An Islamophobic hashtag became trending on twitter after Indian authorities linked multiple cases of Coronavirus to a Muslim missionary group that held a conference in Delhi in early March, and health officials are racing to track down anyone who had contact with the participants.
Tweets with #CoronaJihad appeared nearly 300,000 times and were potentially seen by 165 million people.
Taking advantage of the current health crisis and the paranoia surrounding it, fake videos surfaced online showing “Muslims” intentionally sneezing on people alongside touching and licking different objects on the streets to spread the virus even more. The fact-checking organization AltNews debunked most of these videos as fake.
Islamophobia had been a big issue in India long before the COVID-19 outbreak. On February 23, riots known as “The 2020 Delhi riots” in northeast Delhi began. Hindu mobs targeted Muslims, their houses and businesses and caused the death of 57 people, two-thirds of the victims were Muslims.
