On June 24, 2025, New York assembly member Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic party nomination for Mayor of New York City, a result that drew instant national attention because it challenged both demographic and ideological assumptions about New York City politics. Within hours, public posts portraying Mamdani as an existential threat to the city began circulating on social media, spanning X, TikTok, Telegram, Meta, and other smaller platforms.
A recent report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) found that online discourse surrounding Mamdani and Muslim communities was shaped by overlapping narratives of Islamophobia, ideological fear-mongering, and xenophobic attacks.
CSOH is pleased to co-organize a virtual panel discussion with The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University titled “Digital Hate & Democracy: Unpacking Islamophobia in the Wake of Mamdani’s Rise.” The event will bring together leading experts to examine how online Islamophobia undermines democratic values, incites real-world harm, and threatens the safety and participation of Muslim communities in public life.
The event is co-sponsored by the Muslim Counterpublics Lab (MCL).
Panelists
Dr. Maha Hilal
Dr. Maha Hilal is the founding Executive Director of Muslim Counterpublics Lab. She is an author, researcher, and organizer dedicated to dismantling the War on Terror. Her first book, Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11, was released in January 2022 to widespread acclaim. Her writings have appeared in Vox, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Newsweek, Business Insider, and The Daily Beast, and The Nation among others. Prior to founding MCL, Dr. Hilal was the inaugural Michael Ratner Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies where she produced thought pieces on the targeting of Muslim in the War on Terror. She has worked at a number of human rights/social justice organizations including the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, Government Accountability Project, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, and Center for Victims of Torture.
Dr. Hilal earned her doctorate in May 2014 from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, D.C. She received her Master’s Degree in Counseling and her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her spare time, Dr. Hilal enjoys spending time with her family and practicing Arabic calligraphy.
Raqib Hameed Naik
Raqib Hameed Naik is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. He is also a Fellow with the Human Rights Project at Bard College, New York.
Saher Selod
Saher Selod is the Director of Research at Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). She was formerly an Associate Professor and previous Chair of the Department of Sociology at Simmons University in Boston, MA. Her research expertise centers on the experiences of Muslims with surveillance. In her first book Forever Suspect: Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press 2018) examines how Muslim men and Muslim women experience gendered forms of racialization through their hyper surveillance because of the War on Terror. Her co-authored second book, A Global Racial Enemy: Muslims and Twenty-First Century Racism (Polity Press 2024) examines how the Global War on Terror has justified the detention, imprisonment, and hyper surveillance of Muslims in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and China.
