04-01-2020, 05:49 PM
THE ISLAMOPHOBIC INDIAN MEDIA HAS DECLARED THE RIOT ACT ON THE ISLAMIC TABLEEGHI JAMAAT GATHERING IN DELHI FOR BEING A SUPER SPREADER OF COVID 19 BUT TURNS A BLIND EYE ON LARGE HINDU AND SIKH GATHERINGS. IF THEY WANTED TO INVESTIGATE CORONA VIRUS LOCKDOWN VIOLATIONS THEY SHOULD REVIEW ALL SUCH GATHERINGS INCLUSIVE OF INDIAN HINDUS, SIKHS AND CHRISTIANS. ANY NATION DEALING WITH A PANDEMIC NEEDS NATIONAL UNITY AND DISCIPLINE OF WHICH THERE IS NO DOUBT OTHERWISE IT WILL FAIL IN CONTROLLING IT AND MILLIONS MAY DIE.
AIMIM AN INDIAN MUSLIM BODY CLAIMS THAT THE RELIGIOUS EVENT IS BEING EXPLOITED AND IS ANOTHER MUSLIM BASHING INCIDENT. IT CLARIFIED THAT WHEN THE DAY THE EVENT BEGAN IN DELHI THE UNION HEALTH MINISTRY HAD DECLARED IT AS NOT BEING A HEALTH EMERGENCY. IT IS CLEAR THAT THERE HAS BEEN CONFUSION AND LACK OF CLARITY ON ADVICE AND POLICY AS IN MANY OTHER COUNTRIES.
BUT IT IS CLEAR NOW THAT HINDUTVA INDIA HAS 2 EMERGENCIES ON ITS HANDS JUST NOW. THE BIGGER VIRUS THAT HINDUTVA INDIA NEEDS TO RECOGNISE AND DEAL WITH IS ISLAMOPHOBIA WHICH MAY ENGULF IT AT IT'S PERIL. THE FALSE ALLEGATION AND INDIAN HINDUTVA MSM TONE SUGGESTING MUSLIMS INVENTED THE VIRUS AND HAVE DELIBERATELY SPREAD IT AS A FORM OF JIHAD IS OUTRAGEOUS AND POISONOUS FOR INDIA. THOSE PEDDLING THIS MALICIOUS PROPAGANDA NEED TO RETRACT THESE ALLEGATIONS.
.
I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THIS IS JUST A CASE STUDY IN ISLAMOPHOBIA AND IS NOT ABOUT DEFENDING THE ORGANISATION WITH WHOM WE HAVE NO CONTACT. IF THERE IS ANY VIOLATION IT NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED BUT IT SHOULD BE ACROSS FAITH COMMUNITIES AND NOT TARGET ONE FAITH COMMUNITY. IT IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE DEMONISATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS AND ISLAM WHICH NEEDS TO BE REVERSED.
GIVEN THE CURRENT HIGHLY CHARGED ATMOSPHERE IN INDIA OVER DISCRIMINATORY CITIZENSHIP LAWS AND REGISTRATION AND RECENT POGROM. THERE IS A DANGER OF FURTHER POLARISATION AND FUELLING OF ISLAMOPHOBIA. IT IS WITH STRONG RESERVATIONS WE ARE POSTING A LINK TO AN INDIAN TV SHOW ANCHORED BY A MODI STOOGE AND HINDUTVA EXTREMIST. THE METHOD OF HIS DEBATE IS A SICK JOKE AND MORE LIKE A HINDUTVA EXTREMIST INQUISITION. IF HE CROSSES MY PATH THE FIRST THING I WOULD EDUCATE HIM IN WOULD BE NOT TO ABUSE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BY CALLING HIS SHOW A DEBATE AS IT IS AN INQUISITION. ALSO HE SHOULD NOT CALL HIMSELF A HOST AS HE REVEALS AND REVELS IN HIS ROLE AS AN INTOLERANT HINDU FANATIC FUELLING HATRED OF INDIAN MUSLIMS AND FUELLING ISLAMOPHOBIA.
FINALLY I WOULD WARN HIM THAT THE TONGUE IS A MEDIUM FOR SPEECH AND NOT HATE SPEECH AND HE WOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR PROMOTING HATRED OF MUSLIMS AND ISLAM. IF HE REPENTS FOR HIS HATRED MONGERING AND ASKS FOR PARDON ALL WELL AND GOOD AND IF NOT HE SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO A CITIZENS ARREST FOR HATE SPEECH AND UNDERMINING NATIONAL UNITY AND COHESION.
BRASH AND BIGOTED : HOW ARNAB GOSWAMI CHANGED INDIA's TV DEBATE
The Listening Post
MARKAZ LOCKDOWN VIOLATION : HOW CAN ONE GROUP PUT ALL AT RISK?
The Debate With Arnab Goswami
NIZAMUDDIN CORONAVIRUS SCARE:
DID TABLIGHI JAMAAT HAVE A GOVERNMENT PERMIT?
Newstrack With Rahul Kanwal
INDIA HAS PUT THE WEIGHT ON TABLEEGHI JAMAT FOR EVERYTHING
INDIA's FAR RIGHT LINKS COVID 19 OUTBREAK TO A MUSLIM CONGREGATION
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/india-...tion-35024
An Islamic missionary group in India's capital New Delhi is facing a torrent of right-wing abuse after accusations that its recent congregation became the main carrier of the coronavirus. Many far-right groups were trending #CoronaJihad on Tuesday and pro-government news channels demanded action against Nizamuddin Markaz, a key institution for Muslim missionaries in South Asia, where a religious congregation was held in mid March.
"After #Nizamuddin, those Tiktok videos and Islamists' speeches worldwide, Indian agencies should seriously probe if #CoronaJihad is a ground reality," Indian journalist Abhijit Majumder tweeted. Majumder has earned the reputation of being one of those journalists who propagates the views of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through his journalistic work and Twitter posts. While slamming the Nizamuddin Muslim gathering, he hinted at a 'larger conspiracy' against India.
Bollywood actor and right-wing commentator Anupam Kher chipped in like he always does when it comes to bashing Indian Muslims, and sought action against Nizamuddin Markaz, telling a pro-state news channel that "what has happened today in Nizamuddin is criminal" and demanding stern action against the organisation.
Uzair Hasan Rizvi
@RizviUzair
Seizing an opportunity after a lapse from an Islamic center during the #CoronavirusLockdown
in India.
The media comes to hound with the Islam bashing stance, one of the taglines of the show read:
'Save the country from Corona Jihad'
Missionary group headquarter sealed
India sealed off the headquarters of a Muslim missionary group and ordered an investigation into accusations. India has registered 1,251 cases of the coronavirus, 32 of whom have died. The numbers are small compared with the United States, Italy and China but health officials say India, the world's second most populous country, faces a huge surge that could overwhelm its weak public health system.
One of the coronavirus hot spots that the government of the capital, New Delhi, has flagged is a Muslim quarter where the 100-year-old missionary group, called Tablighi Jamaat in Urdu, after dozens of people tested positive for the virus and at least seven died. Authorities said people kept visiting the Tablighi centre, in a five-storey building in a neighbourhood of narrow, winding lanes, from other parts of the country and abroad to attend religious sermons, despite government orders on social distancing.
Hundreds of people were crammed into the group's building until the weekend when authorities began taking them out for testing. More buses arrived on Tuesday to take them away to quarantine centres in another part of the city.
"It looks like social distancing and quarantine protocols were not practised here," the city administration said in a statement. Authorities are trying to trace the movements of the Tablighi members after the meetings in Delhi and the people who were exposed to them. Media reports said there were also Tablighi members from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia. The director general of Malaysia's health ministry told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur that they were investigating the presence of Malaysians at the Delhi meeting.
"Obviously there is a high risk if they attended the [Delhi] gathering," Noor Hisham Abdullah said.
Tablighi centre denies charges
India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion and a poor health infrastructure, is under a 21-day lockdown that will end in mid-April, to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus, but tens of thousands of out-of-work migrants are fleeing to the countryside, undermining the restrictions. The group's main annual meeting in New Delhi's Nizamuddin area took place on March 8, 9, and 10, while the lockdown was announced on March 24. Musharraf Ali, one of the administrators of the Tablighi centre in Delhi, said the group had been seeking help from police and the city administration to deal with people streaming in. But the lockdown had made things more difficult.
"Under such compelling circumstances there was no option ... but to accommodate the stranded visitors with prescribed medical precautions until such time that the situation becomes conducive for their movement or arrangements are made by the authorities," the Tablighi said in a statement. The Tablighi said the programme in Nizamuddin Markaz was discontinued immediately after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'civil curfew' call for March 22.
"However due to sudden cancellation of rail services across the country, a large group of visitors who had to depart by way of railways got stuck in the Markaz premises," the statement said. It said the guests were not allowed to violate medical guidelines by thronging bus terminals or roaming on streets, and offered the entire premises to be used as a quarantine facility "to help the authorities tide-over the challenge of current pandemic." Modi's curfew and lockdown announcement sparked a wave of migrations of daily wage labourers who are abandoning cities for countryside homes. On Monday, the Indian federal government asked states to disallow such migrations and quarantine migrant workers in shelters and relief camps.
Jamia Coordination Committee @Jamia_JCC
Their only fault is not abandoning their people unlike the govt which abandoned the migrant labourers and left them to die. We will not let the failures of this bigoted govt be washed over with Islamophobic fantasies and communal tantrums. We stand with the Nizamuddin Markaz.
BJP deflecting failures?
The Jamia Coordination Committee, a group comprising students and alumni of the popular university, backed the Tablighi centre saying: "Their only fault is not abandoning their people unlike the government which abandoned the migrant labourers and left them to die."
"We will not let the failures of this bigoted government be washed over with Islamophobic fantasies and communal tantrums. We stand with the Nizamuddin Markaz," it said.
Syed Sadatullah Hussaini, president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a religious and social organisation of Muslims with a strong network of members and scholars across India, slammed the "targeting" of Tablighi Jamaat, saying "bigger and more irresponsible gatherings" were being ignored.
"Playing dirty politics of communal polarisation on such a huge health crisis… reflects shamefully low level of our public discourse," he said.
India ranks 184th out of 191 in terms of percentage of GDP spent on healthcare, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It spends slightly over one percent of its total GDP on health care. There's one state-run hospital for every 55,591 people on average and one hospital bed for every 1,844 people. India needs about 10 times more doctors to meet the norms prescribed by the WHO, a shortfall of at least 500,000 doctors. Many commentators say the Hindu right-wing's tirade against the Muslim seminary was aimed to deflect nationalist government of Bharatya Janata Party's failure to address the disease.
"Trending of #CoronaJihad by BJP/Sanghi IT cell is not just a disgusting communal act but also planned strategically to divert public and media attention from humungous disasters by the BJP & Modi government in handling of #coronavirusindia," writer and filmmaker Amit Mehra tweeted.
"Expect more such diversions on a daily basis."
Marginalising Muslims?
Islamic groups, the opposition and others at home and abroad fear India's BJP government under PM Narendra Modi aims to marginalise India's 200 million minority Muslims and remould the country as a Hindu nation, something BJP denies.
In recent days, these worries have morphed into angry protests sparked by the passage of a new law giving non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh an easier path to citizenship. Muslims fear the law will complicate their citizenship status, disempower them as second class citizens in their own country. In August last year, New Delhi revoked the semi-autonomy of India-administered Kashmir and annexed the disputed region, where Muslims fear demographic changes by Hindu settlers. In November, Indian Supreme Court allowed a Hindu temple to be built in the flashpoint town of Ayodhya where Hindu zealots demolished a 16th-century Babri mosque in 1992.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
ASADUDDIN OWAISI's AIMIM LASHES OUT OVER 'COMMUNALISING' NIZAMUDDIN MEETING AMID COVID SPREAD
https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/covid-19-asaduddin-owaisi-lashes-out-for-communalizing-nizamuddin-i.htmlPolitics
Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musilmeen (AIMIM) on Thursday lashed out alleging "communalising" of the Nizamuddin incident, amid a Covid spike
Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musilmeen (AIMIM) on Thursday lashed out alleging "communalising" of the Nizamuddin incident. According to him, the Tabligh Jammat incident where several people had gathered for the religious event is being exploited to "blame all the Muslims." He further clarified that when the day the event began, the Union Health Ministry had declared it as "not a health emergency." There is no reference, however, to the irrefutable fact that the meeting, which was held after prohibitory orders had been issued, has led to a sharp spike and spread of Covid cases in the country.
A case was registered by the Delhi Police against Maulana Saad and other officials of Tablighi Jamaat for violating the restriction pertaining to a religious gathering. Sections under the Epidemic Disease Act,1897 and Section 269, 270, 271 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code have been invoked. In the FIR, it has been stated that the congregation failed to take safety measures for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Furthermore, In an alleged audiotape of the Markaz accessed by Republic, a preacher is telling people that the Coronavirus is a conspiracy to disrupt their way of life, going on to make statements against science and general guidelines of public health at a time like this.
YESTERDAY JEWS WERE DEMONISED FOR SPREADING DISEASE.
TODAY IT'S MUSLIMS
In countries like India and Israel Muslims are being scapegoated for the spread of Covid-19. When the Black Plague ravaged Europe in the middle of the 14th Century, killing roughly 50 percent of those infected and one-third of the continent's population at the time, rumours spread that Jewish people were poisoning wells to spread the disease. It ultimately led to
the massacre of thousands of Jews in several waves of anti-Semitic pogroms, leaving entire predominately Jewish villages wiped out.
Six hundred years later, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party characterised typhus as the Jewish plague, which became the rationale for the delousing baths, a "camouflage for the gas chambers." "When there are big epidemics, people get scared," Martin J. Blaser, a historian and professor of medicine and microbiology at Rutgers University told The Jewish News. "They often look to blame some kind of intruder or stranger. It has happened especially with the Jews."
In the age of a viral pandemic, specifically Covid-19, Muslims have replaced Jews as the world's most scapegoated religious minority. It's a clear demonstration of how anti-Semitism and Islamophobia remain inextricably tied, and also emphasises how the coronavirus crisis is not only a health issue but also one that poses an existential threat to social cohesion, given it's weaponised to exacerbate long-standing hatreds – but particularly against Muslims.
Pretty much wherever you find persecuted Muslim minorities, you find Covid-19 related conspiracies and fake news stories being weaponised to further their persecution, which has been the case in Israel, India, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In Israel, the Netanyahu government is laying the groundwork to blame Palestinians for the spread of Covid-19 by associating the virus with predominantly Muslim Palestinian Israeli citizens, and he said as much in a recent address, telling a delegation of doctors that "unfortunately instructions are not strictly adhered to in the Arab sector." "I ask for the cooperation of all Arab citizens of Israel. I ask you, for your sake and for the sake of our shared future, please follow the orders, [otherwise] a lot of people will die, and these deaths could be prevented with your help," said the Israeli Prime Minister.
This was Netanyahu's subtle way of pinning an impending catastrophe on Palestinian Israeli citizens by suggesting they, and they alone would be held responsible for the deaths of Jewish Israeli citizens. It is a naked attempt to absolve his government of any wrongdoing or missteps in the event the Covid-19 crisis becomes measurably worse. Elsewhere in the world, Muslims are already being blamed for the spread of coronavirus – and unsurprisingly it's producing violent and deadly outcomes.
In India, a 22-year-old Muslim man from New Delhi was lynched and viciously assaulted on Sunday after a mob of Hindu thugs falsely accused him of plotting to spread coronavirus in his home village. Last Tuesday, a young Muslim man was beaten to death in Jharkhand after a mob accused him and two of his friends, who survived their injuries, of spitting on surfaces to spread Covid-19 to Hindus. These attacks didn't take place in a vacuum but within the context of a well-orchestrated and sophisticated campaign by pro-government Hindu nationalists to blame Muslims for the spread of the virus. This claim of a concerted campaign is supported by an investigation conducted by Voyager Infosec, a New Delhi based digital lab, which identified more than 30,000 videos targeted at Muslims on the social media platform TikTok. When ten Indonesian nationals tested positive for the virus on March 19 – roughly ten days after attending an annual gathering held by the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary movement – Hindu nationalist groups and individuals seized the moment as an opportunity to falsely hold Muslims solely responsible for spreading the deadly virus throughout the country. Hashtags like #CoronaJihad and #BioJihad were shared almost instantly across social media platforms, hundreds of thousands of times.
In the past week, dozens of videos and fake stories that allege Muslims are spreading Covid-19 have gone viral, translating to tens of millions of views, including; Muslim Man Spitting on Fruits to Spread Corona, Muslims Denying Hindus Rations in Karachi, Muslim Worker in Restaurant Spitting in Food to Spread Coronavirus, and Muslims Sneezing in Unison to Spread Corona. These fake stories are doing what they're creators intended to do: incite violence and discrimination against Muslims, which they hope will make life so unbearable for adherents of the Islamic faith that they will have no choice but to self-deport eventually. "Eliminating the greyzone of coexistence" between Muslims and non-Muslims has become the goal of all extremist ideological groups, including ISIS (Daesh) and the European far-right.
In the United Kingdom, British counterterrorism police are investigating far-right groups accused of using the coronavirus crisis to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment, after dozens of incidents of were recorded by Tell Mama, a UK based hate crime-monitoring group. "These extremists are using coronavirus to get their pervasive message across that somehow the Muslim communities are to blame for the spreading of the virus," Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, told Arab News. "It is mainly repeat offenders — individuals who are already known to hold anti-Muslim views — who are repeatedly seeing this as a way to cause community turmoil and tension." Last week, Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defense League who has built his fame on anti-Muslim bigotry, shared a video on Telegram that alleged Muslims in the city of Birmingham were meeting at a "secret mosque" in defiance of stay-at-home orders, inferring that the religious minority is somehow plotting to sabotage British society by spreading the virus. The video was shared more than 10,000 times, according to The Guardian.
The undeniable truth, however, is this – no Muslim anywhere has ever hidden in a mosque, spat or sneezed to spread the coronavirus. What's also true is scapegoating 'undesirable groups' has been a staple of pandemics. Where most see crisis, others, particularly the bigoted, see an opportunity, and one that shouldn't go to waste. Demonising an already otherised cultural, religious or ethnic group remains a powerful weapon for those who profit from fear and uncertainty.
While the targets may change from crisis to crisis, the racist and xenophobic tropes remain constant. Yesterday it was the Jewish people who were demonised for spreading disease. Today it's Muslims.
THE PLIGHT OF MUSLIM MINORITIES AMIDST
WAR AGAINST CORONAVIRUS
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/yesterd...lims-35395
AIMIM AN INDIAN MUSLIM BODY CLAIMS THAT THE RELIGIOUS EVENT IS BEING EXPLOITED AND IS ANOTHER MUSLIM BASHING INCIDENT. IT CLARIFIED THAT WHEN THE DAY THE EVENT BEGAN IN DELHI THE UNION HEALTH MINISTRY HAD DECLARED IT AS NOT BEING A HEALTH EMERGENCY. IT IS CLEAR THAT THERE HAS BEEN CONFUSION AND LACK OF CLARITY ON ADVICE AND POLICY AS IN MANY OTHER COUNTRIES.
BUT IT IS CLEAR NOW THAT HINDUTVA INDIA HAS 2 EMERGENCIES ON ITS HANDS JUST NOW. THE BIGGER VIRUS THAT HINDUTVA INDIA NEEDS TO RECOGNISE AND DEAL WITH IS ISLAMOPHOBIA WHICH MAY ENGULF IT AT IT'S PERIL. THE FALSE ALLEGATION AND INDIAN HINDUTVA MSM TONE SUGGESTING MUSLIMS INVENTED THE VIRUS AND HAVE DELIBERATELY SPREAD IT AS A FORM OF JIHAD IS OUTRAGEOUS AND POISONOUS FOR INDIA. THOSE PEDDLING THIS MALICIOUS PROPAGANDA NEED TO RETRACT THESE ALLEGATIONS.
.
I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THIS IS JUST A CASE STUDY IN ISLAMOPHOBIA AND IS NOT ABOUT DEFENDING THE ORGANISATION WITH WHOM WE HAVE NO CONTACT. IF THERE IS ANY VIOLATION IT NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED BUT IT SHOULD BE ACROSS FAITH COMMUNITIES AND NOT TARGET ONE FAITH COMMUNITY. IT IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE DEMONISATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS AND ISLAM WHICH NEEDS TO BE REVERSED.
GIVEN THE CURRENT HIGHLY CHARGED ATMOSPHERE IN INDIA OVER DISCRIMINATORY CITIZENSHIP LAWS AND REGISTRATION AND RECENT POGROM. THERE IS A DANGER OF FURTHER POLARISATION AND FUELLING OF ISLAMOPHOBIA. IT IS WITH STRONG RESERVATIONS WE ARE POSTING A LINK TO AN INDIAN TV SHOW ANCHORED BY A MODI STOOGE AND HINDUTVA EXTREMIST. THE METHOD OF HIS DEBATE IS A SICK JOKE AND MORE LIKE A HINDUTVA EXTREMIST INQUISITION. IF HE CROSSES MY PATH THE FIRST THING I WOULD EDUCATE HIM IN WOULD BE NOT TO ABUSE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BY CALLING HIS SHOW A DEBATE AS IT IS AN INQUISITION. ALSO HE SHOULD NOT CALL HIMSELF A HOST AS HE REVEALS AND REVELS IN HIS ROLE AS AN INTOLERANT HINDU FANATIC FUELLING HATRED OF INDIAN MUSLIMS AND FUELLING ISLAMOPHOBIA.
FINALLY I WOULD WARN HIM THAT THE TONGUE IS A MEDIUM FOR SPEECH AND NOT HATE SPEECH AND HE WOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR PROMOTING HATRED OF MUSLIMS AND ISLAM. IF HE REPENTS FOR HIS HATRED MONGERING AND ASKS FOR PARDON ALL WELL AND GOOD AND IF NOT HE SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO A CITIZENS ARREST FOR HATE SPEECH AND UNDERMINING NATIONAL UNITY AND COHESION.
BRASH AND BIGOTED : HOW ARNAB GOSWAMI CHANGED INDIA's TV DEBATE
The Listening Post
MARKAZ LOCKDOWN VIOLATION : HOW CAN ONE GROUP PUT ALL AT RISK?
The Debate With Arnab Goswami
NIZAMUDDIN CORONAVIRUS SCARE:
DID TABLIGHI JAMAAT HAVE A GOVERNMENT PERMIT?
Newstrack With Rahul Kanwal
INDIA HAS PUT THE WEIGHT ON TABLEEGHI JAMAT FOR EVERYTHING
INDIA's FAR RIGHT LINKS COVID 19 OUTBREAK TO A MUSLIM CONGREGATION
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/india-...tion-35024
An Islamic missionary group in India's capital New Delhi is facing a torrent of right-wing abuse after accusations that its recent congregation became the main carrier of the coronavirus. Many far-right groups were trending #CoronaJihad on Tuesday and pro-government news channels demanded action against Nizamuddin Markaz, a key institution for Muslim missionaries in South Asia, where a religious congregation was held in mid March.
"After #Nizamuddin, those Tiktok videos and Islamists' speeches worldwide, Indian agencies should seriously probe if #CoronaJihad is a ground reality," Indian journalist Abhijit Majumder tweeted. Majumder has earned the reputation of being one of those journalists who propagates the views of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through his journalistic work and Twitter posts. While slamming the Nizamuddin Muslim gathering, he hinted at a 'larger conspiracy' against India.
Bollywood actor and right-wing commentator Anupam Kher chipped in like he always does when it comes to bashing Indian Muslims, and sought action against Nizamuddin Markaz, telling a pro-state news channel that "what has happened today in Nizamuddin is criminal" and demanding stern action against the organisation.
Uzair Hasan Rizvi
@RizviUzair
Seizing an opportunity after a lapse from an Islamic center during the #CoronavirusLockdown
in India.
The media comes to hound with the Islam bashing stance, one of the taglines of the show read:
'Save the country from Corona Jihad'
Missionary group headquarter sealed
India sealed off the headquarters of a Muslim missionary group and ordered an investigation into accusations. India has registered 1,251 cases of the coronavirus, 32 of whom have died. The numbers are small compared with the United States, Italy and China but health officials say India, the world's second most populous country, faces a huge surge that could overwhelm its weak public health system.
One of the coronavirus hot spots that the government of the capital, New Delhi, has flagged is a Muslim quarter where the 100-year-old missionary group, called Tablighi Jamaat in Urdu, after dozens of people tested positive for the virus and at least seven died. Authorities said people kept visiting the Tablighi centre, in a five-storey building in a neighbourhood of narrow, winding lanes, from other parts of the country and abroad to attend religious sermons, despite government orders on social distancing.
Hundreds of people were crammed into the group's building until the weekend when authorities began taking them out for testing. More buses arrived on Tuesday to take them away to quarantine centres in another part of the city.
"It looks like social distancing and quarantine protocols were not practised here," the city administration said in a statement. Authorities are trying to trace the movements of the Tablighi members after the meetings in Delhi and the people who were exposed to them. Media reports said there were also Tablighi members from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia. The director general of Malaysia's health ministry told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur that they were investigating the presence of Malaysians at the Delhi meeting.
"Obviously there is a high risk if they attended the [Delhi] gathering," Noor Hisham Abdullah said.
Tablighi centre denies charges
India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion and a poor health infrastructure, is under a 21-day lockdown that will end in mid-April, to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus, but tens of thousands of out-of-work migrants are fleeing to the countryside, undermining the restrictions. The group's main annual meeting in New Delhi's Nizamuddin area took place on March 8, 9, and 10, while the lockdown was announced on March 24. Musharraf Ali, one of the administrators of the Tablighi centre in Delhi, said the group had been seeking help from police and the city administration to deal with people streaming in. But the lockdown had made things more difficult.
"Under such compelling circumstances there was no option ... but to accommodate the stranded visitors with prescribed medical precautions until such time that the situation becomes conducive for their movement or arrangements are made by the authorities," the Tablighi said in a statement. The Tablighi said the programme in Nizamuddin Markaz was discontinued immediately after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'civil curfew' call for March 22.
"However due to sudden cancellation of rail services across the country, a large group of visitors who had to depart by way of railways got stuck in the Markaz premises," the statement said. It said the guests were not allowed to violate medical guidelines by thronging bus terminals or roaming on streets, and offered the entire premises to be used as a quarantine facility "to help the authorities tide-over the challenge of current pandemic." Modi's curfew and lockdown announcement sparked a wave of migrations of daily wage labourers who are abandoning cities for countryside homes. On Monday, the Indian federal government asked states to disallow such migrations and quarantine migrant workers in shelters and relief camps.
Jamia Coordination Committee @Jamia_JCC
Their only fault is not abandoning their people unlike the govt which abandoned the migrant labourers and left them to die. We will not let the failures of this bigoted govt be washed over with Islamophobic fantasies and communal tantrums. We stand with the Nizamuddin Markaz.
BJP deflecting failures?
The Jamia Coordination Committee, a group comprising students and alumni of the popular university, backed the Tablighi centre saying: "Their only fault is not abandoning their people unlike the government which abandoned the migrant labourers and left them to die."
"We will not let the failures of this bigoted government be washed over with Islamophobic fantasies and communal tantrums. We stand with the Nizamuddin Markaz," it said.
Syed Sadatullah Hussaini, president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a religious and social organisation of Muslims with a strong network of members and scholars across India, slammed the "targeting" of Tablighi Jamaat, saying "bigger and more irresponsible gatherings" were being ignored.
"Playing dirty politics of communal polarisation on such a huge health crisis… reflects shamefully low level of our public discourse," he said.
India ranks 184th out of 191 in terms of percentage of GDP spent on healthcare, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It spends slightly over one percent of its total GDP on health care. There's one state-run hospital for every 55,591 people on average and one hospital bed for every 1,844 people. India needs about 10 times more doctors to meet the norms prescribed by the WHO, a shortfall of at least 500,000 doctors. Many commentators say the Hindu right-wing's tirade against the Muslim seminary was aimed to deflect nationalist government of Bharatya Janata Party's failure to address the disease.
"Trending of #CoronaJihad by BJP/Sanghi IT cell is not just a disgusting communal act but also planned strategically to divert public and media attention from humungous disasters by the BJP & Modi government in handling of #coronavirusindia," writer and filmmaker Amit Mehra tweeted.
"Expect more such diversions on a daily basis."
Marginalising Muslims?
Islamic groups, the opposition and others at home and abroad fear India's BJP government under PM Narendra Modi aims to marginalise India's 200 million minority Muslims and remould the country as a Hindu nation, something BJP denies.
In recent days, these worries have morphed into angry protests sparked by the passage of a new law giving non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh an easier path to citizenship. Muslims fear the law will complicate their citizenship status, disempower them as second class citizens in their own country. In August last year, New Delhi revoked the semi-autonomy of India-administered Kashmir and annexed the disputed region, where Muslims fear demographic changes by Hindu settlers. In November, Indian Supreme Court allowed a Hindu temple to be built in the flashpoint town of Ayodhya where Hindu zealots demolished a 16th-century Babri mosque in 1992.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
ASADUDDIN OWAISI's AIMIM LASHES OUT OVER 'COMMUNALISING' NIZAMUDDIN MEETING AMID COVID SPREAD
https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/covid-19-asaduddin-owaisi-lashes-out-for-communalizing-nizamuddin-i.htmlPolitics
Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musilmeen (AIMIM) on Thursday lashed out alleging "communalising" of the Nizamuddin incident, amid a Covid spike
Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musilmeen (AIMIM) on Thursday lashed out alleging "communalising" of the Nizamuddin incident. According to him, the Tabligh Jammat incident where several people had gathered for the religious event is being exploited to "blame all the Muslims." He further clarified that when the day the event began, the Union Health Ministry had declared it as "not a health emergency." There is no reference, however, to the irrefutable fact that the meeting, which was held after prohibitory orders had been issued, has led to a sharp spike and spread of Covid cases in the country.
A case was registered by the Delhi Police against Maulana Saad and other officials of Tablighi Jamaat for violating the restriction pertaining to a religious gathering. Sections under the Epidemic Disease Act,1897 and Section 269, 270, 271 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code have been invoked. In the FIR, it has been stated that the congregation failed to take safety measures for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Furthermore, In an alleged audiotape of the Markaz accessed by Republic, a preacher is telling people that the Coronavirus is a conspiracy to disrupt their way of life, going on to make statements against science and general guidelines of public health at a time like this.
YESTERDAY JEWS WERE DEMONISED FOR SPREADING DISEASE.
TODAY IT'S MUSLIMS
In countries like India and Israel Muslims are being scapegoated for the spread of Covid-19. When the Black Plague ravaged Europe in the middle of the 14th Century, killing roughly 50 percent of those infected and one-third of the continent's population at the time, rumours spread that Jewish people were poisoning wells to spread the disease. It ultimately led to
the massacre of thousands of Jews in several waves of anti-Semitic pogroms, leaving entire predominately Jewish villages wiped out.
Six hundred years later, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party characterised typhus as the Jewish plague, which became the rationale for the delousing baths, a "camouflage for the gas chambers." "When there are big epidemics, people get scared," Martin J. Blaser, a historian and professor of medicine and microbiology at Rutgers University told The Jewish News. "They often look to blame some kind of intruder or stranger. It has happened especially with the Jews."
In the age of a viral pandemic, specifically Covid-19, Muslims have replaced Jews as the world's most scapegoated religious minority. It's a clear demonstration of how anti-Semitism and Islamophobia remain inextricably tied, and also emphasises how the coronavirus crisis is not only a health issue but also one that poses an existential threat to social cohesion, given it's weaponised to exacerbate long-standing hatreds – but particularly against Muslims.
Pretty much wherever you find persecuted Muslim minorities, you find Covid-19 related conspiracies and fake news stories being weaponised to further their persecution, which has been the case in Israel, India, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In Israel, the Netanyahu government is laying the groundwork to blame Palestinians for the spread of Covid-19 by associating the virus with predominantly Muslim Palestinian Israeli citizens, and he said as much in a recent address, telling a delegation of doctors that "unfortunately instructions are not strictly adhered to in the Arab sector." "I ask for the cooperation of all Arab citizens of Israel. I ask you, for your sake and for the sake of our shared future, please follow the orders, [otherwise] a lot of people will die, and these deaths could be prevented with your help," said the Israeli Prime Minister.
This was Netanyahu's subtle way of pinning an impending catastrophe on Palestinian Israeli citizens by suggesting they, and they alone would be held responsible for the deaths of Jewish Israeli citizens. It is a naked attempt to absolve his government of any wrongdoing or missteps in the event the Covid-19 crisis becomes measurably worse. Elsewhere in the world, Muslims are already being blamed for the spread of coronavirus – and unsurprisingly it's producing violent and deadly outcomes.
In India, a 22-year-old Muslim man from New Delhi was lynched and viciously assaulted on Sunday after a mob of Hindu thugs falsely accused him of plotting to spread coronavirus in his home village. Last Tuesday, a young Muslim man was beaten to death in Jharkhand after a mob accused him and two of his friends, who survived their injuries, of spitting on surfaces to spread Covid-19 to Hindus. These attacks didn't take place in a vacuum but within the context of a well-orchestrated and sophisticated campaign by pro-government Hindu nationalists to blame Muslims for the spread of the virus. This claim of a concerted campaign is supported by an investigation conducted by Voyager Infosec, a New Delhi based digital lab, which identified more than 30,000 videos targeted at Muslims on the social media platform TikTok. When ten Indonesian nationals tested positive for the virus on March 19 – roughly ten days after attending an annual gathering held by the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary movement – Hindu nationalist groups and individuals seized the moment as an opportunity to falsely hold Muslims solely responsible for spreading the deadly virus throughout the country. Hashtags like #CoronaJihad and #BioJihad were shared almost instantly across social media platforms, hundreds of thousands of times.
In the past week, dozens of videos and fake stories that allege Muslims are spreading Covid-19 have gone viral, translating to tens of millions of views, including; Muslim Man Spitting on Fruits to Spread Corona, Muslims Denying Hindus Rations in Karachi, Muslim Worker in Restaurant Spitting in Food to Spread Coronavirus, and Muslims Sneezing in Unison to Spread Corona. These fake stories are doing what they're creators intended to do: incite violence and discrimination against Muslims, which they hope will make life so unbearable for adherents of the Islamic faith that they will have no choice but to self-deport eventually. "Eliminating the greyzone of coexistence" between Muslims and non-Muslims has become the goal of all extremist ideological groups, including ISIS (Daesh) and the European far-right.
In the United Kingdom, British counterterrorism police are investigating far-right groups accused of using the coronavirus crisis to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment, after dozens of incidents of were recorded by Tell Mama, a UK based hate crime-monitoring group. "These extremists are using coronavirus to get their pervasive message across that somehow the Muslim communities are to blame for the spreading of the virus," Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, told Arab News. "It is mainly repeat offenders — individuals who are already known to hold anti-Muslim views — who are repeatedly seeing this as a way to cause community turmoil and tension." Last week, Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defense League who has built his fame on anti-Muslim bigotry, shared a video on Telegram that alleged Muslims in the city of Birmingham were meeting at a "secret mosque" in defiance of stay-at-home orders, inferring that the religious minority is somehow plotting to sabotage British society by spreading the virus. The video was shared more than 10,000 times, according to The Guardian.
The undeniable truth, however, is this – no Muslim anywhere has ever hidden in a mosque, spat or sneezed to spread the coronavirus. What's also true is scapegoating 'undesirable groups' has been a staple of pandemics. Where most see crisis, others, particularly the bigoted, see an opportunity, and one that shouldn't go to waste. Demonising an already otherised cultural, religious or ethnic group remains a powerful weapon for those who profit from fear and uncertainty.
While the targets may change from crisis to crisis, the racist and xenophobic tropes remain constant. Yesterday it was the Jewish people who were demonised for spreading disease. Today it's Muslims.
THE PLIGHT OF MUSLIM MINORITIES AMIDST
WAR AGAINST CORONAVIRUS
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/yesterd...lims-35395