Muslim internment flyers posted in University of California-San Diego

Person behind flyers claimed to have duplicated Japanese internment in bid to raise awareness

Flyers calling for Muslim internment camps were posted at the University of California-San Diego on Wednesday, the NBC San Diego reported.

The flyers read that “all Muslim persons, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above designated area by 12:00 o'clock noon Wednesday, April 8, 2017. No Muslim person will be permitted to enter or leave the above described area after 8:00am, Thursday, April 2, 2017, without obtaining special permission from the Provost Marshal at the Civil Control Station..."

In an email to the newspaper, the person behind the flyers claimed to have duplicated Japanese internment in a bid to raise awareness about the political rhetoric under Trump administration, insisting that the flyers were not meant to be “anti-Muslim” but an attempt to “shock and anger people” into reacting.



Speaking to NBC 7 on Wednesday, the students of the university expressed outrage at the incident and the disrespect to Japanese internment.

Kra Bras said that “to mock it and to make fun of it [Japanese internment] or to even take it seriously is messed up. It's just wrong,” while freshman Silvina Rodriguez warned against letting it go. "It should be taken seriously because this is not a joke,” she said. "You find it offensive, yes, and I am pretty sure that's not the only one posted,” said another freshman, Lizbeth Ibarra while tearing down one of the posters.

USCD's newspaper, The Triton said that apart from Argo Hall, the flyers were also found at Thurgood Marshall College – founded in the 1970s and named after first black US Supreme Court Justice.



The incident follows a series of hate-crimes reported in the country after President Trump took office. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Centre said that “Trump’s run for office electrified the radical right, which saw in him a champion of the idea that America is fundamentally a white man’s country.”

In its annual census of hate groups in the US, the non-profit organisation found that anti-Muslim groups nearly tripled to 101 in 2016 from 34 in 2015. It said hate groups in the United States numbered 917 last year compared with 892 in 2015. The report, contained in the Spring 2017 issue of the organisation’s Intelligence Report, said the number of hate groups in the United States in 2016 was high by historic standards.