(MEE) — On Donald Trump’s re-election campaign website, the “Listening to America 2018” survey asks for opinions on hot button issues facing the country.

Predictably for a divided America, much of its language is loaded and many of the questions are leading. But the issues covered are mostly real concerns that many people in the United States have: things like abortion, how to prevent school shootings, how to strengthen the economy and what to do about illegal immigration.

Then there’s question 27: “Are you concerned by the potential spread of Sharia Law?”

Conspiracy theories that Sharia law is creeping its way into power in America have been around for years, swirling among the most conservative fringes of American politics. Once the realm of paranoid and bigoted grassroots organisations, they eventually found their way into state legislatures as bills trying to ban the implementation of Sharia law.

But today, with Trump as president, they have worked their way up to the highest levels of power in the country, giving them more exposure – and perceived credence among conservatives – than ever before.

“What was once fringe has now become mainstream,” said Wajahat Ali, the lead author of a 2011 Center for American Progress report on the origins of the anti-Islam lobby in the US. “You can trace it to a small, incestuous network of what were once considered far-right anti-Muslim bigots who have now made their way to the White House and whose memes and talking points are now taken seriously by the Republican Party.”

Sharia is a set of principles that observant Muslims live by, similar to religious laws that members of Christian sects and Judaism follow. But anti-Sharia campaigners do not paint it as a personal set of religious values; rather, they portray it as an oppressive legal, political and military doctrine that seeks to dominate the US, subjugate non-Muslims and usurp the Constitution as the law of the land.

Sharia conspiracy theories vary in intensity, but none take into account the sheer impossibility of imposing strict Islamic laws on either a local, state or federal level in the US. But experts charge that the anti-Sharia lobby cares little about how realistic the threat is. Instead, they say they are in it for votes and power, exploiting fears of Muslims in the US.

“It’s gradually getting infused into the larger Republican party platform. And the reason they’re doing it is because it works,” said Todd Green, an associate professor of religion at Luther College in Iowa who studies Islamophobia in the US and Europe.

“It’s not about objective information about something called Sharia, or whether there’s actually any kind of threat one percent of the population poses to the entire country, or to the state of Oklahoma or Texas, or wherever these laws are being passed: it’s about tapping into already existing fears and angers in a certain segment of the population of the electorate and galvanising that and channeling it into votes. And it works.”

An Administration of Islamophobes

Trump has mentioned Sharia law several times during his political career. Campaigning for the presidency, he blamed terror attacks in Europe on populations not assimilating to their countries because “they want Sharia”. He also said that under his administration, the US would not give visas to anybody who believes Sharia should supplant US law.

But he is better known for his broader attacks on Islam: as a candidate he said he was open to closing mosques to help fight terrorism, suggested creating a database of Muslims in the US and called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. At one point, he said: “I think Islam hates us.”

Beyond the president’s own Islamophobic statements, he has surrounded himself with current and former officials who have pushed Sharia conspiracy theories, many of whom have had ties with anti-Muslim organisations considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The list is long:

Kellyanne Conway, one of the president’s closest advisers, once conducted a poll for an anti-Muslim group that was largely derided as unscientific and claimed more than half of Muslims living in the US supported Sharia law.

Stephen Miller, another top White House adviser, once warned about rising “Islamofascism” when he was a college student; and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said he would only support a Muslim president if they renounced “the central tenant of Islam: Sharia law”. CIA director Mike Pompeo co-sponsored a bill to ban the Muslim Brotherhood.

Trump’s long list of former White House officials also heavily echoed so-called threats of Sharia law. His former chief of staff, Steve Bannon, presided over Breitbart News, a website that pandered to the far-right and regularly published articles warning of the spread of Sharia law in the US and Europe; and Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, described “Islamism” as “a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people” that “has to be excised”.

Dangers Real for Muslims

Experts say the migration of Sharia conspiracy theories – and other Islamophobic elements that go hand in hand with them – from the fringes of the Republican Party to its core, are dangerous for Muslims in America.

“This is a kind of rhetoric that is really meant to do harm to Muslims in order for politicians to make political gain, or for anti-Muslim hate groups to also have political influence, or have financial gain arise from this,” said Green, the Luther College professor.

“The Trump administration and other Republican politicians – at least in certain areas – are doubling down on it because so far it has been a winning strategy. And they will continue to do that until it is challenged in a significant way,” he added.

The rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric is already having consequences. The campaign season of 2015 and 2016 saw a surge in hate crimes against Muslims in the country, according to the FBI. In 2016, there were even more hate crimes against Muslims than in 2001 when anti-Muslim sentiments seethed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

As anti-Muslim and anti-Sharia voices have gained prominence, the push to bring Sharia bans into state legislatures have also increased.

To Ali, the lead author of the Islamophobia report, the threat is not just to Muslims, but to American values.

“If we are unable or unwilling to integrate Muslims and accept Muslims and people of colour as parts of the American fabric, what we will see is the American dream turned into the American nightmare,” he said.

“These forces that are preying upon anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobia, they threaten to corrupt and bring down America for the rest of us. That’s why this issue of Islamophobia is not just an Islamic problem, it’s an American problem.”

By Josh Wood / Republished with permission / Middle East Eye

Up to 1,000 children could have suffered in Britain’s worst known abuse scandal - where sex gangs targeted girls as young as 11.

The rape hell of vulnerable young girls in one town - Telford - went on for a shocking 40 years, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.

As many as 1,000 children could have suffered at the merciless hands of perverts and torturers in Telford since the 1980s.

Girls as young as 11 have been lured from their families to be drugged, beaten and raped in an epidemic that, say victims, is still ongoing.

THREE people were murdered and two others died in tragedies linked to the scandal.

Despite similar high-profile cases in Rochdale and Rotherham, authorities in Telford ­repeatedly failed to stamp out a network of abusers.

The Mirror’s 18-month investigation reveals abuse on unprecedented levels. We found:

• Social workers knew of abuse in the 1990s but police took a decade to launch a probe
• Council staff viewed abused and trafficked children as “prostitutes” instead of victims, according to previously unseen files
• Authorities failed to keep details of abusers from Asian communities for fear of “racism”
• Police failed to investigate one recent case five times until an MP intervened
• One victim said cops tried to stop her finding out why her abusers had not been prosecuted because they feared she would talk to us

The scale of the abuse uncovered in Telford – population 170,000 – is feared to be the most brutal and long-running of all.

The Rotherham toll was put at 1,500 – but that was in a community of 260,000.

Telford’s Tory MP Lucy Allan has demanded a public inquiry and said our ­findings were “extremely serious and shocking”.

She said: “There must now be an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford so that our community can have absolute ­confidence in the authorities.”

Specialist child abuse solicitor Dino Nocivelli, of Bolt Burdon Kemp, said: “These children were treated as sexual commodities by men who inflicted despicable acts of abuse.

"The survivors deserve an inquiry. They need to know how abuse took place for so long and why so many perpetrators have never been brought to justice.”

Our investigators have spoken to 12 victims, most of them unconnected.

They accused more than 70 abusers and claimed that violent rapes were still taking place just months ago.

One 14-year-old, groomed and abused after her phone number was sold to paedophiles, said: “I hated what was happening and my abusers made my skin crawl but I was told that if I said a word to anyone they’d come for my little sisters and tell my mum I was a prostitute.

“Night after night, I was forced to have sex with multiple men in disgusting takeaways and filthy houses.

"I must have been getting the morning after pill from a local clinic at least twice a week but no one asked any questions.

“I fell pregnant twice and had two abortions. Hours after my second termination, I was taken by one of my abusers to be raped by more men.

"The worst moment came just after my 16th birthday when I was drugged and gang raped by five men.

"Days later, the ringleader turned up at my house and told me he’d burn it down if I breathed a word of what had happened.”

Documents which will be passed to the Home Office reveals authorities knew of the horrors a decade before investigating – and shows how they tried to hamper our probe.

We presented our findings to Professor Liz Kelly, from the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University.

She helped estimate the number of victims based on figures gathered by our investigators.K

Prof Kelly said: “We are acting as if we didn’t know about child sex abuse rings. We have an unfortunate capacity to choose to forget.”

Sheila Taylor, of the NWG Network, worked on the Rotherham Inquiry. She said the true scale of the Telford problem might never be known because many victims were unlikely to come forward.

She said: “There is probably a whole cohort of young people that are not identified.

"We are good at identifying white girls but are less able to ­identify young men, young people from ethnic minority backgrounds, from travelling communities, or with learning or other ­disabilities.”

A police investigation called ­Operation Chalice identified more than 100 potential victims abused between 2007 and 2009.

Cops also said there could be as many as 200 perpetrators – but just nine were caged and the case was then closed.

Today our investigation reveals the authorities were told of the abuse epidemic more than a decade before Chalice.

Our probe – backed by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – found two predatory paedophiles began targeting girls from a local children’s home in 1981.

One of the abusers earned thousands a night for years trafficking girls around the country for sex with hundreds of men, according to one victim.

In another case, a 14-year-old was groomed by an 18-year-old Asian man in 1985.

After she had his baby he passed her to friends to have sex with and allegedly rape her.

The Mirror has repeatedly asked questions over the response by authorities (Image: Sunday Mirror)K

The girl, now 47, says she reported her abuse to the council and school but does not believe action was taken.

She says her doctor said she was mentally ill and should take medication.

The vast majority of those targeted were young white girls but teenagers from the Asian community also fell victim.

One report commissioned by local Telford and Wrekin Council in 2013 admitted: “From the late 1990s professionals had concerns about the nature of some of the child sexual abuse cases presented to them.”

But it blamed “understanding and learning at that time” and “existing procedures”.

Two separate investigations were launched at the same time as Operation Chalice after two victims named dozens more abusers.

The victim in one case – groomed at 13, sold for sex and gang raped – said she pulled out of the investigation because she “didn’t feel she was being emotionally supported” by police.

Another victim claims officers discouraged her from pursuing her request for evidence after she told them she was speaking to the Mirror.

Victims: Five dead as abusers' tentacles leave trail of pain and tragedy

Lucy Lowe died at 16 in a house fire in Telford (Image: Brock Richard)

A mum and four girls have died in tragedies linked to the abuse.

Lucy Lowe, 16, was killed in 2000 along with her mother and sister after her 26-year-old abuser Azhar Ali Mehmood set fire to their house.

Cabbie Mehmood targeted Lucy in 1997 and she was just 14 when she gave birth to his daughter.

He was jailed for murdering Lucy, her mum Eileen and 17-year-old sister Sarah.

But he was never arrested nor charged in connection with any child sex crimes over his illegal relationship with the schoolgirl.

Lucy’s death was used as a warning to other girls, according to victims. One, drugged and gang raped by nine men two years later, said the threats drove her to attempt suicide.

She said: “I was scared my family would die like Lucy’s. I thought they’d only be safe if I killed myself.”

In 2002, 13-year-old Becky Watson died in a car accident that was reported at the time as a “prank”.

Becky Watson, 13, died in a car accident described as a "prank" (Image: Sunday Mirror)

Vicky Round was abused by a gang who got her hooked on crack cocaine aged 12 and on heroin by 14(Image: Sunday Mirror)

The Mirror investigation found she suffered two years of abuse by an Asian grooming gang which began when she was just 11.

Tragic diaries obtained by the Mirror reveal her torment at being made to “sleep around”.

Her mum Torron Watson said she repeatedly told police that Becky was being abused – and even gave them a list of suspects.

She told the Sunday Mirror: “Girls like Becky were treated like criminals. I was crying out for help but it felt like I had nowhere to turn. If Becky’s abuse had been properly investigated by the authorities more girls could have been saved from going through this hell.”

Vicky Round, a friend of Becky’s, was abused by the same gang who got her hooked on crack cocaine aged 12 and on heroin by 14.

She died aged 20 of a drugs incident and her sister Emma told us: “I have no doubt Vicky would still be here if she hadn’t been so badly abused – yet the people who made her life hell still walk the streets.”

Response: These horrific crimes are a No.1 priority say police and council

Martin Evans, Assistant Chief Constable for West Mercia Police, said: “We are aware of the information you have provided.

“Tackling such horrific offences is the number one priority for police in Telford and we have not only increased officer numbers to tackle this type of offending, but use all of our resources and technology available to prosecute anyone who sexually offends against children whether that offending took place today, yesterday or decades ago.

“Operation Chalice in 2013 was one of the first national complex critical investigations into grooming offences. It centred on historic offending in Telford and Wrekin and ultimately resulted in seven men jailed for a total of 49 years.

“Over the subsequent years we have continuously focused on this area, whilst working very closely with our communities to ensure there is confidence to report issues people become aware of. Last year officials from the Home Office paid thanks to the commitment of staff working to protect young people at risk from sexual exploitation.”

A spokesperson for Telford and Wrekin Council said yesterday: “Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a vile, evil crime. It’s an issue right across the UK and has been for a long time.

“Telford will be covered by the national CSE review. We welcome this. All agencies continue to work very closely together and this remains our top priority.

“Our approach to CSE is now very different from 10-20 years ago. We have learned lots of lessons and are constantly on the lookout for indicators of CSE so that we can pass information on to police and bring these evil criminals to justice. Indeed, further cases are now coming to court.”

An OFSTED inspection into Telford’s child services in 2016 said: “Work with children and young people at risk of sexual exploitation is very strong... work to protect children who go missing from home or care is thorough and improving.”