Dar al- Iftaa was shocked to hear about the horrifying incident of a 9 year old Swedish Muslim whose head was thrown to the ground and smashed a number of times against the pavement by a Swedish Police officer who grabbed him hard and sat on him pressing his chest while pushing his glove hand over his mouth and nose. The boy seemed to gasp for air and his crying voice emanated excruciating pain as he could not breathe. Thinking he was about to die, the boy uttered the testimony of faith which is stating that there is no god worthy of worship but God and that Prophet Muhammad is His messenger.

It was reported that the dialogue which took a brutal turn started out as the 9 year old boy skipped paying the ticket for the train. The unprecedented wave of hate crimes and brutal discriminatory acts of violence and killings against Muslims in Europe and the US is truly alarming and comes as the byproduct of the spread of Islamophobia which is defined as an unfounded hostility and prejudice against Islam and Muslims.

Dr. Ibrahim Negm, the Senior Advisor to the Grand Mufti, blame the international media for the perpetual increase of Islamophobia at unprecedented levels due to their constant reference to the bloodthirsty sick minded terrorist group of Qaida Separatists in Iraq and Syria by falsely calling them “the Islamic state”. This false association between Islam and extremism spreading all over Western media sends subliminal messages to the general public to fear for their lives as Muslims are waiting at every corner of the street to hunt them down.

We have pleaded both the international media and world governments numerously before and initiated campaigns along with a number of Islamic centers and institutions worldwide to change the name of this horrendous extremist groups from the “Islamic state” or “ISIS” and “ISIL” to “QSIS” because these people neither represent Islam nor a state. Yet the international media was adamant on continuing disseminating an atmosphere of warmongering and was defiant to strip these terrorist groups off of its Islamic label though the number of Muslims victims who were killed, slaughtered, beheaded, captivated, raped are way larger than any other group. Yet the number of Muslims murdered by fanatics would never be enough for the international media to get off its high horses and to see the damage it has done on the conscience of their public.

The international media proved its double standards when it came to the coverage of the incident of the three American Muslim youth who got brutally killed by their neighbor in a flagrant hate crime. The crime did not get enough coverage until the news of the shooting went viral on social media. “How many hate crimes should occur before the international media realizes that it has an ethical responsibility to bear and a professional code to follow to cover the news on Islam with truthfulness, precision and neutrality?” said Negm.

Also the international media has to cease hosting extremists on their news channel and presenting them as authoritative Islamic scholars. These people are nothing but self-claimed, half-educated who did not learn Islamic studies from acknowledgeable Islamic learning institutions. They only represent their radical ideologies which lack any roots in sound Islamic teachings.

Although the disheartening brutal incident to the young child is horrifying and inhumane, we understand that these individual brutal acts do not represent the peaceful loving nature of the Swedish people and we hope that the involved police officers would be punished for their atrocious acts and that the young child should see justice for the horror that he has been through.