THE hostage siege in Sydney in which an Iranian-born Muslim man held the staff and customers of a café hostage lasted more than 16 hours. At about the same time, another hostage siege took place in Ghent, Belgium when four men entered an apartment and held a man hostage.

While the Sydney incident got worldwide media coverage, the latter was largely ignored. One would like to ask whether the same crime committed by a non-Muslim become somehow less heinous? Such media manipulation is the root cause of Islamophobia, as a viewer gets the impression that crimes are committed only by Muslims.

Such an impression inevitably leads to public hysteria igniting violence against Muslims, which may range from harmless hateful graffiti on mosques and hate speech to acts of violence or even indiscriminate acts of terror.

Some very welcome news amid all this was the support the Australians extended to their fellow Muslim citizens through the Twitter hashtag #illridewithyou, offering to accompany Muslims in case they feared being targeted for their Islamic attire. Thank you Australians!

Liaqat Qazi
Panjgur

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2014