A Dead Fish

long story short, there’s legislation in the process of being passed that would

ban girls under 18 from wearing any form of religious head covering in public, and although it’s obviously aimed at muslim women, it would also affect other faith groups that practice similar forms of modest dress

ban islamic swimwear in schools and public (there is already a modest swimwear ban in place at public beaches, this just extends it)

ban mothers wearing hijab from entering schools or participating in school field trips or extra curriculars

ban the slaughter of halal poultry - the cheapest and most easily accessible form of meat protein for the muslim community

extend school hijab bans to universities

prevent muslim women from choosing healthcare providers based on gender (which many muslim women prefer to do, since many exams require removal of clothing, etc)

ban muslim parents from homeschooling

force halal markets to sell pork and alcohol or face closure

more information is coming out daily, and there are a few corrections and updates to note:

the modest swimwear ban, though it was overturned in 2016 for public beaches, will still affect public pools and schools

the halal ban is not technically a “ban”, but it is still expected to severely impact the industry in a way that could produce similar effects and make halal poultry less affordable and accessible to the communities that rely on it as an affordable staple.

the notion to extend the hijab ban to universities is not yet in effect or being introduced, but many fear it will be the next step

How can you help?

Here are some info posts on how to help. Sources will also be linked at the bottom:

Sources and tips:

source for the insta timeline

how you can help

how to be a better ally to muslim women

how to educate yourself and be an ally + organizations to reach out to

why you should not wear hijab in solidarity

A few tips; talk to muslim women instead of for them - learn about why some women choose to wear it while also learning about why some women choose not to - learn about what hijab means for women and men - don’t limit your support to a few posts, be active - educate yourself about how colonialism, racism, and orientalism plays into this

the hashtags #CantBanUs and #HandsOffMyHijab are trending, but they were created by and for muslim women. spread their stories and give them platform, but don’t occupy their space

Information is constantly changing, so if any fellow Muslims out there have some additional links, updated info, or tips, please feel free to add on

Source:

“Most hospitals in America are non-profits, which means they must have financial assistance or Charity Care policies. This is gonna sound weird, but what that means is that if you make under a certain amount of money, the hospital legally has to forgive your hospital bills. Let me show you how this works. Type in the hospital name with ‘financial assistance’ after. Should be the top link. Let’s check. What you wanna do is look for financial assistance applications and policies. Let’s check the policy. From here, what you’re looking for is a sliding scale of benefits. 0-300% of the poverty guidelines, they will forgive 100% of your medical bills. So you can see here that 300% is $37,470, so if you make under that amount, the hospital will legally forgive your medical bills. If you’re a larger household, you can check it out from here. If you wanna test it out, I run a non-profit that does this so DM me, and I will actually do it for you, and see if we can crush those medical bills.” The guy’s Tiktok handle is @dollarfor.

Fuck. Capitalism.

Here’s an article from Reuters. From the article:

World Trade Organization members on Thursday delayed a decision on a proposal to waive intellectual property rules for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines amid ongoing opposition from wealthy countries, a Geneva trade official said.

“Big Pharma” has rejected an idea proposed by India and South Africa that would grant compulsory licensing of the vaccines and drugs by overriding patent rules of WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement, allowing generic or other manufactures to make the new products.

The proposal has won support from some countries at the WTO but is opposed by Western countries, including Britain, Switzerland and the United States, which have strong domestic pharmaceutical industries.

Non-governmental organisations have been pressuring rich governments to ease rules temporarily as they did during the AIDS epidemic, arguing that they create barriers to access to affordable medicines and vaccines for vulnerable people around the world. This week, the WTO received a petition signed by more than 900,000 people asking it to “ensure access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and equipment for everyone in the world.”

‘Thursday’ in the above article refers to 10th December 2020. From Bloomberg on 17th December:

Back at the WTO, delegates have agreed to keep discussions open and were due to submit a report to the WTO’s General Council meeting on Dec. 16, highlighting the “current lack of consensus” on the issue, according to a statement from the organization.

The WTO has still not decided on this. They will continue the discussion in early 2021 (WTO tweet and website). The global petition referred to in the article is still taking signatures.

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