It must be dangerous Muslim in India. Then came the Crown

The Islamophobic broken hashtag began in late March, shortly after the news in circulation. Indian authorities have linked dozens of cases of COVID-19 to an Islamic missionary group, track chasing their annual conference in Delhi in early March and health officials had contact with all participants. Crown fears and religious tensions were already at a fever in India, and it was not long to mix the two forces. Video falsely claims members of the mission group to show spit on the police and others went quickly to social media viral exacerbated an already dangerous climate for Muslims. “Islamophobia has been implemented on the output of the crown,” said Amir Ali, an assistant professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. From the month of March 28 tweets with the hashtag #CoronaJihad appeared almost 300,000 times and potentially seen by 165 million people on Twitter, according to data with common time of equality Labs, a group for digital rights. Equality Labs activists say that many of the contributions in clear violation of Twitter rules for incitement and Corona, who are still left behind. “We have a duty to protect and serve the public conversation as we have this global public health crisis of unprecedented proportions to navigate,” he said in a statement made available to Twitter to time. “We will continue to remain vigilant.” Coming just weeks after the religious pogroms led by Hindu nationalists killed 36 Muslims in Delhi, the rise of hateful tweets such fears is through the crown have collaborated with many years of Islamophobia in India, at a time like the Muslim minority – 200 million people in a nation of 1.3 billion – Hindu nationalists feels increasingly aligned with the ruling. “Been One of the key features of anti-Muslim sentiment in India for quite a long time, the idea that Muslims are a type of infection in the body of the policy,” says Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, he has studied Indian politics. “There is a kind of affinity between this long-standing and new fears surrounded the Crown.” One of the most popular false claims #CoronaJihad Tweets to show a Muslim man from Delhi community on someone intentionally cough. The tweet that Muslims as “those vile-minded” and listed hashtag including #CoronaJihad and #TablighiJamatVirus, a reference to the religious group which met in Delhi. But the video into viral tweet was actually filmed in Thailand, India, and there is no proof that the man was a member of the Delhi community. However, the tweet was still online as of April 3 with more than 4,200 retweets and 503 answers. Another video is shared on Facebook and Twitter to show apparently Muslims, intentionally subsequent sneezing was unmasked by the organization AltNews fact-checking. Another Tweet that about 2,000 retweets had before that governs Twitter has been removed for violating featured a caricature of a Muslim man caricature with “Crown Jihad” is trying to push a Hindu from a cliff. “Crown Jihad is this new idea that Muslims are the Hindu goal Crown weaponizing,” said Thenmozhi Soundarajan, Managing Director of Labs equality. The tweet was for violation of the rules of Twitter, but many other cartoons connect Muslims to the crown, divided by the same account with more than 15,000 followers were still online as of April 3 India, where the politically dominant Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata removed from the Party (BJP) has always attacks DogWhistle called on Muslims to life, re-elected last year with a massive majority in April, the crown is just “like the other, as dangerous to throw another occasion, the Muslim, “said Ali, the professor. “People talk about über, bio Jihad’und, Corona Jihad ‘,” says Ali. “These are the last that the media has in a number of different forms des, Jihad ‘has been talked about the spread through social media, and that people accept maliciously.” Population Jihad, for example, is a common trope in credits Hindu nationalist messaging and that Muslims are trying to turn India into a Muslim nation by playing at a faster pace of Hindus. Love Jihad is the idea that Hindu women Muslim men in romantic relationships are, to deceive them to convert to Islam. “Crown more disgusting Jihad is so far because people are actually infected and die,” says Ali. Social media companies have struggled with hate speech for years to involve the platforms in a difficult maze in which freedom of expression against the liability of companies that manage the protection of minorities. In the first social media in a pandemic, the hatred in the world is used by the virus spreading online almost as fast as the virus itself. But recent history shows that inaction on the part of platforms that can transform allow diatribes violence. Myanmar 2017 genocide by Buddhist nationalists against the Rohingya Muslims was preceded by a campaign to dehumanize hate speech on Facebook. Equality Labs Soundarajan says social media companies can not pretend ignorance of the subject, because his group and another sign annoying content. “You are aware,” says Soundarajan. “Whether it possible to go viral, is now its own responsibility.” (Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment react TIME). Although this pandemic is new territory when it comes to predicting the impact of the virus-like hate speech, officials have warned the public health against the stigmatization of minority groups. Since COVID-19 was built in Wuhan, China, some – including the US president – have called the virus “China” or the “Wuhan Virus”, a name, an increase in global violence against Asians seem be connected. In February, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the then-crown would officially from now on as COVID-19 is known – a name that deliberately does not include a reference to China. “Having a name includes the use of other names so it will be inaccurate or stigmatizing,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus currently. Some work to prevent fears about the virus that entangled with religious divisions. Sam Brownback, the ambassador-at-large of the United States for international religious freedom, calls on governments to “aggressively” to push back against the increasing cases of “guilt religious minorities for the virus COVID”, including increasing the use of hashtag # CoronaJihad and others in India tents. “Governments should put aside just that, and to say clearly that this is not the source of the coronavirus,” he said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday. We know “We where this virus came from. We know there is a pandemic, the whole world is undergoing. It is not something religious minorities. But unfortunately we see this kind of guilt has begun around the world in different places.” In India, activists fear the stigmatization of Muslims could aggravate the crisis crown. “It will be a witch hunt against the participants begin Nizamuddin communities from the point of view of public health counter-productive,” he said several Indian intellectuals published an open letter on Thursday regarding where the conference took place on the territory of Delhi. “Participants must be identified without criminalizing and according to the quarantine rules.” The virus, they said, they do not care for religious or national differences. “The solution will not come through the pursuit of the division programs, but efforts by scientific and human solidarity.” A final irony of the Tablighi Jamaat dispute – the escalation announced on April 3, when the Indian government, some members of the group, would be scheduled for violating quarantine between Indian National Security Act into account – is that it was just an innumerable religious groups have continued to meet for India unexpectedly announced his crown Lockdown, but has attracted most of the attention, “they are no different than any other people in India and around the world who have pushed the envelope in terms of common sense, “says Appadurai Tablighi Jamaat community. “But, of course, India is a very dangerous place for Muslims even apart from the crown. It asks exactly the kind of thing that happened today.” – with reports from Kimberly Dozier / Washington
Picture copyright Ajay Aggarwal / Hindustan Times via Getty Images 2020 Hindustan Times