Blade

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

I don't think people understand the gravity of the situation linked to the strikes on oil depots in Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Arab states, and beyond.

This is a picture of Moscow now, as Kyiv yesterday, as Tehran before, as many Arab states the day before. Covered in thick black toxic clouds of smoke, raining oil on millions of people with cancerous polluted air entering every lung. People breathing this. Animals breathing this. Trees breathing this. A humanitarian and environmental catastrophe.

Bombing oil depots and oil infrastructures has serious environmental and humanitarian consequences. Hazardous "black rain" and "acidic rain" could pose serious health risks as toxic pollutants spread in the air, and contaminated the water—raise concerns of "wider regional pollution exposure", with the long-term effects of pollutants, affect respiratory health and contaminate water, that will affect people for years.

Every bomb dropped on an oil depots is a time bomb for the people and the planet.

This has moved beyond geopolitics. It's a crime against humanity.

We have reached a point where merely criticizing one side of a conflict for violating international law exposes us to targeting by the other—and vice versa! It is as if the killing of human beings, the destruction of nations, and destroying of the planet have become normalized and commonplace, or as if the guiding principle of humanity has become "an eye for an eye."

Such a mindset and the hate speech directed against any nation have no place in our modern world. If you believe this���s an act of advocacy, you are mistaken; one must condemn violations of international law and human rights, even if committed by one’s own country or party. This is the true meaning of the rule of law applying to everyone, and it is how we achieve peace and prosperity for everyone, everywhere.

[Aslah Kayyalakkath @aslahtweets]

“Some of the most difficult nights of my life as a journalist were spent watching videos of Muslims being lynched, humiliated, and attacked, again and again, just to understand what really happened.”

As the world marks today as International Day to Combat Islamophobia, I cannot think of it as just another date on the calendar.

As the editor of @MaktoobMedia , Islamophobia is not an abstract word or a term to me. It is something I encounter almost every single day through our work. The most painful part is watching the videos that arrive in our newsroom, videos of lynching, humiliation, mobs screaming hatred.

I remember many nights lying in bed at midnight, or sitting in the middle of a family gathering or a moment of joy, when work forced me to open those videos and watch them again and again, frame by frame, just to understand what really happened. It is exhausting. Truly exhausting.

Last month, I had a conversation with our video editor, Darwesh. He once told our deputy editor how difficult it had become for him to edit the most brutal videos of violence against Muslims. What made it even heavier was that, in his spare time, he volunteered with the Kerala Islamophobia Watch team, where he spent hours listening to Islamophobic speeches in Malayalam and documenting them. And then he would return to Maktoob to edit more videos of hate and violence. Imagine what that does to a person’s mind.

And Darwesh is not alone. Every reporter, writer, designer, and freelance contributor at Maktoob carries a similar story. For nearly ten years, our newsroom has documented Islamophobia as part of its editorial commitment, without a day’s break.

For us, Islamophobia is not something that appears once a year on March 15. It is a daily menace we try to confront, record, and challenge.

If documenting it is this painful for those of us sitting in the newsroom, I often think about the people who actually live through it on the ground, those who survive the violence, the humiliation, the constant suspicion.

Many people tell us: “stop using this word Islamophobia”. “Stop this victimhood narrative”. “Enough of this.”

But no, my friends. Islamophobia is not a jargon. It is a lived reality. Speaking about it is not playing victim. It is part of the struggle for a community’s dignity, safety, and right to exist without fear.

And the truth is, even today, we are still not talking about it enough.

[Blade @Blllade]

@DearthOfSid 👌

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Attacking water infrastructure essential for a civilian population is a war crime.

[Press Trust of India @PTI_News]

VIDEO |  Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research,  Rajiv Bahl welcomes the nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme targeting girls aged 14 years.

He says, "If we can prevent HPV infection, then it will lead to a situation where it cannot get converted into pre-cancer and into cancer...The countries that have been giving this vaccine for HPV, including the United States of America, have found it to be an extremely safe vaccine and they have found that they have got about a 90 per cent reduction in pre-cancerous lesions."

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/bIyFWTfmBd)

[TIMES OF GAZA @Timesofgaza]

To the world who turned a cold shoulder, Gazan people burned alive in their tents tonight.

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

The Israeli state just bombed a crowded cafe - in the West Bank

Body parts of the slaughtered Palestinians were collected in a box

Israel has been told clearly by Western politicians and media outlets that no threshold exists when it comes to its atrocities

This is the result.

[Bassem Youssef @Byoussef]

Kill. Steal. Expand. Settle. Push people to the brink. They resist, they fight back. I need to defend myself. Kill more . Steal more. Expand more settle hard. Rinse and Repeat. Israel in a nutshell.

[Daniel Haqiqatjou @Haqiqatjou]

Over the past year, the world has seen the Israeli army slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinian children.

Jewish rabbis have openly justified this behavior, asserting that their religion encourages the intentional killing of babies in war.

Obviously, such willingness to kill babies reflects complete contempt for the lives of non-Jews - even those who are most innocent and harmless.  

Significantly, throughout history, the Jewish religion has been associated with practices of killing children.

For example, in medieval Europe, Christians repeatedly brought cases against Jews for kidnapping, torturing, and killing their children.

Today, Jewish activist organizations like the ADL refer to such accusations of child killing as "blood libel", and argue that they are entirely false.

However, this has been challenged by distinguished Jewish historian Ariel Toaff of Israel's Bar-Ilan University.

Toaff puts forth his views in the notorious 2007 book Passovers of Blood: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders.  

Toaff argues that at least some Jews did engage in the types of behavior associated with blood libel accusations.

Consider the following passage from Toaff's book where multiple child murders are described.

"Alfonso de Espina was confessor to King Henry IV of Castille and in 1460 was completing a treatise against the Jews, Moslems and heretics, entitled Fortalitium fidei. To reach his objective, he presented his readers with reports of the crimes committed by the Jews to the detriment of Christians of which he had more or less directly become aware. Naturally, ritual child murders were the main course of his narration.

"The Castillan Franciscan recorded that in 1456 a Jewish notable named Maestro Salomone, originating from the territories of the Republic of Genoa and belonging to the illustrious family of physicians, had come to see him in the Minorite Convent at Valladolid, expressing the desire to be baptized. To convince Alfonso of the repugnance which Judaism now aroused in him, the Jew pointed precisely to the horrible custom of the ritual murders, of which he had heard speak or in which he had directly participated. According to him, he had learned from his parents that a famous Jewish physician from Padua, named Simon, had obtained a four-year old child from an unscrupulous Christian mercenary soldier and had sacrificed him in his own dwelling, laying the child across a table and cruelly decapitating him.

"Maestro Salomone then reported that he had participated, with his father, in a secret rite, performed at Savonne, with the participation of numerous Jews in the city at that time, culminating in the crucifixion of a two-year old Christian child. The victim’s blood was poured into a recipient, the same recipient normally used to collect the blood during the circumcision of their own children. Subsequently, he personally, together with other participants in this horrendous rite, claimed to have consumed the blood as the ingredient in their traditional foods during the Jewish Passover. The body of the sacrificed child was said to have then been thrown into a filthy latrine."

Toaff acknowledges that this story may be false, but also suggests that it could have some basis in fact given that it is corroborated by other similar accounts.

[Abier @abierkhatib]

To whoever did this, u r my hero ♥️

[Husam Zomlot @hzomlot]

Israeli occupation soldiers throw injured men from a rooftop in Qabatiya outside Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier today. This is Israel’s “self defence”

[Robert Martin 🇵🇸 @Robert_Martin72]

I stand by this unequivocally:

[tim anderson @timand2037]

"The biggest farce in human history"

[Gabbar @Gabbar0099]

BJP = Hate Factory

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

@MumbaichaDon @AshwiniVaishnaw X पेआउट से चंद पैसे कमाने के लिए और कितना ज़हर उगलोगे नेशनलिस्ट विनीत नायक? @MumbaichaDon 🤡

[Gaurav Sabnis @gauravsabnis]

Using "Cow Vigilantes" instead of "Hindutva Terrorists" in media coverage is a big reason these incidents keep growing in frequency and cruelty.

[Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 @priyankac19]

My letter to the Home Minister of Maharashtra with regards to the hate violence faced by a 72 year old Muslim man, Haji Ashraf Munyar, by young men. It is distressing to note that they have been given bail for their perverse act.
I also remind him of the pending nod from President on Maharashtra Shakti Criminal Act and the stabbing of a Pune corporator by 12 men, in absolute zero fear of consequences . This is not the ethos of Maharashtra and he is duty bound to act against such blatant acts of crime

[Alishan Jafri @alishan_jafri]

Tell Indian media that this is a picture of injured Hindus being abducted in Bangladesh, and then see the outrage.

[Swara Bhasker @ReallySwara]

We all know it but we don’t like to say it: Indian society, majority of Indian citizens, Indian institutions, mainstream Indian politicians, Indian popular culture, Indian media, Indian law enforcement, Indian judiciary have ALL let down India’s Muslim citizens. #KalyanLynching