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- With tweet about a pardon, Gov. Greg Abbott injects politics into Texas’ criminal justice system The Texas Tribune
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Tag Archives: Muslims
PM Modi at Bohra Muslims event in Mumbai: ‘Not PM or CM, have come here as a family member’ | WATCH – India TV News
- PM Modi at Bohra Muslims event in Mumbai: ‘Not PM or CM, have come here as a family member’ | WATCH India TV News
- ‘Here as a family member, not PM’: Modi’s mega outreach to Dawoodi Bohra community The Tribune India
- PM Modi says unprecedented trust created in country, praises Dawoodi Bohra community Deccan Herald
- India Today National Affairs Editor Rahul Srivastava Decodes PM Modi’s Speech At Bohra Muslims Event India Today
- What is the Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah which Prime Minister Modi inaugurated in Mumbai? The Indian Express
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U.N. body rejects debate on China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in blow to West
GENEVA, Oct 6 (Reuters) – The U.N. rights council on Thursday voted down a Western-led motion to hold a debate about alleged human rights abuses by China against Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang in a victory for Beijing as it seeks to avoid further scrutiny.
The defeat — 19 against, 17 for, 11 abstentions — is only the second time in the council’s 16-year history that a motion has been rejected and is seen by observers as a setback to both accountability efforts, the West’s moral authority on human rights and the credibility of the United Nations itself.
The United States, Canada and Britain were among the countries that brought the motion.
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“This is a disaster. This is really disappointing,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, whose mother died in a camp and whose two brothers are missing.
“We will never give up but we are really disappointed by the reaction of Muslim countries,” he added.
Qatar, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan rejected the motion, with the latter citing the risk of alienating China. Phil Lynch, director of the International Service for Human Rights, called the voting record “shameful” on Twitter.
NEW TARGETS ‘TOMORROW’
China’s envoy had warned before the vote that the motion would create a precedent for examining other countries’ human rights records.
“Today China is targeted. Tomorrow any other developing country will be targeted,” said Chen Xu, adding that a debate would lead to “new confrontations”. read more
The U.N. rights office on Aug. 31 released a long-delayed report that found serious human rights violations in Xinjiang that may constitute crimes against humanity, ramping up pressure on China.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. The United States has accused China of genocide. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.
‘ENORMOUS PRESSURE’
The motion is the first time that the rights record of China, a powerful permanent Security Council member, has been on the council’s agenda. The item has stoked divisions and a diplomat said states were under “enormous pressure” from Beijing to back China.
Countries like Britain, the United States and Germany, vowed to continue to work towards accountability despite Thursday’s outcome. read more
But activists said the defeat of such a limited motion, which stopped short of seeking an investigation, would make it difficult to put it back on the agenda.
Universal Rights Group’s Marc Limon said it was a “serious miscalculation”, citing the timing which coincides with a Western-led motion for action on Russia.
“It’s a serious blow for the credibility of the council and a clear victory for China,” he said. “Many developing countries will see it as an adjustment away from Western predominance in the U.N. human rights system.”
The event raised political dilemmas for many poor countries in the 47-member council who are loath to publicly defy China for fear of jeapordising investment.
Others probably wanted to avoid future scrutiny themselves.
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Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Miranda Murray, Nick Macfie, Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Albuquerque Welcomed Muslims. Then Four of Them Were Killed.
Indeed, the killings have jolted an increasingly diverse city, where immigration, largely from Mexico and other Latin American countries, is a major source of population growth and integral to the city’s history. Immigrants from the Middle East, including Muslims and Christians from Lebanon and Syria, put down stakes in Albuquerque and other parts of New Mexico in the late 19th century.
The city gradually saw a new wave of Muslim immigrants in recent decades, with many coming to study at the University of New Mexico. A group of Muslim students came together in the mid-1980s to form the Islamic Center of New Mexico, which the three most recent victims attended.
Many in the city’s Muslim community come from Pakistan and Afghanistan, while others are from countries including India, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Sri Lanka. During the Trump administration, when concerns grew over bigotry directed against Muslims, officials passed a bill affirming Albuquerque’s status as an “immigrant friendly” city. It restricted federal immigration agents from entering city-operated facilities and city employees from collecting immigration status information.
At least 300 Afghan refugees have arrived in Albuquerque over the past year, bolstering a growing community reflected today by at least eight different places of worship for Muslims. Albuquerque strengthened outreach efforts through translators speaking Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto — languages that officials have prioritized in recent days when sharing information about the killings.
Although Muslims in the United States faced violence and discrimination after Sept. 11 and during Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, the apparent serial nature of the attacks in Albuquerque — and the stubborn mystery of who is responsible — is uniquely disconcerting, said Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel at Muslim Advocates, a civil rights group.
“I can’t think of any incident like this,” she said.
Ms. Waheed said it was concerning that the police in Albuquerque had apparently made a possible connection between the attacks only after three Muslim men were killed.
French election: A vitriolic campaign marked by anti-Islam narratives has left many French Muslims feeling marginalized
This year, the month of Ramadan coincides with the presidential elections in France, the climax of a campaign that has been marked by anti-Muslim vitriol on a scale not seen for decades.
Considering the candidates who entered the race, the answer for many is no.
Eric Zemmour, a former TV pundit convicted three times for hate speech, racial or religious hatred, has said he wants to “save France” from Islam. Center-right candidate Valerie Pecresse declared the headscarf a “sign of a woman’s submission,” claiming with a nationalistic flourish that “Marianne is not a veiled woman.” Zemmour and Pecresse polled fourth and fifth, respectively, in the first round and have been eliminated.
Even Macron found time in his only campaign rally before the first round vote to highlight the threat of Islamists and Muslim “separatists” in France, entwining France’s motto of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” (liberty, equality, brotherhood) with another favored French Republican value: Laicité (secularism).
Only one candidate, the third-placed far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon, has historically taken a position more supportive of the Muslim community. First round polling by Ifop suggested that some two thirds of French Muslim voters backed him. He too was eliminated after the first round of voting.
“What’s really scary with this upcoming election is that most of the (top) candidates simply rely on programs based on stigmatization of minorities, on the erosion of our most basic rights and freedom,” Latreche, a law student, said ahead of the first round.
With the “normalization of Islamophobia, we directly face the consequences,” added Latreche, who is also a vocal activist for the civil liberties of young Muslim women.
The French political landscape this year is vastly different from just a few elections ago. With the country’s traditionally heavyweight center-left and center-right forces struggling, the political extremes have profited.
In the first round of the presidential election on April 10, Le Pen and Zemmour, the two far-right candidates with the most extreme policies affecting the lives of Muslims in France, together collected just over 30% of the total votes; Le Pen alone received enough votes to enter the runoff with 23% of the first round votes. Their surge has been accompanied by a clamor of anti-immigrant and anti-Islam narratives that have dominated much of the debate and coverage.
‘We’re constantly being marginalized’
Strasbourg’s Grand Mosque — the largest in France — sits tucked discreetly away on a riverbank in the eastern border city.
Many of the worshipers there say they don’t feel represented by any of the dozens of candidates who competed for the presidency in the first round.
“We’re constantly being marginalized, excluded from society and then being told that we’re not taking part in society,” said Latreche. Being refused agency and choice over her own life and contribution to society, she felt, inevitably had a negative effect on her mental health and that of her friends, she added.
As he entered for evening prayers, Wagner Dino expressed dismay at the choice of candidates.
“There is no one who presents himself, who really has the necessary parameters to put everything in place, to have a France united with Muslims,” he said.
Mosque volunteer Safia Abdouni said she believes none of the candidates “know what we are going through, our daily life and what we really need.”
“I feel that I’m not represented as a young, female student. As a young, female, Muslim student, even less,” she added.
Yet Saïd Aalla, the president of the Grand Mosque, said that if young Muslims “want to change the situation, that can only happen with the vote.”
Aalla did not express a preference for any of the contenders. As a cleric, he’s prohibited by French law from publicly backing a political candidate.
The secularism debate
In successive election seasons, hijabs and Muslim women’s headscarves have been easy targets for politicians trying to fire up support for traditional French Republican values.
“Laicité” — or secularism — claims to ensure equality for all by removing markers of difference, rendering all citizens French first and protecting freedom of worship in the private sphere. Religious symbols are banned in primary and secondary schools, public office and state places of work, as well as even in some sports federations.
“Laicité per se is not a problem,” according to Rim-Sarah Alouane, a PhD candidate in comparative law at the University Toulouse-Capitole and a specialist on religious freedoms and human rights in Europe.
“Laicité has been transformed (and) has been weaponized as a tool for political identity in order to target the visibility of Muslims in France, of French Muslims, and especially Muslim women, and the wearing of the headscarf. So it’s more of the modern illiberal interpretation of laicité that is problematic, than laicité itself,” she said.
Today’s laicité debate has put hijabs front and center in France’s culture wars pitting what conservatives describe as “secularism” against religious civil liberties
Le Pen and Zemmour both proposed banning what they refer to as “the hijab,” but neither campaign has offered detail on what exactly such a ban would encompass, or how it would be enforced. In her campaign manifesto, Le Pen has proposed banning in public all “Islamic attire,” a definition that critics say is open to arbitrary and imprecise interpretation. The French government has already banned women from wearing the niqab — a full-face veil with an opening for the eyes.
The Macron government reacted furiously to a diversity campaign funded in part by the European Union last year, which depicted pictures of women wearing the headscarves superimposed over the same images without the head covering. The campaign tagline was, “Beauty is in diversity, as freedom is in hijab.”
The French government demanded an investigation into the campaign and its withdrawal in France. In the words of one minister: “We can’t confuse religious freedom and a campaign for the promotion of the hijab, it’s not acceptable.”
Last month, the French Supreme Court ruled that local bar associations can ban headscarves, and other “religious symbols,” from courtrooms in the name of secularism — forcing hijab-wearing women like Latreche to choose between their career and the public practice of their faith.
“It’s actually extremely demotivating and disheartening to see that, you know, we wouldn’t be able to help to contribute to society and to make it more vibrant despite our abilities,” Latreche said, “just because we are choosing to exercise our rights.
“We (should) have control over our own rights and bodies and beliefs,” she said.
Ludwig Knoepffler, a member of Le Pen’s campaign team, denied that Le Pen’s anti-hijab platform is done “in the name of laicité.” Rather, he said the intent was to combat totalitarianism.
“The idea is to fight the hijab as a political tool used and promoted by Islamist militants,” he said. “If you believe that the Islamist political project is indeed totalitarian, then you have to fight its distinctive signs. The same way you would ban the swastika in the public sphere, as is the case already.”
Le Pen addressed the topic during the presidential debate Wednesday night, calling the headscarf “a uniform imposed by the Islamists.”
Macron accused her of creating a “system of equivalence” among Islamism, terrorism and foreigners that would “create civil war.”
‘Liberté, egalité, fraternité’
Aalla, the mosque president, said France’s Muslims have the same aspirations as other citizens.
“The Muslims of France have been here for several generations, but we still continue to regard them as strangers,” he said.
Aalla decried the idea of a “Muslim vote.” There are Muslims who support all French parties, he said — people that hope to be taken into consideration by politicians, particularly regarding religious freedoms.
For legal scholar Alouane, debate about the headscarf is a fearmongering distraction: “I mean, we have inflation, the price of energy has increased massively, there is poverty, our public services are being dismantled, unemployment and so on… and all we talk about, is a piece of cloth that women wear… like, seriously.”
Aalla said that French Muslims expect France and French society to devote themselves to economic, social questions, to those of housing or discrimination, the questions “that all citizens, Muslims included, expect from their new president.”
But for the French citizens and voters gathering to pray and break their fast amid a darkening political atmosphere, the hopes of many in their community can be summed up in one phrase: “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
Journalist Camille Knight contributed reporting.
India’s Hindu extremists are calling for genocide against Muslims. Why is so little being done to stop them?
Her words and calls for violence from other religious leaders were met with a roar of applause from the large audience, a video from the three-day conference in the northern Indian city of Haridwar shows.
After mounting pressure, India’s top court intervened on Wednesday, asking for a response from state and federal authorities within 10 days.
Pandey and several others are being investigated by local police for insulting religious beliefs, a charge that carries a possible sentence of up to four years in prison, Haridwar police officials told CNN.
Neither Pandey, nor the others, have publicly commented about the outcry or investigations.
Late Thursday, police in Uttarakhand state, where Haridwar is located, arrested a man who spoke at the event, senior Haridwar Police official Shekhar Suyal told CNN. It is unclear what the man said at the event. Police have not formally charged anyone with any crime.
CNN has contacted India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Hindu Mahasabha and Pandey, but has not received a response.
Analysts say the Hindu Mahasabha is at the tip of a broader trend in India which has seen an alarming rise in support for extremist Hindu nationalist groups since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power nearly eight years ago.
Although these groups aren’t directly associated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his own Hindu nationalist agenda, and the lack of repercussions for these groups’ previous vitriolic comments, has given them tacit support, making them even more brazen, analysts say.
Analysts fear this rise poses a serious danger to minorities, especially Muslims — and worry it may only get worse as several Indian states head to the polls in the coming months.
“What makes the Hindu Mahasabha dangerous,” said Gilles Verniers, an assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University near India’s capital, New Delhi, “is that they have been waiting for a moment like this in decades.”
Rise of the right-wing Hindu group
Founded in 1907 during British rule at a time of growing conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the country, the Hindu Mahasabha is one of India’s oldest political organizations.
The group didn’t support British rule, but it didn’t back India’s freedom movement either, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was particularly tolerant of Muslims. Even now, some members of the group worship his assassin, Nathuram Godse.
The Hindu Mahasabha’s vision, according to the group’s official website, is to declare India the “National Home of the Hindus.” The website says if it takes power, it will not hesitate to “force” the migration of India’s Muslims to neighboring Pakistan and vows to reform the country’s education system to align it with their version of Hinduism.
With its controversial campaigns and ideology, Hindu Mahasabha has always been a marginal political force. The last time the group had a presence in Parliament was in 1991.
But according to Verniers, their “strength is not to be measured in electoral terms.” And in the past eight years since Modi came to power, they appear to have expanded in numbers and influence based on the size and frequency of their meetings, he said.
While the group does not publicly disclose how many members it has, Verniers said they are “comfortably in the tens of thousands.”
Hindu Mahasabha targets rural communities in northern states, where there is a large BJP presence, encouraging them to vote for parties that align with their Hindu-nationalist ideology, including Modi’s BJP, Verniers said.
Modi, in turn, has publicly honored the Hindu Mahasabha’s late leader, Veer Savarkar, for “his bravery” and “emphasis on social reform.”
And as Hindu Mahasabha has grown in recent years, it has become more outspoken.
In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, then a senior member of the group, caused widespread controversy when she told reporters Muslims and Christians should undergo forced sterilization to control their population growth. CNN has reached out to her for comment.
Pandey, who spoke at the December conference in Haridwar, was arrested in February 2019 after a video showed her shooting an effigy of Gandhi, according to CNN affiliate CNN News-18. Photos uploaded to her official Facebook page last May show her worshiping a statue of Gandhi’s assassin. CNN has not been able to confirm whether she was formally charged over the February 2019 incident.
Hindu Mahasabha isn’t the only right-wing Hindu nationalist group to espouse violent sentiment toward liberals and minorities — including India’s 200 million Muslims, who make up 15% of the country’s 1.3 billion population.
At last month’s conference, several speakers called on India’s Hindus to “defend” the religion with weapons. Another called for the “cleansing” of India’s minorities, according to video from the event.
But according to Verniers, Hindu Mahasbha one of the largest right-wing political groups aiming to make India the land of the Hindus.
And while the group’s campaigns and ideas are decades old, they’re more bold about them now.
“The escalation of their hate speech is reflective of the state of affairs in India,” said Verniers. “But they are able to get away with it more.”
Acting with impunity
The reason extremist groups appear to be on the rise is clear, according to experts: they have impunity and support.
India prohibits hate speech under several sections of its penal code, including a section which criminalizes “deliberate and malicious acts” intended to insult religious beliefs.
According to lawyer Vrinda Grover, any group inciting violence is barred under Indian law.
“Police, states and the government are responsible to ensure (inciting violence) doesn’t happen,” she said. “But the state, through its inaction, is actually permitting these groups to function, while endangering Muslims who are the targets.”
Pandey’s rant and some of the other calls for violence were the “worst form of hate speech,” according to Verniers.
“This is the first time I find myself using the term ‘genocide’ in Indian politics,” he said, referring to the comments made at last month’s conference. “They have tacit support in the form of government silence.”
That’s because Modi also has a Hindu nationalist agenda, experts say.
Modi swept to power in India in 2014, promising economic reform and development for the country.
But starting from his first term as Prime Minister, minority groups and analysts say they began to see a significant shift in India’s ideology from a secular to a Hindu nationalist state.
The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group that counts Modi among its members. Many RSS members are adherents of the Hindutva ideology that the Hindu Mahasabha preach — to make India the land of the Hindus.
In 2018, India’s current Home Minister Amit Shah said Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers from Bangladesh were “termites” and promised to rid the nation of them.
The BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the north Indian state Uttar Pradesh, known for his anti-Muslim views, once compared Muslim Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to Hafiz Saeed, the alleged planner of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, according to the Press Trust of India.
Between 2015 and 2018, vigilante groups killed dozens of people — many of whom were Muslims — for allegedly consuming or killing cows, an animal considered sacred by Hindus, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
Modi publicly condemned some of the killings, but the violence continued, and in 2017, his government attempted to ban the sale and slaughter of cows –currently illegal in several Indian states — nationwide.
Human Rights Watch said many of the alleged murders went unpunished in part due to delayed police investigations and “rhetoric” from ruling party politicians, which may have incited mob violence.
In 2019, India’s Parliament passed a bill that would give immigrants from three neighboring countries a pathway to citizenship — except for Muslims. It led to extended protests and international condemnation.
In December 2020, Uttar Pradesh enacted a controversial anti-conversion law, making it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity.
Other states, including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam, introduced similar laws, leading to widespread harassment and, in some cases, arrests for interfaith couples, Christian priests and pastors.
All of this has only served to encourage extremist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha, say experts.
Zakia Soman, a women’s rights activist and co-founder of the Muslim group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, said “a failure of governance” had given rise to more right-wing extremists.
“Our community is realizing that we have become second-class citizens in our own country,” Soman said. “Minority bashing and hate is becoming regular and normalized. As the intensity increases, the venom and violence in their language also increases.”
A 21-year-old Muslim student in Delhi, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of backlash from right-wing groups, said Muslims are filled with “a sense of fear” every time right-wing Hindu groups make hateful comments.
“It gives us a sense that we don’t belong here,” he said.
The future of the Hindu-right
Despite police investigations and public outrage, legal action against those who spoke and were present at December’s event have been slow.
In a letter submitted to Modi on Friday and seen by CNN, students and faculty of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and Ahmedabad said his silence “emboldens” hate, adding there is “sense of fear” among minority groups in India.
Some experts agree the government’s silence has only emboldened these groups further.
“Hate speech precedes hate crimes,” Grover, the lawyer, said. “And we are witnessing a crescendo of hate crimes. These groups are rapidly spreading poison through society.”
A 2019 US intelligence report warned that parliamentary elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Modi’s BJP “stresses Hindu nationalist themes.” It added that state leaders “might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters.”
The BJP — which rarely gives statements on the issue — says it does not discriminate against minorities, adding in a statement last March that it “treats all its citizens with equality” and “laws are applied without discrimination.”
But analysts fear the BJP’s divisive politics will could lead to increased violence against minority groups in the lead up to pivotal state elections this year.
And reported episodes of violence against Muslims have already increased ahead of this year’s state elections.
In December, crowds of India’s Hindu-right confronted Muslims praying on the streets in the city of Gurugram, just outside of Delhi. They prevented Muslims from praying, while shouting slogans and carrying banners in protest.
“It is an electoral strategy,” said Verniers, the political scientist. “Create religious tension, activate religious polarization and consolidate on the Hindu vote.”
Grover, the lawyer, said criminal laws are “weaponized” in India, adding anyone who challenges those in power “face the wrath of the law.”
“Muslim lives in India are demonized,” she said. “The Indian state is in serious crisis.”
On January 1, Pandey held a live broadcast for her more than 1,500 Facebook followers. The subject was “Religious Parliament,” her post said.
For the 21-year-old student, it is difficult to “expect any sense of justice” for Indian Muslims. He says even having a Muslim name is enough to make him feel unsafe.
“It is really scary to carry the Muslim identity in India today.”
As Hindu Extremists Call for Killing of Muslims, India’s Leaders Keep Silent
Hundreds of right-wing Hindu activists and monks rose in unison at a conference this week to take an oath: They would turn India, constitutionally a secular republic, into a Hindu nation, even if doing so required dying and killing.
“If 100 of us are ready to kill two million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a leader of Hindu Mahasabha, a group that espouses militant Hindu nationalism, referring to the country’s Muslims. “Be ready to kill and go to jail.”
Even by the standards of the rising anti-Muslim fury in India, the three-day conference in the city of Haridwar, 150 miles north of New Delhi, produced the most blatant and alarming call for violence in recent years.
The crowded auditorium, where right-wing Hindu monks called for other Hindus to arm themselves and kill Muslims, included influential religious leaders with close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing party, and even some members of the party.
Videos of the event have spread widely on social media in India this week. Yet Mr. Modi has maintained a characteristic silence that analysts say can be interpreted by his most extreme supporters as a tacit signal of protection.
The police, who readily jail rights activists and comedians on charges lacking evidence, have been slow to take action. Even opposition political groups have been restrained in their response, an indication of the degree to which right-wing Hindu nationalism has gripped the country since Mr. Modi came to office in 2014.
The inflammatory remarks come as some states governed by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are holding elections, including in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where the conference was held. Mr. Modi was busy campaigning this week in Uttar Pradesh for Yogi Adityanath, his hard-line protégé and the state’s chief minister, who has frequently fanned anti-Muslim hatred.
Multiple episodes of violence against Muslims have been reported during election season, including attacks by mobs trying to close businesses owned by Muslims.
“There are virtually only a handful of political leaders left who even mention the need to preserve India’s secularism,” said Gilles Verniers, a professor of political science at Ashoka University near New Delhi. “The B.J.P. may face increasing political challenges, but it has won its cultural war, with lasting effects on India’s democracy, and on India’s largest minority.”
Right-wing Hindu nationalists have preached violence online for years, but the violence has recently spilled onto the streets. Muslim fruit sellers have been beaten and their earnings snatched away after being accused of luring Hindu women into marriage to convert them. Muslim activists have been threatened with prosecution under an antiterrorism law that has been scrutinized by courts.
In recent months, Hindu nationalists in Gurugram, a major technology center about 15 miles south of New Delhi, have confronted Muslims during Friday Prayer. Bands of right-wing Hindus have interrupted prayers with chants of “Jai Shri Ram!” Meaning “Hail Lord Ram,” a major Hindu god, the chant has become a battle cry for Hindu nationalists.
“We are fast losing everything in this country, including the right to worship,” said Niyaz Farooqi, a Muslim who works in an automobile showroom in Gurugram. “A right given to us by the Constitution of this country.”
On Friday, four days after the conference ended, and after the videos circulated widely, the police in Uttarakhand announced that they had opened an investigation but that no arrests had been made. Officials said they have registered a case against organizers of the conference for promoting “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion,” which can mean a jail term of five years.
“We will do the investigation as per law and such types of incidents will not be tolerated,” said Ashok Kumar, a top police officer in the state of Uttarakhand.
During the conference, Swami Prabodhanand Giri, head of a right-wing Hindu organization in Uttarakhand, said the country now belongs to Hindus.
“This is why, like in Myanmar, the police here, the politicians here, the army and every Hindu must pick up weapons, and we will have to conduct this cleanliness drive,” he said while referring to Muslims. “There is no solution apart from this.”
Mr. Prabodhanand’s aides declined to comment for this article.
Videos from the conference also showed Suresh Chavhanke, who heads a news channel, administering an oath to turn India into a Hindu-first country.
“We make a resolution until our last breath: We will make India a Hindu nation, and keep it a Hindu-only nation,” he said. “We will fight and die if required, we will kill as well.” He then tweeted a video of the oath to his half a million followers.
Political observers say the government is allowing hate speech of this kind by remaining silent in the face of calls for violence, a silence underscored by the meekness of the political opposition.
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a biographer of Mr. Modi who has written extensively on the rise of the Hindu right, said the B.J.P.’s earlier leaders thought they could use Hindu nationalism to mobilize constituencies but then contain the ideology. That calculation backfired in 1992, when Hindu activists demolished a major mosque.
Many earlier B.J.P. leaders expressed regrets about the episode, but Mr. Modi has no such qualms, Mr. Mukhopadhyay said at a recent book event.
“They thought they were going to ride the tiger, easily tame it and get down. But you can’t easily tame a tiger. If you ride the tiger, you have to decide that at some point the tiger is going to eat,” he said. “Modi decided to allow the tiger to eat sometimes and lead the tiger when he wants to.”
Mujib Mashal contributed reporting.
France passes anti-radicalism bill that worries Muslims
PARIS (AP) — Lawmakers in the French parliament’s lower house on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs to safeguard France from radical Islamists and to promote respect for French values – one of President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark projects.
After two weeks of intense debate, the vote in the National Assembly house was the first critical hurdle for the legislation that has been long in the making. The bill passed 347-151, with 65 abstentions.
With France bloodied by terror attacks, having hundreds of citizens who went to Syria in years past and thousands of French troops now fighting extremists in Mali, few disagree that radicalization is a danger. But critics also see the proposed law as a political ploy to lure the right wing to Macron’s centrist party ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The wide-ranging bill, titled “Supporting respect for the principles of the Republic,” covers most aspects of French life. It has been hotly contested by some Muslims, lawmakers and others who fear the state is intruding on essential freedoms and pointing a finger at Islam, the nation’s No. 2 religion.
But the legislation breezed through a chamber in which Macron’s party has a majority. It is not set to go to the conservative-controlled Senate until March 30, but final passage is seen as all but assured.
The bill gained added urgency after a teacher was beheaded outside Paris in October and three people were killed during a knife attack at a Nice basilica the same month.
A section that makes it a crime to knowingly endanger the life of a person by providing details of their private life and location is known as the ’’Paty law.” It was named for Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed outside his school after information about where he taught was posted online in a video.
The bill bolsters other French efforts to fight extremism, mainly security-based.
Detractors say the measures are already covered in current laws. Some voice suspicions about a hidden political agenda.
Days before Tuesday’s vote, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin – the bill’s main sponsor – accused far-right leader Marine Le Pen during a nationally televised debate of being “soft” on radical Islam, saying she needs to take vitamins.
The remark was intended to portray the government as tougher than the far-right in tackling Islamic extremists. But Le Pen criticized the bill as too weak and offered what she called her own, tougher counter-proposal. Le Pen, who has declared her presidential candidacy for the 2022 election, lost in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
Jordan Bardella, vice president of Le Pen’s National Rally party. said on BFM TV that the legislation approved Tuesday “misses its target” because it doesn’t attack radical Islamist ideology head-on, .
The bill mentions neither Muslims nor Islam by name. Supporters say it is aimed at snuffing out what the government describes as an encroaching fundamentalism that is subverting French values, notably the nation’s foundational value of secularism and gender equality.
The measure has been dubbed the “separatism” bill, a term used by Macron to refer to radicals who would create a “counter society” in France.
Top representatives of all religions were consulted as the text was drafted. The government’s leading Muslim conduit, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, gave its backing.
Ghaleb Bencheikh, head of the Foundation for Islam of France, a secular body seeking a progressive Islam, said in a recent interview that the planned law was “unjust but necessary” to fight radicalization.
Among other provisions, the bill would ban virginity certificates and crack down on polygamy and forced marriage, practices not formally attached to a religion. Critics say those and other provisions are already covered in existing laws.
It would also ensure that children attend regular school starting at age 3, a way to target home schools where ideology is taught, and provide for training all public employees in secularism. Anyone who threatens a public employee risks a prison sentence. In another reference to Paty, the slain teacher, the bill obligates the bosses of a public employee who has been threatened to take action, if the employee agrees.
The bill introduces mechanisms to guarantee that mosques and associations that run them are not under the sway of foreign interests or homegrown Salafists with a rigorous interpretation of Islam.
Associations must sign a contract of respect for French values and pay back state funds, if they cross a line. Police officers and prison employees must take an oath swearing to respect the nation’s values and the constitution,
To accommodate changes, the bill adjusts France’s 1905 law guaranteeing separation of church and state.
Some Muslims said they sensed a climate of suspicion.
“There’s confusion… A Muslim is a Muslim and that’s all,” taxi driver Bahri Ayari said after worshipping at midday prayers at the Grand Mosque of Paris.
“We talk about radicals, about I don’t know what,” he said. “There is a book. There is a prophet. The prophet has taught us.”
As for convicted radicals, he said, their crimes “get put on the back of Islam. That’s not what a Muslim is.”
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Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed to this report.