Hate crimes against minorities have been on the rise in the past decade.

Hate crime is defined as an offence which the victim considers to be driven by hostility towards their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity.

It can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, assault and bullying, as well as damage to property.

Just recently UK police have recorded a surge in hate crime directed at people in England and Wales because of their religious beliefs.

It rose by 40%, from 5,949 in 2016-17 to 8,336 in 2017-18, according to the Home Office data.

Most religious hate crime - 52% of all offences - was aimed at Muslims, which is not surprising.

However, a great portion of the other half was from the Jewish community minority.

In the US as well hate crimes against minorities in the nation’s 10 largest cities increased by 12 percent last year, reaching the highest level in more than a decade, according to a report released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

If we look at the minorities in the world that were targeted in the past decade, you would be surprised of the great number. Tonight we’ll just mention a few examples.

The Rohinygas, an ethnic minority in Myanmar, are seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by the Buddhist government of Myanmar and even excluded them from the census. Not only disregarded as people, they were tortured, abused and even killed and have been making dangerous journeys to escape the terror.

In December 2017, Doctors Without Borders released the results of mortality surveys documenting the scope of recent violence against the Rohingya community.

It’s shocking to read.

At least 9,000 members of the ethnic Rohingya minority died — 71.7% from violence — in Rakhine state, Myanmar, between August 25 and September 24.

Next Albinos among the Sub-Saharan black populations of Africa are commonly perceived as objects of fear and loathing. Witchcraft performed as part of native religions often results in the murder of human albinos, and to a large extent people afflicted with the disorder are shunned. Suffering from vision problems and sensitivity to the sun in Africa, albinos have it hard enough without the extreme discrimination from their fellow humans.

You have the blacks in America. Even though things did get better since Martin Luther King’s time but in the past years, discrimination remains there.

A study from YouGov showing the likelihood of police targeting minorities. It says that black people believe the police are to target them compared to other minorities. The study also shows how safe different races feel when they see police officers and blacks were first in that, too.

So we can see their fear because they are not looked upon normally as other citizens, well in this case.

However, there is another group of people who have always been targeted for many centuries now... The Shia (followers of Ahlul-Bait).
 

Shias are targeted wherever they are in the world mostly by extremists as they follow the footsteps of their revered scholar Ibn Taymiya, whose teachings were passed down to the eighteenth century extremist Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab. This guy founded Wahhabism and believed that Muslims had strayed from the authentic teachings of Islam. The movement condemned visiting shrines and tombs of saints and Muslims who did not agree with his teachings were excommunicated or killed in an effort to purge Islam from what Wahhab believed to be unsanctioned innovations. Wahhabi military campaigns waged war against moderate Muslims (Shias), demolishing Islamic shrines and slaughtering entire villages of Muslims who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation.

This same extreme ideology is behind the creation of terrorist organizations that are destroying shrines and mosques around the world and continuing violence against minority Shias all over the world.

Shias have since been the prey, unfortunately and global organization have failed to raise awareness about this crime to end it.

So why is all of this happening? Why are minorities being targeted?

Well it’s basically because of several things including: money, power, territory and fame.

What does Islam say about all of this?

Islam tells us from the very beginning during the times of the prophets, peace be upon them, that we should unite and be good with anyone regardless of religion, race or ethnicity.

Imam Ali, peace be upon him says,

“A person is either your brother in faith, or your equal in humanity.”

This right there beautifully explains that we are all equal in humanity. There should be no segregation whatsoever.

Another great example of unity is of course Imam Hussein when he said, "I rose to seek reform in my grandfather's nation". We see that they were people of other faiths fighting alongside his companions.

Islam has always been a religion of peace.

However, sadly, some of those so-called “Muslims” have the money and power to portray a negative image of Muslims in their own way. Western media only looks at this side of the table.