Anti-Shia bigotry and hatred like this is unacceptable, yet when it comes from UK residents, it is even more troubling and especially when young men like this truly believe that they can dehumanise others who call themselves Muslims. ‘Takfirism’ like this is deeply troubling and raises to mind many more questions as to where this young person has picked up this ideology. It is ideology that is not accepted by the vast number of Sunni Muslims though it is being fomented on the back of Saudi and Iranian political tensions and further exacerbated by the civil war in Syria and we have previously documented spikes in anti-Shia hate incidents in the UK, which correlated on the back of the Syrian civil war.
However, we wanted to raise this case to send out a clear message that anti-Shia hatred is not only unacceptable, it needs to be challenged and called out. For far too long, these issues have been left and people have decided not to challenge them.
The comments by the Twitter user @ZaynHasani even shows him pinning anti-Shia comments to his Twitter account. Assuming the picture he has posted is Mr Hasani, how could such a young man be influenced by such comments of hatred against members of the Shia Muslim communities. His hatred against women also comes through in one of the tweets below and we are concerned by this rhetoric and the extremely polarised views that this person is showing.
If you come across anti-Shia comments that are emanating from the United Kingdom, please do report them into us at Tell MAMA, info@tellmamauk.org. This also goes for anti-Sunni and anti-Ahmaddiya comments.
