Tuesday, 1 August 2017

Norwegian Islamophobes confuse empty bus seats with women in burkas

Members of a far-right Norwegian Facebook group confused a photo of empty seats on a bus for women in burkas. From TheNewArab:

Responses included how "frightening", "tragic" and "scary" the scene was, while others worried the non-existent passengers could have "weapons and bombs" under their garments.

"It looks really scary, should be banned. You can never know who is under there. Could be terrorists with weapons," one member wrote, according to Norweigian English-language site thelocal.no...

The head of the Norwegian Centre Against Racism (Antirasistisk senter) told Nettavisen that the irrational response to six empty bus seats shows how quickly people jump to conclusions.

"People see what they want to see and what they want to see are dangerous Muslims. In a way it's an interesting test of how quickly people can find confirmations of their own delusions," Rune Berglund Steen said.