Anti-Muslim

Weaponizing Antisemitism to Advance Authoritarianism with Lara Friedman and Yousef Munayyer

Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism—Episode 3

A collage with the background of a campus encampment, and protests against the dissapearing of Palestinian students.

This episode discusses ongoing efforts to suppress criticism of the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians under the guise of fighting antisemitism—efforts which are fueling authoritarianism and pushing shared safety further from …

Podcast

Review: Reverberations of October 7

Mobilization Against Genocide Undeterred by Peak Anti-Palestinian Repression by Palestine Legal

A person wearing a mask and glasses holds a sign reading "Students say stop the bombs"

Palestine Legal’s report on anti-Palestinian repression in months after October 7, 2023 details the enormous wave of institutional backlash against pro-Palestine protesters.

Book Review

HAF Way to Supremacy: Rebranding Hindu Supremacy as Minority Rights, a Conversation with Safa Ahmed and Pranay Somayajula

Inform Your Resistance Season 3: Episode 5

People holding banners that say "End Caste Discrimintaion" and "End Caste, Racial, And Gender Opression" and a picture of Dr. Ambedkar.

This interview with Savera Coalition partners dives into an expose on the influential HAF, as a Hindu supremacist institution masquerading as a civil rights organization.

Podcast

U.S. Imperialism Comes Home to Roost: A Conversation with Ramah Kudaimi

Inform Your Resistance Season 3: Episode 4

A person holding an image of women crying and a sign that says "stop occupations and torture for empire! The world can't wait!"

We talk with Ramah Kudaimi about imperialism & state violence. From the global war on terror, to genocide in Palestine, we discuss how imperial power, capitalist interests, and far-right organizing work together to entrench systems of …

Podcast

HAF Way to Supremacy

How the Hindu American Foundation Rebrands Bigotry As Minority Rights

Group of people cheering with their arms in the air

The Hindu American Foundation has been influential for 20 years, masquerading as an advocacy group for minority rights, but is better understood as a key actor in a global Hindu supremacist movement and an emerging player in the U.S. Far Right.

Report

A student encampment in solidarity with Gaza at Brown university in April 2024 (Credit: Colonel Glenn/Flickr.com)

Unsurprisingly, authoritarian forces in the U.S. are desperate to quell the grassroots upsurge in Palestine solidarity protests by responding with neo-McCarthyist repression tactics, recalling a period of extreme anti-Left repression driven by the U…

Article

A Global Trail of Violence

India’s Hindu Supremacist Movement and Its Role in the Transnational Far Right

PRA’s newest partner, Savera: United Against Supremacy, reports on the violent, far-right Hindu supremacist movement behind Modi’s government.

Article

An orange gradient background with the words "101 Countering Violent Extremism"

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs purport to prevent radicalization and violence by identifying and surveilling communities that are deemed at-risk. These programs, however, only reinforce discriminatory practices against vulnerable…

101

Innocent Until Proven Muslim

Author Q&A with Dr. Maha Hilal

A row of people in orange jumpsuits holding a sign that says "close Guantanamo"

Dr. Maha Hilal talks to PRA about the pervasive and ongoing effects of the War on Terror domestically, the dehumanization of Muslims across the globe, and her work at Guantanamo Bay.

Q&A

Building Broad Coalitions

A Roundtable on Confronting Christian Zionism

Hills and dunes surrounding houses with tin roofs.

Aidan Orly: We gather this evening in the midst of ongoing and increased assaults on Palestinians around the globe. This is a very raw moment on the heels of the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist with Al Jazeera, and the…

Webinar

Not So Reformed

How “Countering Violent Extremism” Groups Elevate “Former” White Nationalists

A white woman and four men sitting in chairs in straight line. Behind them a board says "Ctrl Alt Delete Hate".

In April 2020, Matthew Heimbach, founder and long-time leader of the neonazi Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP), announced he had left White nationalism behind in an article he wrote for the “countering violent extremism” organization Light Upon…

Article

Executive Summary In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service confers tax-exempt status to charitable organizations, allowing them to receive tax-deductible donations. Most donors would assume that an organization that targets…

Report

Dispelling Illusions and Overlooking Continuities

A Review of Spencer Ackerman’s Reign of Terror

A sign that reads: The War Against Terror is bound up in the War Against Poverty

Reading Spencer Ackerman’s new book Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump (Penguin Random House, 2021) is a…

Book Review

Big Tech: Anti-Muslim Racism, Surveillance, and Violence in the 20 Years since 9/11

Watch Now: A PRA Roundtable Discussion

Anti-Muslim racism and policing has been a facet of U.S. White supremacy since the dawn of the Atlantic slave trade. In the two decades following 9/11, anti-Muslim racism and state violence enacted on Muslims has been a core component of the U.S.…

Webinar

What If 9/11 Had Never Taken Place?

No Department of Homeland Security. No Paramilitarized Border Enforcement. No War on Terror. No Trump.

A white rose placed on the 9/11 memorial

On this 20^th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the attacks and their political aftermath have receded into the distance: an important historical event at the start of the 2000s, long before Obama, the Tea Party, Trump, and the pandemic.…

Article

Protesters hold various signs and banners at a DACA rally in San Francisco.

The influence of organized anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim movements is readily apparent in policy changes over the last two years.

Map

Advancing Immigrant, Muslim, and Refugee Justice In A Period Of Ascendant White Nationalism

Executive Summary

This report seeks to document the effects of the rise of a White nationalist movement whose policy prescriptions and rhetoric on immigrant, refugee, and Muslim populations echo the White House’s, and to generate new thinking and strategizing to…

Report

Protest of the Muslim Ban, Washington, D.C., January 2017.

Since the Trump administration came into office, anti-Muslim sentiment has become a glue that binds this administration’s national security leadership with anti-Muslim organizations, White nationalist organizations, and anti-government militia.

Article

Los Angeles march for Immigrant Rights, 2017.

The racism, nationalism, and misogyny driving the Trump administration’s assault on immigrants is evident to all but a willfully ignorant majority on the Supreme Court of the United States. Whether in exclusionary policies like the…

Statement

Protest in support of DACA, September 1, 2017. Photo: Joe Flood / Flickr.

It should come as no surprise that President Trump disparages scores of countries while lamenting the lack of European immigrants coming to the U.S., as he reportedly did during a meeting with lawmakers in January 2018. In addition to his racially…

Article

Profile on the Right: ACT for America

ACT for America describes itself as “the NRA of national security” and a non-partisan, national security organization dedicated to fighting terrorism. However, in practice it is the largest anti-Muslim organization in the United States, claiming to…

Profile on the Right

Memorial for Heather Heyer in downtown Charlottesville. Photo: Courtesy of Bob Mical via Flickr.

In the United States, 2017 was a banner year for fascist and related far right activism. There were arguably the highest levels of public demonstrations by the Right since the last wave of Klan and neonazi activity in the 1980s and ‘90s. A main…

Article

Donald Trump and Manufacturing the Muslim Menace

Trump’s first week in office was punctuated by an executive order to ban travelers from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and refugee admissions for 120 days. Under the order, Syrian refugees are…

Article

#First100Days Crash Course: Week 2

Islamophobia & Antisemitism

Prejudices against Jews and Muslims are enduring parts of right-wing ideologies, whether these are expressed in religious or racial terms.

Article

Pro-LGBTQ Smokescreens for Anti-Muslim Attacks

In a press release issued after last year’s Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, where a Muslim-American gunman killed 49 people at a gay dance club, Donald Trump said, “Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as…

Article

Crime Control & Political Repression

From the War On Drugs To The War On Terror

American political time is often rhetorically divided into before and after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In this model, “before” signals liberty and respect for individual rights while “after” brought increasing restrictions and surveillance…

Article

Constructing Campus Conflict

Antisemitism and Islamophobia on U.S. College Campuses, 2007-2011

Antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses are manifested in a complex set of interactions among a number of different players. This report seeks to explore issues and incidents in a way that will ameliorate aggression, intimidation, and…

Report

Rand Paul's Islamophobic Speeches a Ploy to Win Over Conservatives

At the recent Values Voters Summit, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke on the “War on Christianity”, but his speech was not about prayer in schools or the so-called ‘war on Christmas,’ his focus was radical Islam. Our live blog of the summit outlines…

Article

Suspicious Activity Reporting Invites Racial Profiling, Erodes Civil Liberties, and Undermines Security

The intelligence lapses that failed to prevent the September 11 terrorist attacks prompted an overhaul of U.S. domestic and foreign intelligence systems, including the creation of an expansive new domestic security infrastructure. A key part of this…

Article

What the Denial of Miranda in the Boston Bombings Means for Us All

Muslim communities across the United States have watched with trepidation to see what the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombings will be. Likewise, civil libertarians have anticipated that the Justice Department and the FBI would seek ways to…

Article

Resisting the Marathon of Fear

In the wake of yesterday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, we want to let our community know that we at PRA are all safe. We have been deeply touched by those of you who have reached out to express your concern.

Article

Right-Wing Group Places Islamophobic Ad in College Newspapers

Across college campuses last week, students were faced with a full-page ad promoting “Islamic Apartheid Week”. Funded and placed by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, it appeared during the annual “Israeli Apartheid Week” organized by pro-…

Article

"Ex-Terrorist" Kamal Saleem Cons the Conservatives

One of the stock characters in American public life is the political/religious convert who becomes the expert on the evil he once was. Pick your era or locality of evil, and you’ll find ’em. And while there are certainly authentic converts from…

Article

Muslim Community Resistance

Organizing & Advocacy in a Time of Struggle

A woman in a hijab smiling, holding a poster that says No Muslim Ban

Since 9/11, the New York Police Department’s Pre-Ramadan Conference and Breakfast has become one of the largest gatherings of Muslim leadership in New York City. Last July, I sat among a sea of suits and uniforms, colorful headscarves, turbans, and…

Article

Law Enforcement Training and the Institutionalization of Islamophobia

According to Slate, Department of Homeland Security has doled out more than $300 million since 9/11 to at least eight prestigious U.S. universities to support “centers of excellence” including the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and…

Article

Is the Obama Administration Serious about Anti-Muslim Demonization in Law Enforcement?

On August 4, 2011, the White House released a new strategy to counter violent extremism. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) expressed support for the plan, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, which…

Article

John Guandolo: Another Counterterrorism Expert Exposed

PRA’s groundbreaking exposé of how tax dollars fund anti-Muslim trainings for police and counterterrorism personnel won the attention of news outlets and policy makers at its release this spring. We’ve been keeping the pressure on the Department of…

Article

‘Little Guantanamos’

As Guantanamo is in the agonizingly slow process of shutting its doors, another kind of facility seems poised take its place on U.S. soil. Communication Management Units (CMUs), special divisions within American prisons nicknamed ‘Little Guantanamos…

Article

Praying as Suspicious Behavior in the Henderson 7 Case

Since 9/11, practicing Islam has been unfairly viewed as suspicious in some circles, including among many in law enforcement. On December 20, 2009, in Henderson, Nevada, a concerned caller notified police that seven Muslim men were praying in a gas-…

Article

Suspicious Activity Reporting To Be Linked Nationwide

The Department of Justice has quietly released the final report on a two-year pilot program on “Suspicious Activity Reporting.” This program, the latest product of the domestic security overhaul following September 11, 2001 is cause for alarm,…

Article

Suspicious Activity Reporting Program Raises Warning Flags

The Department of Justice has quietly released the final report on a two-year pilot program on “Suspicious Activity Reporting.” This program, the latest development of the domestic security overhaul following September 11, 2001 is cause for alarm,…

Article

Pre-Emptive Prosecutions - Forum Explores Provocation to Get Terrorism Convictions

On March 25, 2010, a forum at NYU School of Law explored the role of agents provocateurs in several high-profile terrorism cases. Powerful testimony from the families and lawyers for defendants in several cases, raised an important question about…

Article

Muslims Feel Targeted by FBI, Question Contact on Campus

According to students at the University of Texas-Dallas, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached them on campus and at work to inquire about their beliefs and affiliations. Without a reasonable suspicion that individuals were…

Article

TIPS Reduce: LAPD to expand iWatch Program

The Los Angeles Police Department encourages the public to spy on neighbors and file suspicious activity reports about innocent (non-criminal) activities that seem out of place through its “iWatch” program. A new report by Political Research…

Article

Recipe for Profiling: Boston Transit Police Study the "Legal Wing of Jihad in America"

Why are Boston Transit Police Studying Islam? While reading the February/March 2010 issue of the industry magazine Counter Terrorist (a publication of Security Solutions International), I came across a troubling advertisement.

Article

Misplaced Priorities in U.S. Counter-terror Strategy

The recent attempted bombing of NWA Flight 253 in Detroit underscores the fact that the main terrorist threat to U.S. persons is from foreign terrorists linked to Al Qaeda. Every official review of U.S. intelligence failures that led to the 9/11…

Article

Intelligence Fusion Centers: A De-Centralized National Intelligence Agency

In a 2007 article for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Colonel Bart Johnson explained how state-level intelligence “fusion centers” collect data from a range of sources and connect “seemingly unrelated” incidents that could be precursors of…

Article

Torrance: A Genesis Fable for Fusion

A string of robberies in southern California in 2005 by two people with an interest in violent jihad has taken on mythic importance in the drive to develop fusion centers; it has become a creation story with ideological force. Counterterrorism…

Article

Public Accountability for Fusion Centers

Amidst widespread concerns about the far-reaching surveillance capacities of intelligence fusion centers, citizens groups are moving forward with demands for public oversight and privacy protections.

Article

From Movements to Mosques, Informants Endanger Democracy

In February, 2009, members of the Islamic Center of Irvine learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had hired Craig Monteilh, a 46-year-old fitness instructor and convicted con man, to infiltrate their mosque and keep it under…

Article

Can Extreme Surveillance Keep Us Safe?

Eridiana Rodriguez vanished during her shift cleaning the office building at 2 Rector Street in Lower Manhattan’s Financial District on Tuesday night, July 7. After four days, one hundred police scoured the building and discovered the body of this…

Article

FBI Secret Surveillance and Secret Policies

If history is any guide, lax oversight and secrecy are a recipe for abusive political intelligence gathering by the FBI. Pervasive official secrecy continues to threaten our national values under the Obama administration, in spite of a declared…

Article

Provocation Masquerading as Anti-Terror Policy?

A word of advice to activists and people praying at mosques. If a guy offers you a free stinger missile, he’s probably an informer. If he offers you free IEDs, he’s probably an informer. If he asks you to pledge an oath to his foreign terrorist…

Article

More Informants, More Fear

On May 17, the Des Moines Register reported that the FBI planted an informant in an Iowa City “anarchist collective” planning to “disrupt the Republican convention.” Those advocating undercover surveillance say the government should spy upon…

Article

Homeland's Lexicon of "Extremism"

In May 2009, Homeland Security released — and quickly retracted — a “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” one in a series of reference aids designed to provide operational and…

Article

Texas Fusion Center Casts Wide Net

The North Central Texas Fusion Center (NCTFC) recently issued a Prevention Awareness Bulletin alerting law enforcement to beware of “significant” threats posed by a Muslim civil rights group, the antiwar organization ANSWER, and International Action…

Article

Remembering Giuseppe Conlon on St. Pat's Day

All I need to know about the war on terror I learned from “In the Name of the Father,” the story of the Guilford Four. After a pub bombing south of London in 1974, British police rounded up three men from Belfast and a young Englishwoman.

Article

Fusion Centers: Just Part of the Problem

Props go to The Muckracker, a blog of the Center for Investigative Reporting for drawing attention to Obama’s $260 million budget request for fusion centers. Its critique of the reality show “Homeland Security USA” is also prescient, well-deserved…

Article

FBI: Preventing Violence or Provoking It?

On March 16, David McKay goes on trial for a second time. The jury must decide whether an FBI informant named Brandon Darby induced McKay to make Molotov cocktails on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Article

$260 Million for Fusion Center Analysts

Obama wants to hire thousands of intelligence analysts for state fusion centers to the tune of $260 million. Liberty Beat thinks there are better ways to fight terrorism than sifting through commercial databases, “suspicious activity” reports,…

Article

Thomas Cincotta to Lead PRA's Domestic Surveillance Investigation

National Lawyers Guild board member Thomas Cincotta will lead Political Research Associates’ (PRA) eighteen-month nationwide investigation of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) collaborations with local, state, national, and private…

Article

When Adversaries Become Allies

The Fight Against the Patriot Act and the Surveillance State

T. Allen (Terry) Hoover, a gun rights advocate and former deputy sheriff, once had a pink submachine gun made as a gift for his wife. He is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. And in Idaho, he was a member of a right/left coalition…

Article

Homeland Security

Low-Intensity Conflict Targets Non-Citizens

Presdient George Bush signing something, with men standing around him.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the so-called war on terror has provided the U.S. government with a rationale for dramatically increasing state repression. This repression, linked with an upsurge of nationalism and nativist scapegoating,…

Article

Rac[e]ing Abroad

Exploring Racism in/and U.S. Foreign Policy

A poster: WAR. Good for Few (a hand holding a glass of wine) Bad for most (a hand with blood behind it with bullets around)

Introduction¹ “Save U.S. Lives! Drop U.S. Bombs!” read the banner a woman held at a prowar rally outside the Huskies…

Article

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