A group of organizers rallied to end Islamophobic acts of violence in New York City on Tuesday, Jan. 8, in memory of Sunando Sen, an immigrant from India who was fatally pushed in front of a Queens subway in December. The alleged culprit, a mentally ill Hispanic woman, confessed to pushing Sen onto the train tracks on the 7 line because she hated “Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers.”
According to Muslim supporters, the crime is one of several racially charged acts against Muslims and people perceived to be Muslims caused by racial profiling policies employed by the government and the New York Police Department. In turn, the coalition of Islamic, Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans demanded that the NYPD be held accountable for inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment through their use of discriminatory practices.
Organized by DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving), a South Asian advocacy group, and CAIR-NY (Council on American Islamic Relations), demonstrators held a candlelight vigil during the rally in remembrance of Sen not far from where he was crushed by the 7 train.
Fahd Ahmed, DRUM’s legal and policy director, blamed the NYPD’s use of surveillance on the Muslim communities at large as one of the mechanisms fueling fear and hatred toward Arabs.
“All of this is an accumulative result of the policies that have been in place, governmental policies that racially profile communities, that paint them as suspect,” said Ahmed. “If the government paints communities to be suspect, then the public also internalizes that view and treats them as such.”
Ahmed also pointed to racist MTA subway ads that associate Muslims with 9/11, along with anti-Muslim right-wing talking points, as mediums of propaganda and hate.
“The vicious outpourings of a Pamela Geller, spewing religious hatred on subway posters, have an impact, polluting the public dialogue and potentially influencing mentally unbalanced people,” declared Jon Moscow, a representative with the Jews Against Islamophobia Coalition.
Rally organizers also remembered the deaths of other Arab, South Asian and Middle Eastern men who were brutally attacked within the last two months.
“There was a man who was stabbed outside of a mosque six times in Flushing, [Queens]. There was a man who was beaten up in Corona [Queens] after being asked whether he was Muslim or Hindu. [And] there was a serial killer in Brooklyn who shot and killed four Middle Eastern men inside of their shops,” said Ahmed. “The community clearly feels that something is going on, that there is a pattern here, and is searching for answers.”
According to the FBI, the number of hate crimes against Muslims and those mistaken as Muslims remained relatively high in 2011 after the rate jumped by 50 percent in 2010. As a result, Islamic, Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans have been fearful for their own safety. During the rally, Ranjit de Roy, a Hindu immigrant from India and former neighbor of Sen, explained how his friend’s murder has caused him to live in fear. “He was a very nice person,” said Roy. “We are feeling insecure from that day.”
According to Muneer Awad, the executive director of CAIR-NY, there’s a clear correlation between Islamophobia and the government. “We need people to realize that these incidents of hatred and violence, though they might seem isolated and exclusive in certain communities, they’re not, in fact,” he said. “They are also connected to government policies, what elected officials are doing and what our law enforcement is doing.”