569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

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

By

August, 2016

  1. August 1, 2016 – Sarah Muzdaher Safi is kicked out of a Family Dollar store in Gary, IN, after she refuses to remove her niqab.
  1. August 3, 2016 – Najaf Khan is fired from her new job as a dental assistant at Fair Oaks Dental Car in Fairfax, VA. Her former boss says that religion is not allowed at his business.
  1. August 3, 2016 – Paul Nehlen, who is running against House Speaker Paul Ryan in the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, says on 560 AM’s “Morning Answer” radio show based out of Chicago that “We should be monitoring every mosque. We should be monitoring all social media,” in addition to suggesting that Muslims are incapable of following the Constitution because of sharia law.
  1. August 3, 2016 – Voice of America journalist Niala Mohammad is traveling with a female Muslim friend when they are both removed from an American Airlines flight from Miami, FL, to Washington, D.C. after making a flight attendant feel “unsafe” by asking for water and clarification as to why the flight had been idling. The airline makes no apologies for its employees’ discriminatory behavior.
  1. August 4, 2016 – 5 mosques are lit on fire in 3 weeks in the Tampa, FL, area. The latest, the Masjid Omar mosque, is lit on fire after someone pours gasoline on the air conditioning unit. Total damages cost $25,000.
  1. August 4, 2016 – “The state is having tremendous problems — its safety net, and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamic terror groups,” says Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Portland, ME, while making inaccurate references to Minnesota.
  1. August 6, 2016 – Army veteran James Nicholas Smithey calls the Watauga Masjid Center in Watauga, TX, and leaves a voicemail saying that Islam is a “violent religion” and that “people like me and my other military brothers are [expletive] heavily armed to the teeth and we will meet you on any battleground you want…We will cut all your heads off. Do you understand me? All of you.”
  1. August 7, 2016 – Somali immigrant Anab Ali and her family are harassed by two men who knock on their door in Little Falls, MN, just to call them terrorists and say that Muslims aren’t allowed in their town. When Ali stands her ground, the men threaten to set the house on fire and tell her to leave town.
  1. August 7, 2016 – The Islamic Cultural Center of New York, NY, is vandalized for the third time in recent months when a man throws a hammer at its plaque – which has Arabic lettering – until it shatters.
  1. August 11, 2016 – CNN randomly selected a completely innocent Muslim woman’s image for a video about European ISIS recruitment.
  1. August 11, 2016 – “Saad is not welcome here” and “CAIR not welcome here,” as well as a hangman with five blank spaces, offensive statements about the Prophet Muhammad, and references to ISIS, are spray-painted on the walls of the OK Halal Meat & Grocery store in Oklahoma City, OK.
  1. August 11, 2016 – A woman assaults Suzanne Damra and her mother, Siham Zahdam, in Chicago, IL. She tries to remove their car’s side mirror, and screams, “You’re ISIS [expletive]!” repeatedly. According to Damra, this is the fifth time this same woman has harassed the two hijabis.
  1. August 11, 2016 – Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from New York, Wendy Long, makes a campaign stop in Syracuse, NY, and posts multiple photos to Twitter of the city’s multicultural landscape with negative captions such as “Catholic Charities takes federal tax dollars to resettle the refugees we can’t screen. Leaves the Catholics to ISIS.”
  1. August 12, 2016 – 61-year-old Stanley Vernon Majors shoots and kills 37-year-old Khalid Jabara outside his own home. He has had a history of harassing the family, who he previously called “dirty Arabs,” including hitting Jabara’s mother with his car.
  1. August 13, 2016 – 35-year-old Oscar Morel shoots and kills 55-year-old Imam Maulama Akonjee and his assistant imam, 64-year-old Thara Uddin, in Queens, NY, in the middle of the street.
  1. August 15, 2016 – Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump suggests that immigrants should undergo an additional test, to go along with his Muslim ban, saying that “We must also screen out any who have hostel attitudes toward our country or its principles ― or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.”
  1. August 16, 2016 – Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump names Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller as an agricultural adviser, despite the fact that he once shared a meme suggesting the nuclear bombing of Japan should be used as an example of how to deal with Muslims, among other Islamophobic posts. He refuses to apologize.
  1. August 16, 2016 – The Newton County Board of Commissioners in Newton, GA, posted a moratorium on proposals for new religious structures in the county following an uproar against the proposal for a new mosque and Muslim cemetery in the area.
  1. August 17, 2016 – Paul Hollrah of Family Security Matters, a website run by notorious Islamophobe and Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump’s adviser, Frank Gaffney, publishes an article saying that American Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad probably chose fencing as her sport because, “Given the penchant of Muslims for hacking, stabbing, or slashing non-Muslims with knives, axes, machetes, and other sharp instruments, it’s only natural that Ms. Muhammad would gravitate toward the fencing competition…Fighting and attacking others with knives and other sharp objects appears to be in the Muslim DNA.”
  1. August 17, 2016 – Four typed notes are left for Iraqi refugees living in the Westbrook Pointe apartments in Westbrook, ME, reading “All Muslims are Terrorists should be Killed.”
  1. August 18, 2016 – Rose Hamid, a hijabi activist, is thrown out of a Trump rally in Charlotte, NC, for giving out pens which say “Salam.” It’s the second time she’s been thrown out of a Trump rally in the past year.
  1. August 19, 2016 – Highway patrol officer Joshua Dowdle of Bryson City, NC, comment son an anti-Muslim video posted by Dennis Love of the Glenwood Baptist Church, saying “Amen Preacher Dennis. Too much political correctness anyway today.” A fellow officer, Harvey Allen Jr., posts a separate Facebook post denouncing Islam as a “religion that promotes pedophilia, rape, beheadings, and jihad,” with the caption, “Religion of peace?”
  1. August 20, 2016 – Mifflin County, PA, Commissioner Lisa Nancollas posts a “No Islam Allowed” photo – styled similarly to a no-smoking sign – on her official Facebook page. Another one of her posts reads, “Also, I believe in the Christian God. I don’t believe in Islam, sharia law nor do I believe in Allah…[People] are only allowed in the kingdom of God if they accept God as their savior not Allah.”
  1. August 21, 2016 – Multiple media outlets pick up on an idea put forward by Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump’s adviser, Roger Stone, and Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) – that Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s long-time adviser, Huma Abedin, is somehow connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. They run with the idea, although The Washington Post and other outlets disprove these claims multiple times.
  1. August 21, 2016 – A group of notorious Islamophobes including Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, and Nonie Darwish, all hold a summit called the American Freedom Alliance conference in Los Angeles, CA. At the end of the conference, they proudly endorse Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump.
  1. August 27, 2016 – Joseph Garguilo is arrested after the FBI receives an online tip. Garguilo has an entire stockpile of weapons and ammunition, and allegedly threatened to burn down a mosque, bomb police stations, and kill President Obama.
  1. August 27, 2016 – A food pantry run by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in Stone Mountain, GA, is vandalized when intruders smash windows and avert the security cameras to avoid detection before dumping out food items, and removing refrigerated halal meat and throwing it on the floor.
  1. August 27, 2016 – A group of about 15 claiming to be members of a group that calls itself “Americans For A Secure Wyoming” hold a Qur’an burning rally in Gillette, Wyoming. They are drowned out by a larger counterprotest led by “A Gillette Against Hate.”
  1. August 28, 2016 – The Mankato Islamic Center in Mankato, MN, is vandalized for the second time after someone tapes a sign reading “Office and Storage Space Available” sign over the center’s actual sign. The mosque has previously had a window smashed and been the victim of theft – both money from its donation box and its computers have previously been stolen.
  1. August 28, 2016 – Former candidate for Missouri Attorney General and former Missouri State Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin says at a tea party rally in the Greater St. Louis Area, MO, that “If you don’t think Muslims are vetted enough, because they blow things up, that’s not racist.”
  1. August 30, 2016 – Fox News and a whole host of rightwing news sources claim that Colin Kaepernick is not protesting police brutality, but is filled with “hate for America” after having converted to Islam. Kaepernick denounces the claims, and adds that “that [rumor of conversion] comes along with people’s fear of this protest, as well as Islamophobia in this country.”