Self-ruled Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing, will go to the polls latest this month to choose a new president.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has stressed that the self-ruled island’s future and its relations with Beijing must be decided by its people after China’s leader Xi Jinping said “reunification” was inevitable.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its goal.
It has been stepping up political and military pressure on the island since Tsai was first elected in 2016 and has ramped up its campaign in the weeks ahead of the next presidential and parliamentary elections on January 13.
In a bullish New Year’s Eve address, Xi struck a stronger tone than usual over the island, promising the nation that China would “surely be reunified”.
Asked about Xi’s speech at a New Year’s press conference at the presidential office in Taipei, Tsai stressed that the island was a democracy and it was its people who decided their future.
“This is taking the joint will of Taiwan’s people to make a decision. After all, we are a democratic country,” she said, calling on Beijing to respect the outcome of the election and stressing it was the responsibility of both sides to maintain peace and stability in the strait that separates them.
Earlier on Monday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defence said it had detected four Chinese military aircraft and four Chinese navy vessels near the island. It said one of the aircraft had entered its air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the southwest.
Beijing sees Tsai as well as Vice President William Lai Ching-te, the frontrunner for the top, job as “separatists” and has refused offers of dialogue.
Reelected in a landslide in 2020, Tsai has bolstered relations with the United States, Taiwan’s most significant ally, and stepped up efforts to modernise the island’s military.
“Everyone’s home has locks on them, which is not to provoke the neighbours next door but to make yourself safer. This is the same for the doors to the country. Taiwan’s people want peace, but we want peace with respect,” she said.
Tsai and Lai are from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has dominated the island’s politics in recent years leaving the China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) in opposition.
Analysts told Al Jazeera last month that Beijing was running a multi-pronged campaign to ensure the DPP is not re-elected and that the people of Taiwan make what it considers the “right choice”.
In his New Year’s speech, Xi reiterated his goal of unifying China and Taiwan.
“Compatriots on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose to share in the glory of national rejuvenation,” he said.
Tsai cannot run for another term in office because she has already served two terms. She will step down in May when the next president is sworn in.
As the war enters its 677th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Monday, January 1, 2024.
Fighting
Russia launched a new wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine, with at least 28 people injured after six missiles hit the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Russia said the attack on Ukraine’s second biggest city was “retaliation” for a deadly Ukrainian air raid on the Russian city of Belgorod not far from the border. Moscow targeted a hotel housing military commanders and “foreign mercenaries” as well as the headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service for the region. Kharkiv city officials said the missiles struck residential buildings, hotels and medical facilities, while drones hit residential buildings.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it had destroyed 21 of 49 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia fired in its latest attack. Most were aimed at the front line and parts of the Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions, it said.
Separately, Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said that three people were killed when Russian forces shelled a village near the front line.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, meanwhile, Russian shelling killed a 14-year-old boy and left a 9-year-old boy in hospital in critical condition, according to regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
People clear debris and broken glass after Russia fired six missiles at Kharkiv city [Kharkiv Regional Administration via AP Photo]
Politics and diplomacy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck an optimistic note as he sought to rally the country in his New Year address. The 20-minute video message from his Kyiv office made almost no direct reference to the situation on the 1,000km (600-mile) front line or the limited success of a counteroffensive launched in June. Nor did it refer to the political and diplomatic challenges facing Kyiv as it seeks to secure continued military and other aid from its allies. Instead, Zelenskyy stressed the strength and unity of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia’s aggression and referenced successes against the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. He promised that Ukraine would wreak “wrath” on Russian forces in 2024.
In his New Year’s address, Russian President Vladimir Putin made only passing reference to the invasion, praising Russia’s soldiers on the front line as “heroes” in a fight for “truth and justice”. He also called for unity among Russians in the face of “difficult tasks” and lauded Russian citizens’ “solidarity, mercy and fortitude.” The four-minute pre-recorded video was aired just before midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones.
From the deepening conflict in Myanmar as a result of the 2021 coup to North Korea’s record years of weapons testing and confrontations in the South China Sea, it has been a busy year in the Asia Pacific.
Here are some of our most-read and must-reads from our original reporting in 2023.
Myanmar
More than two years since the generals seized power in a coup in February 2021, civilians found themselves caught in an escalating conflict, and targeted by a military notorious for its brutality.
Starting with satellite imagery of five villages burned to ashes in the country’s Sagaing region, Zaheena Rasheed and Nu Nu Lusan gathered evidence from villagers and witnesses to piece together what had happened.
“We have been working so hard for generations to build these houses and own this land, but they burned our homes and our grain in just one day,” one farmer told them. “They want us to become so poor that we do not resist them. I think they believe that if we are left with nothing, we would not resist. But they are wrong.”
At the end of October, three ethnic armed groups formed an alliance to begin a major offensive against the military in northern Shan state along the border with China.
Emily Fishbein, Jaw Tu Hkawng and Zau Myet Awng found Operation 1027, as the offensive was dubbed, sparking renewed optimism among anti-coup forces as the armed groups notched up early gains.
They have since made further advances from Shan state across to western Rakhine state despite a ferocious response from the military.
The fighting has worsened the humanitarian situation for many civilians, with local relief agencies providing assistance in the absence of an international response.
In Rakhine’s Minbya, a Rohingya woman told Al Jazeera she was living in fear amid relentless shelling and artillery fire.
“We can’t get out of Minbya right now. The fighting is all around,” she said in November. “I can hear bombing and gunfire every day, but I don’t know where they’re fighting. There’s no internet and the phone also often doesn’t work. I worry about everything.”
Rakhine has long been a troubled state. Home to the mostly Muslim Rohingya, it was where the military launched a brutal crackdown that sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing into neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017.
Cyclone Mocha caused devastation in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state [File: Sai Aung Main/AFP]
Many of those who remain are forced to live in camps where their movements are restricted.
These areas were hit in May by Cyclone Mocha, the most serious storm to hit Myanmar since Cyclone Nargis killed thousands of people in 2008.
Hpan Ja Brang, working with Emily Fishbein, were the first to report in international media of the devastation wreaked by the storm, especially in the Rohingya camps. You can read their report here.
Surge in trafficking
The Myanmar crisis has also had an increasing effect regionally – not just as a result of the generals’ refusal to carry through on promises to end the violence made to fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but because the instability is driving criminality.
Kevin Doyle travelled up to northern Thailand and the so-called Golden Triangle where seizures of drugs including methamphetamine and heroin have soared since the coup.
Chris Humphrey, meanwhile, who is based in Hanoi, found a surge in the number of Vietnamese being trafficked into Myanmar and forced to work as sex slaves or in scam call centres.
And Alastair McCready went to Laos where he discovered the supply of methamphetamine had grown so much that it had become cheaper than beer.
The crisis in Myanmar has increased the regional drugs trade [Alastair McCready/Al Jazeera]
Vietnam
Hanoi-based Chris Humphrey heard foreigners were being held in Vietnamese detention long after they had completed their prison sentences. The reason? Unpaid court fines and compensation to the victims of their crimes.
At the time the story was published, nationals from countries including Malaysia, Cambodia, South Africa and Nigeria were being held beyond their sentences in sometimes horrific conditions.
“It’s terrible. It is prison after prison,” Nigerian Ezeigwe Evaristus Chukwuebuka told Al Jazeera. “I was seriously humiliated, locked up in a dark, stinky, small room without a toilet, and my legs locked up in bars for two weeks.”
Indonesia
For 30 years until May 1998, Indonesia was ruled by strongman Soeharto.
His departure, amid mass protests, brought new freedoms for Indonesia’s more than 200 million people, particularly its ethnic Chinese minority who had long endured government-sponsored discrimination and were often targeted for their perceived wealth.
Randy Mulyanto and Charlenne Kayla Roeslie spoke to five Indonesians of Chinese descent to find out more about those times and how things had changed.
Iskandar Salim told them that he used to struggle with his identity – feeling like he was not Indonesian enough but not fully Chinese either. Now, he is proud to define himself.
“I can simply say, ‘I am Indonesian, more specifically Chinese Indonesian’,” Iskander told Al Jazeera. “In the end, our identity is ours to decide and define.” Find out more here.
Staying in Indonesia, after Aisyah Llewellyn heard that school children had been caught up in tear gas fired by police at protesters on the island of Rempang – not too far from Singapore – she went there to find out what was going on.
She discovered a controversial plan for a Chinese factory to make glass for solar panels and develop a massive eco-city. The problem? Thousands of residents would have to move to make way for it.
“This is my home and this is where I want to die,” 80-year-old Halimah told Al Jazeera. “I love this place more than anything.”
You can learn more about the villagers and their determination to stop the project here.
A year after the tragedy at the Kanjuruhan football stadium in Malang, Llewellyn flew to the city to speak to the families of some of the 135 people who died.
The stadium has been demolished and will be redeveloped but the struggle to reform Indonesian football will not be so simple. You can read that piece here.
Phillip Mehrtens was taken captive by Papuan independence fighters in February [The West Papua National Liberation Army via Reuters]
And finally, the kidnapping of New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens by an armed group fighting for independence in Papua drew renewed international attention to the long-running conflict in the resource-rich region.
Here’s the story from Kate Mayberry. Mehrtens is still being held captive.
Military developments
Military developments were a key focus of the year, with North Korea testing a record number of weapons as it stepped up efforts to modernise its armed forces.
In September, leader Kim Jong Un made a rare trip out of his country, boarding his armoured train on a mission to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
Putin agreed to help Kim build satellites and officials showed off Russia’s military technology, In November, North Korea put its first spy satellite into the air – after three failed launches – and is promising more for 2024.
Experts say it continues to fund such activities by illicit means – from hacking to money laundering (you can read more on the ghostly North Korean restaurants that continue to trade in Laos here). The big question is what North Korea is giving Russia in return for its help. Weapons, probably.
Kim argues he needs to develop his country’s arsenal because the United States is deepening its military and political relationship with South Korea. The US, meanwhile, says it has to work more closely with Seoul and its allies because of the increasing threat from Pyongyang.
It is a similar story in the South China Sea, where Beijing has come into multiple confrontations with Manila in the Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal.
To much concern in Beijing, the situation has pushed the Philippines closer to the US. Zaheena Rasheed travelled to the country to find out why. You can read that story here.
China
2023 was the year China emerged from years of isolation as a result of its zero-COVID strategy.
That policy meant relentless testing, isolation or quarantine camp. Erin Hale discovered months after the policy was lifted that many of the vast camps remained.
Meanwhile, in this story, Frederik Kelter reported many Chinese had struggled to recover from the trauma of zero-COVID and the abrupt decision to drop it following unprecedented protests.
“So many people suffered under the zero-COVID policy and so many people died when it ended,” Evelyn Ma told Al Jazeera.
The famous Kampung Baru Mosque’s bubur [Lai Seng Sin/AP Photo]
We also took a closer look at China’s growing influence in the Solomon Islands and the curious case of a shipment of what were said to be “replica” weapons from China.
The Asia Pacific is home to a wide variety of religions, from Buddhism to Christianity and Islam.
Raphael Rashid looked at how plans for a tiny mosque in the South Korean city of Daegu triggered a wave of virulent Islamophobia, which saw pig heads left rotting outside the building and protesters holding pork barbecues. You can read more on that story here.
We also reported on how Beijing is asserting control over religions, from Catholicism to Islam.
As Theresa Liu, a Chinese Catholic who follows the church in Rome, told Al Jazeera: “The government is trying to control everything about our religion – how our churches look, who our priests are, the way we pray. I think different religious groups all over China are having trouble with the government.”
People wave Chinese and Hong Kong flags, as Pope Francis arrives to attend the Holy Mass in Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia in September [Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters]
On a lighter – or should it be heavier – note, Marco Ferrarese profiled the Taiwanese death metal band Dharma. Their unique selling point – their lyrics are actually Buddhist verses and nuns join them on stage.
In Malaysia, meanwhile, Ramadan is known for unique dishes that can only be found during the Muslim fasting month. One of them is bubur lambuk from the Masjid Jamek Kampung Baru Mosque.
Ushar Daniele and Bhavya Vemulapalli joined the mosque’s volunteer chefs to find out the secret to the creamy porridge’s popularity.
Kiplagat’s body was found with a knife wound to his neck, suggesting he was murdered, according to the local police.
Ugandan athlete Benjamin Kiplagat has been found dead in Kenya, police say, with Uganda’s Daily Monitor and other media outlets in Kenya reporting he had been stabbed to death.
The Kenyan-born Kiplagat, 34, had represented Uganda internationally in the 3,000-metre steeplechase, including at several Olympic Games and World Championships.
His body was discovered in a car on the outskirts of Eldoret, a town situated in the Rift Valley, on Saturday night.
Eldoret is known for being home to numerous athletes who undergo training in the high-altitude region.
“An investigation has been launched and officers are on the ground pursuing leads,” local police commander Stephen Okal told reporters in Eldoret on Sunday.
He said Kiplagat’s body had a deep knife wound to his neck, suggesting he was stabbed.
‘Shocked and saddened’: condolences pour in
“World Athletics is shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Benjamin Kiplagat,” the global athletics governing body said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
“We send our deepest condolences to his friends, family, teammates and fellow athletes. Our thoughts are with them all at this difficult time.”
Peter Ogwang, state minister for sports in Uganda, expressed similar sentiments on X.
I am saddened to hear about the death of our athlete, Benjamin Kiplagat who was reportedly murdered in Kenya. I send my deepest condolences to his family, Ugandans, and the entire East Africa for the loss of such a budding athlete who has on several occasions represented us on… pic.twitter.com/yX29cBnAl3
“I send my deepest condolences to his family, Ugandans, and the entire East Africa for the loss of such a budding athlete who has on several occasions represented us on the international scene,” he said.
Media reports said Kiplagat had been training in the Eldoret area before going to Uganda to participate in athletics competitions.
Still struggling to come to terms with it. Former 3000m steeplechase runner Benjamin Kiplagat was murdered earlier today in western Kenya. His neck was cut with a knife. He represented Uganda at 3 @Olympics & 6 @WorldAthletics Championships. Won 2008 world junior silver in Poland… pic.twitter.com/tclMqs2k0D
Kiplagat, whose running career spanned about 18 years, won the silver medal in the 3,000-metre steeplechase at the 2008 World Junior Championships and bronze at the Africa Championships in 2012.
He made the semi-finals of the event at the 2012 Olympic Games in London and competed in Rio in 2016.
His death follows the killing in October 2021 of Kenyan distance running star Agnes Tirop, who was found stabbed to death at the age of 25 in her home in Iten, a training hub near Eldoret.
Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, went on trial for her murder last month. The 43-year-old has denied the charge against him and was freed on bail just before the trial opened.
Revellers across the world are celebrating the countdown to a New Year with fireworks and brightly lit signs – offering a hopeful start to 2024 for some.
Sunday’s celebrations come even as the globe’s ongoing conflicts raise security concerns and lead to muted or even cancelled festivities.
New Zealanders were among the first in the world to celebrate the arrival of 2024 with a fireworks display in Auckland. The fireworks illuminated the cloudy night sky and were accompanied by a laser light and animation show.
Sydney, Australia hailed 2024 with a dazzling fireworks display featuring silver and gold pyrotechnics to mark the 50th anniversary of its famous Opera House.
Fireworks illuminated the night sky and were accompanied by a laser light and animation show during New Year’s celebrations in Tokyo.
Metro Manila, Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing, Moscow, Istanbul, and other parts of the globe also celebrated.
Here are some pictures as the world bids farewell to 2023 and welcomes the New Year.
Israel’s far-right finance minister says Israelis who would replace Palestinians would ‘make the desert bloom’.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for the Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.
Smotrich, who has been excluded from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet and discussions of day-after arrangements in Gaza, made the comments while speaking to Israeli Army Radio on Sunday.
“What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” he said.
“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different,” he said.
He added that if the 2.3 million population were no longer there “growing up on the aspiration to destroy the state of Israel”, Gaza would be seen differently in Israel.
“Most of Israeli society will say: ‘Why not? It’s a nice place, let’s make the desert bloom, it doesn’t come at anyone’s expense’.”
Sara Khairat, reporting for Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv, said Smotrich’s comments “tie into a narrative that many are starting to believe that Israel wants to re-occupy Gaza”.
“Pushing the idea that they want to push the Palestinians out”, Khairat said, would be reminiscent of scenes from the “Nakba” (catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the wake of the 1948 war that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.
Most Palestinians displaced after the Nakba ended up in neighbouring Arab states, and Arab leaders have said any latter-day move to displace Palestinians would be unacceptable.
Smotrich’s far-right agenda
Smotrich, whose far-right Religious Zionist Party draws support from Israel’s settler community, has made similar comments in the past, setting himself at odds with Israel’s most important ally, the United States.
But his views conflict with the official government position that Palestinians in Gaza will be able to return to their homes after the war.
Smotrich’s party, which helped Netanyahu secure the majority he needed to become prime minister for the sixth time almost exactly a year ago, has seen its approval ratings slump since the start of the conflict.
Opinion polls also indicate that most Israelis do not support the return of Israeli settlements to Gaza after they were moved out in 2005 when the army withdrew.
Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, and Netanyahu has said it does not intend to maintain a permanent presence again, but would maintain security control for an indefinite period.
However, there has been little clarity about Israel’s longer-term intentions, and countries including the US have said that Gaza should be governed by Palestinians.
The Danish queen announces January 14 abdication during New Year’s Eve address live on TV, making way for son, Crown Prince Frederik.
Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II will abdicate on January 14 after 52 years on the throne and will be succeeded by her eldest son Crown Prince Frederik, she said in her annual New Year’s speech.
The 83-year-old queen, who took over the throne in 1972, is the longest-serving monarch in Europe following the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.
In February, she underwent a successful back surgery.
“The surgery naturally gave rise to thinking about the future – whether the time had come to leave the responsibility to the next generation,” she said in the speech on Sunday.
“I have decided that now is the right time. On 14 January 2024 – 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father – I will step down as queen of Denmark,” she said.
“I leave the throne to my son, Crown Prince Frederik,” she added.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen confirmed the decision in a news release.
He paid tribute to the monarch, offering a “heartfelt thank you to Her Majesty the Queen for her lifelong dedication and tireless efforts for the Kingdom”.
In Denmark, formal power resides with the elected parliament and its government.
The monarch is expected to stay above partisan politics, representing the nation with traditional duties ranging from state visits to national day celebrations.
Born in 1940, Margrethe has been one of the most popular public figures in Denmark.
The 1.82m (6-foot) tall, chain-smoking monarch often walked the streets of Copenhagen virtually unescorted and won the admiration of Danes for her warm manners and for her talents as a linguist and designer.
A keen skier, she was a member of a Danish women’s air force unit as a princess, taking part in judo courses and endurance tests in the snow. Margrethe remained tough even as she grew older.
In 2011, at age 70, she visited Danish troops in southern Afghanistan wearing a military jumpsuit.
As monarch, she crisscrossed the country and regularly visited Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, the two semi-independent territories that are part of the Danish Realm.
Meanwhile, Israel bombed Aleppo and Neirab, leaving Syrians trapped between two forces raining fire from the sky.
Idlib, Syria — Two civilians, including a child, were killed, and 16 others, including four children, were injured in an artillery attack by Syrian regime forces targeting a popular market in the centre of Idlib city on Saturday evening, according to the Syria Civil Defence.
“We received two martyrs and 14 injuries, including two critical cases, at the hospital, and they are now in the operating room,” said Ismail al-Hassan, the head of the emergency department at Idlib University Hospital.
Al-Hassan told Al Jazeera that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had recently intensified its targeting of the area, necessitating a constant state of preparedness to receive any injuries within the city or its vicinity in the event of any bombardment.
“For nearly 13 years, we have been working to save civilian casualties targeted by the Assad regime and Russia,” al-Hassan said. The Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said that earlier on Saturday, a child was wounded as a result of artillery shelling targeting the city of Atarib in the western Aleppo countryside.
“The timing and location of today’s attack in Idlib indicate that its goal is to kill the largest number of civilians,” said Ahmed Yazji, a board member of the Syria Civil Defence. Yazj told Al Jazeera that the attacks by the Syrian regime and Russia on the Idlib region consistently aim to target vital centres, schools, and hospitals with the intention of killing civilians.
“Since the beginning of 2023 until today, we have documented more than 1,200 attacks by the Assad regime and Russia on the northwestern Syria region, including 27 attacks on schools and 16 attacks on displaced camps,” he said. “The attacks of the Assad regime and Russia on the region can only be described as terrorist attacks seeking to undermine stability in the area.”
Idlib province, the last stronghold controlled by Syrian opposition fighters, is considered the most densely populated area in northwestern Syria, hosting 4.5 million people, including 1.9 million living in internally displaced camps, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Within moments, the market turned into a pool of blood and thick dust,” said Abdullah Aloush, a displaced person from Khan Shaykhun and the owner of a nearby shop in the targeted area in Idlib city. Aloush told Al Jazeera that the market was targeted at a time when it was crowded with civilians. “Initially, myself and those with me in the shop were helpless, not knowing what to do, before we went out to check on our neighbours and assist the injured.”
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli warplanes conducted air strikes on Aleppo and Neirab airports, as well as several points belonging to the Syrian regime south of Aleppo. The Israeli air strikes targeted farms between the villages of Zahabiya and Sheikh Saeed in the Neirab military airport area, housing warehouses and headquarters for Iranian militias. A missile also fell in the area of Aleppo International Airport and Neirab military airport, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London.
“As usual, the Assad regime, unable to respond to Israeli raids on its sites, targets civilians in northwestern Syria,” said Mohammed al-Saleh, 34, the owner of a cafe on the street in Idlib that was bombed.
Al-Saleh, who was approximately 15m (50 feet) away from the bombing, warned everyone in the cafe not to leave the place for fear of a repeat of the bombing in the area and to avoid new casualties. “At these moments, our feeling can only be described as being in the embrace of death,” said Al-Saleh. “In these days, while people around the world are preparing to celebrate the start of a new year, we in Idlib are preparing to bury our friends and family who were killed today.”
Sao Paulo, Brazil – It wasn’t unusual for patients to arrive in a foul temper at the hospital emergency room in São Paulo, Brazil, where physician Batull Sleiman worked.
After all, every day brought new medical crises, new requests for urgent care. Sleiman had seen it all. But she was not expecting the level of anger she received several weeks ago.
A patient had arrived in her examination room frustrated over the time he spent waiting for a doctor’s care. Sleiman recalled his issue was “not urgent”. Still, as she treated him, he accused her of being impolite.
“You’re being rude with me because you’re not from Brazil,” Sleiman remembers him saying. “If you were in your country…”
Batull Sleiman believes one of her patients lashed out after seeing her hijab [Courtesy of Batull Sleiman]
Sleiman said she turned away rather than hear the rest. The daughter of Lebanese immigrants, she believes the man reacted the way he did because of one thing: her hijab.
“I was surprised and outraged,” Sleiman told Al Jazeera. But, she added, the atmosphere in Brazil had grown more tense since the war in Gaza had erupted. “I’ve been noticing that people have been staring more at me on the street since October.”
But Sleiman is not alone in feeling singled out. As the war in Gaza grinds on, Brazil is one of many countries facing increased fears about religious discrimination, particularly towards its Muslim community.
A survey released last month from the Anthropology Group on Islamic and Arab Contexts — an organisation based at the University of São Paulo — found that reports of harassment among Muslim Brazilians have been widespread since the war began.
An estimated 70 percent of respondents said they knew someone who experienced religious intolerance since October 7, when the Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, killing 1,140 people.
Israel has since led a military offensive against Gaza, a Palestinian enclave, killing more than 21,000 people. That response has raised human rights concerns, with United Nations experts warning of a “grave risk of genocide”.
While Palestinians are an ethnic group — and not a religious one — the University of São Paulo’s Professor Francirosy Barbosa found that the events of October 7 resulted in incidents of religious intolerance in Brazil, as Palestinian identity was conflated with Muslim identity.
She led November’s survey of 310 Muslim Brazilians. Respondents, she explained, reported receiving insults that reflected tensions in the Gaza war.
“Many Muslim women told us they are now called things like ‘Hamas daughter’ or ‘Hamas terrorist’,” she told Al Jazeera.
The survey, conducted online, also found that many of the respondents also had firsthand experience with religious intolerance.
“About 60 percent of the respondents affirmed that they suffered some kind of offence, either on social media or in their daily lives at work, at home or in public spaces,” Barbosa said.
Women in particular, the study noted, reported slightly higher rates of religious intolerance.
A Palestinian Brazilian woman holds up a sign at a protest in Brasilia on October 20 that reads, ‘Muslim women of Brazil: anti-Zionism, anti-militarism, anti-extremism’ [File: Eraldo Peres/AP Photo]
The question of Islamophobia was catapulted into the national spotlight this month when a video spread on social media appearing to show a resident of Mogi das Cruzes, a suburb of São Paulo, rushing towards a Muslim woman and grabbing at her headscarf. The video was even broadcast on news outlets like CNN Brasil.
One of the women involved, Karen Gimenez Oubidi, who goes by Khadija, had married a Moroccan man and converted to Islam eight years ago. She told Al Jazeera that the altercation involved one of her neighbours: She was upset after their children had argued.
“She came down with her brother and was very aggressive. She called me a ‘cloth-wrapped bitch’. I soon realised it was not only about the kids’ fight,” Gimenez Oubidi said.
Neighbours attempted to separate the two women. One man in the video, however, grabbed Gimenez Oubidi from behind, wrapping an arm around her throat to hold her down. Gimenez Oubidi identified him to Al Jazeera as her neighbour’s brother.
Karen Gimenez Oubidi, known as Khadija, was the subject of a viral video that raised questions about Islamophobia [Courtesy of Karen Gimenez Oubidi]
“He said a few times to me, ‘What are you doing now, terrorist?’ He didn’t say it loudly: It was just for me to hear. He knew what he was doing,” Gimenez Oubidi said. She added that the fight her son had had with the neighbour’s child was also over her hijab.
The woman who attacked Oubidi, Fernanda — she said she did not want her full name revealed for fear of a public backlash — disputed this account.
Fernanda said her son had been hit by Oubidi’s son in the playground, and while she had physically attacked Fernanda, she had not referenced her religion. “I never insulted her for her religion. That simply didn’t happen. I’d never do something like that,” she said.
A government report from July noted that religious intolerance “occurs most intensely against those of African origin, but it also affects Indigenous, Roma, immigrant and converted individuals, including Muslims and Jews, as well as atheist, agnostic and non-religious people”.
Brazil is predominantly Christian, home to an estimated 123 million Catholics — more than any other country in the world.
But it has a long-standing, if smaller, Muslim population. Academics believe Islam arrived in the country with the transatlantic slave trade, as kidnapped African Muslims continued to practice their religion in their new surroundings.
One group of enslaved Muslim Brazilians even launched a rebellion against the government in 1835, called the Malê uprising — a term derived from the Yoruba word for Muslim.
Brazil’s Muslim population grew with waves of immigration in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Arab immigrants, particularly from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, came to know Brazil as their home.
The exact number of Muslims in Brazil today is unknown. The 2010 census counted 35,167 people identified as Muslim, but in the years since, other estimates have come out, setting the population as high as 1.5 million.
Some advocates, however, point to other demographic and political trends as setting the stage for tensions to rise between Muslim and non-Muslim groups.
Evangelical Christians make up the fastest-growing religious segment in Brazil today, comprising about a third of the population. Their numbers have turned them into a significant political force.
Evangelical voters were credited with helping to elect far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2016, with polls showing 70 percent supporting him.
During his failed 2022 re-election bid, Bolsonaro repeatedly invoked Christian imagery in his appeals to voters, framing the race as a “fight of good against evil”.
Mahmoud Ibrahim, who heads a mosque in Porto Alegre, believes that the us-versus-them mentality has translated into antagonism against his community.
A man marches in a religious freedom demonstration in 2022, holding a sign that reads, ‘I am a Muslim man. Ask me a question!!’ [File: Bruna Prado/AP Photo]
At recent protests against the war in Gaza, he said onlookers called him a “terrorist” and “child rapist”.
“Evangelicals and Bolsonarists insult us all the time. They even chased a person who was going to our demonstration the other day,” he said.
Ibrahim added that he had heard of at least one woman who was left bleeding after attackers attempted to tear her hijab off, causing the pins in the scarf to dig into her skin.
Girrad Sammour heads the National Association of Muslim Jurists (ANAJI), a group that offers legal support in cases of Islamophobia. He said the number of reports to ANAJI has always been high, but since the start of the war on October 7, it has exploded.
“There was a rise of 1,000 percent in the denunciations that we received,” he told Al Jazeera, crediting some to inflammatory remarks from far-right evangelical pastors.
But Barbosa, the survey leader, believes there are ways to lessen the hatred and suspicion directed at Muslim Brazilians. She pointed to a lack of media representation as an example.
“Few Palestinian leaders and experts in the Middle East with a pro-Palestine view have been invited by TV shows, for instance, to comment on the conflict in Gaza,” Barbosa said.
But she also encouraged Muslim Brazilians to speak up about their experiences, in order to raise awareness.
“What is not denounced doesn’t exist for the government,” she said. “Only if the authorities know what is happening will they be able to take adequate measures, like investing in education against religious intolerance.”
Sydney and Auckland are the first major world cities to celebrate the arrival of 2024.
Sydney and Auckland are the first major world cities to welcome the arrival of 2024.
Over a million revellers celebrated the New Year on Sunday night amid stunning fireworks displays, illuminating the skies over Australia’s Sydney Harbour and New Zealand’s tallest structure, the Sky Tower in Auckland.
The light rain that had persisted throughout the day in Auckland had cleared by midnight over the city.
The countdown commenced against an illuminated digital display near the top of the 328-metre (1,076-foot) communications and observation tower.
Fireworks explode over the Sydney Opera House and on the Harbour Bridge as part of New Year’s Eve celebrations in Sydney, Australia [Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image/AP]
As the clock struck midnight in Australia’s largest city, Sydney, a 12-minute fireworks display erupted around the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
More than one million people watched from the shore and boats in the harbour.
The small Pacific island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati had ushered in the New Year an hour earlier.
In Japan, temple bells rang out across the nation as people gathered at shrines and temples to welcome in the New Year.
At the Tsukiji Temple in Tokyo, visitors were given free hot milk and corn soup as they stood in line to strike a big bell, and a pipe-organ concert was held before a majestic altar.
End of a tense year
The New Year celebrations came against the backdrop of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has heightened tensions in some cities around the world, including Sydney, where more police than ever were deployed to oversee the fireworks displays.
The waterfront has been the scene of heated pro-Palestinian protests after the sails of the Sydney Opera House were illuminated in the colours of the Israeli flag after October 7.
At the Vatican, Pope Francis reflected on 2023 as a year defined by the hardships of war.
In his customary Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square, he extended prayers for various populations, including “the tormented Ukrainian people and the Palestinian and Israeli populations, the Sudanese people, and many others”.
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