Miqdaad Versi, Shaista Aziz, Aamna Mohdin and Nosheen Iqbal on the rise of the far right and growing Islamophobia in the UK

The far right is on the rise and much of its messaging is explicitly Islamophobic. In 2024 anti-Muslim hate crimes in England and Wales doubled. Meanwhile, the government has stated that it cannot even agree on a definition of what Islamophobia is.

How does all this make British Muslims feel? Miqdaad Versi, Shaista Aziz and the Guardian’s community affairs reporter Aamna Mohdin talk to Nosheen Iqbal about what’s changed.

Former PM called for national register and accreditation for imams, sparking backlash from Muslim leaders

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Leading Islamic community groups have condemned Scott Morrison as “deeply ill-informed” and “dangerous” after the former prime minister demanded a national register and accreditation for imams, and expanding foreign interference frameworks to capture foreign links in religious institutions.

The former Liberal leader, speaking at an antisemitism conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday, claimed the measures were needed in the wake of the Isis-inspired Bondi terror shooting at a Hanukah event, which left 15 people dead. Morrison demanded a focus on “radicalised extremist Islam”, noting the two alleged Bondi shooters “were Australian-made” and demanding local Muslim bodies do more to stamp out hate.

Innocent people are being frozen out of basic banking services – and it all traces back to reforms rushed through after 9/11

Hamish Wilson lives a few miles away from me, in a cosy farmhouse in the damp hills of mid Wales. He makes good coffee, tells great stories and is an excellent host. Every summer, dozens of Somali guests visit Wilson’s farm as part of a wonderfully wholesome project set up to celebrate their nation’s culture, and to honour his father’s second world war service with a Somali comrade-in-arms.

Inadvertently, however, the project has revealed something else: a deep unfairness in today’s global financial system that not only threatens to ruin the Somalis’ holidays, but also excludes marginalised communities from global banking services on a huge scale.

When organisers posted a TikTok promoting 45-minute pilates sessions, the video amassed 2m views. Now plans are afoot for female classes and youth clubs

It’s early afternoon on a gloomy day at the Jamia Usmania mosque in Bradford and a group of mostly elderly men have finished their midday prayers.

The assembly of mainly retired men would usually return to the familiar drumbeat of day-to-day life, but instead they make their way downstairs to tackle squats, glute bridges and the butterfly position in the mosque’s weekly 45-minute pilates class.

Laila Cunningham accused of endangering Muslims after saying it ‘has to be assumed’ people hiding their face for a criminal reason

Reform UK’s mayoral candidate for London has been accused of endangering Muslims after she said women wearing the burqa should be subject to stop and search.

Laila Cunningham, who was announced as Reform’s candidate for the 2028 mayoral elections last week, said no one should cover their face “in an open society”, adding: “It has to be assumed that if you’re hiding your face, you’re hiding it for a criminal reason.”

The protests were hijacked by Reza Pahlavi and notions of Persian supremacy, then brutally repressed by a violent regime

In late December, Iran experienced the beginnings of an uprising driven primarily by economic pressures, initially emerging among merchant bazaaris and subsequently spreading across broader segments of society. As events unfolded rapidly, calls for regime change became the focus of international attention. Consistent with its response to previous protest movements, the Iranian government once again opted for repression rather than engagement, violently suppressing demonstrations instead of allowing popular grievances to be articulated and addressed.

As visual evidence circulated depicting the accumulation of bodies at Kahrizak, it became increasingly evident that the primary instigator of the violence leading to these fatalities was the Islamic Republic itself, which has refused to tolerate civil unrest and has consistently responded to popular mobilisation with force.

Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish writer. Mehdi Jalali Tehrani is an Iranian political commentator

Police allege a 47-year-old imam was assaulted after he and his wife were forced off the road by three people in Melbourne’s south-east

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A Victorian Muslim religious leader was punched in the face after he and his wife were allegedly forced from their car on a Melbourne freeway in what police allege was a racially motivated attack.

Police allege the pair were travelling along the South Gippsland Highway in Melbourne’s south-east at 7.40pm on Saturday when they were “racially abused” by three occupants of a small black hatchback.

Edward Ahmed Mitchell of Council on American-Islamic Relations says Texas and Florida governors abusing power

The deputy director of the US’s biggest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group warns that Republican governors’ steps to declare his organization a “terrorist organization” won’t stop with the Muslim community.

“No governor should have the power to unilaterally declare a civil rights or advocacy group he disagrees with a terrorist organization, take punitive action against them, all in violation of due process and free speech,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Guardian this month. “If any governor can get away with abusing that kind of power, then no organization is safe.”

No Muslim leader wants to diminish the suffering of the Jewish community or be seen as engaging in competitive victimhood. We must stand in solidarity with each other

While many Australians remain in a state of anger, grief and reflection due to the devastating Bondi terror attack, Muslim community leaders are in a predicament. What is to be done about the ensuing rise of anti-Muslim sentiment, hatred and racism that their communities face?

Following the 14 December mass shooting, community registers that document Islamophobia have largely been reluctant to speak publicly about the spike in Islamophobia, out of concern of being perceived to trivialise the killing of Jewish Australians, their suffering, or vying for sympathy from the public.

Democratic socialist mayor led historic push to lead New York, speaking on immigration, Trump and subway burritos

Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is now mayor of New York City, ran a campaign known for its soaring political rhetoric, its viral memes and its candidate’s witty quips.

Here are some of the quotes that came to define his historic push to lead one of the world’s most important cities:

New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.

What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity. And what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for with experience.

No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.

It’s pronounced ‘cyclist’.

I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.

I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.

I hear you. I see you. And if you’re a burrito on the Q train, I eat you.

If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. So, if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up!

I have no interest in defending his social media posts, but calls to strip the newly freed activist of British citizenship pile torment on top of torture

What is the proper punishment for hateful social media posts? Should you lose your account? Your job? Your citizenship? Go to jail? Die? For the people who have launched a campaign against the British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, no punishment is too great.

I have no interest in defending the awful tweets in question, which Abd el-Fattah posted in the early 2010s. Many are indefensible and he has apologised “unequivocally” for them. He has also written movingly about how his perspective has changed in the intervening years. Years that have included more than a decade in jail, most of it in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison where he faced torture; missing his son’s entire childhood – and very nearly dying during a months-long hunger strike.

Naomi Klein is a Guardian US columnist and contributing writer. She is the professor of climate justice and co-director of the Centre for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia

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Despite fresh attempts to make women cover up, many believe the regime wouldn’t risk mass arrests for fear of sparking a wave of popular unrest last seen after the killing of Mahsa Amini

On the streets of Iran’s capital, Tehran, young women are increasingly flouting the compulsory hijab laws, posting videos online that show them walking the streets unveiled. Their defiance comes more than three years after the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman taken into custody by the “morality police” for allegedly breaching the dress code rules. Her death led to the largest wave of popular unrest for years in Iran and a crackdown by security services in response, with hundreds of protesters killed and thousands injured.

Under Iran’s “hijab and chastity” law, which came into force in 2024, women caught “promoting nudity, indecency, unveiling or improper dressing” face severe penalties, including fines of up to £12,500, flogging and prison sentences ranging from five to 15 years for repeat offenders.

Two young female friends meet up in Laleh park to rest and drink tea together after a long working day. They used to be classmates studying English

Cair claims in lawsuit that Florida governor’s order blocking group from state resources was unconstitutional

A leading Muslim civil rights group in the US has sued Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, over his order designating it and another organization as a “foreign terrorist organization”, saying the directive was unconstitutional.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as Cair, has more than 20 chapters across the United States and its work involves legal actions, advocacy and education outreach.

Interfaith groups share messages of love, unity and ‘deep heartbreak and condolences’ in the wake of antisemitic mass shooting

• Full report: Bondi terror attack

• Victims of Bondi beach shooting

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

About 24 hours after terror was unleashed on Sydney’s Bondi beach, Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins stood in the city’s Hyde Park and delivered a message of unity.

“So many in our Jewish community have received messages of love from leaders in different faith communities, from Palestinian friends and friends around this country, and in so doing, we are now learning we are all just flesh and blood, and we are all also the light,” he said.

Opposition claims SIR process being used to disenfranchise minority groups to benefit Narendra Modi’s government

India’s political opposition has warned that democracy is under threat amid a controversial exercise to revise the voter register across the country, which critics say will disenfranchise minority voters and entrench the power of the ruling Narendra Modi government.

An debate erupted in India’s parliament last week over the special intensive revision (SIR) process, which is taking place in nine states and three union territories, in one of the biggest revisions of the country’s electoral roll in decades.

Guan Heng, who filmed at sites in China of alleged rights violations against Muslim group, detained by ICE in August

A Chinese man who left his country after filming at sites of alleged human rights violations against Uyghurs now faces the risk of removal from the United States, according to his lawyer and mother.

Guan Heng, 38, underwent an immigration hearing in New York on Monday after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in August, his mother said in an interview.

Law passes despite fears it will ‘normalise Islamophobia’ and fact it could be struck down by constitutional court

Lawmakers in Austria have voted overwhelmingly to ban headscarves in schools for girls under the age of 14, despite concerns the legislation will deepen societal divisions and marginalise Muslims. The law could also be struck down by the country’s constitutional court.

The ban was proposed earlier this year by Austria’s conservative-led government, which took office in March after a far-right party came first in the elections but failed to form a government.

Bing Liu’s film is an unflinching portrait of an undocumented Uyghur immigrant and a traumatised US veteran whose fragile connection is strained by their pasts

Chinese-American film-maker Bing Liu made an impression with the poignant documentary Minding the Gap about people from his home town in Illinois; now he pivots to features with this sad and sombre study of romance and life choices among those on the margins of US society, adapted from the prize-winning novel of the same name by Atticus Lish.

The scene is the no-questions-asked world of New York’s Chinatown; newcomer Sebiye Behtiyar plays Aishe, a Chinese Uyghur Muslim undocumented immigrant. One day she catches the eye of Skinner, played by Fred Hechinger, a young military veteran who impulsively starts to talk to her. There is a spark between them and then something more.

The civil liberties group argues the Texas governor’s proclamation exceeds his authority and deepens fears

Islamophobia is on the rise in the US, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), a civil liberties group, reporting sharp increases in anti-Muslim violence and rhetoric over the last two years.

In Texas, the issue has come to the fore in high-profile incidents, including the case of a Euless woman who was initially released on a $40,000 bail after attempting to drown two Palestinian American children.

Arrested in 2013 on India’s Himalayan border after fleeing Beijing’s ‘genocide’ against Muslims in Xinjiang, the siblings have been imprisoned indefinitely ever since then

On the evening of 12 June 2013, according to court documents, three “Chinese intruders” were arrested by the Indian army in Sultan Chusku, a remote and uninhabited desert area in the mountainous northern region of Ladakh.

The three Thursun brothers – Adil, 23, Abdul Khaliq, 22 and Salamu, 20 – had found themselves in an area of unmarked and disputed borders after a 13-day journey by bus and foot over the rugged Himalayan terrain through China’s Xinjiang province, which borders Ladakh.