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

February, 2016

1. February 1, 2016 – Around 120 protesters gather in Missoula, MT, to protest South Landing Missoula’s plans to resettle 100 Syrian refugees for every year the Syrian Civil War drags on. Claims like “It’s a government-sponsored invasion,” “Why don’t they stay in their own country and fight,” and that Muslims “hate Christians, Jews, women, gays,” and “rape, kill, and destroy,” are heard several times.

2. February 1, 2016 – The Roane County Tea Party in Kingston, TN, distributes fliers reading “God’s Out and Allah’s In,” claiming that the Roane County Schools have been indoctrinating students with Islam with their textbook choices and forcing them to recite prayers.

3. February 2, 2016 – On a campaign stop, state delegate and Congressional Candidate David Vogt of Maryland (R) decries President Obama’s plans of visiting a Baltimore mosque as an “endorsement of terrorism” and vows to introduce legislation revoking the tax-exempt status of mosques and other religious organizations with “known ties to terrorism.”

4. February 2, 2016 – Following the Muslim American Society of Palos Park, IL’s application to rebuild an old church as a mosque, anonymous fliers are found in area mailboxes calling on residents to “SAVE PALOS!” from “women wearing burkas” and decreasing property values that would result from the building.

5. February 3, 2016 – New Hampshire State Representative Ken Weyler (R) testifies to the state legislature that “giving public benefit to any person or family that practices Islam is aiding and abetting the enemy. That is treason…Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘sharia’ law.”

6. February 3, 2016 – Tampa, FL, police officers don traditional Palestinian keffiyehs when pretending to be mass shooters during a department drill. The police department denies that this is racial profiling, and attempts to argue that they were worn simply to protect the officers’ necks.

7. February 3, 2016 – Emails leaked from the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity at the University of Chicago in Illinois show fraternity brothers calling Muslims “terrorists” and claiming that “dynamite and C-4” are parts of traditional Islamic culture, in addition to a wide variety of other racist and Islamophobic statements.

8. February 4, 2016 – Eric Bolling, co-host of Fox News’s “The Five” claims that he’s never heard of any hate crimes against Muslims in the United States. Fellow host Kimberly Guilfoyle also chimes in her disbelief, asking “Where are the numbers for that?”

9. February 4, 2016 – “Why do you need your own cemetery if you’re willing to violate jihadi law,” asks one of the many people opposed to the building of a Muslim cemetery by the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester in Dudley, MA. Another asks if there will be “crazy music” like the Islamic call to prayer played in the proposed cemetery.

10. February 5, 2016 – Jared Taylor, a white supremacist who previously robe-called for Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump, appears on CNN and asks “Why would we want more Muslims? Muslims have been a terrible problem for Europe, and here they want to pray five times a day, stop the assembly line, they want foot baths before they go to prayer, they want women-only swimming pool hours, and some of them want to kill us! Why should anyone want more Muslims?”

11. February 4, 2016 – An armed 28-year-old man is arrested outside the Idriss Mosque in Northgate, WA, after he is seen swinging a baseball bat at trees and confronting a pair of men outside the mosque to ask them where they were from, in addition to pulling out a pellet gun and smashing the rearview mirror of a car in the parking lot. Police later find a stolen gun in his possession as well.

12. February 6, 2016 – Former Congresswoman and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann of Minnesota describes Muslim immigration to the United States as “planned invasion” with the hopes of destroying “Western Christendom” as a part of “civilization jihad.” She goes on to say that the Muslim minority in France has caused “Islamic jihad 24/7, terrorist bloodbath attacks 24/7,” and that there should be “no more immigration to the United States.”

13. February 8, 2016 – Sikh American actor Waris Ahluwalia is stopped on his way to New York City, NY, when gate agents for his Aero Mexico flight from Mexico City stop him for refusing to remove his turban. After social media reacts to the incident, he is offered another flight, but he himself refuses to board until the airline publicly apologizes and mandates an informational course on religious headgear for its staff – which it finally agrees to after two days of public pressure.

14. February 10, 2016 – Clemson professor Dr. Chenjeria Kumanyika is kicked out of a Trump rally in Pendleton, SC, for wearing a keffiyeh.

15. February 10, 2016 – 68-year-old Abdul Jamil Kamawal is killed by 27-year-old Michael Troxell, who was doing work outside Kamawal’s home. Kamawal’s body is found covered in straw, and a shovel is found on the scene.

16. February 12, 2016 – Blogger Hind Makki discovers that the Google search “american muslims report terrorism” is automatically corrected to “american muslims support terrorism.”

17. February 12, 2016 – Despite hundreds of threats made against women and other Muslims online regularly, Emad Elsayed has his student visa for the Universal Air Academy in Los Angeles, CA, revoked and is taken into custody by immigration authorities, facing deportation, after he makes a post talking about Donald Trump, saying “If I killed this guy I wouldn’t mind serving a life sentence and the world would thank me.”

18. February 15, 2016 – 40-year-old Nabeel Kaukab discovers that the words “Muslim” and “Islam” are prohibited by NikeiD’s custom shoe generator, while phrases like “Christ,” “Hindu,” and even “KKK” are allowed.

19. February 15, 2016 – Glen Robertson, Mayor of Lubbock, TX, alerts the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI after hearing reports of a black flag with Arabic writing hanging from an old building downtown. The flag actually reads “Love for all.”

20. February 16, 2016 – Presidential-hopeful Ben Carson warns Breitbart News host Stephen K. Bannon of “civilizational jihad” by jihadists who “disguise themselves as moderate Muslims” to “infiltrate, multiply, and take positions of power” so they could “replace our Judeo-Christian values with Islam.” He goes on to say that Muslims can truly participate in democratic societies if “only if they’re schizophrenic.”

21. February 16, 2016 – Florida State Representative Lake Ray (R) and his House Justice Appropriations subcommittee fast-track a bill allowing Governor Rick Scott (R) to use military force against “invaders” from the East Hemisphere. He emphasizes that the bill is aimed at Syrian refugees.

22. February 16, 2016 – A billboard owned by Franklin Outdoor Advertising outside St. Joseph Township, MN, asks if Catholic charities that aid in the resettlement of Syrian refugees – referred to as “Islamists” – are “EVIL or INSANITY?”

23. February 16, 2016 – Pamela Geller writes a blog post accusing a Chesapeake Bay Middle School in Pasadena, MD, of doing nothing after an “aggressive Muslim” student “from Saudi Arabia” threatened students with the limerick “My name is Jafar/ I come from afar/ I have a bomb in my car/ Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” The post receives so much attention that the principal eventually sends notes home to parents clarifying that the student in question is an American-born non-Muslim and that there was actually no threat made.

24. February 16, 2016 – A woman whose name is being withheld for security reasons tries to open a new bank account at the Security National Bank in Omaha, NE, when she is forced to remove her hijab. She calls the police, but they decline to take down a report of the incident.

25. February 19, 2016 – At a rally in North Charleston, SC, Presidential-hopeful Donald Trump recounts a completely false tale about General Pershing supposedly shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood as a warning to other Muslims. He then claimed that “And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. OK? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem.” The re-telling of the hoax is met with raucous applause.

26. February 21, 2016 – A West Virginia man comments “Burn this place down” on a CAIR Facebook post featuring an Eastern Kentucky Muslims community. CAIR reports the threat to the FBI for further investigation.

27. February 21, 2016 – A 71-year-old man approaches a Muslim couple and their four children in broad daylight in Affton, MO, and begins yelling that “All of you should die!” while they are house-shopping. He then gets out of his car and yells that “This state allows you to carry a gun and shoot you…You, your wife and your kids have to die. I’m going to take a picture of your plate and come hunt you down!” The man, who is also carrying a handgun, then proceeds to take a picture of the Ayoub family’s license plate, before eventually being taken into custody.

28. February 22, 2016 – Photos emerge of a resident of St. Cloud, MN, with the license plate “FMUSLIMS.” It is eventually tracked down and revoked.

29. February 23, 2016 – Journalist Murtaza Hussain discovers that a 2011 paper issued by the Air Force Research Laboratory titled Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods & Strategies describes the act of wearing hijab as “passive terrorism”

30. February 24, 2016 – The Umatul Islam Center in Minneapolis, MN, is broken into and vandalized. A man is caught on tape stealing equipment and other files from the building, and causes upwards of $5,000 in damage.

31. February 24, 2016 – 3 boys – Mohamedtaha Omar, 23; Adam K. Mekki, 20; and Muhammad A. Tairab, 17 – of Fort Wayne, IN, are found shot and killed inside a home. Two of them are cousins, and are Muslim, and all three are Sudanese. Instead of mourning their deaths, the community immediately begins speculating about potential gang-involvement.

32. February 25, 2016 – People make anonymous threats such as throwing bacon at attendees and blocking the entrance to the State Capitol in Oklahoma City, OK, before the state’s annual Muslim Day event. As a result, organizers are forced to increase security.

33. February 25, 2016 – Following a failed meeting with lawmakers in Tallahassee, FL, in an effort to get them to vote no on an anti-Syrian refugee bill, Leila Abdelaziz, Legislative and Government Affairs Director for CAIR-FL, steps into an elevator and is asked by State Representative Tom Goodson (R), “Oh, is it safe to ride the elevator with you?” while onlookers laugh. Goodson eventually apologizes, but not without also slamming the “national ‘politically correct’ police” for forcing his apology.

34. February 27, 2016 – 17-year-old Kenyan Abdi Mohamed is put in a coma after police shoot him for carrying a broken broom stick in West Valley City, UT.

35. February 28, 2016 – The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) headquarters in Plainfield, IN, are vandalized with racial slurs all over the outside of the building.Three people are caught on camera driving away from the scene.

36. February 28, 2016 – Twin Falls High School Principal Dan Vogt in Twin Falls, ID, kills a story planned by the staff of the school newspaper on perceptions of Islamophobia and a profile of Muslim refugees in the city, citing its “disruptive” nature.

37. February 28, 2016 – 17-year-old Karam Jarrah is speaking Arabic with his brother-in-law when he is stabbed by three people – including a police officer on vacation – in Huntington Beach, CA.

38. February 29, 2016 – The Tennessee House of Representatives successfully passes a bill 88-2 to ban “proselytizing” when teaching about religion in public classrooms, following concerns of Islamic indoctrination in middle schools.

39. February 29, 2016 – A woman waiting in her car for her child to get off the bus in Buffalo, NY, sees three men emerge and throw eggs at two hijabi teens. The girls, who did not speak English well, walked away before filing a police report.

41. February 29, 2016 – Dennis Murdy of East Peoria, IL, displays a number of silhouette cutouts on his front lawn of a hunter pointing a gun at a surrendering man in a turban.