Muslim man who tied dog to car and dragged it was “influenced by his religion”, says Kerala author
Date: 13 Dec 2020
Category: Hate speech
A man who was widely condemned for tying a dog to his car and dragging it through the road was “influenced by his own religion”, said Kerala professor and noted atheism propounder C Ravichandran. The man was prodded to act this way because Muslims are forbidden in Islam to interact with dogs, he said. His post on Facebook has drawn widespread criticism. I cannot blame the man because he was only influenced by his faith, Ravichandran added. “If the software of religion had been removed from the brains of Bin laden and Baghdadi from childhood, we wouldn’t have had to witness their later terror activities,” Ravichandran stated at the beginning of the post.
Facebook group calls for ‘halal-free Christmas’
Date: 12/12/2020
Category: Hate speech
A Facebook group named Christian Association and Alliance for Social Action (CASA- different from Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action) has called for Christians in Kerala to celebrate a “halal-free” Christmas. Asking why Christians had to consume “unpure meat presented to a different God” on the day of the birth of Jesus, the post asks its followers to boycott Muslim meat traders. It also specifically targets Malappuram, which is a Muslim-majority district. The group has a history of similar anti-Muslim posts, including on the topics of ‘love jihad’ and terrorism targeting Christians. The larger CASA (Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action), which is a humanitarian and development arm of 24 Protestant and Orthodox churches in India, has clarified that this group is not affiliated to the church in any way. According to reports, the Facebook group has affiliations to the minority wing of the BJP.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/104019207668968/posts/437267851010767/
Woman detained under UP’s ‘love jihad’ law allegedly suffered miscarriage, police delay recording her statement
Date: 14 Dec 2020
Category: Hate violence
A Hindu woman who had married a Muslim man and converted to Islam alleged that she went through miscarriage at the shelter home where she has been detained. Uttar Pradesh police arrested her husband and brother-in-law under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, on December 5 and took her to the shelter on the same date. In a video shared by Times of India journalist Kanwardeep Singh, 22-year-old Pinki – who became Muskan Jahan after converting – can be heard saying in Hindi that she was tortured at the women’s shelter. “For three days, I felt an ache in my belly. They did not pay attention. When my condition grew worse, they took me to the hospital. The doctors gave me an injection. I started bleeding heavily afterwards and they gave me medicines and injections. Yesterday, I gave my statement at the court. Afterwards I began feeling worse. I have suffered a miscarriage…I was given the injections, then I suffered the miscarriage,” she is heard saying. In the video Pinki is also heard pleading for the return of her husband, Rashid Ali, and brother-in-law, Saleem, who was also arrested. “I got married on July 24 of my own volition. This is the sixth month of my marriage, we were married at Dehradun’s ISBT…Azad Colony.” The woman was held at the shelter home for at least a week before her statement was recorded in front of a magistrate. India Today quoted the chairman of the Child Protection Commission in Moradabad, Dr Vishesh Gupta, as having said that reports of the forced abortion and miscarriage were “fake” and that Pinki did not suffer a miscarriage. Pinki returned home on Monday, December 14, after telling the magistrate that she would like to continue her marriage with her Muslim husband. Pinki’s statement to the magistrate will be further scrutinised for details and legality, according to Uttar Pradesh Police.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/rights/uttar-pradesh-love-jihad-arrest-miscarriage-moradabad
Assam’s madrasas to become regular schools
Date: 15 Dec 2020
Category: Discrimination
The Assam government has approved the dropping of Islamic subjects from the curriculum of all state-run madrasas and the institutions are to be turned into regular schools. The government has also approved converting Sanskrit tolls into centres for learning of Indian heritage and civilisation. “Yesterday our state government in our Cabinet meeting finally decided to reform the education system and make it secular. As a result all [state-run] madrasa will stop functioning and they will be converted into institutions of general education,” Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters on 14 December. An official note on the points approved by the cabinet showed that the government has decided to dissolve the State Madrassa Education Board after results of the examination of the 2021-22 academic year are announced. From the Pre-Senior, Senior and Title Madrasas and Arabic Colleges, subjects like Holy Quran, Islamic Studies, Fiqh, Hadith, Usul Al Fiqh, Aqua, Tafsir, Hadith and Fariad will be removed — although Arabic will continue as a language.
Sources:
https://indianexpress.com/article/education/assams-madrasas-to-become-regular-schools-7105163/
Facebook went soft on Bajrang Dal to protect business, staff: report
Date: 13 Dec 2020
Category: Hate violence
Despite being tagged by Facebook's security team as a potentially dangerous organisation that supports violence against minorities across India, the Bajrang Dal has been allowed to thrive on the social network out of political and safety considerations, The Wall Street Journal reported. Facebook has dithered on acting against the right-wing group with ties to the ruling BJP because "cracking down on Bajrang Dal might endanger both the company's business prospects and its staff in India", the newspaper wrote. In August, the Journal had reported on an alleged bias in Facebook's policies that favoured the ruling BJP out of business interests and said former Facebook executive Ankhi Das lobbied in favour of a leader of the ruling party who made anti-Muslim comments.
Sources:
J&K govt forest department chops down 10,000 apple trees of Muslim farmers
Date: 10 Dec 2020
Category: Discrimination
In Kashmir's Budgam, thousands of apple trees were cut in 24 hours, as the government—in its rush to evict Muslim tribals from land they have used for generations—held back a protective forest law and ignored a Supreme Court stay. Working all day on 10 November, around 50 officials and workers of the Jammu and Kashmir forest department cut about 10,000 apple trees, according to Mohammed Ahsan, the village head, threatening police cases against anyone who tried to intervene. The apple orchards were supposedly on forest land, allegedly encroached by the villagers, mostly Gujjars and Bakarwals, nomads recognised since 1991 as scheduled tribes and “forest dwellers” under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. But the FRA has not been implemented in J&K because a slew of central laws did not apply to the former state, even though it should have been when article 370 of the Constitution was revoked on 5 August 2019. 155 central laws automatically became applicable to the new union territory, and the J&K government promised the FRA would as well. As the FRA is withheld, the government is now demolishing homes and serving eviction notices to forcibly retrieve forest land from the pastoral Gujjars and Bakarwals, sheep- and cattle-herders who have farmed or used the land for generations. About 2 million, mostly Gujjars and Bakarwals—who form 12% of J&K’s population and are its third-largest community after Kashmiris and Dogras—live on land that once belonged to no one and since 1960 has been owned by the government. The demolitions and evictions are illegal under the FRA, and if any dwellings are indeed demolished, the law says compensation must be paid. On 13 February 2019, the Supreme Court had directed state governments to evict forest-dwelling scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, whose claims over forest land were rejected under the FRA. But on 28 February 2019, the Supreme Court stayed its own order, after the order was criticised within India and by United Nations special rapporteur for human rights, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.
Sources:
https://www.article-14.com/post/why-j-k-govt-chopped-10-000-apple-trees-of-muslim-farmers
Despite no history of post-election violence,curfew imposed in Muslim-majority district
Date: 16 Dec 2020
Category: Discrimination
District collector of Malappuram in Kerala, which is the only Muslim-majority district in the state, is facing heat on social media after declaring district-wide curfew in the aftermath of local body elections. Reacting under his Facebook post on the matter, users asked why curfew was necessary in a place where elections had taken place without any violence. They also questioned why the Corona pandemic was applicable to just one district.
Sources:
India a dangerous, violent place for Muslims under Modi government, says minorities report
Date: 14 Dec 2020
Category: Hate violence
India has become a “dangerous and violent space for Muslim minorities” ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government introduced amendments to the Citizenship Act last year, said the South Asia State of Minorities Report 2020. The annual report looks at the status of civic space and personal liberties accessible to citizens, especially minorities, living in South Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It said that while civic space is under threat the world over, India’s case was unique in terms of the “alarming setbacks” that have “taken place at an extraordinary pace, over the span of a few years”. The report said that the BJP assuming power nationally in 2014 “unveiled a new and now frontal attack on religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. This has had a chilling effect on civic space for Muslims and Muslim-community-based organisations and activists specifically, it added. “Hate crimes against minorities have seen a spike – taking the form of mob lynching and vigilante violence against Muslims, Christians, and Dalits. BJP also strengthened and expanded a series of discriminatory laws and measures that target religious minorities. These include anti-conversion laws, blamed by human rights groups for empowering Hindutva groups to ‘conduct campaigns of harassment, social exclusion and violence against Christians, Muslims, and other religious minorities across the country’.60 Laws ostensibly meant for the protection of cows continue to provide institutional backing for similar campaigns against Muslims and Dalits.” However, the situation has “exacerbated significantly” since BJP returned to power with a “brute majority” in May 2019, the report said. In quick succession, it enacted a slew of measures aimed at signalling to Muslims “particularly its will to brutally subjugate”, it added. It further highlighted the alleged human rights violation in Jammu and Kashmir since last year when the Centre abrogated the erstwhile state’s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution. It said that while civic space in conflict-affected Kashmir has always been restricted, the “most recent round of attacks on ‘basic freedoms’ were, however, quite unlike anything before in their being all-encompassing and systematic”.
Sources:
https://minorityrights.org/publications/sac-report-2020/
Delhi court grants bail to Muslim man, says does not make sense that he would collude with Hindu rioters
Date: 15 Dec 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
A Delhi court has granted bail to a man in two separate cases related to the north east Delhi riots, saying it did not appeal to the senses that the accused, being a Muslim, would rub shoulders in such charged atmosphere with the members of an unlawful assembly – which mainly consisted of persons from the Hindu community, and would beat a Muslim boy to death. “It is very obfuscatory that a Muslim boy would become part of an ‘unlawful assembly’ which mostly consisted of members of the Hindu community, the common object whereof was to cause maximum damage to the property, life and limb(s) of the other community. So, prima facie, the applicant (Aarif) cannot be said to be part of ‘unlawful assembly’ or share ‘common object’ with them on the date of incident,” the court said. “Furthermore, once the applicant is out of the ambit of section 149 (unlawful assembly) IPC, then he cannot be fastened with the liability under section 302 (murder) IPC. Thus, now the primary material against the applicant remains his disclosure statement, which has got no meaning,” they added. During the hearing, advocate Abdul Gaffar, appearing for Aarif, said he was falsely implicated in the case and there was no evidence on record except for his disclosure statement about him having attacked the deceased. Special Public Prosecutor Manoj Chaudhary, appearing for the police, opposed the bail plea saying Aarif was allegedly part of the unlawful assembly/riotous mob that had inflicted severe injuries on Ashfaaq Hussain and Zakir, which ultimately resulted in their deaths.
Sources: