Home»Identity
569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

[UPDATED] Hate Crime Watch: 569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

By

June, 2016

  1. June 1, 2016 – 3 teens attack 59-year-old Mohamed Rasheed Khan as he leaves the Center for Islamic Studies in Queens, NY. As a result, he is left with a concussion, broken bones, and brain swelling, cannot speak or open his eyes, and must undergo reconstructive surgery.
  1. June 4, 2016 – 27-year-old Kerlina Aviles is arrested in Germantown, MD, for pouring baby oil onto a hijabi mother and daughter, as well as into their car. As she tries to escape, she yells, “Get the hell out of the country you bitch ass Muslims.”
  1. June 9, 2016 – Omar Siddiqi of the CAIR Dallas-Fort Worth chapter is listening to Qur’an while filling up at a gas station in Richardson, TX when a man pulls up next to him and proceeds to follow him before attempting to run him off the road while yelling “Take your rag ass back to your country” and “I’m gonna f____ing kill you.”
  1. June 9, 2016 – 37-year-old Army Reserve Officer Russell Thomas Langford is arrested in Raeford, NC, after pulling out a handgun and telling people at the Masjid Al-Madina that “he would kill them and bury them behind the mosque,” according to the local sheriff’s office. He also left bacon outside the mosque, and was carrying multiple guns as well as 500 rounds of ammunition in his car.
  1. June 10, 2016 – The sign at the ISNA headquarters in Plainfield, IN, is shot up and filled with bullet holes.
  1. June 11, 2016 – School board member and Pennsylvania delegate to the RNC Matthew Jansen leaves an anti-Muslim voicemail for the St. Paul’s Church of Christ in Dallastown, PA, after the church puts up a sign saying “Wising a blessed Ramadan to our Muslim neighbors.” He then posts the phone number of the church online and encourages others to leave similar messages.
  1. June 12, 2016 – Someone using an alias on Twitter posts the address of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI, with the message “#CrusadeAmericaCleanagain,” and says that “We must execute the Muslim scum. Full on eradication.”
  1. June 12, 2016 – Robert Kinder Farris is arrested after posting a Google Street View screenshot of the Idris Mosque in Seattle, WA, with the caption “too many targets to count” and promising that he will “take revenge” for the Orlando shooting. His sister calls the police to report that he has a gun and wishes to be “shot by police.”
  1. June 12, 2016 – Republican Congressional Candidate Joe Kaufman of Fort Lauderdale, FL, makes a Facebook post that “every radical Muslim institution” must be shut down, but the candidate – who has a history of making anti-Muslim comments – says he in an interview that he has no plan for distinguishing “radicals” from non-radical groups, and wants to start with CAIR.
  1. June 13, 2016 – Known anti-government “Patriot militia” man James Stachowiak films himself with a gun giving the middle finger to the Islamic Society of Augusta, GA. The film also shows him throwing a Qur’an on the ground, stepping on it, and calling for the deportation of and violence against Muslims, while yelling “Death to Islam. F___ Islam.”
  1. June 13, 2016 – The Husseini Islamic Center just outside Orlando, FL, is vandalized with a spray-painted hashtag, “#StopTheHate.”
  1. June 13, 2016 – A man on an F train in Queens, NY, yells at two hijabis, telling “two terrorist foreigners to go back to where they came from,” and “take their bombs with them,” according to a witness.
  1. June 13, 2016 – Both the Islamic Center of Wheaton and the Islamic Center of Naperville in Illinois receive threatening emails after the Orlando shooting, despite vocally condemning the shooting and encouraging their members to donate blood.
  1. June 13, 2016 – U.S. Postal worker Catherine An Ray claims that “[As] A US Mail Carrier I can personally assure everyone here that anything with this stamp on it will be lost or destroyed in the system before is (sic) makes delivery. Guaranteed.” It is a federal crime to tamper with mail delivery.
  1. June 13, 2016 – Michael Alonso, a former State Assembly candidate and the leader of the “Real Republicans” in Bayonne, NJ, says that “In light of the Orlando terrorist attack recently committed in the name of Islam, a mosque in Bayonne would be unsafe and unwise.”
  1. June 14, 2016 – 37-year-old Luke Michael Roberts is arrested after interrupting Ramadan prayers at the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati in West Chester, OH, screaming “Jesus is Lord!”
  1. June 14, 2016 – Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump tells Fox News host Sean Hannity that “for some reason there’s no real assimilation” when it comes to Muslim Americans.
  1. June 15, 2016 – A Syrian refugee family in Tucson, AZ, finds a hate-filled note on their door including statements such as “You are Muslim and not welcome,” “Go away killers,” “America hates Terrorist (sic) like you!” and “You do not respect America or what our Contry (sic) stands for!”
  1. June 15, 2016 – Mark French is flying on a Seattle-bound Alaska Airlines flight from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas when he is pulled off the flight “because someone complained that he looks ‘Arabic and scary,’” according to a statement from his sister. Alaska Airlines denies that ethnicity played a role and insists “there is more to the story.”
  1. June 16, 2016 – Mohammed Atique Ashraf is walking to his mosque in the Bronx, NY, when he is attacked from behind by three unknown men.
  1. June 16, 2016 – A Red Line train in Boston, MA, is graffitied with “Muslim trash go home.” The train car in question is taken out of service.
  1. June 16, 2016 – Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) implies that American Muslims want to “kill every homosexual” in the U.S. as a guest on WAPI’s “Matt and Aunie” radio show in Birmingham, AL.
  1. June 16, 2016 – Commuters in Medford, MA, call 911 on two “Middle Eastern” looking people “acting suspicious” on the platform; when police arrive armed with long rifles, they realize that the two men were simply praying.
  1. June 17, 2016 – Following the shooting up of its sign, the ISNA headquarters in Plainfield, IN, receives email threats such as “Leave now before it is too late,” “We see and hear what your (sic) going to do and True Patriots like myself, will help to stop you,” and I tell every sand (expletive) that I see to leave… American’s don’t want you here and when President Trump gets into office, your (sic) going home!!! Back to the (expletive) dry sand and the desert…”.
  1. June 18, 2016 – Republican State Representative Pat Ownbey of Ardmore, OK, shares an article on Facebook called “Radical Islam – The Final Solution,” which argues that “Islam is not a religion, subject to First Amendment protections.” He then deletes the post and hastens to say that Islam “should be constitutionally protected.”
  1. June 18, 2016 – John Guandolo, a former FBI agent, tells the audience of a World Net Daily/Radio America show hosted by Greg Corombos to watch for Muslim “jihadis” who will start “multiple operations in conjunction with the Marxist and socialist groups like Black Lives Matter…the global Islamic movement says that it’s gonna begin its turn from its total focus on the Islamic world where it is seeking to impose Sharia Islamic law on the Muslim world first, and then on the non-Muslim world, and that turn is gonna begin this year, potentially into early 2017 but likely before the end of this year.”
  1. June 19, 2016 – The Masjid Al-Rahman in Orlando, FL, receives multiple threatening emails following the Orlando shooting, such as “We know where you are, we know your location …we will come at the right time,” and “F____ you and your Cult!…You bastards keep murdering innocent people just because they are different than you.”
  1. June 19, 2016 – Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump says the U.S. should seriously consider racially profiling Muslims, telling CBS’s “Face The Nation” that “We have to start using common sense and we have to use, you know, we have to use our heads. We really have to look at profiling. We have to look at it seriously. And other countries do it, and it’s not the worst thing to do. I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense. We’re not using common sense.”
  1. June 20, 2016 – In New York City, NY, 10-year NYPD veteran Masood Syed is suspended for 30 days without pay after he refused to trim his beard, citing religious reasons. He proceeds to file a lawsuit.
  1. June 20, 2016 – Prosecutor Grant Loebs clarifies that the story of Syrian refugees gang-raping a young girl in Twin Falls, ID, was a lie planted and spread by anti-Muslim activists.
  1. June 22, 2016 – IQ al Rassooli, who is “an Iraqi exile committed to wanting the world of the dangers of Islam” appears on the American Pastors Network’s “Stand In the Gap” with hosts Sam Rohrer – a former Pennsylvania state lawmaker – and Pastor Gary Dull. He calls for the closing of “every single mosque” and says “You have to remove every single imam. You must not allow sharia. You must not allow hijab. … This is exactly what needs to be done.”
  1. June 22, 2016 – Virginia’s Republican State Central Committee member Fredy Burgos of Burke, VA, makes a series of anti-Muslim tweets calling Islam a “death cult organized by Satan.” He later gives a half apology.
  1. June 23, 2016 – 38-year-old Angel Mercado is arrested in Tompkinsville, NY, for grabbing a piece of pipe and threatening to kill the imam of the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, yelling, “You f___ing Muslims. I heard you’re hear to conquer us,” and to kill “all Muslims.”
  1. June 23, 2016 – A man is arrested after he drives by the Masjid al Mustafa in Waterbury, CT, on two consecutive nights, harassing its members and yelling “sandn_____, go back to your country, ISIS, towelheads.”
  1. June 26, 2016 – A 200 member motorcycle gang circled the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, FL, with its engines roaring as a “Patriotic Ride” to show it stands “united against those willing to destroy our country and what we stand for.”
  1. June 28, 2016 – The editorial staff of The Register-Herald in Beckley, WV, publishes an op-ed headlined “W. Va facing an immigration crisis” that reads: “In accepting Syrian refugees we are forming a strong religious base for Islam. At 1 percent to 2 percent levels they assimilate with the population and present no problems. But between 3 and 5 percent they start to make demands, and want their own law, Shari’a. As the population percentage increases, so does their influence and demands, and soon it becomes the Muslim way; because local governments will now come under their control. The reason, one Muslim man can have 8 children, from different wives, and each new birth brings forth a new Muslim. For our population to retain its ethnic roots each American family must have two children.”
  1. June 28, 2016 – The Fort Pierce Islamic Center in Florida receives more anonymous threatening messages, this time by phone, that use racial slurs and threaten physical harm.
  1. June 28, 2016 – Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) invites Chris Gaubatz, a “national security expert” and Islamophobe to testify at a Senate hearing called “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.” In his testimony, he accuses Muslim advocacy groups around the country of being tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, along with the Muslim members of Congress.
  1. June 28, 2016 – 61-year-old Devinder Sandhu, a practicing Sikh who wears a turban, finds his family horse, Misty Blue, shot dead execution style in Nashville, TN.
  1. June 29, 2016 – 22-year-old Hussein Gelle and a group of his friends, all dressed in typical Muslim attire, are walking to the mosque in Minneapolis, MN, when a man approaches them and opens fire after yelling “F___ Muslims.” 2 of the men are treated at the hospital for their wounds.
  1. June 29, 2016 – A Muslim man from the United Arab Emirates is thrown to the ground and handcuffed by police at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Avon, OH, after falsely being accused of pledging allegiance to ISIS.
  1. June 30, 2016 – After a woman named Cathy (who turns out to be the New Hampshire Legislative Chairman for the VFW Auxiliary) tells Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump, “Get rid of all these heebiejabis they wear at TSA. I’ve seen them myself. We need the veterans back in there. They’ve fought for this country and defended it. They’ll still do it,” at a Trump campaign rally in Manchester, NH, the candidate only responds, “We are looking at that.”