Today marks the third International Day to Combat Islamophobia, introduced by the UN to mark the date of the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack in which 51 Muslims were killed during Friday prayer. Last year, anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain hit a record high. Is online misinformation to blame?
Anti-Muslim hatred on the rise
The Islamophobia reporting service Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) reported that 2024 saw anti-Muslim incidents in Britain reach a record high. The service said that it had received 9,600 verified reports of hate incidents against Muslims last year and that both incidents on the street and in online spaces had increased dramatically during and after the riots over the summer.
Police figures from March 2023-24 for England and Wales showed that Muslims were the most targeted religious group when it came to incidents of hate crimes. Beyond individual acts of hate, there have been several far-right terror plots which have been uncovered by the police. Just last week, a court heard that a neo-Nazi group had planned to attack a mosque and torture its imam.
There is evidence that Islamophobia is also structural. by the Runnymede Trust, published in November 2024, found that one in three Muslim students had experienced Islamophobic abuse. Muslims were more likely to live in the most deprived fifth of local authorities, were eight times more likely to be reported to Prevent, and make up 18% of the prison population despite only being 6% of the general population.
What is the role of the media?
Islamophobia does not develop in a vacuum and both traditional forms of media and social media have been guilty of whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment. It's not a new phenomenon, either - in 1985, Le Figaro magazine ran a front page showing the figure of Marianne in Muslim dress alongside the question, ‘Will we still be French in thirty-years?’.
Today, Islamophobia in the media can be coded in dog-whistle attacks, or more overt. The Centre for Media Monitoring found that the coverage of Islam on GB News was “excessive” and “obsessive”, accounting for half of all the stories about the religion over a two year period - many of which were negative. For example, researchers said the broadcaster had framed Muslims “as perpetrators rather than victims of violence” during the 2024 summer riots.
Following the summer's rise in Islamophobic hate crimes, Dr Shabna Begum, CEO of the Runnymede Trust, says “the sense that Muslim communities are a threat to Britain no longer lurks euphemistically in coded conversations, but has become overt and direct. Whether it is politicians speaking from the benches in parliament, or mainstream headlines screaming about ‘Islamist extremists' when describing peaceful protestors, Islamophobia has reached fever pitch in the UK."
How has social media worsened Islamophobia?
Since Elon Musk took over X (formerly Twitter), hate speech on the platform has prospered with monitoring ineffective at best and complicit at worst. The speed at which misinformation spreads online and the failure of social media platforms to monitor hate speech has almost certainly stoked anti-Muslim hatred in the UK. Zara Mohammed, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council for Britain, has said that Islamophobia has been "exacerbated" by the thread of far-right extremism, "as evidenced by the terrifying riots targeting Muslims and mosques, fueled in part by misinformation campaigns further perpetuating Islamophobia.”
MAMA has also seen a rapid rise in incidences of Islamophobic hate online. In January 2024, the organisation saw a 388% increase in the number of online hate cases when compared to the previous January. An increase in online Islamophobia has been linked to an increase in offline or real life incidents through the promotion of intolerance and the subsequent legitimisation of extremist beliefs. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi explained this best, when she said that the “stereotyping, stigmatising, and demonising of British Muslims by some in politics, the media and think tanks have poisoned our public discourse”, leaving Muslim communities feeling “exposed and unprotected”. In February of this year, recognising the extent of the issue, the Government announced the establishment of a working group on an Islamophobia definition.
A more just future
Alongside today's International Day to Combat Islamophobia, March also marks Muslim Heritage Month in the UK, a celebration set up by Baroness Shaista Gohir OBE. Of the initiative, she says,
"I believed there was a need for an additional initiative that could indirectly confront anti-Muslim prejudice through a more celebratory and storytelling-oriented approach."
Muslim Heritage Month celebrates the contributions of the 3.9 million British Muslims who help to make the United Kingdom the vibrant country that it is. So whilst we must recognise and call out the damaging scourge of Islamophobia in Britain and globally today, let us all also take the opportunity to celebrate the endless contributions of our British-Muslim friends who make Britain, Britain.
This blog was published on 15th March 2025, International Day to Combat Islamophobia.