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Trending: The Chapel Hill shootings hashtag; and moral policing Valentine’s Day in India.

Women take part in a vigil for three young Muslims killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

14/02/2015

The Chapel Hill shootings hashtag; and moral policing Valentine’s Day in India.

BBC World Service - Trending, The Chapel Hill shootings hashtag; and moral policing Valentine’s Day in India.

Why was #ChapelHillShooting so quick to label the murder a hate crime?

Why are some groups in India accosting lovers on the streets? And why did the person behind #ChapelHillShooting call the murder a hate crime before the facts were known?

Patrolling Valentine’s Day in India 

It’s Valentine’s Day and love is in the air, or not if some right-wing Hindu groups in India have their way. The groups are planning to patrol social media and the streets looking for young couples in the throes of love. Their intention is to marry the couples on the spot, in an attempt to protect Indian traditions and culture.

But will they succeed? We speak to the National General Secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha group and the man behind an online Love Letters movement, letters of defiance which have been appearing on Facebook all week in protest. And we hear from a woman who is planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day with her loved one in Delhi.

Who is Behind #ChapelHillShootings?

On Tuesday 10th February in the college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, three students, were shot and killed by a middle-aged white man.

Before the facts had been confirmed, the murders sparked global outrage on social media with people debating whether the Muslim students had been targeted because of their religion. BBC Trending tracked #ChapelHillShooting, which has been posted over three million times, to the activist Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director of the American-Arab anti-discrimination committee in Washington D.C.

(Image: Women take part in a vigil for three young Muslims killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

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