Aya Hachems death recives Islamaphobia online

On Sunday 17th of May, 19 year old Lebanese Muslim Aya Hachem was shot and tragically killed in Blackburn where she lived with her family. The young Muslim woman was shot by a passing car outside Lidl where Aya was shopping. She was immediately taken to hospital where she died.

The car from which shots were fired is a light coloured Toyota, which was reportedly seen quickly leaving the scene, and recovered shortly after,abandoned. Lancashire Police are looking into the case, and currently have sixincustody on suspicion of involvement in the shooting, including three brothers who supposedly had a business feud with a car wash company near by which they were aiming at. Lancashire Police have said: 'There is no evidence to suggest Aya was the intended target of this attack and every indication is that she was an innocent passerby.' The force also made clear that this incident is NOT being treated as terror related nor do they believe it is 'racially motivated.' 

Aya Hachem was a British Lebanese law student of the University of Salford, with high hopes of becoming a solicitor in the future. She was also a trustee for the Children's Society; an inspiring role model for the youth. Ala was the oldest daughter of four siblings. Her family moved from Lebanon to the UK nine years ago, in hopes of a better more secure life. They have lived here as asylum seekers for the past eight years, and only last year did they receive citizenship. Aya's father Ismail was himself shot in his country and wanted to move his family to a safer environment. To then find out that his daughter has been killed in a country he thought was safer than his own is distressing. Her distraught family, who have had to witness such a tragic loss in the holy month of Ramadan intend to take her body back to Lebanon so she can be buried in her hometown Qlaileh. 

The story still remains uncertain as to who was behind the attack and what the motive was, however the initial response on social media to this tragic incident has been vulgar and Islamaphobic. Many have used this incident to comment on honour killings, an Islamfied Blackburn and many other disturbing comments which clearly show Islamaphobias till present within our community- especially online.

Apart from honour killings, people on Twitter have also made comments on the Muslim community in Blackburn, saying things like 'Blackburnistan' and 'this country needs to be cleared out fast.'

The lack of coverage on this particular story from media outlets highlights the hypocrisy of British media today. If we flip the if we flip the situation and suppose that a visibly Muslim man, with a Muslim name, a beard and dark skin was found to be sitting in that same Toyota, there is no doubt that within a few minutes the story would be plastered all over mainstream and social media, labelled as an act of terrorism, with journalists using cover lines like 'Jihadi extremism' and 'Quran endorses violence' as we have seen from right wing publications like the Sun on multiple occasions in the past.