Unprecedented US anti-Muslim backlash post Paris – ‘Mainstreaming of hate’
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NEW YORK, Nov 26, (AFP): Acts of vandalism against mosques, anti-Muslim threats and fear have reached an unprecedented level in America since the Paris attacks, fueled by right-wing intolerance in the presidential campaign, activists say. “In such a short period — it’s what makes it unprecedented,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties group.
Since Nov 13, CAIR has documented dozens of anti-Muslim incidents, including shots fired at the Meriden mosque in Connecticut, vandalism at an Islamic center in Pflugerville, Texas, where the door was smeared in excrement, and graffiti at an Islamic center in Omaha, Nebraska. In Texas alone half a dozen infractions have been reported: the outside lights and door of a mosque in Lubbock were broken; in Corpus Christi, the Islamic center received a threat calling on worshippers to convert to Christianity “before it was too late.”
In Irving, Texas protesters gathered outside an Islamic center to denounce “the Islamization of America.” And a man in military fatigues, carrying a large backpack and an American flag, barged into a mosque in San Antonio to berate worshippers. That incident prompted a school attached to the mosque to cancel classes and revise its security measures.
CAIR says shots were fired on the house of a Muslim couple in Orlando, Florida, a woman wearing a headscarf was called a “terrorist” in Cincinatti, Ohio and a Christian Ethiopian taxi driver mistaken for a Muslim was beaten and threatened by a passenger in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“We had spikes in anti-Muslim hate crimes, but over longer periods, and not so concentrated,” said Ibrahim. After the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, there were also “a lot, but there was also a lot of support for the Muslim community,” he said. “We are not seeing that so much any more.” Just six days after the Sept 11 attacks, president George W. Bush visited a mosque, where he spoke against the harassment of US Muslims and Arabs, and called for respect of Islam.
“President Obama has never been to an American mosque,” Ibrahim told AFP, recalling Bush’s visit. Activists say the anti-Muslim rhetoric, already high after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January, is being fueled by extreme right discourse by Republicans in the election campaign. “I think we are seeing the mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hate… that gives a false sense of legitimacy to those who would carry out hate crimes,” Ibrahim told AFP.
He accused political leaders of not responding and of “not pushing back against this rise in anti- Muslim hate.” Donald Trump, the billionaire Republican frontrunner in the race for the White House, said at a recent rally that Arab people in Jersey City had celebrated the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11. “Thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down,” he alleged. The comments sparked a furious backlash from Jersey City, rival presidential candidates and factcheckers.
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