Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh’s campaign office has been vandalized with threatening, seemingly Islamophobic language.
“Somali Muslim — This warning is no joke,” reads a message written on a window of the campaign office as shown in a photograph supplied by Fateh’s campaign.
The campaign reported the matter to police Wednesday and announced it late Wednesday night.
State Sen. Fateh was born in the United States to Somali immigrants and is Muslim. He is challenging Mayor Jacob Frey in the Nov. 4 election.
Fateh, a democratic socialist, was endorsed by Minneapolis Democrats in July, but the state party later revoked the endorsement due to computer glitches at the convention.
Fateh’s short-lived endorsement raised his profile nationally and brought more hate along with it, said his campaign manager, Akhilesh Menawat.
Menawat said Fateh has been the target of right-wing attacks from conservative media outlets and figureheads with a “steady stream of hate, racial and Islamophobic slurs, and violent threats” to his campaign email, Senate email and on social media.
“The right-wing attacks on Omar and Muslims have definitely fed into an increase in threatening emails and social media posts,” Menawat told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
