In Southport, England, a 17-year-old boy recently unleashed a horrifying attack during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for young girls aged 6 to 13. The rampage left three children dead and five others in critical condition. Initially, the suspect’s identity was withheld due to his age, with authorities only disclosing that he was born in Cardiff to Christian parents who had immigrated from Rwanda. However, a wave of misinformation quickly followed, falsely claiming that the perpetrator was Muslim. This sparked a violent reaction, with a mob of right-wing extremists, led by ‘Britain’s far-right Islamophobic influencer’ Tommy Robinson and the English Defence League, attempting to burn down the local mosque.

This tragic event is the latest in a series of incidents that politicians and media outlets have used to reinforce the false narrative that migrants, particularly Muslim refugees, are prone to violence. This dangerous myth has been persistently perpetuated by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media empire and others despite lacking substantial evidence.

The refugee crisis of 2015 brought millions of displaced people from war-torn regions like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia to Europe’s doorstep. Germany and Sweden responded by implementing open-door policies, each taking in a million refugees. However, in November of that year, a series of coordinated attacks in Paris, France, by a Brussels ISIS cell, which resulted in 130 deaths and over 400 injuries, ignited a widespread backlash. Suspiciously, a Syrian and an Egyptian passport were found near one of the suicide bombers. However, it was later revealed that the Egyptian passport belonged to a victim, and the authenticity of the Syrian passport was questioned.

This incident was soon followed by a wave of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne, Germany. Over 1,200 women reported being assaulted or raped, with all identifying their attackers as Arab or North African men aged 15 to 35. This fueled a reevaluation of refugee policies across Europe and bolstered the popularity of far-right demagogues such as Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Santiago Abascal, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orbán, Martin Sellner, Jair Bolsonaro, and Donald Trump. In the wake of the Cologne attacks, Western media began circulating a Qur’anic verse, “Oh ye who believe, lawful to you for sex are your wives and that which your right hands possess,” alongside the phrase “sexual jihad.”

For those unfamiliar, “sexual jihad” refers to a practice endorsed by some Salafist extremists where women are encouraged to marry fighters from groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and al-Shabab to provide “comfort” while they wage war. However, most Islamic clerics, including the imam at my local mosque, either reject this practice as completely un-Islamic or are unaware of its existence. They clarify that the Qur’anic phrase “what your right hands possess” refers to captives in battle or concubines—a concept considered obsolete by the mainstream Islamic community since the anti-slavery consensus of the 1970s and 1980s.

Of the over 2,000 men arrested in connection with the New Year’s Eve assaults in Cologne, only 44 percent were refugees—a tiny fraction compared to the million refugees Germany had taken in that year. Yet, despite the evidence, the narrative of refugees as violent criminals persisted, further fueling Islamophobia. This ongoing demonization has undoubtedly pushed many migrants to their breaking point, potentially contributing to the very incidents of violence that these narratives claim to predict.

This case is just one of many myths surrounding refugees, such as the widespread belief that refugees overwhelmingly migrate to Western countries, drain economic resources, or, particularly in the case of Muslim refugees, attempt to outbreed populations of European descent. The reality, however, is quite different. Most refugees seek asylum in neighboring countries, with Turkey currently hosting the largest refugee population in the world, followed by Pakistan. Only a tiny percentage of refugees settle in Europe or North America, and those who do often come with advanced degrees, family connections, and financial resources, contributing positively to their host countries as engineers, doctors, lawyers, and academics.

In the aftermath of the Southport stabbing and the ensuing violent clashes that spread to other cities, including Manchester, the police named the actual suspect Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a teenager diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder who had refused to communicate with his family for a month leading up to the attack. It was also revealed that Axel and his parents were active church members.

Initially, the blame for this horrific attack on young girls was placed squarely on Muslims. However, with the revelation of Axel’s autism diagnosis, there is now a troubling shift in the narrative, with politicians and pundits potentially perpetuating the stereotype of the autistic incel. This stereotype, though increasingly prevalent, is deeply flawed. While the media frequently associates autism, along with video games and anime, with terrorism when the perpetrator is a young white male, it rarely does so with other groups. The inclusion of autism in the narrative is particularly concerning, as it risks increasing discrimination against autistic individuals, especially young men and boys between the ages of 15 and 35.

This form of discrimination often goes unchallenged and unpunished. The myths of the refugee terrorist and the autistic shooter or incel must be dismantled. Both Muslims and autistic individuals are far more likely to be victims of terrorism and violence than perpetrators. It’s time for the Western media to stop perpetuating these harmful stereotypes and start telling the truth.