Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Muslim woman donates $1 to charity for every hate tweet she receives

Susan Carland says she now 'barely bats an eyelid' when receiving hate-messages

Olivia Blair
Thursday 12 November 2015 08:45 EST
Comments
Susan Carland and husband, Waleed Aly have been titled 'Australia's Muslim power couple'
Susan Carland and husband, Waleed Aly have been titled 'Australia's Muslim power couple' (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A Muslim woman has decided to donate $1 to charity every time she receives hate messages on Twitter.

Susan Carland started the campaign a few months ago and has already "raised" more than $1,000.

“I regularly get tweets and Facebook messages from the brave freedom-fighters behind determinedly anonymous accounts telling me that, as a Muslim woman, I love oppression, murder, war and sexism," she wrote in The Age.




 
 (Susan Carland/Twitter)

She says the deed was inspired by writings in the Koran which say to “Repel evil with what is better.”

She explains: “I felt I should be actively generating good in the world for every ugly verbal bullet sent my way.”

Ms Carson says the abuse she has received “ranges from requests to leave Australia, hope for my death, insults about my appearance (with a special focus on my hijab), accusations that I am a stealth jihadist, and that I am planning to take over the nation, one halal meat pie at a time.”

Since setting up the donation scheme, Ms Carland says she now “barely bats an eyelid” when she receives trolling messages as “it represents nothing more than a chalk-mark on my mental tally for the next instalment to UNCIFE”.

Ms Carland is the wife of Waleed Aly, a host of the Australian current affairs programme ‘The Project’. The Sydney Morning Herald has labelled them: “Australia’s Muslim power couple”.

An academic, she lectures at Monash University in Melbourne and in 2004 was awarded the title of Australian ‘Muslim of the year’.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in