Fazel Ryklief watched in dismay as news of the Dundalk attack that left one man dead and two injured spread on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, a tide of anti-immigrant abuse directed at Muslims had begun to swell on social media.
“In the end, irrespective of whether he was Syrian or Egyptian, it all came down to him being a Muslim. Islam always gets the brunt of it,” said Ryklief, who works at the Islamic Foundation of Ireland in Dublin.
“I want to stop feeling guilty about being a Muslim every time someone with a Muslim name does something like this,” he told The Irish Times, adding that he was not surprised that some media outlets immediately concluded that the alleged attacker was a Syrian.