ali’s mother sustained between 70 and 90 per cent burns. His father and brother remain in critical conditions. Politicians across the Israeli political spectrum condemned the murder. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described it as “a clear-cut terrorist attack. Israel takes a strong hand against terror, no matter who [...]

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Meet the last Catholic priest in Antarctica

For more than 50 years, Catholic priests from New Zealand have sailed thousands of miles to the frozen desolation of the Antarctic. The US National Science Foundation invites New Zealand’s Catholic Church for the summer months. A select number of priests work at the whimiscally-titled Chapel of the Snows, at the US McMurdo Station on Ross Island. They provide the spiritual succour to research staff and scientists. But budget cuts and reduced religiosity among staff means the New Zealand diocese ends its tenure in the Antarctic. A military chaplaincy will continue to offer spiritual care and inter-denominational services. Father Dan Doyle, co-ordinator of the Catholic Church in Antarctica, told the Catholic Herald: “Before this digital age people felt very isolated and lonely; they were always under so much pressure, so I did a lot of counselling and peer support”. Email and Skype later replaced a 2-minute call on a ham-radio once a month. At peak summertime, Doyle (and four other priests) assisted up to 2,000 people. That number dropped to 1,200 in a decade. In the harsh winter months, the population drops to just 150 essential personnel. Every few weeks, they travelled 1,360km (845 miles)  to the southernmost inhabited place [...]

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“Muhammad is a Pig,” Shout Hardline Jews at Arab Palestinians in Old City

The Haram Al-Sharif or the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome and the Rock mosque continue to be flashpoints as hard-line and increasingly extreme actions by some Jewish groups inflame tensions and passions in the Old City in Jerusalem. Today, it was reported that hard-line Jewish groups were involved in agitating the very fragile peace […]

#MandelaDay: a chance for interfaith dialogue and community change

July 18 is a day for change. A change inspired by the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Each year, the Nelson Mandela Foundation makes a simple request: that you dedicate 67 minutes of your time to humanity. Why 67 minutes? The number represents Mandela’s 67 years of public service. In 2009, the United Nations adopted a resolution to recognise Nelson Mandela Day. Saturday July 18 would have been his 97th birthday. Inspired by Mandela’s values, the day intends to promote positive self-improvement through community work. That work can be as simple as spending 67 minutes making a new friend; irrespective of ethnicity or faith. Or spending those minutes donating unwanted items and clothing to a charity shop. What matters most is to do something that inspires positive change. The Nelson Mandela Foundation encourages individuals to nominate ‘community changers’ with the #Time2Serve hashtag. Others can take part with the #MandelaDay hashtag. To echo Mandela’s words in 2008: “There is still too much discord, hatred, division, conflict and violence in our world here at the beginning of the 21st century. A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place [...]

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Rabbi Funnye: the ‘first black chief rabbi’

Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. is set to be the first “black chief rabbi” of the 21st century. The International Israelite Board of Rabbis, a US-based umbrella body for black Jewry, announced that Funnye will serve as the “titular head of a worldwide community of Black Jews“. That movement includes the denomination of Black Jews founded by Rabbi W.A. Matthew in Harlem in 1919. Other affiliated black Jewish groups include the Lemba of South Africa, the Abayudaya of Uganda, and communities in Nigeria. A key part of Funnye’s work as Chief Rabbi is to build relationships with Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Funnye has met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to lobby for greater acceptance of black Jews. Funnye converted to Judaism as an adult. But in some circles, there is a shock that a rabbi is black. It is an image he is keen to change. “We have African-American Jews, African Jews, Filipino Jews, Mexican Jews, white Jews and biracial Jews. It is really what the Jewish people, in fact, have always looked like. … We have to promote that Jews have always been a global people,” said Funnye in a Chicago Tribune interview. His rabbinical career began in 1985; in [...]

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Genocide denial still haunts the Srebrenica debate

“When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer,” wrote the German poet Bertolt Brecht in 1935. This Saturday marks twenty years since the genocide in Srebrenica, denial of this genocide continues to poison the debate and efforts of reconciliation. The failure to prevent this genocide falls upon parts of Europe, the United States and United Nations. As of this year, 8,372 graves bear the names of the murdered Bosnian Muslims. Forensic experts continue to find human remains. Radovan Karadžic and General Ratko Mladic await verdicts in trials for directing genocide. Dutch forces shoulder much of the blame. For example, peacekeepers forced thousands of Muslim families out of their compound after pressure from Mladic’s troops. Last year, the Hague ordered the Netherlands to compensate the families of over 300 men murdered in the genocide. Dutch troops were so eager to leave, that outside of one exception, ignored signals of the looming offensive. They failed to report ‘troop movements, new reinforcements coming into the area, and large amounts of fuel being sent to the enclave’. A recent Observer article claimed the UN provided [...]

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