Look At What Fox News Is Calling "Sharia Law" [View all]

[Douglas Carpenter]

Fox News incited Islamophobic fears in its reporting on a weekly swim class at a YMCA facility that ensures the privacy of Muslim girls learning to swim, framing it as evidence that "Sharia law is now changing everything."



In October, a St. Paul YMCA in partnership with the local police department decided to offer an hour long swim practice once a week to give Muslim Somali-American girls between the ages of 5 and 17 an opportunity to learn basic swimming skills, making considerations for the girls' modesty and religious beliefs. On the December 2 edition of Fox & Friends, Fox's Heather Nauert framed this story as evidence that "Sharia law is now changing everything":

NAUERT: Well the minority becoming the majority at one community pool. Sharia law is now changing everything. A YMCA in Minneapolis-St. Paul is starting a swim group for Muslim girls but special considerations have to be made to keep with their religious beliefs. Now this means during the one-hour class, the pool is being shut down, the men's locker room is being locked, and female lifeguards are being brought in. Similar classes are now starting at towns across the Midwest. We'll keep watching this story for you.

Fox's use of an hour-long swim lesson for girls to push the myth that Sharia is taking over is disconcerting to say the least. For many Muslim girls, this class represents their first opportunity to learn these basic skills, and the Star Tribune noted that this is an important and much-needed program for the community, and that "[s]pecial considerations have to be made to address modesty concerns":


http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/02/look-at-what-fox-news-is-calling-sharia-law/197090