Mallory Moench
International multimedia journalist
The World Today
A Controversial war on fentanyl
San Francisco - Kenneth Ray Russworm says he regrets ever taking fentanyl. The San Francisco native tried the synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin while living in a homeless shelter after his mother died last year and hasn’t been able to stop using it since.
"I ain’t never had a type of drug that had such a hold on me," Russworm, 43, a father of seven, said, crouching beside tents that serve as homes. In his hand he holds the tinfoil he uses to smoke the drug that has taken over his life.
Fentanyl struck the East Coast of the United States first, driving up the number of drug-related deaths and hitting San Francisco in full force at the start of the Covid pandemic. Last year, the city had the second highest overdose rate among US cities, after Philadelphia. In the first half of the year in San Francisco, 406 people died of accidental overdoses and more than three out of four deaths involved fentanyl.
The crisis cuts across class, race and geography, in a wealthy, largely quiet city. But nearly one in five deaths this year occurred in the Tenderloin, a low-income community near City Hall. This is where the problems are most visible, with some pavements clogged with people selling drugs or in fentanyl-induced stupors.
Al Jazeera
The Yemenis trapped between war and us extreme vetting
New York City - Under dim lights in her apartment, Khulood Nasher clutched two winter coats, with the price tags still on, for her sons trapped in Yemen's war. The last time she saw them, Omar was 13 and Rami 14 years old. That was seven years ago.
"I'm not sure if maybe I'll still be alive when I see them again," Nasher said as her voice wavered. "I really give up."
Years after applying to reunite with their mother, Rami and Omar had a visa interview at the US embassy in Djibouti last winter.
Nasher rushed to buy the coats to ensure that her sons didn't catch a cold after they stepped off the plane in New York.
Two weeks later, President Donald Trump's executive order banned citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, and pushed for extreme vetting on visa applications. A second ban in June blocked only those without a bona fide US relationship like a family tie, work contract or university admission. The third version, targeting citizens from six of the original countries plus North Korea, Chad, and Venezuela, was temporarily blocked by a federal court in October. But earlier this month, the US Supreme Court ruled to let the government enforce the most recent ban while lower courts debate its legality.
The White House maintains that the ban is intended to target countries that have not provided enough information to allow for the proper vetting of travellers, but rights groups say it disproportionately targets Muslims.
And while Nasher's sons - as the family members of a permanent resident who won asylum - do not fall under the travel ban, they still face extreme vetting procedures and lengthy delays under what legal experts and advocates have called a "ban beyond the ban".
Al Jazeera
In Trump's America, Yemeni-American women are coming to the forefront as activists and community leaders.
Meet One Woman Behind the Bodega Strike
The intercept
Yemenis Thought They'd Won The Visa Lottery.
Then Came Trump's Muslim Ban.
In March, Abdullah Fadhel left his family in war-wrecked Yemen, traveled overnight by bus through military checkpoints, and flew to Malaysia on a promise: He was eligible to receive a U.S. green card. Seven months and $12,000 later, he’s still waiting, stranded because of President Donald Trump’s travel bans.
Fadhel had been selected in the annual “diversity visa” lottery – last year, 19 million people applied for 50,000 green cards reserved for citizens from countries with low immigration to the United States. Being chosen in the lottery doesn’t guarantee a visa, but the immigration system generally promises applicants a fair chance and timely response in a maximum of 60 days after they have an interview, according to the State Department.
This year, however, for at least 95 applicants from countries listed on Trump’s travel bans, including Yemen, the State Department did not respond to their applications for months. While their paperwork languished, the available visas for this fiscal year ran out. Beginning in late September, Fadhel and dozens of other Yemeni applicants received letters from the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur stating that the visa cap had been reached. They were out of luck.
WNYC
Asylum seekers linger longer behind bars
The night that an anti-gay mob burned a man to death on a street corner in Togo, Hafizou Issifou knew he had to flee his homeland, where homosexuality is illegal. The news came from his sister, who texted him a picture of the victim: I think it was your boyfriend, Razak, she wrote. Then Issifou heard that his uncle wanted to kill him as well. He hid in a friend’s house for a year until he received a U.S. tourist visa.
Issifou arrived at JFK airport on March 6 and asked for asylum. Authorities sent him to Elizabeth Detention Facility in New Jersey — where he slept in a room with 43 other detainees for five and a half months, working in the kitchen for a dollar a day, not able to go outside.
A volunteer attorney explained to Issifou that he was eligible to apply for parole under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy. He applied in May, but was denied a month later without an interview or an explanation.
“I was completely desperate,” 28-year-old Issifou said in a recent interview. “I knew I couldn’t go back, because I knew that if I went back, they were going to kill me.”
THE WIRE
IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE QUEER COMMUNITY INTENSIFYING UNDER MODI?
New Delhi: One night in January 2015, Rovin Sharma left his house to buy water wearing trousers, a baggy sweater, heels and a bindi. It was normal attire for the bearded and lipsticked Sharma, who identifies as neither male nor female.
At 12:30 am, the streets around Kamla Nagar in north Delhi were deserted except for two men in a car at the end of the lane. When the men caught sight of Sharma, they got out and started running after the then 20-year-old. Sharma didn’t know why, but could guess after hearing the story of a gay student raped and killed at Delhi University years back.
“They wanted to assault me because I’m an easy catch,” Sharma said.
Muslim Protesters Dismiss Modi’s Cow Violence Criticism as Hollow
New Delhi: Just three days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the lynchings in the name of protecting cows, a sea of white-clothed Muslim protesters flooded Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, unsatisfied with his criticism and demanding justice for the victims.
“It is a political statement. It doesn’t have any interest for the people. They who are lynching are members of the ruling parties,” said social activist Afzal Ahmad. “No action will be taken. They are taking political benefit from it.”
High Court Questions Centre on Marital Rape: ‘How Do You Justify The Exception?’
The Delhi high court on Tuesday asked the Centre to provide justification for the exception under section 375 that allows a man to rape his wife if she is more than 15 years old, a law challenged as unconstitutional by three civil petitions.
“How do you justify the exception?” acting chief justice Gita Mittal asked advocate R.K. Kapoor, representing the Union of India, before the packed courtroom.
The three petitions were filed against the Union of India by an NGO, the RIT Foundation, the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and marital rape victim Khusboo Saifi. They challenge section 375, exception 2 as unconstitutional, inhumane and out of sync with the world, where a range of countries from Nepal in South Asia to the United States and Britain criminalise marital rape.
voices of new york
As Trump Arms Saudis To Bomb Yemen, Yemeni-Americans Conflicted and Afraid to Speak Up
Sarah Al-Silwi never felt ashamed of being American until she set foot for the first time in her parents’ war-ravaged home country – Yemen. In August 2016, she remembers, her cousin pointed at each demolished house on the road from the capital city to her grandmother’s village.
“This is the one that the rebel Houthis bombed, this is the one that the Saudis bombed,” Al-Silwi recalled her cousin saying. “And also, your country, America, is killing us. The bombs that are being brought to Yemen are American bombs.”
Al-Silwi, a 17-year-old born and raised in the Bronx, refused to believe him until she learned the facts. The United States transferred $115 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2016, according to the Center for International Policy. On May 20, President Donald Trump sealed another $110 billion deal on his visit to Saudi Arabia, the first foreign trip of his presidency.
The sale further embroils the U.S. in Yemen’s complex conflict. In early 2015, the rebel Houthis and ousted dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh overthrew the elected president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Civil strife evolved into a proxy war as Iran backed the Houthis and a Saudi Arabian-led coalition sided with Yemen’s government.
Two years later, 10,000 Yemenis are dead, two million live as refugees, and seven million are starving, according to the United Nations.
“They’re killing my cousins and my family members and my friends in Yemen,” Al-Silwi said. “I felt like I’d betrayed my own people. Now I realize that America isn’t as innocent as I thought when it comes to my country, when it comes to Yemen.”
More than 40,000 Yemeni-born Americans live in the U.S. according to the 2014 American Community Survey, although Yemenis say the number is much higher. Now, this tight-knit community is conflicted over whether U.S. involvement in the war helps or hurts their home country. While some condemn the U.S.-Saudi coalition as violating human rights, others see it as necessary to stop widely condemned Houthi violence. The situation worsened after President Trump authorized a counter-terrorism raid that killed dozens in Yemen and twice tried to ban Yemenis from entering the United States.
But for many Yemeni-Americans, protesting on both sides of the conflict stirs fear. People who speak out against the Houthi rebels dread that their families back in Yemen will pay for it. Others who criticize U.S. foreign policy worry they’ll become a target of surveillance like after 9/11.
“There have been a lot of programs that disproportionately affected the Yemeni-American community,” said Widad Indie, a New York City community activist, “and basically in some sense silenced them from being political or instilled a sense of fear of being too visible. It’s only recently that we see people who are more confident in speaking out.”
Al-Silwi said some Yemeni-Americans worry that if they speak up, they’ll be accused of terrorism.
“We’re afraid that we’re going to be suspects,” she said. “It’s not like we hate the U.S., we love the U.S. It’s just that they’re killing our families.”
But not everyone avoids protesting. On the second anniversary of the war in March, a cluster of protesters gathered outside U.N. headquarters in New York City. Brandishing Yemeni flags and signs declaring “Stop Killing and Starving Children,” they blamed the coalition for the conflict.
Bodega owner Maher Addailem, 34, one of the protest’s leaders, has lived in Brooklyn since 1997, but his wife and three children are still in Yemen.
“We believe, and every person in Yemen believes,” he said, “that Saudi Arabia is paying the United Nations to keep their mouths zipped.”
But to every side of Yemen’s conflict, there is an exception. Ibraham Al-Qatabi, a legal consultant in New York City, said that some people see the coalition as necessary to stop Houthi violence.
“The Yemenis need intervention to stop internal massacres committed by Houthis,” Qatabi said. “No one thinks that Saudis are going to restore democracy. But you can’t really say ‘hands off Yemen’ but then give it to militia to deal with the mess.”
The international community opposes the rebels and supports Hadi’s government. President Barack Obama backed away from Saudi arms sales in December 2016 amid protests from human rights groups, but Trump doubled his support on his first foreign trip to the kingdom. Gerald Feierstein, ambassador to Yemen under Obama, urged military caution, but perceived no conflict between U.S. militarism and humanitarian relief.
Some Yemeni-Americans like Fadel Almontaser, a used car salesman in New York City whose wife and parents, along with two of his children, live in a relatively safe city in Yemen, encourage U.S. military action as the only way to solve the conflict.
“I think the U.S. should intervene at this point by putting pressure on Iranians not to continue support of the Houthi movement, by threatening to implement sanctions against whoever is doing wrong to the Yemeni people, and by supporting the Saudis to finish the job they started,” Almontaser said.
Almontaser said he knows friends who don’t post their opinions on social media because they fear backlash for their families in Yemen, but he speaks out because he and his family are safe. Dr. Hamud Al-Silwi, Sarah’s father and director of the Bronx Muslim Center, explained that most Yemeni-Americans know their right to protest.
“We are from this country. It is a good country,” Al-Silwi said. “We have the freedom to help others.”
Whatever their opinions, Yemeni-Americans jaded by the intractable conflict can agree on one thing: helping their home country.
“I don’t care what the Houthis and Saudis are doing. When people who are family and blood are dying, you don’t care anymore,” said Sukaina Hasan, 23, a recent college graduate from Washington D.C. “We put our political differences aside and worry about the economy and humanitarian crisis.”
New york daily news
Queens landlord pushes DHS tip line to scare immigrants out of rent-controlled units, residents say
A landlord who's faced past allegations of tenant harassment has posted signs touting a Department of Homeland Security tip line in some of his Queens buildings, which have unnerved some tenants.
Between President Trump's push to deport undocumented residents and a spike in immigration raids, the Bangladeshi tenants of a Zara realty apartment building on 168th St. in Jamaica are on edge.
"It's to scare the people," said Abukhar Hossain, whose family has lived at the nine-story brick address for 15 years.
New York City news service
Behind Closed Doors:
Domestic Laborers Make All other Work Possible
winner of eppy 2017 Best University News or event feature
Dianne, 53, is only supposed to work until 7 p.m., but she never knows when she will get a text from her employers: we have an urgent meeting, can you stay late? The Jamaican-born nanny always agrees. It doesn’t bother her after 14 years.
Dianne first held the bleached-blonde boy who became like her own son when he was six weeks old. Whenever his parents traveled for work, it was Dianne who stayed with him for days at a time.
“They are comfortable with me enough to know that they can leave me with their child, day and night,” Dianne said. “Through their financial changes and promotions, I’m here the whole time.”
For 14 years, she has cared for the boy – and now his dog, too – in the ninth floor apartment on the Upper West Side. She earns $640 for a 30-hour work week, studies for her college degree, and supports her daughter and granddaughter whom she left behind in Jamaica.
For Dianne, who overstayed her tourist visa in 2000, President Trump’s inauguration leaves her in anxious limbo.
Private households employ the highest percentage of undocumented immigrants of any American industry. Twenty-three percent of the 947,000 people working in U.S. homes were undocumented, according to the 2014 American Community Survey.
There were nearly 100,000 domestic workers in New York City in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. Most, like Dianne, are foreign-born women of color. Through their labor, these women enable thousands of other workers to contribute to New York City’s economy.
“Domestic work is the work that makes all other work possible,” said Patricia, an undocumented 57-year-old immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago and domestic worker for 15 years.
“Behind the scenes these are the women that allow things to really happen in America,” said Alene Mathurin, an immigrant from St. Lucia, former nanny, and founder of a non-profit supporting domestic workers. “Through nanny care, the doctor who’s a parent can deliver a baby tonight. Through nanny care, the person in Wall Street can go to the meeting early in the morning. Because of nanny care, the CEO is in Japan.”
Behind Closed Doors: Domestic Work Makes 'All Other Work' Possible
the local sweden
What's it like being homeless during Sweden's winter?
Amayd, a Nigerian mechanic, Thomas, a Swedish former bus driver, and Zina, a Roma magazine vendor, have only one thing in common: struggling to find a place to sleep in Stockholm.
“It's hellfire,” says Amayd, describing his life on the streets. A short man with a slow gait, grey-speckled beard, and blood-laced eyes, he is a 42-year-old father from Nigeria. After 13 years as a permanent resident in Spain, he arrived in Stockholm two weeks ago, in search of work.
Every night, he's entered the lottery for a bed at a Salvation Army-run centre with success. But on Sunday, his name wasn't drawn – and so he had nowhere to sleep. He stayed in Stockholm's Central Station until it closed, then spent the night walking through snow-blown streets.
“I only have one coat,” Amayd told The Local. “I was afraid to die of the cold.”
the jerusalem project
ABUSED PALESTINIAN WOMEN FACE MORE THAN JUST VIOLENCE
In an unassuming gated building on a sun-bleached hill on the outskirts of Bethlehem sits one of three shelters in the West Bank that support the estimated 375,000 women who are survivors of domestic violence.
“There are a lot (of stories). I don’t know where to start,” said Maysoon Ramadan, director of the Mehwar Center for the Protection and Empowerment of Families. Shaking her head, she lit her third cigarette in an hour and sighed.
Abused women must overcome stigmas when speaking out about violence, seeking help at a shelter, and re-integrating into their communities
Ramadan has worked in the field of women’s rights since 1998 and for the Mehwar Center since 2000. Her experience seems to show in her deep-set features, weighty voice and empathetic eyes.
Taking another drag on her cigarette, she began to share a story of a young woman who arrived at the shelter a couple years ago.
Only 19, the girl had been sexually abused by her father since she was 11.
“She said she didn’t realize what was going on,” said Ramadan. “He convinced her it was a normal relation between fathers and daughters.”
Only after her father refused to let her marry the man she loved did the young woman realize she was being lied to and abused.
To spite her father, she tried to commit suicide and then succeeded in running away. She was found and brought to Mehwar by the police.
“It was a very, very difficult case,” said Ramadan. “Every time she opened the experience, she collapsed. She didn’t sleep well or eat well. She used to have nightmares that her father was choking her and wake up screaming.”
Maysoon Ramadan, director of Mehwar, has stood in solidarity with abused women for 15 years. Behind her is a portrait of a women in the shelter as photographed by another resident in a 2012 UN Women’s empowerment project.
The young woman stayed at the shelter for a year before returning to her mother’s home. Ramadan said she is 21 or 22 years old now and married.
“I am sure that things are not well,” Ramadan said, a flicker of tears showing in her eyes. “But she’s trying to live.”
Shelters Alone Are Not Enough
The Mehwar Center, founded in 2007 by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA), currently houses 15 women and four children. In the past six months, Mehwar and its counterpart shelters in Nablus and Jericho have taken on 70 cases of women in need.
Women who come to shelters like Mehwar aren’t just seeking physical protection. They’re also escaping societal stigmas that keep a majority of victims silent about abuse, and makes some reluctant to even accept help from such shelters.
An estimated 37.5 percent of women in the West Bank are subjected to some form of domestic violence, according to a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) report from December 2011.
The most common form of abuse is psychological, but the scope of abuse includes economic, social, physical, and sexual, including marital rape and incest.
Violence against women in the West Bank, under-documented and under-reported, stems from a complex web of legal, social, and cultural causes that activists are trying to address. Although non-profit and government leaders agree there aren’t enough shelters to meet the needs of abused women, they said that just opening more centers wouldn’t solve the core issues.
“In the end, we don’t the whole West Bank to be filled with shelters so that all women are in them,” said Kawther Al-Mughrabi, the Director of MOSA in Ramallah.
“I would like to see the woman in her house in a peaceful environment and to see the violent man put in jail,” said Al-Mughrabi. “What we want is a defensive law for women, but since there are no laws, we have to protect these women and put them in shelters.”
Shamed into Silence
Mehwar and other non-profit organizations like SAWA and the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling are not only sheltering women but also seeking to change a traditional patriarchy that perpetuates violence against women.
“All through my life I noticed that there is something not equal between men and women,” said Ramadan.
“In general, women have a very low status in society. When we talk about women as victims of violence, they [men] don’t understand they are victims, they think they are women [violating] tradition who need to be punished.”
The societal stigma that blames abused women for bringing dishonor to their families keeps many victims silent about abuse.
Of women subjected to domestic violence in the West Bank in 2011, 30 percent escaped to the home of another family member, 60 percent remained silent, and less than 1 percent sought aid at a shelter, according to the PCBS survey.
The reasons for a woman to remain silent range from fears of losing children or economic support to physical threats by her abuser. All, though, stem from the stress of societal stigmas.
“In general, women should keep silent about violence,” Ramadan said, explaining the pressure to keep quiet about abuse.
“It’s a secret, private issue. If they talk about it among themselves, they say “you should be patient, he will change’. Most believe he will be better. This is why they don’t speak.”
Like abused women, activists have also faced pressure from the community to remain silent. Ohail Shomar, the director of SAWA in Ramallah since 2004, has experienced backlash for her work.
“When we started to talk about violence against women, there was a lot of unwillingness, because they wanted to defend the family,” said Shomar. “They want to protect society so they’re ignoring what’s happening.”
Women and activists not only face shame in their communities for speaking up about violence, but even more so for seeking help from a shelter like Mehwar.
“They’re afraid to come here because the community says that this place is for women who are bad,” said Ramadan. “Women don’t come here because of that stigma.”
A Sheltered Life
For many abused women, coming to a shelter like Mehwar is a last resort.
When a woman reports violence at a local police station anywhere in the West Bank, she is transferred within 24 hours to the emergency shelter in Jericho. If her situation is extreme or life-threatening, she is then moved to Mehwar or the other long-term shelter in Nablus.
Life in a shelter for women estranged from their communities and in need of psychological help is difficult.
“It’s not a happy place here,” Ramadan said.
“What I mean by that is that even though we are protecting her from violence, that doesn’t mean she is having her own life. She didn’t choose to live here. This is her only choice to come here to be safe,” she said.
Women stay at Mehwar for anywhere from a few days to a year, although there have been a couple extreme cases of women staying for over two years.
Outside Ramadan’s office, Amina El-Hilo, the director of the residential portion of Mehwar, explained what life in a shelter is like.
Women live two in one room, except when space is tight in all shelters and three fit in one room. Supervised by social workers, the women are responsible for running the shelter.
While there, residents have the opportunity to receive training to work outside the shelter or to continue their education – most of which is only some level of high school truncated by marriage as early as 16.
As she led the way through Mehwar’s cool, tiled corridors, El-Hilo showed off the center’s facilities: a gym, library, counseling center, computer lab, art studio, and sitting room where every morning the women gather to have a “good morning talk.”
“We learn to talk about conflict because when they come here, most have no tools of expressing themselves in a healthy way,” said El-Hilo, a woman with a soft voice and gentle eyes. “It’s not easy to build bridges of trust.”
Inside the residential section of the shelter, an inner courtyard was flooded with sunlight and green flowering leaves. El-Hilo introduced one of the two women standing near the door as the caretaker of the garden. When her work was praised, she flushed with pleasure and then disappeared upstairs.
She returned a few moments later cradling a wrapped bundle – 15-day-old baby Mohammed, the son of her roommate. Tucking him in, she jiggled her arm and began to sing in a soft voice, continuing as the door closed behind her.
According to Al-Mughrabi, the hardest part for women is not coming to the shelter, but leaving it to reintegrate back into society. Some women are able to return to their families while others are completely rejected.
Re-integration is difficult, but it’s not impossible, and it’s one sign of hope that activists hold on to.
Change, Small and Slow
Although the situation of violence against women in the West Bank is a serious one, activists attest to incremental but hopeful changes. Over the past few years, the region has seen increased awareness for and better legislation to combat violence against women.
In particular, the creation of a special Family Protection Unit in the Palestinian police force in 2007 to aid victims of domestic abuse has been a force of positive change.
“Fifteen years ago they didn’t trust the police, but now women go to ask help and protection,” Ramadan said. “The implementation of these institutions has proven that the police and the government are taking responsibility and considering violence against women as one of their priorities.”
Activists attest that change, small but slow, is happening. But it’s not yet enough, they said, to counteract the harrowing situation faced by many women who are victims of violence in the West Bank. Nor does it erase the continued need for more shelters like Mehwar.
Because of this, Ramadan sees her and others’ work as vital to the protection and empowerment of women.
“Work by NGOs and formal institutions in the community have contributed in changing the mentality and attitudes of the people,” she said. “If it fails, we are killing the option of protecting and having rights for women.”
She doesn’t lose hope, though, in the power of change: “When women come, they’re victims. But when they leave, they’re survivors.”
the lo-down new york
The Freedom Swimmer
Ming Chung swam from China to Hong Kong to escape communism when he was 19. In 1974, he made it to New York City as a refugee. Now a U.S. citizen who believes in President Donald Trump's "America First", he’s back at school to learn English.
The Freedom Swimmer
voices of new york
Madani Halal: aFter the Founder's Death
Four days after Bangladeshi community leader Riaz Uddin died of a heart attack, his only son Imran was back to work at the family’s halal slaughterhouse in Ozone Park, Queens. Uddin strode in on a Saturday afternoon, the busiest time of the week, and grabbed the ringing phone.
“As-salāmu ʿalaykum, this is Madani Halal, how can I help you?” He repeated the caller’s order for a 10-pound duck, swiped a customer’s credit card for diced chicken, and took $422 in cash for a whole goat before slaughtering it for the family.
Only in a moment of calm behind the closed office door did the 39-year-old show his emotions. “My father was my best friend,” Uddin said of the man who died of a heart attack on Jan. 10 at the age of 81. “He was so wise and I’m going to miss not being able to ask him for advice.”
His voice gave out, eyes bleary. “When I went to the mosque yesterday, they said, ‘Imran, without your father, this whole community’s going to crumble. You have to take over, you have to replace him,’” he said. “So I told them I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
Uddin confronts the challenge of filling his father’s place as a business owner, faith leader, and spokesman for Bangladeshi Muslims in southwestern Queens. In some ways, Uddin is an unconventional candidate. His mother is Puerto Rican, he doesn’t speak his father’s native language, and he married a woman of Norwegian descent. He worked in advertising before joining the family business in 1996; now he serves locals and supplies meat to high-class Manhattan restaurants.
Although a devout Muslim, Uddin’s religious views are more liberal than those of the community’s patriarchs. He lets his female employees slaughter animals and believes women should be allowed to pray in the mosque, although in a separate area from men; he attends both the conservative masjid founded by his father and an inclusive Sufi mosque in Tribeca.
But the community’s leaders believe Uddin can bridge generations within the booming population. In 1980, there were 1,280 Bangladeshis in New York City, according to the American Community Survey. In 2015, there were nearly 75,000, 30 percent under the age of 18. Differing views on how to practice religion, what to wear, and who to marry increasingly divide this second generation from their parents.
As this community has grown, so has discrimination against it. In 2015, the FBI reported a 67 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims. Last August, a gunman killed a Bangladeshi imam and his associate from Al-Furqan Jame Masjid in Ozone Park.
Uddin said that even before last year he received frequent threats from unknown emails or restricted phone numbers. “They say the same way you slaughter goats and lamb, I’d like to slaughter you,” he said. “Any time an incident occurs, like when there’s a terrorist attack, that’s when it goes up.”
Anonymous calls haven’t led to actual assaults yet. “I’m not going to let that scare me,” Uddin said. “My only fear is God, so that’s why I do good.”
Religion and business are inseparable for the Uddin family. When Riaz Uddin immigrated in 1952, he was one of the few Muslims and even fewer Bangladeshis in New York City. Four years later, he opened Madani Halal.
Halal, which means permissible in Arabic, is both a religious practice and business policy. Imran Uddin only sources from organic locations where he knows the animals are well-treated – chickens from an Amish homestead in Pennsylvania, goats and lambs from a second-generation family farm in New Jersey. He keeps the poultry in cages while the goats and lambs graze in a pen. Uddin doesn’t sell packaged meat; customers pick out their own live animal to be slaughtered.
In accordance with halal law, Uddin’s employees never sharpen their knives in front of the animals and don’t allow one animal to see another being killed. Muslim slaughterers pray before slitting the animal’s throat and letting its blood drain out.
But Uddin said halal is more than simply butchering meat.
“It’s not just how you slaughter the animal, it’s a lifestyle,” he explained. “Am I honest, am I sincere, do I pay my bills on time, am I good to my parents, do I take care of my employees, am I humble?”
Madani Halal was one of the first strictly halal slaughterhouses in southwestern Queens; now there are a dozen more within a five-mile radius. Across the city, 80 live poultry markets sell an average of 208,000 birds each per year, according to The Humane Society of the United States.
Madani Halal slaughters 2,000 chickens and 60 goats and lambs per week – less than the average city market. But during major Islamic festivals, the shop goes through at least 400 goats a day.
Muhammed Shabbir worked as a slaughterer for 10 years at Madani Halal before joining Triple “N” Live Poultry & Meat Market, its closest competitor less than a mile away. Shabbir said there is no difference between the halal process and the patrons at the two businesses.
Madani Halal’s customers and employees are diverse – South Asians, West Indians, East Africans, and Hispanics – and not all Muslim. Local business rose by only 10 percent in the last decade, Uddin said, but its customer base remains loyal and long-standing. Now, the son benefits from the example set by his father.
“I’m not going into other places,” said Abu Belal, a friend of Riaz Uddin who’s bought meat at Madani Halal for 10 years. The two men came from the same district of Sylhet in Bangladesh. “He was a founder of the Muslim community,” Belal said of Uddin. “Definitely he will be missed.”
In the 1950s, Riaz Uddin and his brother purchased a building for the first Bangladeshi mosque in Manhattan. They recruited an imam to start a madrasa, or school, and lead prayer times. Over the next 50 years, they bought five more houses that eventually expanded into multi-story mosques serving thousands in Brooklyn and Queens.
Local leaders credit Uddin with empowering community members to know their rights and report crimes to the police. “Anything would happen to the community, he was the brave person,” said Kobir Chowhdury, the president of Masjid Al-Aman, one mosque built up by Riaz Uddin. The two men met in 1991.
“There were very few like him that knew why people are frustrated or insecure or intimidated and at the same time, what their rights are,” Chowhdury said. “He did the legwork to represent our community and religion. We were so foreign. Now it’s different.”
But Chowhdury said the community still needs to work to fight prejudice and engage young people.
“There are a lot of good things in the old generation, but they’re very hard to adapt to new things,” he explained. “The youth have a difference of opinions. When they’re exposed to higher education or a different work environment, they have the right to give their opinion as long as it’s not fundamentally way out of line.”
Divisions occur when some younger Bangladeshis decline to wear conservative dress or marry outside the community – like Imran Uddin did in 2016.
“My father was still hoping until I got engaged that I would marry someone from the Bengali community,” he said. That, even though Riaz Uddin himself married a Puerto Rican. He came to consider his son’s wife as his own daughter, but Imran Uddin said he was lucky.
“A lot of the ones who decide to date or marry outside the community, they’re looked down upon,” Uddin said. “They wind up leaving the community. I have cousins who ran away from home because they didn’t want to follow the traditions of staying within the same group of people.”
Although the Bangladeshi population continues to grow, Chowhdury fears that if youth abandon their traditions, the community’s core will splinter.
“If they’re not properly involved and dedicated, then within 10 to 15 years, the community will die out,” he said.
That’s why, at Riaz Uddin’s funeral, Chowhdury publicly invited Imran Uddin to continue his father’s mission by joining the mosque’s youth committee.
“I will recommend him, and then people will accept him. People know his father, so they are kind,” Chowhdury said. “I think he is ready.”
Uddin already bridges generations and cultures as a business entrepreneur. “You always have to be innovative, you have to follow the trends to understand your market,” he said. “I’ve lost some customers, but I’ve also gained a lot of new customers – the whole farm to table movement has benefited myself and business.”
Seven years ago, Uddin started supplying meat to highly-rated Manhattan restaurants serving French, Cuban, Italian, or Southern comfort food. Laurence Edelman, co-founder and chef at The Left Bank in Greenwich Village, sources chicken exclusively from Madani Halal.
Edelman said he loves the fresh taste, but doesn’t feel the need to advertise on the menu that the meat is halal.
Uddin said affluent Muslims frequently contact him to find out which restaurants he supplies so that they can enjoy a gourmet halal meal. This summer, he plans to open a specialty packaged meat shop next door to Madani Halal for this new clientele.
But the Saturday after his father’s death, Uddin was more concerned about fulfilling the family legacy than his business plans.
“It’ll definitely be challenging. Will I be able to contribute as my father did?” he wondered aloud. Wiping his eyes, he finished counting a stack of bills and told his manager that he needed to go visit his mother. “But I don’t think my father would have left me unless he knew that I was capable.”
Imran Uddin strokes the slaughtered goat as it spasms for a minute before death.
According to halal custom, Mussa Khamiz prays as he prepares to slaughter the next goat. A bowl sits below to catch the drained blood
Fareeda Khan, a cashier and occasional slaughterer, takes a coffee break during a slow Wednesday morning.
Imran Uddin strokes the slaughtered goat as it spasms for a minute before death.
Brooklyn based
He emigrated from colombia and transitioned to his true self
When Mateo Guerrero immigrated to Queens in 2010, he was a queer undocumented teenager called Katherine. When he came out to his mom shortly afterward, she pleaded with Guerrero not to become a man. When his father found out that Mateo wanted to transition, he left the family and returned to their home in Colombia.
univision
Mateo Guerrero laughs at himself as he shaves, because even after nearly two years on testosterone, he knows he doesn't have much facial hair yet. Still, he likes the habit.
Guerrero cleans his testosterone syringes. Since July 2015, he has injected testosterone in his thigh every two weeks.
Guerrero laughs with his girlfriend on the International Transgender Day of Visibility
Mateo Guerrero laughs at himself as he shaves, because even after nearly two years on testosterone, he knows he doesn't have much facial hair yet. Still, he likes the habit.
For Transgender Latinx, Transitioning Was Resistance
voices of new york
CRACKDOWN ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE BARS QUESTIONED
Romano insists he doesn't frequent El Tucanoza, a bar on Roosevelt Avenue, where customers pay $2 a dance, to take a woman home with him. Instead, the Mexican immigrant who declined to give his last name, visits to drink with friends after an exhausting 15-hour work day.
Inside the bar, he said he feels safe because: "Immigration doesn't come, police don't come."
That might not be true for long. In August, state Sen. Jose Peralta introduced legislation to crack down on prostitution by targeting establishments he believes are guilty of promoting the crime. Peralta's bills would beef up police patrols, limit liquor licenses and double fines for dance bars like El Tucanoza which operation without cabaret licenses.
But many Jackson Heights residents debate whether targeting bars will fix the decades-old problem and whether extra policy will make immigrants feel safer - or more threatened. President-elect Donald Trump's recent pledge to deport at least 2 million undocumented immigrants heightened fears in the neighborhood, where 73 percent of the population comes from Latin America.
"Deportations are at a record high and people get stressed out when they see the police," said Tania Mattos, 33, founder of the nonprofit organization Queens Neighborhood United. Mattos, who was born in Bolivia, grew up undocumented in the area.
"Peralta saying 'let's bring the police in' is like saying 'let's bring in an army.' For us it's not going to solve the issue," she said. "I don't think hitting the establishments will make a dent."
El Tucanazo manager Raymundo DiaTucanazo, 64, said the legislation would force him to fire half his employees and increased police presence would frighten away undocumented customers. He denied the bar promotes prostitution.
“It doesn’t happen here, because they’re not allowed,” DiaTucanazo said. “Police should go out on the streets, because there is more prostitution on the streets, not in the bars.”
Jay Perez, a 22-year-old customer and father of two, offered a more nuanced view as he spoke inside El Tucanazo. “This place has nothing to do with prostitution,” he said. “But if you see a girl,” Perez shrugged toward the female bartender in a skintight top, “and you offer her $100, and you go out, it’s no problem. It’s not on the bar, it’s on the girl.”
Inspector Michele Irizarry, commanding officer of NYPD’s 115th Precinct, said solicitation largely occurs on the streets. ” If a prostitute meets someone and asks them to go to a certain location, it’s very hard to control. In terms of establishments operating as private brothels, I’m not aware of those,” she said. “We’re taking crime along Roosevelt Avenue very seriously.”
Irizarry reported a drop in crime since the introduction of the Roosevelt Avenue Task Force, a regular patrol of veteran officers, in March 2016 – but Mattos said the force increased fear in her community. According to Mattos, Jackson Heights Cop Watch witnessed a concerning spike in random stops when the program started.
“The police were having a field day,” Mattos said. “They were stopping everyone. It was very scary.”
But Peralta, who estimated he receives 300 annual complaints about Roosevelt Avenue, believed the task force didn’t put enough police on the street.
“We need an extra 20 veteran officers to walk up and down – not to bother or profile or intimidate – but so that people can feel safe,” Peralta said.
The senator plans to meet with Police Commissioner James O’Neill to discuss introducing a program similar to Operation Impact, which imbedded beat cops in high crime neighborhoods. Former Commissioner Bill Bratton discontinued the program in 2015 because he said it isolated rookie officers and overutilized stop-and-frisk.
Not all community members protested the patrols, though. Eder Castillo, 25, who goes out to Roosevelt Avenue’s bars every Friday, said he feels safer because of the police.
“Crime has died down. There’s more awareness and surveillance of police,” Castillo said, although he agreed violence was still a problem. “There should be a change in security. I would like to be able to walk down the street at 2 a.m. with my friend or with my sister, and not to think I’ll get mugged.”
Some locals like Jay Perez, who said he’s been robbed multiple times, once at gunpoint, outside bars like El Tucanazo, doubted whether change was possible.
“Roosevelt Avenue is like the mafia. It’s going to be really hard to change,” Perez said. “Even the police can’t try to stop them.”
Mattos, as a leader in her community, hasn’t lost hope, but believes change is only possible from within. “Policing is one but not the only answer,” she said. “For there to be lasting change, the community needs to come together.”
HIJABI WOMEN FEAR HATE CRIMES AFTER TRUMP'S ELECTION
Donald Trump's xenophobic rhetoric and a rise in Islamophobic hate crimes sparked fear for many Muslims who call this country home. After the election, some women who wear hijab wrestled with whether to keep on traditional head covering out of fear for their own safety. For many, donning it became an act of bravery.
Hijabi Women Fear Hate Crimes After Trump's Election
operation black vote
Victims battle Over Caste Discrimination
London: Aneil Jhumat looks like any other 29-year-old British professional carrying himself with confidence in a sleek grey suit, a silver wedding band on one hand and gold ring on the other.
But there is one difference, impossible for most Brits to see, which has caused him to suffer discrimination in the UK: his caste.
As a third generation Punjabi Ravadasi Sikh of a so-called lower caste, Jhumat has endured derogatory abuse throughout his life.
In university, Jhumat’s close friends, when they found out his caste, decided he wasn’t good enough to be their friend anymore, and in his last job with the Government, visiting higher-caste contractors told him that: "If we were in India, you would be picking up my shit.”
But Jhumat, internal audit manager for Barnardo’s Children Charity, says he is just one victim of caste-based discrimination among countless in his community.
He knows elderly people who have not been properly cared for by assistants or patients whom doctors have refused to serve because they were “untouchable”.
Among his family, his shop-owning uncle experienced a dramatic loss in milk sales when women in the local community discovered his caste, and his aunt who works for the NHS is continually denied overtime opportunities in favour of upper-caste nurses. Jhumat said: "But what can she do? Caste means you’re born with a label that sticks with you and you can’t escape it. It’s not dying out; it’s alive and kicking and affecting people like me.”
Refugees polarize rural sweden, but most far-right critics stay silent
Åsljunga: When Gisela Hector’s brother invited his village neighbor to play football with newly arrived refugees, the neighbor refused, saying he ‘would never have anything to do with them’.
“Many people are positive and helping refugees, but some are very against,” said Gisela, 67, a blunt and wiry physical therapist. “They’re a minority, though, so they’re afraid to do anything.”
Gisela and her husband Per, 69, built their sprawling home beside a serene lake when they moved to Åsljunga with their six children in 1976. The population of the traditionally Lutheran village, nestled among quintessential red farmhouses in the southern municipality of Örkelljunga, hovers around 700 - but not for much longer.
So far this year, Åsljunga received 102 asylum-seekers and Örkelljunga 332, compared with 90 in 2014.
These arrivals are just a fraction of the tidal wave of asylum-seekers entering Sweden. From September to November 2015, the country’s migration agency reported 80,000 new arrivals, the same as all of 2014. They predicted a total of 190,000 by the end of the year. Most refugees are Syrian, although many of the estimated 30,000 unaccompanied minors originate from Afghanistan, Eritrea, or Somalia.
The massive influx has overwhelmed a country famed for its historically open-armed generosity and polarized opinions in every municipality, including Örkelljunga.
“The town is divided on the issue,” said Hector's nephew Andreas Giselsson, 32, who works in a home for unaccompanied minor refugees in Åsljunga. “But in the public forum in Sweden, we like to be politically correct and don’t talk about it.”
On the national stage, the only vocal critics are the far-right Swedish Democrats, ostracized by other parties for their anti-immigration policies. The nationalistic party boasts a stronghold in Örkelljunga: in 2014’s general election, 26 percent of the municipality – the highest in the country – voted for them.
Although immigration critics are an undeniable presence in Örkelljunga, they’re largely silenced by cultural fear of disagreement and social pressure to accept diversity. Instead, a more vocal majority has rallied to welcome refugees.
Eager Local Volunteers Set Example for Swedes
When Åsljunga opened its refugee center in August 2015, 200 locals attended an informational meeting; 50 volunteered to help asylum-seekers.
Boel Skoglund, 55, deacon of the Lutheran church, organized volunteers to give rides and Swedish lessons to refugees – a scheme so successful that neighbouring towns followed their example.
Skoglund believes it’s easier for refugees to meet locals and learn language in the rural area.
“It’s better to come to a small place because people know each other,” she said. “It’s also easier to mobilize people to volunteer, because they want to do something good for the village.”
For Åsljunga locals Gisela and Per Hector, helping refugees was natural. “We have such a good life,” said Per. “Many of the refugees have also had this life, and then they come here and they have nothing.”
After the refugee center opened, Per pioneered a second-hand shop for refugees that received so many donations he gave 90 extra bags to relief work abroad.
Gisela started teaching Swedish lessons at her kitchen table. Two of her students are Syrian refugees Salma Jabri, 24, and her husband Hasan, 31.
In August, the couple crossed from Turkey to Greece on a 10-meter boat with 45 fellow refugees and followed smugglers by ferry, car, train, and on foot over countless European borders until reaching Åsljunga
“We knew we wanted to come to Sweden, because we think we’ll have more opportunity,” Hasan said. The Jabris are now looking for their own house and interviewing for jobs – which proves to be the greatest challenge.
Refugees Fear Joblessness
According to the Swedish Public Employment Service, unemployment in Örkelljunga was 8.7 percent in 2015. In the greater region of Skåne, it was 10.1 percent – the country’s highest.
Finding a job is especially difficult for asylum-seekers. Refugees have the right to work while they wait for asylum, but they’re barred from government-sponsored Swedish classes until they're granted permanent residency - and without language, chances of employment are slim.
In one house in Örkelljunga, nine Syrian men and a family of three live together; some of them have been waiting to receive asylum for over a year. During the day, they attend informal Swedish classes; at night they play cards or watch TV - but what they really want is to work.
“We want to find a job,” said the oldest, who declined to give his name. “We Syrians like to study; we like to work hard.”
The speaker, who entertained guests from all over the world in a 5-star hotel for 25 years, would like to work in hospitality again. A medical student dreamed of finishing his degree and developing cures for cancer. Another man would take any job so his family could join him in Sweden.
The fears of unemployed refugees echo the concerns of immigration skeptics like Kristian Svensson, 35, who grew up in Åsljunga. He said taking in refugees was a good thing – up to a point.
“The problem here is there are no low-qualifying jobs,” Svensson said. “The sad truth is that no refugee can find a job.”
Critics Say: ‘We’ve Taken Enough’
Unemployment is just one reason Örkelljunga’s parliamentary representative Mikael Eskilandersson (SD) believes the municipality can’t support asylum-seekers.
“We have problems in elderly care and schools because there is not enough room,” he said. “All these things cost money, but while our population has grown, our taxes income hasn’t.”
Annette Mårtensson, Örkelljunga’s refugee coordinator, confirmed that space in the municipality was very short, reflecting a national crisis that prompted Sweden to impose border controls in November. Eskilandersson advocated to close borders completely.
“We’ve taken enough,” he said. “Whether they’re refugees or not, we must stop the inflow of migrants. They need to go somewhere else.”
Anti-immigrant sentiment in Sweden sparked a string of suspected arson attacks – ten in October alone – against planned refugee centers. In response, the migration agency made their locations secret.
Recently in Åsljunga, perpetrators broke windows and set off fireworks at refugee housing. The director of the main center declined an interview, fearing negative attention. Residents now take turns patrolling the premises at night.
“I feel afraid all the time,” said Amar Amer, 19, who arrived alone from Syria two years ago. “But if I compare it to war, it’s nothing.”
Activists Envision Integration for All
In the face of animosity, some locals are committed to overcoming prejudice.
“I don’t think that everyone is racist,” Skoglund said, “but they’re afraid. If you’ve never met a person from Baghdad, you only see the differences. It’s important to see every human being the same, not look at borders and nationality.”
In 2013, Skoglund partnered with Turkish immigrant Necmettin Meletli to found IFALL (Integration for All), an organization that now has 23 volunteers and multiple weekly activities including a language café and sports games.
“We try to create a meeting place where people can understand cultures,” said Meletli. “Refugees are willing
to integrate, but the main challenge is for Swedes to integrate refugees into society. Being Swedish is not about ethnicity, it’s about values and how your behavior reflects those values.”
IFALL’s goal is not only to integrate communities but also to develop refugees, like Syrian Mazen Hossni, 36, (left) into leaders.
After two years waiting for asylum, Hossni, his wife, and pair of young daughters received permanent residency two months ago.
Formerly a luxury shoe store manager in Dubai, Hossni now works at McDonalds. In his free time, he volunteers as a translator at the refugee center and serves as IFALL’s Vice-President.
“I feel that Sweden is my home,” Hossni said. “Because they helped me and my family, I want to help.”
Youth today
More Families Struggling to Feed Children Reach Out for Help in Queens
Three weeks after Thanksgiving, Rosana Borges sat at her dining room table and picked at the last piece of turkey in a Styrofoam bowl as she cradled one of her five children. John, 2, snored against her chest while Dayna, 6, wriggled past her to reach a box of
donated apple pastries. In the living room, Borges' mother paced with 1-month-old Roy crying in her arms. Bryan, 17, and Rosy, 14, hunched on the couch watching the TV bought with the family's tax refund. In December, Borges was still stretching the Thanksgiving turkey gifted from her local state senator, Jose Peralta in Jackson Heights, Queens, to feed her family of eight.
"I've been cooking different styles with only what we need," Borges said. She wrapped the last piece of meat in tinfoil and opened the fridge; a sour smell exuded from the half-empty shelves.
"It's broken," Borges said, shaking her head. "It would take $50 to fix it, but we can't afford it right now." She is 34 and immigrated from the Dominican Republic seven years ago.
Three months later, she still grapples daily with the decision between need and want to provide for her family.
"I am stressed all the time because I am the head of the household," Borges said. "Even though my husband earns wages, I am at home and struggling with the things I can't afford.'
2017 Inauguration protests
Donald Trump's presidency ignited a revolution across the country: from angry mobs charging Trump Tower in New York City the night after election, to anarchists blockading the inauguration, to crowds taking over Washington D.C. a day later, to masses of women walking out of work in March.
Protester at inauguration, D.C.
Protesters against Keystone Pipeline prepare in case of pepper spray at inauguration protests, D.C
"I didn't shop today,"; said Beatrice Hood; a 19-year-old student. "It was hard. I only ate Cheetos." Hood listens to diverse female activists speak at the International Women's Day Strike and Rally.
Protester at inauguration, D.C.