Elham Asaad Buaras
A congressional candidate who argued Muslims “do not belong” in government has won a Republican Congress primary in Georgia.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, won 57 percent of the vote in the heavily Republican 14th district of Georgia on August 11.
United States President, Donald Trump, congratulated her and branding her a “future Republican star”.
Several high-ranking Republicans in Congress distanced themselves from Greene after Politico uncovered hours of Facebook videos in which she expresses racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views.
In one video, Greene said that Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib – were part of “an Islamic invasion of our government” and that “anyone that is a Muslim that believes in Sharia law does not belong in our government.”
She also described countries where aspects of Sharia law were implemented as places where men have sex with “little boys, little girls, multiple women” and “marry their sisters” and “their cousins”.
Greene has also faced criticism for saying that generations of Black and Hispanic men had not been held back by “being in gangs and dealing drugs” and not by anything white people had done.She has also compared Black Lives Matter activists to neo-Nazis and KKK members who marched in Charlottesville.
Abdullah Jaber, Executive Director of the Georgia chapter for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in June that a win for Greene would be damaging to Muslim, Black, and Jewish communities.
“Ms Greene’s words are outrageous and agonising for the Black, Jewish, and Muslim communities that she would be representing were she to win this seat,” said Jaber
“Her offensive remarks resurfaced in the weeks following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Yassin Mohammed, and Rayshard Brooks, at a moment when the nation is witnessing an intensified struggle against systemic racism and police brutality.”
Greene is also one of a handful of Republican candidates who have embraced QAnon, a fringe theory that a deep state faction is working against Trump with the help of the media. “I’m just like millions of people here in our country and then millions of people around the world that are very much concerned about a deep state in our government” she said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has labelled QAnon as a potential domestic security threat. The popular conspiracy has also peddled a theory that a secret plan was orchestrated by Muslims in America in order to use coronavirus restrictions as a means of bringing Sharia law into the country.
