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569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

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

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September, 2016

  1. September 1, 2016 – 32-year-old Iraq War veteran Mohamed Abbas finds the words “terrorist” and “raghead” written on his locker at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow, CA. This is not the first time he has been harassed for his faith, says Abbas.
  1. September 3, 2016 – A 37-year-old Canadian-Egyptian Muslim professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, is yelled at to “Go home f____ing foreigner” and attacked in the middle of a Walmart parking lot while a woman next to the assailant – later discovered to be 21-year-old Austin Bradley Gregory – yelled “Kill him! Kill him!” from the driver’s seat of his car.
  1. September 6, 2016 – A Muslim family’s apartment is broken into and set on fire just two weeks after they reported to police that someone had broken into their home and writes threatening messages including “ISIS” on their walls. The family leaves the apartment out of concerns for its safety.
  1. September 7, 2016 – Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Representative Peter King (R-NY) hold a legislative briefing about national security and refugees with 8 other lawmakers and members of the hate group ACT! for America who hosted the conference in question.
  1. September 8, 2016 – Emirjeta Xhelili is arrested after trying to rip the hijabs off two women in Brooklyn, NY. The two women had been pushing their babies in strollers when Xhelili approached them, screaming “This is the United States of America, you’re not supposed to be different from us…Get the (expletive) out of America (expletive), you don’t belong here,” hitting the women, pushing over one stroller and shaking the other, which held two babies.
  1. September 10, 2016 – The Islamic Community Center in Laurel, MD, is attacked twice by a tractor-trailer, which causes $10,000 in damage.
  1. September 12, 2016 – The Islamic Society of Fort Pierce, FL, is set on fire around 12:30am just before Eid al-Adha. Police arrest 32-year-old Joseph Michael Schreiber, who police say has a history of making Islamophobic comments online.
  1. September 12, 2016 – A 35-year-old Muslim woman visiting from Scotland and wearing traditional garments had her clothes lit on fire by a man who was carrying a lighter while she was shopping in New York City, NY.
  1. September 12, 2016 – 3 teens are arrested for throwing rocks through the window of the Islamic Society of Greater Nashua, NH, the night before while there were people inside preparing for Eid al-Adha.
  1. September 12, 2016 – Notorious Islamophobe Noni Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel and the director for Former Muslims United, is invited to speak by ACT! for America at an event in the Laguna Woods Village clubhouse in Laguna Woods, CA. More than 100 people attended the event, where she made statements such as “Islam perverted human nature,” and “Islam is the only religion that kills people who leave it. The only other organization who acts like that is the Mafia!”
  1. September 12, 2016 – On “The Steve Malzberg Show,” Representative Steve King (R-IA) suggests that Colin Kaepernick is kneeling during the National Anthem not for awareness about police brutality but because he’s “sympathetic to ISIS” due to his Muslim girlfriend, adding that “I understand that he has an Islamic girlfriend that is his fiancée, and that this has changed him, and he has taken on some different political views along the way.”
  1. September 13, 2016 – An armed militia protests plans for a mosque in Covington, GA. The group held signs with “Support and Defend Our Troops from Islamic Savages,” and a man was wearing a T-shirt reading “Islam is of the devil.”
  1. September 15, 2016 – The Tennessee Board of Education removes the entirety of the “Islamic World, 400 AD/CE – 1500s” history curriculum from statewide standards following years of parents’ complaints and fears of potential radicalism and indoctrination.
  1. September 15, 2016 – In Culpeper, VA, former FBI agent John Guandolo is invited by County Sheriff Scott Jenkins to give a training session on “Understanding the Threat.” Guandolo is a notorious Islamophobe who has appeared multiple times on this list and will likely appear multiple times more.
  1. September 16, 2016 – More than 200 people attend an event hosted by ACT! for America with keynote retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Roy White. White is also the chairman of the Truth in Textbooks Coalition, whose mission it is to force “real” depictions of Islam in schools. Kalispell, MT, resident Pat Arnone claimed during a Q&A, in reference to Muslims: “They are not peaceful people. They want to convert us or they want to kill us.”
  1. September 16, 2016 – A woman and her two children eventually move from their home in the Tuscany Gardens complex in Windsor Mill, MD, after being the victims of a series of targeted break-ins. The apartment had been graffitied with threats and ISIS references; in another incident, something on the stove had been set on fire and abandoned.
  1. September 19, 2016 – Former Representative Tom Tancredo of Littleton, CO, offers supporters eligibility to win H&K P2000 .40 handgun to protect themselves from “radical Islam” in exchange for a donation to his PAC.
  1. September 19, 2016 – Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert of Bigelow, AR, posts a meme of a Swedish refugee center on fire with the text “The Swedes have had it with the Muslim invasion currently underway in their country…Nine refugee centers have been burnt to the ground to get the message across — NO MORE MUSLIMS!” He also posts a message of his own, which reads, “For goodness sake – stop bringing more Muslims into this nation.”
  1. September 19, 2016 – A bomb squad from Scranton descends on East Stroudsburg, PA, when a customer calls the police after seeing a box of Halwani Bros Maamoul Date Filled Cookies with Arabic and English lettering on a gas pump. It was literally just a box of cookies.
  1. September 19, 2016 – Restaurant owner Dan Reudinger puts up a sign saying “Muslims Get Out. In Suport (sic) of St. Cloud” outside the Treats Family Restaurant in Lonsdale, MN. In a followup interview, he claims that Islam is a “religion of hatred that preaches violence.”
  1. September 19, 2016 – “If I had a bowl of Skittles and told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem,” tweets Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., making an egregiously false comparison.
  1. September 21, 2016 – Sean Moser of West Fargo, ND, writes a letter to the editor printed by The Forum stating, “These immigrants have robbed our gas stations, harassed our women, and made necessary the policing of once-peaceful public parks. Women wearing Islamic headgear belong in a Discovery Channel documentary about war-torn countries, not North Dakota. The director of Lutheran Social Services needs to be put on trial as a criminal accessory. Islam has no place in the West … nor does the liberalism that aids and abets it.”
  1. September 22, 2016 – Former FBI agent John Guandolo appears on VCY America’s “Crosstalk” radio show to say that Muslims working in hotels, gas stations, and other low-pay positions is a sign of preparing for “civilization jihad.”
  1. September 23, 2016 – Barry Pendergraft, the Chief of Police of the Gurley Police Department in Gurley, AL, posts a photo of a box of ammunition on his Facebook page with the caption, “100 more bacon grease covered bullets in the box! This relaxes me so!!” A few days later, he posts another video, with a similar caption, “Happiness is a couple thousand rounds in the ammo box! Bacon grease dipped of course!!”
  1. September 24, 2016 – The Islamic Center of Northland, KS, finds burn marks on the interior walls at the construction site of their new mosque. Police later find two burned bottles inside the site.
  1. September 25, 2016 – 41-year-old Maan Singh Khalsa is attacked, has his turban knocked off, and his hair cut after a knife is pulled on him by two men in Richmond, CA.
  1. September 26, 2016 – Alabama State Representative and Alabama Trump Campaign Co-Chair Ed Henry from Hartselle, AL, tweets, “Great news for the American Public. Hillary Clinton is with the Muslim community, nationally and abroad. Wait they want to kill us. ???”
  1. September 29, 2016 – Usama Dakdok of The Straight Way of Grace Ministry gives another anti-Muslim presentation at the Oak Street Chapel in Brainerd, MN, called “Lies in Textbooks”; one of the slides in his presentation says, “It is time to save the next generation from being infiltrated by Islam.” The entire church board resigns after the presentation.
  1. September 29, 2016 – Dan Johnson, a Republican nominee for the Kentucky State House of Representatives, posts a meme calling for people to “DEMAND YOUR STATE BAN ISLAM. STATES CAN LEGALLY BAN THIS CRIMINAL SYNDICATE ‘RELIGION.’” He refuses to apologize, or step down from the race.
  1. September 30, 2016 – 27-year-old Rashid Dar is punched in the collarbone by a random passerby outside the Dupont Metro station in Washington, D.C.
  1. September 30, 2016 – A man approaches Balmeet Singh, a turban-wearing Sikh, outside the Habit Burger Grill in Bakersfield, CA, and begins yelling that “You’re trying to blow up this country, I should (expletive) kill you right now, you know, I’m gonna kill you right now you’re trying to blow up the country.” He then throws a cup of soda at Singh while witnesses do absolutely nothing.
  1. September 30, 2016 – Vincent Casella is arrested for writing “F___ ISLAM” on a light pole in Mt. Vernon, NY.