Islamophobic messages were found near Langdon Street Tuesday by University of Wisconsin-Madison staff members, according to Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison.
The messages, located on an electrical transformer box on North Henry Street, depicted a woman in hijab with the message “Islam is satanic/martyrs burn/in hell.” Other messages read “f—k Islam” and “tent Nazi Marxists suck.”
It is unclear who is responsible for the messages.
Hong said the messages were reported to the Madison Police Department and to UW-Madison via the hate and bias reporting form. Hong said in a statement on Twitter the messages are “horrendous and dangerous.”
“We cannot tolerate threats to our community,” Hong said.
The poster has since been removed and graffiti has been scribbled out.
Reem Itani, a Palestinian and Muslim student, told The Daily Cardinal UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin “does not do enough to prevent Islamophobia.”
“There’s been a lot of counter-protesters in the encampment who have been Islamophobic. Some of them even harassed us while we were praying,” Itani said.
Itani said Muslim students have previously faced Islamophobia.
“In October, counter-protesters threatened to rip hijabs off people, saying they were only wearing them so they don’t get raped,” Itani said.
Counter-protesters also played Sweet Caroline while members of the encampment read the names of dead Palestinians last Wednesday, according to Itani.
A counter-protest organizer, who did not wish to use their name, told the Cardinal the counter-protesters were unaware of the pro-Palestine protesters’ plan to read the names and planned their event separately.
The organizer said the counter-protesters had no intention of playing the music while the reading took place, and said they turned off the music when asked by an encampment organizer to do so because the encampment was about to hold a prayer.
“Once they did start praying, one of the organizers of the encampment came over to tell us that they were going to start praying and asked to be respectful and turn off the music, which we did,” the organizer said. “If they would have told us that they were trying to do the name reading, we would have done that, too.”
The messages follow chalk at the Dane County Farmers Market endorsing Hezbollah, the Houthis and the military wing of Hamas — all of which are designated as terrorist organizations or groups by the United States — on Saturday. Hezbollah and the Houthis promote and act upon antisemitic and anti-Sunni Muslim philosophies.
This is a developing story.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 5:37 p.m. Monday to include a statement from the counter-protest organizer.
Photo Editor Mary Bosch and senior staff writer Ty Javier contributed reporting to this story.
Noe Goldhaber is the college news editor and former copy chief for The Daily Cardinal. She is a Statistics and Journalism major and has specialized on a wide range of campus topics including protests, campus labor, student housing, free speech and campus administration. She has done data analysis and visualization for the Cardinal on a number of stories. Follow her on Twitter at @noegoldhaber.
Tomer Ronen is the Features Editor for the Daily Cardinal. He has covered protests, state politics, sports and more. Follow him on Twitter at @TRonen22.
