Trump Retweets Series of Horrific Anti-Muslim Videos Posted by Far-Right British Group

By Molly Olmstead, Slate

29 November 17

n Wednesday morning, President Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos originally tweeted by the deputy leader of the far-right British group Britain First, sparking condemnation among some in the U.K.’s parliament.

The videos, which Trump retweeted hours apart, show what it calls examples of Muslim violence. The first retweeted video is captioned, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” and shows a 35-second-long video of a young man punching and kicking another young man on crutches.

According to BuzzFeed, the clip went viral in May and led to the arrest of a 16-year-old boy. The sister website of the one that posted the video has claimed no migrants were involved in the incident.

The second video, captioned “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!,” shows a calm-looking man pick up a statue and drop it on the ground.

The third, and most disturbing, video is captioned “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” In it, in a relatively chaotic scene, a young man is pushed off the top of a building to the sound of a woman screaming, though it’s hard to tell exactly what is happening. It does appear that after the man falls, a small crowd gathers around to kick him.

According to BuzzFeed, the clip came from the 2013 overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and the man who pushed the young man was found guilty of murder and hanged.

Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, appeared pleased with the president’s retweets, as she subsequently tweeted out links to news articles about them. Fransen, who was elected deputy leader of the extremist group in 2014, was arrested earlier this month for a speech she gave in August for a group called “Northern Ireland Against Terrorism.” Fransen was also found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment a year ago after she shouted at a woman wearing a hijab during what her group called a “Christian Patrol.”

Many were quick to decry Trump’s retweets. Even Paul Joseph Watson, an InfoWars editor, wrote that it was “not great optics.”

Brendan Cox, the husband of British Labour MP Jo Cox, who was murdered in 2016 by a far-right extremist, tweeted that Trump was trying to spread hate beyond the United States and legitimize Britain’s far-right groups:

In the House of Commons, Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Stephen Doughty called for the British government to condemn Trump’s actions, according to the Independent.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna also called for Trump’s state visit invitation to be withdrawn.

According to the Independent, several members of the House of Commons shouted “disgraceful” when Trump’s retweets were mentioned.

Update, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, at 12:05 p.m.: Later Wednesday, the spokesperson for Prime Minister Theresa May released a statement from May’s office condemning Trump's actions:

Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people.

British people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far right which is the antithesis of the values this country represents, decency, tolerance and respect. It is wrong for the president to have done this.