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

October, 2015

1. October 9, 2015 – A bill banning the teaching of “religious doctrine” in general but implicitly aimed at banning the teaching of Islam in particular is introduced to the Tennessee House by Rep. Sheila Butt.
2. October 10, 2015 – Around 20 cities across the country host “Anti-Islam” rallies.
3. October 11, 2015 – Associate Superintendent of Virtual Instruction for the Georgia Department of Education Jeremy Spencer posts a series of vitriolic messages on Facebook such as “If you wipe your butt with your bare hand but consider bacon to be unclean, You [sic] may be a Muslim.” Another is a picture of Ahmed Mohamed of Texas, with the caption “Don’t forget to set your clocks (bombs) back.” He is later fired in January.
4. October 12, 2015 – Rep. Steve King (R-IA) states that people who “do the hajj to Mecca…can’t assimilate to the broader culture of civilization.”
5. October 12, 2015 – The glass front door of Masjid Al-Ahad in Katy, TX, is smashed open by vandals between prayers.
6. October 13, 2015 – Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg of the Rodfei Sholom Synagogue in San Antonio, TX, releases a statement calling CAIR a “very deceitful organization, manipulating the media and spreading lies about Israel,” in response to the Muslim advocacy group’s request that the synagogue not host speakers from the Islamophobic group ACT! for America.
7. October 16, 2015 – A 41-year-old man is stabbed in his stomach by two brothers in Brooklyn, NY, for speaking Arabic as he walks with his wife and 5-year-old son. One of the attackers allegedly states that “I’m going to stab you because you’re Arabic and deserve it.”
8. October 17, 2015 – A Muslim woman is grabbed by her neck at the Sofra Café in Bloomington, IN, and has her head slammed into the table she is sitting as her attacker, 19-year-old Indiana University student Triceten Bickford, yells “white power” and “kill them all” before he attempts to remove her headscarf.
9. October 19, 2015 – Richard Rothschild, Commissioner for Carroll County District 4 in Maryland, publishes an op-ed in agreement with Presidential Candidate Ben Carson’s comments disparaging Islam. He claims that “The values of Islam are irreconcilably incompatible with the values enshrined in America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Anyone that swears an oath to Islam and the Constitution is lying to either Allah or the American people.”
10. October 20, 2015 – Roy Whited, a school board member in Sparta, TN, receives death threats after the Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination group protests the use of a social studies textbook in sixth and seventh grade classes which the group says is an example of “sweeping Islamic infiltration.” The entire board is asked to resign.
11. October 21, 2015 – Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump claims that he would shut down a number of mosques if elected President in an effort to fight ISIS.
12. October 25, 2015 – Parampal Sing Ghai, a Sikh man from Connecticut, is taunted and called “Osama” by a cashier at a Nathan’s Famous Aberdeen, MD, while onlookers merely laugh.
13. October 27, 2015 – After four months of investigation, the Woodbridge Township School District in New Jersey comes to the conclusion that there was not enough evidence to constitute “bullying” after classmates of Saira Ali, a student at Colonia High School, took pictures of her unbeknownst to her and posted them on social media with the caption “ISIS.”
14. October 30, 2015 – 43-year-old Jodie Burchard-Risch attacks a Muslim woman with a beer mug at an Applebee’s in Coon Rapids, MN, cutting the woman’s face and then throwing a drink at her before fleeing after hearing the woman and her husband speak Swahili. The woman was wounded on her right eye, nose, and lower lip.
15. October 31, 2015 – A masked man is caught on camera attempting to break open a glass door at the Islamic Center in Omaha, NE. This is the second time the mosque has faced vandalism in three months.