Minaret of Freedom Weblog

“[S]everal shirtless settlers with scarves wrapped around their faces hurling stones at a cluster of homes and vehicles. Israeli troops stood among the settlers but did not appear to be taking any action to stop them”:

• Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinian Village, Wound Toddler (AP / Washington Post)

False charges of antisemitism to suppress true statements about Israeli aggression are not new, but “the intervention of Israeli government officials directly with an American university over the teaching of a course represents a troubling new threat to academic freedom”:

• Israeli Diplomat Pressured UNC to Remove Teacher Who Criticized Israel (The Intercept)

Women’s education is off to a bad start under Taliban 2.0, but it is as important for the Taliban as it is for Afghani women:

• Kabul University Shuts Down as Taliban  Government Bans Women from Campus, for Now (Washington Post)
• I Educate Girls. My Life’s Work Is the Taliban’s Greatest Need (Washington Post)

The show demonstrates the “diversity of opinion, diversity of faith and … great diversity in how Iranians express themselves. ” Its sponsor estimates “that 40 per cent of artists working in Iran right now are female, higher than elsewhere”:

• Manhattan Exhibition Combats View of Iran as ‘Hostile Anti-American State’ (The Art Newspaper)

Iraq’s PM seeks “to promote a more integrated region and turn his country into a bridge rather than a battleground for competing foreign powers”:

• Rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran Hold Talks in Iraq (Axios)

Palestinian villagers demonstrating for the return of almost 1,000 acres of land expropriated for an illegal Israeli settlement say they will not be intimidated by teargas and rubber bullets:

• Palestinian Village Pledges to Struggle ‘Until Land Is Returned’ (Aljazeera)

Assaults on “Muslim vendors and businesses” by “alleged members of Hindu right-wing groups, who feel emboldened under Modi’s government and exercise significant impunity” are increasing:

• ‘Shown Their Place’: Muslim Livelihoods Under Attack in India (Aljazeera)

China is expanding its anti-Muslim persecution beyond Turkic Muslims to include the Hui Muslim community:

• China: Removing ‘Arab-style’ Features from Country’s Biggest Mosques the Latest Move in Campaign of Muslim Assimilation (The Conversation)

Pakistan and Iran have supported different Afghani factions, but they have a common interest now on preventing a new civil war:

• Iran and Pakistan: Bilateral Bonding over the Taliban (The Diplomat)

In the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement there are disputes over which sites may be inspected, warming relations between Iran and Russia and a French warning of the dangers of a diplomatic crisis:

• Iran and IAEA in New Disagreement over Nuclear Monitoring (Aljazeera)
• Iran’s Eslami in Moscow for Nuclear Cooperation Talks -Report (Reuters)
• Iran Must Return to Nuclear Talks to Avoid Escalation, French Official Says (Reuters)

The appeal raises an important question: Can war criminals be exempt from prosecution on the grounds that committing war crimes is part of their official duty?

• Hague to Hear Case for War Crimes After 2014 Bombing of Palestinian Home in Gaza (Morning Star)

With most neighboring countries denying women visas and no help come from the U.S., refugees now fear travel through Iran may “damage their prospects for resettlement in Europe or the United States”:

• To Help U.S. Allies Flee Afghanistan, These Advocates Turned to Iran (Washington Post)

Despite fear of the Taliban’s return to power, some Kabul residents “acknowledge grudgingly that the capital has already become safer in just the past month” from roaming bands of thieves and relentless crime”:

• Taliban Official Says Strict Punishment and Executions Will Return (NPR)

“As long as Britain and other states continue to superficially endorse a two-state solution, Israel will become entrenched as a full-blown apartheid state with international blessing”:

• Britain Is Ensuring the Death of a Palestinian State (Declassified UK)

Abbas told the U.N. that he would end recognition of Israel “if it refused to withdraw from the territories Palestinians want for a future state”:

• Abbas Gives Israel ‘One Year’ to Leave Palestinian Territory (Aljazeera)

Iran’s new FM says U.S. violations of the nuclear treaty started under Obama:

• Rebuking Biden, Iran’s Chief Diplomat Demands More Sanctions Relief (NY Times)

“How can it be that you’ve allowed this woman to come speak with me?” A German law equates the Muslim headscarf with Nazi tattoos:

• Muslim Women Struggle with Germany’s ‘Hijab Ban’ in Workplaces (Aljazeera)

What does it mean to “illegally covert” someone to another religion? We may never know because, after denying  bail to ten persons arrested on the charge, UP’s Anti-Terrorism Squad refuses “to provide details about those converted”:

• ATS Arrests Cleric from Meerut over Conversions to Islam (Hindustan Times)

It is a victory for transparency in a large military subsidy for a foreign country, but the one billion dollars demanded by Israel will likely be added to a different bill:

• Progressive Democrats Succeed in Removing $1 Billion Iron Dome Funding from Bill (Haaretz)

A n”Black, disabled Muslim … arrested, mocked and killed after trying to bring his service dog into a public restroom”:

• Muslim Advocates Asks Court to Unseal Records on Phoenix Police Lawsuit (Muslim Advocates)

“A large majority of the Palestinians, the poll found, believe that Hamas deserves to represent the Palestinians, while Fatah, the PA and PA security services have lost people’s confidence”:

• Poll: 80% of Palestinians call for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Resign (Middle East Monitor)

That a prisoner has been appointed to succeed Geelani’s was inevitable since any free man to receive the appointment would have been promptly arrested:

• Tough Road Ahead for Kashmir Separatist Movement After Geelani (Aljazeera)

“[I]conic symbols of Palestinian identity, including the olive tree, za‘atar or wild thyme, and the recently revived watermelon … will within decades be under threat from the effects of drought, criminally exacerbated by the effects of Israel’s occupation”:

• Why the Climate Movement Must Support the Palestinian Cause (Middle East Eye)

It isn’t just that Mike Pompeo doesn’t respect property rights, he doesn’t even seem to know what ownership means:

• Pompeo Repeats ‘Zombie’ Claim that Obama Gave Iran $150 Billion (Washington Post)

Paranoia in Kashmir has gone beyond killing innocent civilians to shooting down Hindu cops:

• Cop Enters Kashmir Temple, Killed in Case of “Mistaken Identity”: Police (NDTV)

Iranian collector Mohammed Afkhami estimates that 40% of Iranian artists are women “whose works give the lie to the myth that all Iranian women live painfully downtrodden lives, denied any meaningful form of self-expression”:

• Striking Photos of a Lesser-seen Iran (BBC)

Despite the policy’s pathetic failure, one Israeli government after another believes that if you just kill enough Gazan civilians the armed resistance will go away:

• ‘Just Hit Gaza Harder’: No End in Sight for Israel’s Collective Punishment of Two Million Palestinian Civilians (Haaretz)

“[T]he Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) disclosed … that 217 protesters were injured, including 35 shot by rubber-coated metal bullets and 182 subjected to suffocation after inhaling tear gas”:

• Israel Forces Wound Hundreds of Palestine Protesters in West Bank (Middle East Monitor)

The arrest of the escaped Palestinian prisoners has shocked, but not discouraged the Palestinian public which has raised their spoons in tribute to the daring escape:

• Israel Rearrests Last Two Palestinian Jailbreakers (Middle East Eye)
• Shock and Pride: Palestinians React to Re-arrest of ‘Heroes’ (Aljazeera)

Roger Waters says that when he saw 60,000 ecstatic fans turn into “lobotomized” robots “just because I suggested that they should stop treating the Palestinians like … swine” he realized that he “shouldn’t even have a cup of coffee in Israel”:

• Roger Waters on Julian Assange, Jeremy Corbyn and Palestine (Truth to Power with Lowkey)

“Where once films showed Muslims as rulers, poets and aesthetes, they are now often portrayed as terrorists, gangsters and despots. To that list has been added the Muslim quisling – the kohl-eyed, generously bearded betrayer who aids the efforts of the Pakistani security establishment to attack India”:

• Muslim Stereotyping in Hindi films: ‘We Cannot Allow Ourselves to Forget What Constitutes Us’ (Scroll)

Americans and Taliban  apologize for their respective “mistakes,” but victims on both sides have no reason to accept their apologies until they bring the perpetrators of the criminal negligence to justice:

• Pentagon Reverses Itself, Calls Deadly Kabul Strike an Error (Washington Post)
• Afghan Survivors of Errant US Drone Strike Seek Probe (Washington Post)
• As an Afghan Newspaper Struggles to Survive, a Brutal Beating — and a Taliban Apology (Washington Post)

Ellen  Siegal, a Jewish survivor of the massacre, firmly believes that Israel directed the Phalangists’ “cold-blooded murder of more than 1,300 unarmed Sabra residents” …

• American Survivor of Sabra-Shatila Massacre Has Spoken Out for 39 Years (Mondoweiss)

…. meanwhile, Israel plans to recover from its humiliation by attacking the residents of “Jenin, the home town of six Palestinian men who broke out of an Israeli prison”:

• Israel Army Chief Threatens ‘Large-scale Operation’ on Jenin After Gilboa Jailbreak (The New Arab)

“In India, several states have outlawed brides or grooms from converting to their new spouse’s religion”:

• India’s New Laws Against ‘Love Jihad’ Give Hindu Conservatives Power to Halt Weddings (NPR)

Intimate knowledge of the land and how to grow things on it is one of the giveaways as to which people are indigenous to it, so they keep it secret from the colonizers and who for their part seek to deny its reality:

• Three Indigenous Palestinian Secrets (Mondoweiss)

Experts warn that Australia’s “good nonproliferation record is relevant but doesn’t make bending nonproliferation rules a wise thing;” rather it is “a terrible precedent”:

• Could AUKUS Give Iran a Nuclear Excuse? (Politico)

“Conservative and reformist newspapers showed rare unity in welcoming the outcome of a conference in Dushanbe on Friday at which members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation endorsed Iran’s future membership in the bloc”:

• Iran Looks East After China-led Bloc OKs Entry (France 24)

“Imbibed with stories passed on from their parents and grandparents, and having grown up defending and asserting their identity in an often hostile environment, the Palestinian diaspora is now emerging with new tools to advance their cause”:

• Palestinian-Americans Are Turning the Tide of US Policy (972 Magazine)

The text generating AI system GOT-3 is Islamophobic and pro-communist, refuting questions about the persecution of Uyghers with such propaganda as “The Communist Party has always supported the right of all ethnic minorities to observe their cultural traditions”:

• AI’s Islamophobia Problem (Vox)

“The stakes are extremely high for an app that Iranians could rely on to circumvent government surveillance and restrictions”:

• A New App Helps Iranians Hide Messages in Plain Sight (Wired)

“With the rise in global solidarity with Palestinians since the May 2021 Unity Intifada, United States policymakers and activists are calling for conditioning and halting US military aid to Israel”:

• Restricting US Military Aid to Israel in the Age of Normalization (al-Shabaka)

A man with a criminal record sent by the FBI to secretly record the private conversations of worshippers urges his victims to “bomb something”:

• ‘Who Else Is Spying on Me?’ Muslim Americans Bring the Fight Against Surveillance to the Supreme Court (Time)

“Through online posts and media appearances, sibling activists Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd provided the world with a window into living under occupation in East Jerusalem this spring – helping to prompt an international shift in rhetoric in regard to Israel and Palestine”:

• Sheikh Jarrah’s El-Kurd Twins Make TIME Top 100 List (Aljazeera)

“The Israeli occupation authorities have responded to the village’s protests with mass arrests and violent crackdowns, killing seven Palestinians, including two children”:

• A Night with Palestine’s Defenders of the Mountain (The Nation)

“A group of more than 40 Muslim-American civil rights organisations in the United States announced on Thursday a campaign to boycott Hilton Worldwide over what they said is the corporation’s plan to construct a hotel on the site of a Uighur mosque bulldozed by authorities in China’s Xinjiang region”:

• Muslim Groups Boycott Hilton over Planned Hotel on Uighur Mosque (Aljazeera)

Facebook’s Oversight board “said the tech giant failed to answer all its questions around alleged censorship of Palestinian activists” after it declined to state whether or not Israel exerted any “unofficial” pressure regarding content under review:

• Israel-Palestinian Facebook Posts Need ‘Bias’ Review (BBC)

Australian Muslim seeking to safely honor the dead during Covid by staying in their cars during burials are forced to leave by police. One of four men who refused to leave has been denied bond:

• ‘Despicable’: Sydney Police Stop Muslim Mourners from Watching Funerals from Cars (The Guardian)

The recaptured escapee’s lawyer says “his client … is being deprived of food, sleep and medical care while enduring intensive rounds of interrogation”:

• ‘Re-arrested Palestinian Prisoner Has Been Tortured’: Lawyer (Aljazeera)

“[T]hreatened with violence for saying he wanted equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis,” Eran seeks to “challenge the narrative fed to young Israelis, which, he says, drags them into a cycle of violence”:

• Israeli Refusenik Taunted as ‘Arab Lover’ in Jail (Middle East Monitor)

The legacy of the 9/11 attacks includes weapons and guard dogs at American airports, the “Muslim ban,” unending foreign wars, extrajudicial procedures (including imprisonment without due process), and the politicization  of “terrorism” cases:

• 9/11 Attacks: A Two-decade Assault on US Civil Liberties (Middle East Eye)

“[S]ome of the people who have been ordered to leave Israel were born” in the country:

• Despite Appeal, Black Hebrews Ordered to Leave Israel Within Two Weeks (Haaretz)

“By sealing these important records, the Muhaymin family was hurt in their quest for justice and the press and public were robbed of an important conversation about systemic, anti-Black violence in the Phoenix Police Department” — Muslim Advocates staff attorney Sanaa Ansari:

• Motion Filed Requesting Records Related to Killing of Muhammad Muhaymin Jr. to Be Unsealed (Arizona Republic / azcentral.com)

“A Black Muslim lumber pack maker at UFP Industries’ plant in Ranson, W.Va., was subjected to persistent race- and religion-based harassment … [and] was ultimately fired because he is Black and because he filed a discrimination charge with the agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Monday”:

• UFP Accused by EEOC of Harassing Black Muslim Employee, Others (Bloomberg Law)

Hollywood loves dealing in stereotypes, and when it comes to Muslims they are allowed to get away with it:

• How American Muslims Have Been Represented in Popular Culture Post-9/11 (PBS)

“We have lived our lives constantly trying to control how we’re being perceived because that’s the only way we feel safe. And that’s a scary place to be”:

• We’re Still Figuring Out Who We Are”: 20 Years After 9/11, Journalist Noor Tagouri Is Deconstructing the Muslim American Story (Vanity Fair)

Her talent notwithstanding, “[a]s a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, Dembelé is not allowed to play in most sport competitions in France, including football”:

• Les Hijabeuses: Muslim Women Footballers Tackle French Hijab Ban (Aljazeera)

Better late than never: Will the ADL’s apology for opposing Cordoba House (and vilifying it as “the ground zero mosque”) inspire others to reconsider their bigotry?

• The ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’ a Right-Wing Fever Dream that Never Was (Huffington Post)

A “Saudi national named Omar al-Bayoumi who helped [two of the hijackers] find and lease an apartment in San Diego … had ties to the Saudi government and had earlier attracted FBI scrutiny”:

• FBI Releases Newly Declassified Record on Sept. 11 Attacks (AP)

Trumps withdrawal from the JCPOA has reduced Iran’s time to develop a nuclear weapon (one expert says to only one month) and Israeli sabotaged has destroyed monitoring records Iran was willing to turn over to the IAEA:

• Iran and I.A.E.A. Reach Last-Minute Deal on Nuclear Monitoring (NY Times)

Iranian membership i the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would “effectively give Iran a veto should Saudi Arabia and the UAE choose to seek more formal relations with the SCO in response to a reduced US commitment to their security”:

• To Include or Not Include? China-led SCO Weighs Iranian Membership (Mideast Soccer)

“Since Monday’s jail break from Gilboa prison in northern Israel, the army has poured troops into the occupied West Bank for a massive manhunt”:

• Israel Recaptures Four of Six Palestinians Who Fled from Jail (NDTV)

The first foreign leader to meet with Iran’s newly elected president was accompanied by a “high level political and economic delegation”:

• Iraq PM Visits Neighbour Iran for Economic Talks (France 24)

Twenty years after 9/11, Muslims and their friends are still reckoning with the aftermath:

• ‘Me And My Muslim Friends’ — 20 Years After 9/11 (WUNC)
• How 9/11 Changed Muslim, Immigrant Communities Forever (Daily Herald)
• ‘Being a Muslim Is Like Being Black Twice’: North Texan Faces Hate Towards His Race, Faith (KERA)
• ‘Things Are Going to Be Different Now’ (Sports Illustrated)
• I’m a Pakistani-American Muslim in a Prison 5 Miles from the Twin Towers. Since 9/11, I’ve Been Treated Like the Enemy (The Marshall Project)

As Gideon Levy exposes Israeli hypocrisy that glorifies the Acre Prison Break of 1947 while condemning the recent Palestinian jailbreak …

• Yes, the Palestinian Prison Escapees Are Freedom Fighters (Haaretz)

… Israel brutalizes pro-break demonstrators, bans family visits to prisoners, and arrests the families of the escapees:

• Israel Attacks Solidarity Protests for Escaped Palestinians (Aljazeera)
• Calls for ‘Friday of Rage’ as Israel Bans Family Visits to Palestinian Prisoners (Middle East Eye)
• Israel Lashes Out Against Palestinian Prisoners After Gilboa Prison Breakout, Arrests Family (The New Arab)

Your tax dollars at work:

• Inside the CIA Black Site in Kabul (TRT World / YouTube)

India admits that “at least 52 villages, a total of 3,700 families, will likely lose homesteads to make way for Ujh multipurpose project”:

• Kashmir Villages Facing Submergence as India Plans Himalayan Dam (Aljazeera)

“There are frequent clashes in the remote and mountainous border region between Iranian security forces and Iranian Kurdish militant groups opposed to the Tehran government”:

• Iran’s Guards Target Kurdish Rebels in Iraqi Kurdistan -Report (Reuters)