An Islamophobia Pendamic indeed. Rise of Muslim detention in Asia as several repressive regimes are subjecting their Muslim populations to imprisonment and subjugation – report by Mobashra Tazamal.
The rise of Islamophobia has emboldened and risen the sense of international impunity.
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In a recent case, Lithuania is the latest country to describe China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority as “genocide”.
However, the Baltic state is calling for an UN-led investigation into Beijing’s network of concentration camps which have detained an estimated one to three million Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Turkic Muslims.
The international community has been too slow to talk about China’s actions in Xinjiang as they occupied the homeland of the Uyghur.
Which result in millions of Uyghurs currently being subjected to horrific levels of repression.
What an Islamophobia!
In the same sense, some other states seem to have been carefully observing Beijing’s targeted campaign. Which they are now applying as similar measures to their citizens.
Sadly, the growth of state-sanctioned Islamophobia is a disturbing development that requires urgent international attention.
For instance, India bans Muslims for slaughtering animals in the upcoming Eid ul-Adha Islamic Festival. Not to talk of tremendous genocide issues that occur in the UK, which makes Muslim women afraid.
Similarly, something of this nature has been happening in Osun State Nigeria, after a Masquerade killed a Muslim Imam and other people in a mosque.
Like the prophet Muhammad PBUH said, the whole nation will be unto his nation, I think this may be the time he means. And that should call all Muslims to us understand what unity means in times of unbalance.
In Sri Lanka
Three months ago, in a statement from Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa unveiled new regulations on “de-radicalisation from holding violent extremist religious ideology”. These permit the Government’s Ministry of Defence to create “reintegration centres” to “rehabilitate” individuals who cause or intend to cause “acts of violence or religious, racial or communal disharmony or feelings of ill will or hostility between different communities or racial or religious groups”.
Over the past few years, the Sri Lankan Government has amplified anti-Muslim rhetoric and introduced discriminatory policies restricting the rights of its Muslim minority population. This is visible in the Government’s burqa ban policies, calls to shut down more than 1,000 Islamic schools, and the forced cremations (forbidden under Islam) of Coronavirus victims.
Another report explains that Anti-Muslim bigotry and dehumanisation which is at the core of these actions are coated in the language of ‘counter-terrorism’ – a field of work that expanded drastically following the 9/11 attacks.
However, states across the globe have utilised the ‘War on Terror’ discourse more often than not to stigmatise and criminalise Muslims. As a result, it has been used to eliminate Islamic and Muslim identities.
In recent years, China has began its campaign to destroy Uyghur Muslim culture and identity from Xinjiang.
Also, this operation involves using high-tech surveillance, forced sterilisation and abortions, family separation, the shutting down of mosques, banning expressions of Muslim identity, removing Uyghur cultural history, and so much more.
While China have one main goal, “to break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”.
In India and Myanmar
Anti-Muslim hostility in India has raised up to dangerous levels, under the Hindu nationalist Government of Narendra Modi.
However, Hindtuva mobs, which get stronger by the inflammatory rhetoric of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and also the detention centres, have in result become features of the Government’s secret war against Muslims in recent years.
In 2019, the state of Assam introduced a National Register of Citizens (NRC), resulted in two million people, being declared ‘illegal immigrants’ who are mainly Muslims. With the fact that they have been living there for generations ago.
As a result, India determined to deport them unless they prove they were citizens of India from the start. The India authority plan to house them in the meantime, they have been ordered to build at least 10 detention centres across Assam, while the first camp already under construction.
An amazing reports outlined that many of people building the camps in Assam have themselves been deemed as illegal immigrants. In short this means that workers are building their own prisons.
The military in Myanmar which recently undertook a coup to overthrow the Government, carried out a genocide against the minority community in 2016 and 2017. They killed tens of thousands of people while burning hundreds of villages, which sadly resulted in the mass exodus of more than 300,000 Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh.
In conclusion, despite reports taking down the news, with concentration camps and brutal violence, the international community have taken not much step to protect human rights.
Which have increased the level of risk to millions of Muslims worldwide as the Anti-Muslim racism, a pandemic and requires a united global effort to tackle it, is getting out of control.
