Moncton’s Muslim community concerned about increased hate speech online

The former president of the Moncton Muslim Association is concerned about increased hate speech online, saying that community members have noticed a steady increase in recent years.

Abdal Khan is concerned about those trends translating into more frequent racist incidents in day-to-day life, especially following Tuesday’s re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

“We’ve noticed, especially from last couple of years, a steady increase in hate speech and postings, social media postings — anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-any other race,” Khan said as worshippers gathered at the Moncton mosque for sunset prayers.

The latest U.S. presidential campaign was marked by racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, as Trump pledged to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. “That part of his political side is very concerning for minorities, Muslim communities, immigrants, people of colour,” Khan said.

“And that’s what we fear now too, because if he’s back in power, if he’s going to use the same rhetoric and same wording and same slogans, that is definitely going to increase hate crimes, hate speech.”

Khan said hate speech on social media has intensified since Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip — a war widely condemned as genocidal – following attacks led by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

He noted that certain local Facebook groups commonly feature misinformation, falsely portraying all immigrants as either undocumented migrants or asylum seekers, for example.

This kind of misinformation can translate into hate-motivated action. Khan recalled that at one point during Ramadan a couple of years ago, a man showed up outside the Moncton mosque yelling obscenities and false accusations at worshippers, including Khan himself.

There was also a bizarre road rage incident in 2021 apparently fuelled by anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim racism. On another occasion someone left a bag of garbage on the staircase of the mosque. In other cases, women’s hijabs have been pulled, once by the student of a Muslim teacher, and once at a mall.

Khan said he believes social media forums that allow the spread of racist misinformation should be shut down, noting that some serve as breeding grounds for white supremacists. He called on law enforcement to investigate people behind racist hate speech to determine if they pose a danger to the community.

There have been widespread reports of increased Islamophobia over the years, particularly following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Before the 2016 election, Trump pledged a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S., and his administration later implemented what many observers called a “Muslim travel ban” targeting people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Trump’s success in the 2016 election led to what some observers described as a “Trump effect” in Canada, as white supremacists and other far-right movements were emboldened by the American president.

But the administration of current American president Joe Biden has also been marked by a surge in Islamophobia. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported earlier this year that “Islamophobic bias has reached unprecedented levels, surpassing in some ways even the appalling track record of the previous administration.”

“What we are currently seeing is one of the worst waves of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment that we have seen in the United States for decades,” said Farah Afify, research and advocacy coordinator for CAIR, in an interview with the NB Media Co-op.

CAIR recorded 8,061 complaints in 2023, the highest number in the group’s 30-year history, according to its annual civil rights report released earlier this year. Almost half of those complaints were reported in the last three months of the year. Preliminary data indicates that this year could be even worse.

CAIR wants to the Trump administration to “fulfill one of its campaign promises, which is to promote peace,” Afify said. “And the best way to promote peace is to work toward an end to the war in Gaza and the war against Palestinians.”

In Canada, cases of extreme anti-Muslim violence included the 2017 fatal shooting of six worshipers at a mosque in Quebec City, one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history. A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that the attacker was “truly motivated by race, and a visceral hatred toward Muslim immigrants.”

In 2021, a man deliberately rammed a pickup truck into a Muslim Pakistani-Canadian family in London, Ont., killing four people. That attack was ruled as a “textbook example” of terrorist activity.

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).

This story was updated with video on Nov. 9, 2024.