Dubai Expo: India Prominently Displays Controversial Ayodhya Ram Mandir at Pavilion Entrance

[Riaz Haq]

India's pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020 has a large and prominent display of a miniature model of the controversial Ram Mandir at its entrance. Ram Mandir will replace the Mughal-era Babri Masjid that was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992.  It represents Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of India as a Hindu Rastra built on the ruins of the country's Muslim past. Inaugurating the Indian pavilion,  the country's trade minister Piyush Goyal told the media that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally gave us ideas and a lot of guidance on how to showcase India". 

Model of Controversial Ram Mandir at Dubai Expo

“It is a great opportunity to showcase emerging new India to visitors who are coming from all over the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally gave us ideas and a lot of guidance on how to showcase India as a modern vibrant technology driven international economy," trade minister Piyush Goyal, who inaugurated the India pavilion on Friday, told reporters.

World Expos have a long illustrious history going back 170 years. They represent an opportunity for  participating countries to showcase their achievements in arts, sciences and technologies. First mechanical computer was shown at the 1862 London International Exhibition on Industry and Art. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the first telephone at Philadelphia in the 1876 Expo in the United States. 

Pakistani Pavilion at Dubai Expo

Pakistan has a large pavilion at Dubai Expo which will remain open for six months. It will highlight opportunities for trade, tourism and investment in the country. The focus on the first month of Expo 2020 Dubai at the Pakistan Pavilion is Balochistan.    

Pakistani pavilion attracted about 8,000 visitors when it opened yesterday. Speaking on the occasion, Pakistani representative Aftab Abro said: “The response has been outstanding and we have people appreciating all aspects of the pavilion, ranging from the colorful façade to the vibrant bazaar and also our custom-made Pakistani restaurant called ‘Dhaba’ that has been a great crowd-puller…We are grateful to the Expo 2020 Dubai for bringing the world to us so we could show them what Pakistan is all about. After taking their reviews, we were happy to learn that coming to our pavilion dispelled many misconceptions and doubts they had about Pakistan, due to some false information they got from unreliable sources. By physically coming to the Pakistan pavilion they said they experienced the real Pakistan.”

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan Tech Exports Soaring

Pakistan is the 7th Largest Source of Migrants in OECD Nations

Pakistanis Mini-Invasion of China

Modi's Hindu Rashtra

Pakistan Remittance Soar 21X

Pakistan's Growing Human Capital

Babri Masjid Destruction in India

Pakistan Most Urbanized in South Asia

Hindu Population Growth Rate in Pakistan

Do South Asian Slums Offer Hope?

How "Illiterate" Are Pakistan's "Illiterate" Cell Phone Users?

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

[Riaz Haq]

What does #India’s #Modi government have against #Bollywood? Top male movie stars all happen to be #Muslim. #BJP does it for the sheer joy of bashing Muslims. #Islamophobia_in_india #Hindutva #BJP #SRK #AryaanKhan #Islamophobia #HindutvaStateTerror https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/10/30/what-does-indias-governme...

If bollywood is India’s secular religion, then the Khans—Aamir, Salman and Shah Rukh—are its holy trinity. The three actors, who are unrelated, have for three decades sat at the top of India’s colossal Hindi-language film industry, their films, their characters and their personas wallpapering the country’s imagination. They are, perhaps as much as the prime minister and the captain of the national cricket team, the most recognisable faces in India. They also happen to be Muslim.

For most Indians, to the extent they think about it at all, that is a source of pride: the Khans’ pre-eminence a sign of the country’s tolerant secularism. But it sticks in the craw of Hindu chauvinists, who are well represented by the government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp). All three Khans have faced criticism from bjp figures in recent years, along with the usual gibes that they should “go to Pakistan”. By the debased standards of Indian political discourse, where even the use of the indigenous Urdu language is seen as “Abrahamisation”, that is not surprising.


What is odd, however, is that the government’s assault on Bollywood has—after a drumbeat of harassment against smaller figures and lesser-known producer-types—reached the very top of the industry. On October 3rd, the Narcotics Control Bureau (ncb), a national law-enforcement agency, arrested several people in a drug bust on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai, where the industry is based. Among them was Aryan Khan, the 23-year-old son of Shah Rukh Khan, arguably the best-loved of the trinity. The ncb claimed to have seized lots of drugs, though it has since admitted that none were found on Aryan. He was nonetheless remanded in custody and denied bail until October 28th, even as it was granted to others. News channels have been running blanket coverage. Politicians from across the country have weighed in.

----
That the target this time is Muslim is only an added bonus. Harassing Bollywood carries more important benefits for the bjp, including annoying the government of Maharashtra, a rich western state of which Mumbai is the capital. That antipathy dates from 2019, when the local Shiv Sena, itself a pro-Hindu party, broke its long-standing alliance with the bjp. Mr Modi and his cronies have never forgiven their erstwhile allies.

Yet there is a more fundamental reason for the bjp’s assault on Bollywood than electioneering, political point-scoring or the sheer joy of bashing Muslims. Since coming to power in 2014, the bjp has demolished the national opposition, co-opted independent institutions, tamed India’s once-vibrant press and obstructed free speech. It is building a cartoonish personality cult around Mr Modi, printing his picture on everything from sacks of government-subsidised rice to covid vaccination certificates.

Bollywood may well be the last independent source of influence in India. It is inherently patriotic, its superstars mostly apolitical and, after the past year, most of its members terrified of speaking in any manner that might attract Delhi’s attention. But that is not enough. The fact that its movies show Hindus and Muslims—and all sorts of Indians—getting along, that it tackles issues of social injustice, and that its characters and the real-life people behind them espouse liberal values, is simply too great a threat to Mr Modi’s narrow vision of a Hindu nation. If ensuring that Indians can imagine themselves only on the bjp’s terms means destroying one of country’s great cultural and commercial successes, that is a price the party and its prime minister seem willing to pay.

[Riaz Haq]

#Hate campaign in #India against #Urdu for being a ‘Muslim’ language. #Hindu nationalist groups target #Indian-born language after clothing brand comes up with a #Diwali advertisement with Urdu words. #HindutvaTerror #Islamophibia_in_india https://aje.io/h6frnb via @AJEnglish

Last week, Hindu right-wing forces in India forced a leading firm to withdraw its festive season advertisement after it featured a couple of words from the Urdu language, which in the popular imagination in the country is a “Muslim language”.

The company, FabIndia, issued an advertisement for Diwali – a significant Hindu festival that falls next month – showcasing its latest collection of clothes. The text at the top read: “Jashn-e-Rivaaz”.

“Jashn” in Urdu means a celebration while “Riwaaz”, which is actually “Riwaaj”, means tradition. The title translated to “A Celebration of Tradition”.

But a young parliamentarian belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who often makes headlines for his Islamophobic remarks, was not happy.

“Deepavali is not Jashn-e-Riwaaz,” 30-year-old Tejasvi Surya posted on Twitter, calling Diwali by its more traditional name.

“This deliberate attempt of Abrahamisation of Hindu festivals, depicting models without traditional Hindu attires, must be called out.”


FabIndia is a household name in India and sells clothes, furniture, home furnishings and food items. It has hundreds of showrooms across the vast country and abroad.

Surya said the company “must face economic costs for such deliberate misadventures”.


Soon, other members of the BJP and other Hindu nationalist groups started attacking FabIndia on social media, accusing the brand of “hurting” the religious sentiments of Hindus.

“The Hindutva project sees Urdu as a ‘Muslim’ language. And invisibilising Urdu is part of the larger project of marginalising the Muslim community, in fact, physically eliminating it,” Nivedita Menon, professor at the Centre for Political Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Al Jazeera.

“Hindutva” refers to a century-old Hindu supremacist movement which seeks to convert India into an ethnic Hindu state.

The Urdu language was born in northern India during the Mughal rule. Linguists and historians say Urdu and Hindi originally developed from Khadi Boli, a dialect of the Delhi region, and Prakrit. It also borrowed heavily from Persian, Turkish and Arabic languages.

Until the British colonised the subcontinent, Urdu and Hindu languages were collectively referred to as Hindustani. It was British linguist John Gilchrist who for the first time classified and defined Hindustani into two broad categories – words inspired largely by Persian and Arabic were identified as Urdu, and those inspired by Sanskrit became Hindi.


However, spoken Urdu is similar to Hindi and the two share a common grammar and a large percentage of their vocabulary.

[Riaz Haq]

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah's Islamophobia

https://youtu.be/9xEI_3LLask

Speaking in Dehradun, the capital of the Indian state of Uttarkhand, India's Hindu Nationalist Home Minister Amit Shah accused the Congress party of Muslim appeasement. He was angry that Muslim residents of the city were permitted to block traffic for a couple of hours during Friday prayers on some streets. Talking about the Opposition Congress Party that had permitted Muslims to do Friday prayers on the streets of Dehradun, Amit Shah said, "The people who appease (Muslims) will never work for the Land of Hindu Gods".

[Riaz Haq]

Maria Ressa interview: You can’t negotiate peace if you don’t agree on the factsInterview/ Maria Ressa, CEO, RapplerRiyad Mathew By Riyad Mathew

https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2021/10/22/maria-ressa-intervi...

You said the media lost its gatekeeping powers to technology. How do you take back control and regain the trust of people?


The hard part for journalists is that that’s not within our control anymore. In this new world, you say a lie a million times, it’s a fact. In the old world, you say a lie ten times, journalists can catch up, facts can catch up. But when it’s a million times, exponentially pounded, we don’t stand a chance. If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truths. Without truth, you can’t have trust. The incentive schemes of the internet and social media don’t encourage facts and journalism. They encourage information operations. This is why it’s not a surprise that your government, my government, Russian disinformation, Iranian disinformation, Saudi Arabia… there have been many countries. Oxford University’s computational propaganda research project said, at the beginning of the year, that there are at least 81 countries where cheap armies on social media are rolling back democracy. Meaning, they are insidiously manipulating their people. In which democracy is that okay?


These tech platforms tell us, “Well if you don’t like it, mute it or block it.” Can you imagine a journalist saying that? If you don’t like a fact, ignore it, but the rest of the world can still see it. This is why our public sphere is so broken. The idea behind a tech platform is that we can all have our own realities. It's like we’re living in the matrix, or in our own illusions. This is what is tearing down democracy. You go to the Nobel Peace Prize; you can’t negotiate peace if you don’t agree on the facts, if you don’t agree on your shared reality. I’ll shut up, I think I’ve had too much Coke Zero.

----------

You mentioned how some journalists could have succumbed under pressure. For you, getting arrested made you a stronger person and more committed to the cause. In India, five years ago, there were 10.3 lakh journalists; today it has come down to 2.3 lakh. Around 70 per cent either lost their jobs or left the industry. What do you say to that section of disillusioned journalists?


This is a disruption of our industry. So here’s the biggest problem. To paraphrase the Nobel committee, they said freedom of expression is necessary for a democracy, [and that] the quality of journalists of a democracy is indicative of the quality of its democracy. (Sighs) the problem is, the business model of news has crumbled. And that goes hand in hand with the rise of the technology platforms, which are the very same places that are tearing down the credibility of news. It’s a virtuous horrendous cycle. Part of the reason journalists have been laid off globally is that news organisations have lost their revenue stream, the advertising revenue stream. And where did they flock to? They flocked to the technology platforms that have enabled the attacks against journalists. And yet, as the Nobel committee pointed out, you need journalists to get the facts, especially in conflict areas, especially when authoritarian governments growing into dictatorships, growing into fascism, need to be curbed. I go crazy when people call journalists content creators, because we’re not! It would be very easy to just create content. It isn’t easy to be a good journalist. To stake your life at times if you’re in a war zone, [to stake] your reputation when you’re challenging power. It isn’t easy to go up to somebody who has all the power in your world and demand answers. That takes courage. And that is the commodity that no one can really pay for. That is what the mission of journalism creates. So I worry… sorry, I’m hyper, I’ll tone it down (laughs).

[Riaz Haq]

#India’s economy isn’t the #China hedge global investors imagine it to be. #Modi is having the kind of year for which the Latin phrase annus horribilis (horrible year) was invented. India is the unlikeliest and a very reluctant member of the #Quad https://fortune.com/2021/11/03/india-economic-reform-modi-china-hed...

BY
VASUKI SHASTRY


India is the unlikeliest and, until recently, a very reluctant member of the Quad: the quasi-geopolitical alliance with the U.S., Australia, and Japan. As a lower-middle-income nation, it is outweighed in GDP terms by its heftier, more developed counterparts. India’s increased enthusiasm for the Quad, demonstrated by Prime Minister Modi’s participation in the Quad summit hosted at the White House, reflects the nation's growing anxiety about China, the giant neighbor with whom it has sparred on its Himalayan border and by whom it has been surpassed in almost every economic measure.

Just as New Delhi turned toward the Quad as a hedge to deal with an assertive China, long- and short-term foreign investors seem to be warming to the idea of India as a hedge against their China exposure. That shift in sentiment is a product of geopolitics and fraught U.S.-China trade tensions, as well as the rising cost of doing business in China and Beijing's recent regulatory crackdown against vast swaths of the tech industry.

Modi is having the kind of year for which the Latin phrase annus horribilis was invented. The country is emerging from a deadly second wave of the pandemic, with over 34 million infections and almost 460,000 fatalities since the pandemic's start. Economic growth will recover from the dismal 7.3% contraction of 2020, but the momentum behind reform has been lost. Modi’s promise to deliver “minimum government, maximum governance” looks increasingly elusive. Domestic business sentiment has yet to regain pre-lockdown levels, and lack of access to credit has stalled investment.

Modi, early in his tenure, took pride in the slogan that India was the “fastest-growing economy” in the G20. Those heady years of high growth are long past.

But India’s economic sluggishness has not dampened the enthusiasm of foreign investors, portfolio investors, and private equity funds, who continue to pour vast sums into the country’s public and private markets. A recent survey of 1,200 business leaders by consulting firm Deloitte showed that India attracted record foreign direct investment (FDI) during the pandemic totaling an estimated $81 billion in 2020-21. Portfolio investor appetite for Indian stocks remains keen, with the benchmark Sensex Index amongst the top performers in emerging markets this year. Private equity and venture funds have also found rich pickings in private companies and startups. Hotel chain Oyo, partly owned by SoftBank, and payments platform Paytm, backed by Ant Group and Berkshire Hathaway among others, are preparing to raise billions through IPOs this month.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan is very satisfied and glad to be participating in the very unique expo, because the China International Import Expo (CIIE) helps in "improving Pakistan's overall trade with China" and also "increases Pakistan exports to China," Pakistan Ambassador to China Moin Ul Haque told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Friday.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202111/1238241.shtml

Pakistan has been participating in the event from the beginning. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan attended the first CIIE in 2018. He told media that CIIE would serve as a great opportunity for Pakistan to boost its exports.

The latest two expos were held during the pandemic period, and many Pakistan businessmen and companies could not participate physically. However, Pakistan businessmen still have access to this expo through online pavilions, the ambassador said.

Pakistan is exporting a large number of products in China. Textiles, leather, IT and food products including rice, mangoes and vegetables were among the major products sold to China, according to the ambassador.

In recent years, there has been a very substantial increase in the two countries' trade, he noted. China is currently the second-largest export destination for Pakistan.

Trade between China and Pakistan totaled $12.56 billion in the first half of 2021, up 63 percent year-on-year. Pakistan exports to China reached $1.73 billion, up 83.6 percent year-on-year, according to Chinese Ministry of Commerce data in August.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, in the first three quarters of the year, Pakistan exports to China increased by 75 percent, and trade has increased by more than 60 percent, according to the ambassador. "We hope that by the end of this year, we will be able to achieve record figures."

As a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has made significant progress, which also witnessed a closer China-Pakistan relationship with a shared future.

[Riaz Haq]

Facebook is stifling an independent report on #humanrights in #India. Dangerous material hasn’t been removed by #Facebook, including posts comparing #Muslims to locusts & calling for #Hindus to gather weapons for violence against Muslims. #Modi https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-is-stifling-independent-repor... via @WSJ

The Journal reported in August 2020 that Facebook’s then top public-policy executive in India had opposed applying Facebook’s hate-speech rules to a Hindu nationalist politician and others. The executive didn’t respond to requests for comment at the time and later departed the company. A group of civil-society organizations citing the Journal’s reporting published an open letter urging Facebook to “address dangerous content in India.”


-----------

Ritumbra Manuvie, who co-founded an Indian-diaspora-led group based in The Hague called Stichting London Story, which studies disinformation and hate speech, said her organization has provided Foley Hoag with a variety of pieces of content that she says violate Facebook’s rules.

But much of the material remains on Facebook, she said, such as a video that has received an estimated 40 million views in which a Hindu speaker tells an audience that Muslims and Islam should be exterminated. Facebook’s “lack of oversight” of content on its services has “normalized dehumanization and hate speech against Indian Muslims,” Ms. Manuvie said.

-------------

“They are trying to kill it,” said Ratik Asokan of India Civil Watch International, one of the organizations that provided the law firm with input. Mr. Asokan said that Facebook has raised technical objections through the law firm that have caused delays, such as changing definitions of what can be considered hate speech and included in the report, undermining what Facebook said would be an independent study. The law firm hasn’t provided a timeline for completing it, he said.

Much of the material his group has flagged as dangerous hasn’t been removed by Facebook, even though it violates Facebook’s rules, he said, such as posts comparing Muslims to locusts and calls for Hindus to gather weapons in preparation for violence against Muslims.

“With a complex project like this, the goal is to be thorough, not to meet an arbitrary deadline,” said Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, a unit of Meta Platforms Inc., FB +3.87% referring to the timing of the report. “We look forward to our independent assessor, Foley Hoag, completing their India assessment,” he said, referring to the law firm Facebook has commissioned to write the report.

---------------

In recent years, Facebook has released executive summaries of human rights impact assessments it commissioned on its operations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. It released the full version of one it commissioned on Myanmar. In each instance, it said the consultants it engaged completed their work in less than one year.

Following the Journal’s Facebook Files report last month, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote to Facebook’s top executive in India to ask for details on how the company monitors and removes inflammatory content on its platform, according to government officials.

[Riaz Haq]

Four #Muslims booked in #Indian state of #UP for #sedition over hoisting ‘Pakistan flag’; #Police found no #Pakistan flag was found during a search of the two houses. #Modi #Hindutva #BJP #Islamophobia_in_india https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/four-booked-in-up-... via @IndianExpress

Gorakhpur SSP Vipin Tada said the police were investigating the matter. Also, they were verifying the writing in Urdu found on one of the flags handed over to them.

Police said businessmen Talim, Pappu, Ashiq and his brother Asif were booked after an FIR was lodged under IPC Section 124-A at Chauri Chaura police station. No arrest has been made so far.

-------------

FOUR PEOPLE from two families in Gorakhpur’s Chauri Chaura town have been booked for sedition following a complaint that they hoisted the Pakistan flag on the rooftop of their houses, police said on Friday.

The two families have told the police that they had put up religious flags, which were mistaken for the Pakistan flag, said Gorakhpur Additional Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Awasthi. They removed the religious flags once social media posts claiming that they were Pakistan flags started doing the rounds.

No Pakistan flag was found during a search of the two houses, the police said. The families handed over to the police four flags, which they said had been mistaken for the Pakistan flag.

[Riaz Haq]

#Biden & #Blinken hypocrisy: Both attack #China but ignore #UCIRF recommendation to put #India on religious freedom violation list "systematic, ongoing and egregious" violations of religious freedom — for 2nd consecutive year. #Modi #Hindutva #Islamophobia https://www.axios.com/india-biden-administration-religious-freedom-...

The State Department has bypassed a recommendation from an independent government commission to name India to its "red list" of countries engaged in "systematic, ongoing and egregious" violations of religious freedom — for the second consecutive year.

Why it matters: The omission is the latest example of leniency applied to India by the administration and U.S. lawmakers. Strengthening ties with the world's largest democracy has featured prominently in both the Trump and Biden administrations' strategy for countering China.

Officials in New Delhi now regard China as their biggest security threat, aligning with U.S. concerns about Beijing's intent around the world.
Former President Trump had no qualms about embracing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who was once banned from entering the U.S. over "severe violations of religious freedom" during his time as governor of the state of Gujarat.
For President Biden, who's pledged to place human rights at the "center" of his foreign policy, the issue is far more delicate.
Driving the news: Nadine Maenza, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told Axios the Biden administration "missed an opportunity" to publicly pressure India by naming it as a "country of concern."

"We're disappointed that they're not looking at the conditions on the ground and how they're deteriorating," she said.
Since Modi's election in 2014, India has experienced democratic backsliding and frequent outbreaks of anti-Muslim mob violence.
Critics say Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has turned a blind eye to discrimination and imposed laws designed to marginalize Muslims.
Between the lines: The Biden administration appears to have made the judgment it would be more productive to address India's worsening human rights conditions in private, unless a more dramatic threshold is crossed.

"With China's belligerent rise — and India's willingness to work with the U.S. and other partners — the Biden administration will not want to put the relationship at risk over the current level of concern in these areas," says Richard Rossow, a U.S.-India expert at CSIS.
In the meantime, Biden has pressed ahead by hosting Modi at the White House and forging new ties through the Quad, a strategic dialogue between the U.S., India, Japan and Australia that Beijing views as hostile.
Biden also reportedly plans to invite India to his "Summit for Democracy" next month.
The big picture: This is not exclusive to India. U.S. administrations have long been more critical of human rights abuses in adversarial countries like Iran, for example, than in friendly ones like Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Zoom out: The next test of Modi's free pass will be whether India is sanctioned for acquiring Russia's S-400 air defense system. That move is required under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

Turkey was sanctioned in 2020 for the same purchase, but unlike India, Turkey is a NATO ally. Its use of Russian military equipment could lead to U.S. security concerns, since the Russians could gain insight into U.S. defense capabilities.
"I think CAATSA sanctions would be simply disastrous for the transformation of the [U.S.-India] relationship," Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Axios.

[Riaz Haq]

#Indian anchor Sudhir Chaudhary ‘dropped’ as speaker at #AbuDhabi event after #UAE princess calls Zee News anchor #terrorist. "Terrorist not welcome in UAE" #Hindutva #Islamophobia #Modi #BJP https://www.jantakareporter.com/entertainment/sudhir-chaudhary-drop... via @Janta Ka Reporter 2.0

Sudhir Chaudhary of Zee News has been ‘dropped’ as a speaker from an Abu Dhabi event after a UAE princess called the controversial TV anchor a terrorist. UAE princess Hend bint Faisal Al Qasim on Sunday took to Twitter to inform that Chaudhary had been dropped from the event.

She wrote, “Sudheer Chaudhary dropped from the panel of speakers at the Abu Dhabi Chartered Accountants.”

The princess also shared a protest note from the members of the Abu Dhabi chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, who expressed their disagreement with the decision to invite Chaudhary as a speaker to the body’s forthcoming event.

They wrote, “We the undersigned members of the Abu Dhabi chapter of ICAI, writing this note to express our disappointment and disagreement with the decision of including controversial journalist Sudhir Chaudhary in the panel of speakers in the forthcoming seminar of the chapter.”

The signatories of the letter also highlighted the Zee News anchor’s ‘criminal misdeeds’ as they wrote, “No doubt that Sudhir Chaudhary is a popular TV personality but he has been alleged to have involved in numerous unprofessional journalism and criminal misdeeds.”

Princess Hend on Saturday had reacted angrily to the decision to invite Chaudhary to the UAE despite the latter’s role in promoting Islamophobia through his TV broadcasts. Addressing Chaudhary as a ‘terrorist,’ the UAE princess had reminded the organiser how the controversial TV anchor had been routinely defaming Islam and its followers.

Princess Hend on Sunday had reminded as targeting any race or religion with hate speech was a crime in the UAE. She had tweeted, “In the United Arab Emirates hate speech against any religion, caste or race is a crime. #Peace #Tolerance #HardWork #Expo2020 #Love #Focus #Growth.”

She had added, “When a criminal spews venom onto a society, that invites violence causing the burning of homes, businesses and mosques. A #MuslimHolocaust is started, together with the abuse of other minorities- Dalits/Sikhs as well. Police sit & watch. I will not welcome such hate in the UAE.”

Chaudhary has been at the forefront of Indian TV anchors, often referred to as lapdogs or TV criminals, in fuelling hatred against Muslims in India. He had led a campaign to defame Indian Muslims by blaming them for spreading coronavirus in 2020. Several Indian high courts later concluded that blaming the members of the Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of the virus was part of propaganda.