LONDON: The UK government on Wednesday announced £1 million in annual funding for a new service to monitor incidents of anti-Muslim hate and help victims.

The Combatting Hatred Against Muslims Fund will help counter Islamophobia and ensure Muslim communities feel safe, the government said.

The announcement comes as Muslims in Britain face a record number of Islamophobic incidents this year, according to police figures.

Last month it emerged that the UK was withdrawing funding for the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama. A report in the Byline Times last year said the organization had heavily underreported anti-Muslim hate crimes.

The new fund will be open from next week to applications from a single organization or a group of organizations working together to deliver an accurate record of hate incidents across England.

“Putting an end to the shocking rise of targeted attacks against Muslims requires a thorough understanding of the nature and scale of the hatred our Muslim communities face,” Lord Khan, the faith minister said. “That’s why we’re taking a crucial step forward this week to open this fund, seek new ideas and solutions, and tackle this hatred head on.”

Religious hate crimes have risen sharply in the UK since the Gaza war started in October 2023.

Last year, almost two in five of all religious hate crimes in England and Wales targeted Muslims, police figures showed, a 13 percent increase on the previous year.

The recipient of the grant will monitor and report Islamophobic incidents, raise awareness of hate crime, encourage victims to report incidents, and facilitate support for victims.

Up to £650,000 will be available in the 2025/26 financial year, and up to £1 million in the following years, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.

Earlier this year, the UK set up a working group to provide the government with a working definition of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia.

NEW DELHI: The Indian government tabled on Wednesday a bill in parliament aimed at making sweeping changes to the decades-old Waqf Act, which governs vast tracts of properties run and managed by Muslims in the country. 

With over 200 million Indians professing Islam, Hindu-majority India has the world’s largest Muslim-minority population.

The country has one of the largest numbers of waqf assets in the world, including over 870,000 properties spanning more than 900,000 hectares, with an estimated value of about $14.2 billion. Domestically, only the military and railways control more land. 

In Islamic tradition, a waqf is a charitable or religious donation made by Muslims for the benefit of the community. Properties categorized as waqf, which typically involve mosques, schools, orphanages or hospitals, cannot be sold or used for other purposes.

In India, where the tradition of waqf can be traced back to the Delhi Sultanate period in the early 13th century, such properties are currently managed by about 30 government-established waqf boards, whose members are all Muslims. 

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, proposes more than 40 changes to the 1995 Waqf Act aimed at shifting the management of waqf properties from the boards to state governments, including the inclusion of non-Muslim members. 

“The government is not interfering in any religious practice or institution. There is no provision in this to interfere in the management of any mosque. This is simply an issue of management of a property,” Minister of Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who tabled the bill, said during a parliament session on Wednesday. 

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which works to safeguard Islamic law in the country, said the bill could weaken waqf properties and their management. 

“I think this bill has been brought with an intention to destroy the waqf board, not to improve it. The new law is very weak and aimed at attacking waqf properties,” board member Malik Mohtasim Khan told Arab News. 

“They want to make a waqf law which is free from the influence of Muslims. I feel that their main aim is to make Muslims a second-class citizen.” 

Indian Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and challenges in the past decade, accompanied by tensions and riots ignited by majoritarian policies of the Hindu right-wing BJP since it rose to power in 2014.

“They want to weaken Muslims’ rights in India,” Khan said. “The existing government has created such an atmosphere that there is no respect for parliamentary values and judicial values are also getting diluted. Today the Muslim community is being pushed to the margins. This is a lived reality.” 

 The bill’s fate will be decided with a vote by the ruling alliance and opposition lawmakers in the lower house, before it moves to the upper house for another debate and voting. If approved by both houses of parliament, it will be sent to President Droupadi Murmu for her assent before becoming law. 

 Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a New Delhi-based author and political analyst who has focused on Hindu nationalist politics, described the bill as an “unfortunate development,” referring to the way it was prepared without proper consultations with Indian Muslims. 

 “I’m deeply disturbed by the manner in which this government is going about enacting the waqf bill in complete disregard of the sentiment of the Muslim community and their representatives,” he told Arab News. 

 “The only message which this government is repeatedly making — because that is the only thing which is going to continue to keep its electoral support — is that ‘we are tightening the screws on the Muslims; we are forcing them to act as the majority community wants.’”