Catherine Z. Sameh is associate professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California-Irvine. She is the author of Axis of Hope: Iranian Women’s Rights Activism across Borders (University of Washington Press, 2019).
On Monday, March 30, Salah Sarsour, President of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM) was stopped by a dozen vehicles and arrested by 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who first took him to the Broadview Detention Center in Illinois, and then to the Clay County Justice Center, near Terre Haute, Indiana.
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.