Posts tagged : "Religion"

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: History has been made in America. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar will be the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress. The 2018 midterm elections saw a decisive victory for Tlaib in Michigan’s 13th congressional district, while Omar won in Minnesota’s fifth congressional district to replace the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison. Tlaib, 42, was born in Detroit, Michigan, to working-class Palestinian immigrants. Omar, 37, is a Somali-American who was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016. Omar and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 14 to flee the civil war in Somalia. The landmark achievement for Tlaib and Omar — both Democrats...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: A noted British university professor says Islamophobia is a serious issue on university campuses in the UK "partly due to the ways in which government policy has placed a duty on universities to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism." Peter Hopkins, Professor of Social Geography and University Dean of Social Justice at Newcastle University says Islamophobia should be condemned and eradicated from the British society even while racist incidents against the Muslims continue to take place and are condoned frequently. Prof. Hopkins who studies racism, Islamophobia and Muslim identities tells the Organisation for Defending Victims of Violence that less time should be spent on determining the terminology...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The interrelationship between Islam and the West and the struggles that make integration in American and European societies difficult for the Muslims is a major debate these days. An American philosopher and author says Islamophobia is not a new invention and the difficulties faced by Muslims in describing and spreading their faith and the difficulties imposed on them by governments have together created the misunderstandings that have made the interfaith dialogue an arduous task. Dr. Daniel Tutt (@DanielTutt) is an interfaith activist and philosopher. As a scholar activist, his work addresses Islamophobia and inter-religious dialogue. His writing and work has been published in...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: Arts and culture can bridge the gaps between nations in times of division or when political tensions arise and daily life is difficult. When leaders exchange verbally aggressive words or believe that their national security interests are threatened, it is the authors, artists, entrepreneurs, academicians and even students who bear the burden of eradicating enmity and eliminating hostilities between countries. Keyvan Shovir is a young Iranian visual and street artist who combines Iranian traditional culture with contemporary pop culture in his art to showcase the beauty of Iran to those who are unfamiliar with its people and culture. Shovir is credited with being a pioneer in Iranian...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: On 27 January 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump issued the executive order 13769, blocking the entry of the nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States on security grounds. The executive order, popularly referred to as the Muslim ban was challenged by several courts. Many lawyers, legal experts and Congressmen voiced their protest against it. However, the third version of the ban signed by President Trump on 24th September 2017 still prevents the citizens of the seven countries from traveling to America unless in exceptional circumstances. Its immediate effect was that 700 travellers were detained and up to 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked. Findings by Haas Institute reveal...

Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy: Nowruz has always been a very special occasion for me; a time of year when my heart beats faster than usual, when I'm more inclined to see everything through more romantic eyes. It is a time when I think about the importance of nature and why it should be preserved at the dawn of spring, while food packaging companies, nuclear power plants, oil tankers and coal mines don't agree with me; why families entrap themselves in unnecessary clashes and skirmishes throughout the year to finally use Nowruz as an opportunity for reconciliation. Nowruz, for me is an opportunity to contemplate, to ask unanswered questions and sometimes create some of my best works of journalism and writing. It is also a chance to...

Kourosh Ziabari - The Huffington Post: Casting blame on those responsible for the rise of the Islamic State in various parts of the Middle East and its disconcerting extension into other parts of the world is a futile exercise. The fact that the Islamic State has developed a global sphere of influence and is able to spread instability unimpeded necessitates detailed investigation, but it is important to note that the current state of affairs is the result of the faults, shortcomings, and negligent decision-making of many actors. What matters now is that the Islamic State is making advances on multiple fronts and the international community is barely committed and insufficiently united to be able to tackle its unchecked...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: In June, a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando claimed 49 lives and left 53 wounded. America was left in shock as the deadliest shooting spree in the modern history of the country took place. The perpetrator, Omar Mateen, was himself killed in a shootout with police almost three hours after instigating the rampage at the Pulse nightclub. As soon as details about his identity went public, US media outlets were flooded with accusations that he was an “Islamic terrorist” who carried out the attack on behalf of the self-called Islamic State (Daesh). Mateen, a US citizen, was born and raised in New York. However, the media doggedly highlighted his paternal origins and insisted that he was...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The last thing a tourist would anticipate to unearth in Cartagena de Indias in northern Colombia is a mosque in the middle of an unthinkably impoverished, underprivileged slum on the outskirts of the city close to the beach bordering the Caribbean Sea in La Boquilla. To understand the notion of being an absolute minority, one can compare the population of Colombia of about 49.8 million to the country’s Muslim citizens: minimally no more than 15,000! So, for a city like Cartagena with about 1.2 million residents, you might need a magnifying glass to detect the Muslims. Joaquin Sarmiento/FNPI The only mosque in Cartagena is situated somewhere that even many locals residing here for...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: It’s said that ISIS has recently conceded significant parts of the territories it used to dominate since 2014. Rebels and Daesh militants have been driven out of the northern parts of Syria through the combined effect of separate operations by pro-government forces and the U.S. and Russian airstrikes. Foreign Policy reports that at the end of 2014, ISIS ruled over around one-third of Iraq and one-third of Syria, but now, according to IHS Jane’s 360, they’ve lost 22% of that territory. With the major losses in territory it has suffered and the diminution of its fighters, ISIS still poses a valid threat to peace and security not only in the Middle East but across the world, and it’s imperative to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Truth NGO: The incendiary statement made by the Republican U.S. presidential contender Donald Trump in December 2015, who called for the “complete shutdown” of all Muslims from entering the United States, provoked outrage and dismay across the world and underlined the rise of an Islamophobic trend in the campaign season rhetoric in America. Many American Muslims reacted to Trump’s comments by saying that his prejudiced conviction was unconstitutional and un-American and ran counter to the principle of freedom of religion sustained in the First Amendment. Prior to that, Donald Trump had called for the profiling of American Muslims in special databases and demanded that they should carry identification cards...

Kourosh Ziabari - Huffington Post: Imagine you're traveling from Sacramento, CA to Richmond, VA on a flight you've been anticipating for a couple of weeks so as to reunite with the family members you were missing for quite a while. At the airport, you've gone through all the security inspections and passport check, handed over your laptop and iPad devices for "additional screening", taken off your shoes at the request of the guards talking to you grimly, emptied your pockets - having no option but to allow the security officer unzip your wallet and find how much money you're carrying while he is actually looking for something suspicious, and finally boarded the plane, fastened your seatbelt, adjusted your pillow and just given a call...