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🪵 The Threshold

Islamophobic hate crimes spike in the wake of terrorist attacks.

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tagsja-picks, xref, causal_relationships, primary_study, singleton, question, seed, share, corroborated, category/causal-relationships
aliases@hussain_framing_2017, loc. 84

4 min read

Islamophobic hate crimes spike in the wake of terrorist attacks.

Evidence

Race hate crime figures show that Islamophobic crimes increase following a terrorist attack (Travis 2017), and there is increasing awareness – not just among political leaders and the police but among the wider public and media – that we must be more considered in reporting on terrorist attacks, and not jump to the conclusion that all incidents involving injury are necessarily acts of Islamist terrorism (or that all public decisions involving Muslims are inherently suspect). — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 84

We found that the prevalence and severity of online and offline Islamophobic hate crimes are influenced by ‘trigger’ events of local, national and international significance (Williams and Tregidga, 2014). Terrorist attacks carried out by individuals who identify themselves as being Muslim or acting in the name of Islam – such as the Woolwich attack, the atrocities committed by ISIS and attacks around the world, such as in Sydney, Paris, Copenhagen and Tunisia – induced a significant increase in participants’ experiences of online and offline Islamophobia. Additionally, national scandals such as the child sexual exploitation in Rotherham by groups of Pakistani men, and the alleged ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal in Birmingham framed as a ‘jihadist plot’ to take over schools, were also highlighted by participants as ‘trigger’ events, which increased their vulnerability to Islamophobic hostility, both online and offline. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 348

King and Sutton (2014) found an association between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and a rise in hate crime incidents with a specific anti-Islamic motive in the US. In the UK, Hanes and Machin (2014) found significant increases in Islamophobic hate crimes reported to the police in London following 9/11 and 7/7. Both studies highlight a sharp de-escalation following the spike in Islamophobic hate crimes, which occurred as a result of the ‘trigger’ terrorist events. … For example, Williams and Burnap (2015) found that racial and religious cyber hate spiked in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby in the terrorist attack in Woolwich, London in 2013.1 Littler and Feldman (2015) found that there was a substantial spike in reports of Islamophobic hate crime following the Woolwich attack, which ranged from general abuse towards ‘visible’ Muslims on the street, graffiti at mosques, firebombs at mosques to threats in a cyber context. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 87

Categorization

  • XREF: Connects to the broader literature on backlash dynamics against outgroups following salient terror events. — connects to: Political events and terrorist attacks trigger spikes in anti-Muslim hate crime. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 359; Islamophobic hate crimes rise after each terrorist attack — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 79; Terror attacks trigger dramatic measurable spikes in Islamophobic incidents — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 590 (+5 more)
  • QUESTION: Do trigger-event spikes decay over time, or ratchet baseline hostility permanently upward? Longitudinal data on post-attack reporting rates would settle this.
  • SEED: An essay mapping the lag between a named ‘trigger’ news event and the next measurable wave of anti-Muslim abuse reports, using Rotherham and Woolwich as paired cases.
  • SHARE: The specific 9/11, 7/7 and Woolwich spike-then-decay findings are exactly the sort of datum someone studying hate-crime counter-terrorism response would want.
  • corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 84; Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of…, 348; Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of…, 87

Broader Connections

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