Hate Speech During Covid-19
Author: EMAN Network Staff
During the coronavirus pandemic that began towards the end of 2019, hate-speech began to be directed against certain communities as the either the origin of the pandemic, or as the reason behind its continued spread. Most people are fully aware of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States, which is a result of racial profiling of Asian people being linked to COVID’s beginnings. But racial profiling notwithstanding, some notable hate preachers, and some communities across the world began to target certain religious groups as being the causes behind the virus.
Simona Cruciani, the Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (OSAPG), noted that besides some political leaders referring to the virus as the “Chinese Virus”, “we are seeing increasing trends of anti-semitism and anti-Muslim hatred, with people from these religious groups being accused of spreading the virus”.
In April 2020, Arab News reported that British Counter-Terrorism police were investigating UK-based far-right organisations of using the coronavirus pandemic to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment, with prominent far-right personalities such as the English Defence League (EDL) founder Tommy Robinson sharing an online video showing Muslims leaving what he referred to as a “secret Mosque” in Birmingham. Although the EDL is not rooted in Christian fundamentalist beliefs, its divisive rhetoric and weaponisation of the pandemic may lead to other faith-based far-right groups to attack people of different religions.
In India and Sri Lanka, Hindu nationalists and Sinhalese Buddhist groups have also used the coronavirus crisis to scapegoat Muslims, labelling segments of the Muslim communities in both countries as “super-spreaders”. In India, Hindu nationalists created hashtags such as “corona terrorism” and “corona jihad” - in reference to Indian Muslims. The targetting of Muslims in extremist Hindu and Buddhist rhetoric in India and Sri Lanka did not begin with the coronavirus, but the pandemic has given hate-preachers a new avenue to target the Muslim minority through radical Hindutva and Buddhist thought.
In addition to anti-Chinese and anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-semitism has also risen, with Jews being blamed for the coronavirus by the far-right, ultraconservative Christian circles and Islamists, according to Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress. By way of example, an Iranian hard line cleric dismissed directives from the World Health Organisation to close mosques in the Iranian city of Qom “because they are a bunch of infidels and Jews”. Rick Wiles, a Florida-based American pastor also stated that COVID-19 spread through Israeli synagogues due to the Jews’ rejection of Jesus Christ, and that only repentance will save them.
The use of faith-based radical discourse to target the “other”, and to continue radical narratives against specific communities will likely continue well after the virus is brought under control. Radical preachers across all faiths have proven adept at weaponising the virus and its impact on the world by blaming communities that have long been in their crosshairs. It is unlikely this will stop even after the pandemic, as the long-term trauma of COVID-19 will remain embedded in people’s psyche across all geographies.