In Wake Of Anti-Muslim Bomb Plot, Kansas GOP Mailer Fans Flames Of Islamophobia

Campaign Fliers Depicting ISIS Fighters Ask: “Have You Met The New Neighbors?”

Just two weeks after three white nationalists were arrested for plotting a terror attack against Muslim immigrants at a Garden City apartment complex, the Republican Party of Kansas appears to be fanning the flames of Islamophobia in new campaign mailers. 

The mailers, sent out in legislative races across the state, depict ISIS fighters holding machine guns as well as explosions from terror attacks, The Wichita Eagle reports. 

“Have you met the new neighbors?” the front of one mailer (above) declares alongside an ISIS fighter. “ISIS is not going away anytime soon.” 

Earlier this month, authorities uncovered a plot in which three members of a militia group planned to detonate bombs at an apartment complex that is home to many Muslim immigrants from Somali. One of the apartments in the complex serves as a mosque, and the bombing was planned for Nov. 9 so as not to influence the election, in which GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has called for banning Muslim immigrants. 

Democratic state legislative candidate Elizabeth Bishop said she was “appalled” by the mailers in support of her GOP opponent, adding that they contribute to animosity toward Muslims. 

“Look at what happened in Garden City,” Bishop told the Eagle. “I think it feeds into that.”

Robert McCraw, director of government affairs for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the mailer “a shameful example of scare mongering tactics that I hope the Republican Party can learn to move away from.” McCraw added that given the recent anti-Muslim terror plot, “this flier verges on incitement of violence to Muslims.”

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