More than half of Muslims in Ireland experience some form of hostility, from being spat at in public spaces to women having their hijab forcibly removed by strangers.
According to The Sunday Times, one third of the 345 Muslim men and women in 14 Irish towns and cities surveyed by the University of Limerick said they had been targeted for abuse or discrimination specifically because they appeared to be Muslim.
Around 22% were physically assaulted, 20% were threatened or harassed, and 14% had their property damaged, with eggs thrown at their home or their tyres slashed. More than four out of five had been subjected to taunts in public, such as “suicide bombers”, “Taliban, go back to your cave” and “filthy arab.” James Carr, the researcher behind the study, which was complied through interviews and focus groups, said that female Muslims were twice as likely to be subjected to abuse as their male counterparts.
“Many Muslim men would not be identifiable as Muslim until they heard their name”, he said. “We all know, from the discourse and imagery used in Europe, by far-right groups in Sweden or the UK, that the hijab or burqa – worn by just a small minority of Muslim women in Europe – are the markers of difference, what Islam looks like.”
Muslim women interviewed by Carr and his team reported being drenched with beer, having their hijabs pulled off, and being seriously assaulted, with one women beaten until she was unconscious after the death of Osama Bin Laden.
The study, The Sunday Times reports, follows a number of anti-Muslim incidents which hit the headlines. In November, an unsigned letter featuring Michael Collins was posted to schools and mosques, threatening to mete out violence to Muslims if building plans for a new mosque in north Dublin went ahead. The letter read:
“Your very presence in our country is destroying our heritage and culture and we are calling on our countries’ (sic) people to attack and Muslim they come across in shops, taxis or mosques.” The same month, a halal shop was ransacked by vandals; and during the local elections, bacon and pictures of pigs were taped to posters of candidate Memet Uludag’s posters.
