Islamophobia

American Muslim civil liberties groups released a new report today, Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on American Muslims, documenting the devastating impacts of the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) extensive surveillance program that targeted American Muslims throughout the Northeast and spread outrage throughout the nation. Since 2002, the NYPD embarked on a covert [...]

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced seven expatriate Coptic Egyptians to death in absentia over involvement in the production of an anti-Islam film made in the US. The amateur film, “Innocence of Muslims,” sparked protests in Cairo and among Muslim communities around the world who saw the film’s portrayal of Prophet Mohamed [...]

Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel write: You don’t have to get more than a minute into Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West (2007) to begin to see how inextricably it ties Islamophobia to hardline Israeli policies. Despite its initial disclaimer, the film demonizes all Muslims, and through explicit statements and rapid-fire images, makes clear [...]

Juan Cole writes: Comedian Bill Maher puts himself in the company of “9/11 liberals” who believe that Islam as a religion is different and decidedly worse than all other religions. He said Friday that “at least half of all Muslims believe it is all right to kill someone who insults the Prophet.” His bad faith [...]

Responding to Pamela Geller’s savagery with poetry: (H/t Philip Weiss) Geller’s savage ad campaign will go up next week on the New York City subway system.

Reuters reports: Muslim leaders criticised a French magazine’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday as another Western insult to their faith and urged France’s government to take firm action against it. “We reject and condemn the French cartoons that dishonour the Prophet and we condemn any action that defames the sacred according [...]

Reuters reports: A California man convicted of bank fraud was taken in for questioning on Saturday by officers investigating possible probation violations stemming from the making of an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests in the Muslim world. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, voluntarily left his home in the early hours of Saturday morning for the [...]

The Associated Press reports: The search for those behind the provocative, anti-Muslim film implicated in violent protests in Egypt and Libya led Wednesday to a California Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes who acknowledged his role in managing and providing logistics for the production. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, told The Associated Press in an interview [...]

Sarah Abdurrahman writes: One thing that is immediately evident from watching the nearly 14-minute long trailer for the film is how low the production quality is. I mean really, it is unbelievable that this movie could have cost anywhere near the reported $5 million that it took to make it. Because the production value is [...]

In his soon-to-be-released book, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, Nathan Lean writes: As is the case with any industry, advertising is paramount to the success of a product. One need look no further than the Super Bowl to understand the advertising industry’s sheer obsession with reaching a massive number of [...]

Reuters reports: Anti-Islam groups in America have provided financial support to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner who is seeking re-election to the Dutch parliament this week. While this is not illegal in the Netherlands, it sheds light on the international connections of Wilders, whose Freedom Party is the least transparent Dutch parliamentary group [...]