It’s the same after every jihad attack: the establishment media goes into high gear to make sure that no one thinks that Islam had anything to do with it, and that Muslims at the place where the jihad massacre occurred are now living in fear of an “anti-Muslim backlash” that seldom, if ever, actually materializes. The intention is always to keep the focus on Muslims as victims, not as perpetrators of jihad atrocities, so that no effective legal steps are taken to deal with those atrocities.

“Muslims fear anti-Islam backlash in tolerant Barcelona,” by Daniel Bosque, AFP, August 19, 2017 (thanks to Ken):

Barcelona (AFP) – Prayer time is approaching but Raja Miah, an imam at a tiny mosque in the heart of Barcelona does not expect a big turnout.

Since the twin attacks in Barcelona and the nearby seaside resort of Cambrils claimed by the Islamic State group, the Muslim community in central Barcelona’s neighbourhood of Raval fears an anti-Islam backlash.

“People are very scared,” said Miah, 23, as he sat in a small room at the mosque in Raval as a small group of children in an adjoining room studied the Koran.

Raval — whose name derives from the Arabic word for neighbourhood — is located just west of Barcelona’s bustling Las Ramblas boulevard where a van ploughed into pedestrians on Thursday, killing 13 and injuring dozens of others. Just hours later, another person died in a similar attack in the holiday town of Cambrils, where police shot five suspects dead.

“There is a lot of fear, people don’t go out. Very few people come to pray. Normally we are about 40 people, last night we weren’t even 15 and this morning 10,” said Miah, who moved to Barcelona nine years ago from Bangladesh.

Spain’s Muslim community has until now been spared from the islamophobia that has swept parts of Europe.

Far-right parties remain barely visible and just four percent of Spaniards consider immigration to be a problem, according to a survey by the government’s Centre for Sociological Research (CIS).

But the string of attacks in Europe, claimed by the so-called Islamic State group, has sparked a rise in hate incidents.

The number of recorded cases jumped from just 48 in 2014 to 534 in 2015, according to a campaign group, the Citizens’ Platform Against Islamophobia.

And Muslims fear it will get worse following the twin attacks….

“In the end Muslims are the main victims, for the deaths as well as for the social pressure,” said Xantal Genovart, vice president of the Association of Catalan Muslim women.

Catalonia is home to about a quarter of Spain’s 1.9 million Muslims — and it is also a centre of jihadism, according to experts.

Even so, Mounir Benjelloun, president of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities, remains optimistic.

“I think that Spain will know how to handle this and will separate the culprits from the rest so a xenophobic message does not prosper,” he said.

The initial signs are encouraging. A small group of anti-Islam protesters who turned up at Las Ramblas on Friday were forced to leave after passers-by began to shout “No racists” at them.