Millions of people are fleeing a brutally oppressive regime and almost certain extermination. And The Daily Mail depicts these people as rats and mocks their desperation.

It's appalling and hard to believe -- but true. The Daily Mail published a cartoon depicting Syrian refugees -- one carrying a rifle -- and a throng of rats streaming into Europe. It closely resembles an infamous piece of 1939 Nazi propaganda depicting Jewish people as rats shut out from democratic countries after escaping Hitler.

There is no excuse for this hateful, dehumanising cartoon. Tell The Daily Mail to apologise and withdraw the image.

Anti-immigrant forces across Europe have already been trying to demonise and dehumanise the four million Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS and a catastrophic civil war back home. With the recent Paris attacks, that trend has only increased. For The Daily Mail to join in -- with imagery literally used by the Nazis -- is beneath contempt.

The Daily Mail has been here before. It ran articles supporting fascism, the rise of Hitler and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and later whipped up a frenzy of fear when Jewish refugees were seeking shelter in the UK fleeing the Nazis. Now the Mail has turned it hatred on Syrians fleeing war, violence and persecution.

Our community has taken on the might of the Mail and the media before. When it ran a horrible transphobic article that may have contributed to the suicide of a trans school teacher, we were there standing up for trans rights. When Murdoch's The Sun ran a competition offering Page 3 girls as a raffle prize, we were there demanding the competition was withdrawn -- and won! We can't let the Mail's portrayal of desperate people to stand unchallenged.

Join us in demanding that The Daily Mail take responsibility for its cartoon that could have come straight out of Nazi Germany.

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More information:

The Daily Mail has been accused of xenophobia after publishing a cartoon that depicts refugees as rats, The Independent, Nov 17, 2015
This Daily Mail Anti-Refugee Cartoon Is Straight Out Of Nazi Germany, HuffPo, Nov 17, 2015