Islam in Media Roundup | 6 July – 12 July 2020

Bangladesh: Move Rohingya From Dangerous Silt Island

Bangladesh authorities should immediately move over 300 Rohingya refugees, including at least 33 children, from the silt island of Bhasan Char to the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps to be with their families, Human Rights Watch said today. Despite pledges, the Bangladesh government has yet to allow United Nations officials to provide protection services and aid to the refugees detained on Bhasan Char, who had been stranded at sea for several weeks.
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Outrage As Muslim Fanatics 'Dig Up Three-Day-Old Girl'S Body From Cemetery And Leave It Beside A Road Because She Was From A Different Sect'

Leaders of a minority Muslim group accused ‘fanatics’ of digging up a baby girl’s body from her grave and dumping it by a roadside.

The three-day-old girl was an Ahmadi Muslim and had only been buried for a few hours in a cemetery in Ghatura in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria in Bangladesh before being dug up.
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The Massacre Of Bosnian Muslims Is Still Denied By Serbs

They will pour 8,372 commemorative cups of coffee in Srebrenica on July 11th. A quarter of a century after the fall of the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) enclave at the end of the Bosnian war, when that number of men and boys are reckoned to have been massacred by Bosnian Serb soldiers, this year’s ceremony will feature videos sent by princes, presidents and leaders from all over the world. But one prominent local figure will be conspicuously absent: Srebrenica’s own mayor.
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From Stateless To Displaced, The Rohingya Are Still Searching For Hope Years After Fleeing Myanmar

The Rohingya are among the world’s most persecuted ethnic minorities — haunted by the past and denied a future.

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the world and into their squalid refugee camps, they’re confronted by another grim prospect: separation from loved ones.
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Consulate Cables Leak Documents Show Chinese Communist Party Justifying Brutality Against Uyghurs

By now, the horrors of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing efforts to ethnically cleanse 12 million Uyghur Muslims is well established and well known.
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Lebanon In The Dark

Widespread electricity blackouts lasting up to 22 hours per day are crippling Lebanon. The blackouts are caused by fuel shortages. Fuel, like almost everything in the country, is imported. But supplies were badly disrupted after a shipment of faulty fuel had to be returned. The economic crisis has also made it difficult to finance additional fuel shipments.
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In India, Merely Saying 'Black Lives Matter' Is Not Enough

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests which led to growing calls for abolishing the police and demilitarising communities in the United States, people around the world started to have serious discussions about racism and police brutality in their own countries. In India, however, with the exception of some spaces, the support for the movement has remained superficial, with no real engagement with the underlying issues.
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India’S Police Found Complicit In Anti-Muslim Mob Violence

An independent investigation into attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in Delhi in February 2020 found that police were complicit in and even abetted the violence. The attacks came after weeks of peaceful protests against the Indian government’s discriminatory citizenship policies. Witnesses say that when they asked police for help during the violence, they refused, saying “they had no orders to act.”
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This Is What The Modi Sarkar Has Done To Indian Muslims

Studying at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in the 1990s, my first physical fight was with a Muslim Kashmiri boy during the telecast of an India-Pakistan cricket match on the hostel TV set. He kept supporting Pakistan even when our team was playing better cricket.
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Why Malaysia Is Angry With An Al Jazeera Documentary On Undocumented Migrants

The spat between Malaysia and Al Jazeera over COVID-19 has erupted into a big controversy, and might affect diplomatic ties between two Muslim countries – Malaysia and Qatar.
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The Shifting Politics Of Rohingya Refugees In Malaysia

At the recent 36th ASEAN Summit, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced that Malaysia can no longer accept Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. While Malaysia is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention or its subsequent 1967 Protocol, it upholds some of their stipulations – more so than some of the signatories. Currently, Malaysia hosts the largest number of Rohingya refugees in ASEAN and the fourth highest number worldwide.
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Sudan Scraps Apostasy Law And Alcohol Ban For Non-Muslims

After more than 30 years of Islamist rule, Sudan has outlined wide-reaching reforms including allowing non-Muslims to drink alcohol, and scrapping the apostasy law and public flogging.
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Russia, With An Eye On The Syrian Prize, Blocks Humanitarian Aid

Russia on Saturday succeeded in shuttering a humanitarian aid pipeline that provides lifesaving food, medicine, and other essentials to more than a million Syrians, brushing aside humanitarian appeals from the Trump administration and European governments to bolster its own geopolitical position in the region.
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At The U.N., Russia Forces Reduced Access For Aid To Syrians

A divided United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on Saturday to allow just one border crossing — instead of the current two — to remain open for U.N. aid convoys into Syria, dealing another blow to a humanitarian assistance program for millions of displaced people.
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Syria Conflict: 'Flagrant' War Crimes Committed In Idlib Battle, Un Says

Syrian pro-government forces and their jihadist opponents flagrantly violated the laws of war during the battle for Idlib province, UN investigators say.
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Neo-Nazis Encouraging Followers To 'Deliberately Infect' Jews And Muslims With Coronavirus

London (CNN) Neo-Nazis and far-right activists have been telling followers to “deliberately infect” Jews and Muslims with coronavirus, a UK government counterterrorism agency warned on Thursday, as extremists attempt to capitalize on the pandemic.
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Xinjiang: Us Sanctions On Chinese Officials Over 'Abuse' Of Muslims

The US has announced sanctions against Chinese politicians who it says are responsible for human rights violations against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

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USAID Religious Adviser Appointee Made Harsh Anti-Islam Comments And Warned Of Violence If Tea Party Failed In 2010 Elections

A newly appointed religious freedom adviser at the United States’ agency responsible for foreign aid has a long history of making inflammatory and anti-Islam remarks, including calling for an armed revolution if the Tea Party did not win at the ballot box.
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Tourism In Tunisia Reopens — With Precautions

For tour operators and the hospitality sector in Tunisia, March through June is typically one of the busiest times of the year.
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Tunisian Parties Seek To Oust Parliament Speaker, Islamists Want New Government

At least five Tunisian parties plan to launch a vote of no confidence in parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi who has been accused of partisan interests, while members of his moderate Islamist Ennahda party have called for a new government, escalating the country’s political crisis.
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Tunisia: Two-Year Sentence For Homosexuality

A Tunisian court sentenced two men accused of sodomy to two years in prison on June 6, 2020, Human Rights Watch said today. The decision violates their rights to privacy and nondiscrimination under international law and Tunisia’s 2014 constitution. The police also attempted to subject the defendants to an anal exam, apparently to use as evidence in the case.
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Tunisia's Sex Workers Face 'Moral Crusade' And Precariousness

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Turkey Convicts Human Rights Activists On Terror Charges

A Turkish court sentenced four Amnesty International activists to between two and six years in prison on terrorism charges in a high-profile trial Friday, which the human rights group described as a “travesty of justice of spectacular proportions.”
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Turkey'S 'Last Armenian Village' Displays Heritage That Survived Genocide

Vakifli, a village in Hatay, the small wedge of Turkey sandwiched between the Mediterranean and the border with Syria, has the melancholy honour of being known as the country’s “last Armenian village”.
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Social Media Community ‘Muslim’ Looks To Attract Islamic Gen-Z

A new social media platform looks to create a new, accepting community and outlet for Generation Z and millennial muslims to help them amplify their faith, share their views and enhance their lifestyles. Launching in early 2019, the platform is called “Muslim” and recently premiered a new, interconnected media publication.
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