baseless

The emotional speech against Islamophobia from the NYC mayoral race frontrunner comes a day before early voting begins.

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave an emotional speech addressing “racist, baseless attacks” from his opponents, a day before early voting begins in the race he is projected to win.

Speaking outside a mosque in the Bronx on Friday, Mamdani criticised his opponents for bringing “hatred to the forefront”, noting that their Islamophobia not only affects him as the Democratic nominee for mayor but also close to one million Muslims living in New York.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” Mamdani said in his speech, less than two weeks ahead of the November 4 general election.

Mamdani, who is currently a member of the New York State Assembly, said that while he had tried to focus his election campaign on his core message of affordability, his opponents in recent days had shown that “Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement”.

His speech also came a day after his top opponent, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, laughed after radio host Sid Rosenberg said that Mamdani “would be cheering” if another September 11 attack occurred.

Cuomo, who is a member of the Democratic Party but lost the Democratic primary election to Mamdani in June, responded in agreement with Rosenberg: “That’s another problem.”

Basim Elkarra, the executive director of Muslim advocacy group CAIR Action, described Cuomo’s appearance on the radio programme as “despicable, dangerous, and disqualifying”.

“By agreeing with a racist radio host who suggested a Muslim elected official would ‘cheer’ another 9/11, Cuomo has crossed a moral line,” Elkarra said.

“Cuomo’s willingness to engage in this kind of hate speech, on this kind of platform, shows exactly the kind of leader he is: someone who would rather stoke fear than bring people together,” he said.

Speaking on Friday, Mamdani said he had also been “slandered” by Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa on the debate stage, “when he claimed that I support global jihad”, and faced advertisements from Super Political Action Committees that “imply that I am a terrorist, or mock the way I eat”.

He also shared his memories of his “aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab”, and a staff member who had the “word terrorist spray painted” on their garage, as well as the advice he had received that he “did not have to tell people” he was Muslim, if he wanted to win elections.

Top Democrat endorses Mamdani on eve of early voting

Earlier on Friday, Mamdani received a long-anticipated endorsement from Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives and the representative of New York’s eighth congressional district, which includes the Brooklyn neighbourhoods of East Flatbush, Coney Island and Brownsville.

While Mamdani has earned endorsements from top Democrats, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the vocally pro-Palestinian candidate has struggled to win over other top New York Democrats, such as Senator Chuck Schumer.

Despite the reluctance of some establishment figures within the Democratic Party, Mamdani resoundingly won the party’s primary election to choose its candidate for the general election back in June.

Current NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who did not contest the primary after facing corruption allegations, endorsed Cuomo this week after withdrawing from the race, although his name will still appear on the ballot.

A recently published poll from AARP and Gotham Polling and Analytics shows Mamdani well ahead of his opponents with the support of 43.2 percent of voters.

He is followed by Cuomo with 28.9 percent and Sliwa with 19.4 percent, while 8.4 percent said they were undecided or preferred another candidate.

Cost of living was the main issue for nearly two-thirds of voters, with public safety and housing affordability also areas of concern, in the same poll.

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, pledged Friday to further embrace his Muslim identity in response to growing attacks by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his surrogates that he characterized as “racist and baseless.”

Encircled by faith leaders outside a Bronx mosque, Mamdani spoke in emotional terms about the “indignities” long faced by the city’s Muslim population, choking back tears as he described his aunt’s decision not to ride the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks because she didn’t feel safe being seen in a religious head covering.

He recounted how, when he first entered politics, an uncle gently suggested he keep his faith to himself.

“These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught,” Mamdani said. “And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams.”

At a news conference later Friday, Cuomo accused Mamdani of “playing the victim” for political purposes and denied that Islamophobia existed on a wide scale in New York.

Throughout the race, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has been criticized by Cuomo and others over his criticism of Israel’s government, which he had accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But the tone of those attacks have amped up in recent days, drawing allegations from some Democrats that Cuomo’s campaign is leaning into Islamophobia in the final stretch of the campaign.

Appearing on a conservative radio station Thursday, Cuomo appeared to laugh along at host Sid Rosenberg’s suggestion that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo replied.

A Cuomo social media account posted, then removed, a video depicting Mamdani eating rice with his hands and describing his supporters as criminals. A campaign spokesperson said the video was posted in error.

At an event endorsing the former governor, Mayor Eric Adams invoked the possibility of terrorist attacks in New York City, seeming to suggest — without explanation — they would be more likely under a Mamdani administration.

“New York can’t be Europe. I don’t know what is wrong with people,” Adams said, standing alongside Cuomo. “You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.”

At a debate earlier this week, Sliwa, the Republican nominee, falsely smeared Mamdani as a supporter of “global jihad.”

Asked about Rosenberg’s comments, Cuomo said he “didn’t take the remarks seriously at the time.”

“Of course I think it’s an offensive comment. But it did not come out of my mouth,” he added.

Messages left with Adams’ and Sliwa’s campaign were not immediately returned.

In his speech Friday, Mamdani said he was aiming his remarks not at political opponents but at his fellow Muslim New Yorkers.

“The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker,” he said. “And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.”

“No more,” he said.

To that end, Mamdani said he would further embrace his Muslim identity, a decision he said he consciously avoided at the start of his campaign.

“I thought that if I behaved well enough, or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”

He continued: “I will not change who I am, how I eat, for the faith that I’m proud to call my own. But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

Mamdani, who won the primary in stunning fashion, has faced skepticism from some in the Democratic establishment, particularly over his criticism of Israel. On Friday, Mamdani earned the endorsement of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Cuomo told reporters that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had made Jewish people afraid to leave their homes.

He also rejected Mamdani’s claim that Muslim New Yorkers have been made to feel uncomfortable in their own city.

“Don’t tell me New Yorkers are Islamophobic. They’re not,” Cuomo said.

“What he is doing is the oldest, dirtiest political trick in the book: divide people,” Cuomo said.

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana has accused Jeremy Corbyn and other members of a new left-wing party of “baseless attacks” on her character and said she is consulting lawyers.

It follows an email sent to supporters inviting them to sign up for membership of the new party at the cost of £5 a month or £55 a year.

Sultana had posted on social media encouraging people to join and claiming more than 20,000 people had done so.

But ex-Labour leader Corbyn posted a statement signed by four other independent MPs involved in the party in which he claimed the emails were “unauthorised” and said any direct debits set up should be “immediately cancelled”. Corbyn declined to comment on Sultana’s latest claims.

The row over the membership portal has revealed deep splits in the fledgling party, which was launched in July and is due to hold its founding conference in November.

Members will vote on its official name but it is currently using “Your Party” in campaign material.

On Thursday, Sultana described Corbyn and others as running a “sexist boys’ club” and claimed she had been sidelined by other members of the party’s working group.

She said the membership portal was “in line with the road map set out to members”.

The party said it had referred the matter to the UK’s data protection watchdog.

In a statement posted on X on Friday night, Sultana said that “a number of false and defamatory statements have been published about me concerning the launch of Your Party’s membership portal”.

The Coventry South MP said that they were “baseless attacks on my character are politically-motivated and I intend to hold to account those responsible for making them”.

“To that end, I have this evening instructed specialist defamation lawyers,” she added.

Sultana said that at “no point was members’ data misused or put at risk” and that “all funds received from members were ringfenced and protected in the appropriate manner”.

May 10 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union has dropped its federal lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security of illegally deporting a U.S. child and her Honduran mother and sister.

“The ACLU dropped its lawsuit on the false claims that DHS deported a U.S. citizen,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Saturday in a news release.

The news release referred to the federal lawsuit as “baseless lawfare” against the DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The truth is, and always has been, that the mother – who was in the country illegally – chose to bring her 2-year-old with her to Honduras when she was removed,” McLaughlin said.

“The narrative that DHS is deporting American children is false and irresponsible.”

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on behalf of Trish Mack, whom the filing referred to as “best friend of V.M.L.”

“V.M.L.” are the initials used to identify the 2-year-old child who was born in the United States but whose mother, whom DHS identified as Jenny Carolina Lopez-Villela, chose to take with her to Honduras.

Lopez-Villela illegally entered the United States with V.M.L.’s older sister three times in two years, according to the DHS.

She entered in September 2019 with her oldest daughter but was “deemed inadmissible” and was given final orders of removal in March 2020.

Lopez-Villela also illegally entered the United States in March 2021 and again in August 2021, along with her oldest daughter.

She was detained by ICE in April when arriving with her daughters for a routine immigration check-in at a New Orleans facility.

When told she would be deported to Honduras, Lopez-Villela chose to bring V.M.L. with her instead of leaving her with another person to remain in the United States.

“Parents who are here illegally can take control of their departure,” DHS said of the U.S.-born children of parents who face deportation.

They can use the CBP Home app to self-deport, along with their children, and “return the legal, right way and come back to live the American dream,” the DHS news release says.

The CBP Home app is free and available for all mobile devices.

The ACLU did not respond to a request for comment made Saturday afternoon, but in an April 25th news release accused the New Orleans ICE field office of deporting three “U.S. citizen children.”

Two of those children are Lopez-Villela’s daughters, only one of whom is a U.S. citizen, according to DHS.

The other child is a 7-year-old who also left when the child’s pregnant mother was deported after being arrested in New Orleans in April.

That child’s citizenship status was neither confirmed nor denied by the DHS, but the ACLU says the child is afflicted with a rare form of cancer.

ICE deported the mother who took her child with her despite ICE having been notified of the child’s medical needs and the mother’s pregnancy, according to the ACLU.

The ACLU said the deportations were done “under deeply disturbing circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.”

“The families had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities,” the ACLU said.

They were denied access to their attorneys, which the ACLU says deprived them of legal counsel, and ICE deported the mothers and their children on an early morning flight from Louisiana.