News and Analysis (7/8/14)

The racialization of Islamophobia has reached absurd proportions as a Latina Muslim loses her scholarship on the grounds that her Muslim religion makers her ineligible for a Latina scholarship:

• Muslim And Latina? Coed Claims She Lost Scholarship – And Eventually Got Expelled – Over Religion (Fox News Latino)

The purpose of Ramadan is to strengthen one’s will power, and Muslims in China say that the government’s attempt to ban the fast “has only prompted them to become more devout in following Islamic custom” :

•  Chinese Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang Defy Government Ramadan Ban, Continue Traditions( International Business Times)

American interventions, especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003, have exacerbated the region’s myriad animosities and security challenges, threatening Afghanistan and Pakistan directly and in the process, India …

… but the American VP’s proposed solution to evade responsibility for the disaster is not federalism, but division:

• Iraq to Split in Three: So Why Not? (CNN)

When Coldplay posted a video by the band OneWorld, advocating Palestinian freedom, an angry Zionist response  threatening to boycott the video and demanding “an apology to Israel”, while accusations that the link constituted  Internet “abuse” prompted Facebook to block the link:

• ColdPlay Angers Fans by Telling Them to Check Out ‘Freedom for Palestine Video”(The Washington Post)

A study shows that “Researchers claim the murder of Lee Rigby was the initial ‘trigger’ for a surge in anti-Muslim hatred in 2013 … [and] that 40 per cent of attackers had links to far-right anti-Muslim groups such as the English Defence League and Britain First, which are rapidly growing in popularity”:

• Anti- Muslim Hate Crimes Increase in England and Wales (The Week)

In Myanmar, “the  military continues to wage brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities [Muslims]..  [who] struggle to rebuild their homes that have been destroyed in the violence”:

• Mynmar’s Muslims Are Victims of Politics (The National)

Minaret of Freedom Institute holds that “hudud” punishments are maximal limits and not mandatory minimums. According to Feisal Abdul Rauf argues,the prophet (puh) implemented hudud (limits) on some occasions, but not in other, and called for forgiveness:

• Hudud: Mandatory or Maximum (The Star Online)

Within the past two weeks, three Copts have been imprisoned on charges ranging from insulting Islam, to “allegedly reporting false information about discrimination against Copts,” to “liking a Facebook page … by Christian converts — so much for the secular utopia we conjured in our imagination”:

• Egypt’s Copts May Soon Regret Supporting Sisi (Al-Monitor)

Hanan Hameed