It Was Already Dangerous to Be Muslim in India. Then Came the Coronavirus – By Billy Perrigo
Indian authorities had linked dozens of cases of COVID-19 to a Muslim missionary group that held its annual conference in Delhi in early March, and health officials were racing to track down anyone who had contact with the participants. Coronavirus fears and religious tension were already at a fever pitch in India, and it didn’t take long for the two forces to intermingle.
Since March 28, tweets with the hashtag #CoronaJihad have appeared nearly 300,000 times and potentially seen by 165 million people on Twitter, according to data shared with TIME by Equality Labs, a digital human rights group. Equality Labs activists say that many of the posts are in clear violation of Twitter’s rules on hate speech and coronavirus, but have yet to be taken down.
Coming just weeks after religious pogroms conducted by Hindu nationalists left 36 (sic) Muslims dead in Delhi, the surge in hateful tweets demonstrates how anxieties over the coronavirus have merged with longstanding Islamophobia in India, at a time when the Muslim minority – 200 million people in a nation of 1.3 billion – feels increasingly targeted by the ruling Hindu nationalists.
SEE ALSO
Already rampant communal virus in India is gleefully piggy-back riding on coronavirus – By Javed Anand (Apr 4, 2020, Indian Express)
Break the pyramid of communal tension – By Vibhuti Narain Rai (Apr 3, 2020, Free Press Journal)
Tablighi Jamaat: News Channels Are Spreading Hate In The Name Of Reporting – By Rohini Chatterji (Apr 2, 2020, HuffPost)
COVID-19 In Nizamuddin: Who’s to Blame – Govt or Tablighi Jamaat? – By Aditya Menon (Mar 31, 2020, The Quint)
