‘Fake news’ used to demonise Muslims

WE ARE witnessing a furore over the posting of “fake” news propagated in the media and online and its propagation on social media through retweets and shares.

According to the media, a “rioting sex mob” – composed largely of Arab refugees – wreaked havoc on Frankfurt during this year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, groping and sexually assaulting dozens of women.

Predictably, the “Islamophobia” industry seized the story.

The story quickly made an international splash. Now police say it’s “completely baseless” – an invention of a Frankfurt restaurant owner. We have a full right to free speech but we have seen a huge rise in articles directed merely to cause distrust of Muslims and migrants.

Their main goal is to create the sense that European countries are under attack by Muslim individ- uals, Islamic ideology and Islamic countries.

They misrepresent facts about violence perpetrated against Non-Muslims by Muslims, in particular refugees, and seek to distort the beliefs of the average Muslim. The public is constantly being bombarded with anti-Islam rhetoric, propaganda and exaggerations or lies. The refugee-as-rapist theory is the kind that has been used to demonise people throughout history.

This network of misinformation is eerily similar to the network of anti-Semitic propaganda that swirled in Germany before World War II.

While we may decry the situation we need to face the facts. If you tell people over and over again that immigrants and in particular Muslims are dangerous then people will begin to believe it.

NILOFAR DAWOOD

Sherwood