Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, expressed alarm Friday about a new pernicious wave of provocative attacks from both politicians and religious leaders to vilify Islam. “In the last few months, the discourse has changed and it became an open season to demonise Islam,” he says.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission is also alarmed at the recent upsurge in anti-Muslim attacks and Islamophobia which have coincided with the month of Ramadan.
A Muslim-owned dairy has been targeted by youths over three nights in a campaign of harassment culminating in a petrol bombing, a worker said.
The Medina in Windsor, Berkshire, has suffered at the hands of local youths who have been targeting staff for the past three nights, the unnamed worker claimed. He said the youths would gather in gangs of up to 30 and throw stones and hurl abuse at staff working at the dairy late at night.
Police have been patrolling the area since Monday when the attacks started, he said. But on Wednesday night an attacker riding a motorbike threw a home-made petrol bomb at the dairy’s perimeter wall. The worker told the Press Association that police later found a stash of the bombs hidden around the corner from the firm, which is located on an industrial estate outside the town.
He said that workers had often had trouble with local youths who would target the company, but that things had escalated in the last three days. “We’ve had trouble before but never like this. The police always come but the youths only live round the corner so they know when the police have gone and that’s why they attack us.”
He said that a skeleton staff of just five male workers ran the dairy in the evenings and it was those workers who were bearing the brunt of the attacks, which usually occur after 10pm.
Dairy owner Sardar Hussain, 46, was not available to comment on the attacks. The businessman has recently been reported as saying that the area is in desperate need for a place for Muslim worship.
Press Association, 5 October 2006
See also BBC News, 5 October 2006
Reporting for Channel 4 News, Alex Thomson stated: “The fact that a small industrial plant in a largely prosperous town in the Home Counties can ignite such tension tells us much about Islam in Britain today.” A more appropriate comment, surely, would be that it tells us much about anti-Muslim bigotry in Britain today.
Community leaders in Preston are vowing to work together to avoid a repeat of disturbances in which an Asian teenager was stabbed outside a mosque. The pledge came after a three-hour meeting in Avenham involving police, politicians and community leaders.
About 200 people were involved in trouble on Sunday night after what police said were racially motivated attacks on cars parked at a mosque. Lancashire Police said bricks and concrete blocks were thrown at cars of people attending the Jamia Masjid mosque on Clarendon Street Sunday night.
Extra patrols have been mounted in the area. There were no problems overnight.
Ch Supt Mike Barton, of Lancashire Constabulary, met with local residents on Monday along with community leaders and councillors from Preston Council.
After the meeting, council chief executive Jim Carr read out a short statement which blamed the trouble on a “minority of criminals”.
He said: “Following the recent incidents in the Avenham area of the city, instigated by a small minority of individuals linked to criminal activity, we the wider community of Preston resolve to work closely together to tackle those individuals and make Avenham safe.”
Lancashire Police said bricks and concrete blocks were thrown at cars of people attending the Jamia Masjid mosque on Clarendon Street Sunday night.
About 100 officers were called to the scene after disorder broke out, though there were no arrests. A 16-year-old boy was stabbed in the arm but was not seriously injured.
A 16-year-old Asian youth was stabbed in the arm as disturbances involving 200 people flared following attacks on cars parked at a mosque. Police said the attacks were racially motivated, and extra officers were patrolling the Avenham area of Preston.
Bricks and concrete blocks were thrown at cars of people attending the mosque. Chief Supt Mike Barton said: “These problems are being caused by a small group of criminals in the area intent on intimidating the local community.”
The stabbed youth was not seriously injured and there were no arrests, police said.
The disturbance follows the death of an Asian student in July after a fight between up to 40 Asian and white youths nearby, which police described as a “suspected race attack”.
About 100 officers were called to the Jamia Masjid mosque when disorder broke out on Sunday evening on Clarendon Street.
Ch Supt Barton said there was a growing element of criminal, anti-social behaviour in the area and those responsible needed ridding from the community.
He said: “This incident of stone throwing is an example of that, and as you can expect, people are unhappy with being victimised.”[On Sunday] a number of cars were damaged outside the mosque and people who were worshipping inside came out to see what was going on. Not surprisingly, they have been very angry.”
He said because of the large number of people on the streets, police decided to deploy more officers to offer reassurance and prevent disorder.
Patrols are being boosted and police are using video cameras to gather evidence. They are warning that people who launch reprisals will be arrested.
In July Shezan Umarji, 20, was killed on the Callon Estate, one and a half miles away from Avenham.
Vandals scrawled swastikas and racist slogans on the walls of two mosques in France and threw Molotov cocktails at a mosque in central Russia on Sunday, September 24, the day French and Russian Muslims started celebrating Ramadan.
The mosque which was torched, in the northwest town of Quimper, suffered damage from the flames. Six swastikas were painted on the outside of its walls, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Monday, September 25. In the southwestern town of Carcassonne, the other mosque was daubed with swastikas and slogans reading “France for the French”, “Arabs get out” and “Death to Islam”, officials said.
In central Russia, unidentified attackers threw Molotov cocktails at a mosque in Yaroslavl in the early hours of Sunday, but the building did not catch fire, the head of a local Muslim organization said.
A religious service was taking place at the time and there were worshippers in the room, but the bottles hit the window frame and fell back without exploding, he explained. The attackers also threw stones, breaking a number of mosque windows as well as the windows of cars parked in the courtyard.
A Hampshire mosque set alight by arsonists last month has been vandalised again in what police described as a racist graffiti attack.
A man attending prayers at the Albirr Masjid Mosque in Sarum Hill discovered the graffiti on Saturday night. The attack coincides with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and is the second one on the Basingstoke mosque in less than two months. Police are still investigating an arson attack on the mosque on 12 August.
Insp Annabel Berry said: “We take all graffiti attacks seriously, but especially those that target particular sections of our community. I would like to reassure people that although this is the second attack on the mosque in the past couple of months such events are rare and we are investigating”
Hampshire Constabulary are appealing for anyone who was in the area between 2100 and 2200 BST on Saturday and who may have seen something suspicious to contact them.
Update: See also “Mosque targeted in racist graffiti attack”, Basingstoke Gazette, 25 September 2006
QUIMPER, France — Intruders set a mosque ablaze in this city in western France early Sunday and scrawled swastikas on the outside walls, officials said.
Firefighters called to the scene at 4:20 A.M. local time extinguished the blaze, said Philippe Paolantoni, deputy prefect of the region, in Brittany. The prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.
Damages to the mosque were modest despite four separate fires set inside the Penhars Mosque, one of two Muslim places of worship in Quimper.
A window was found open, apparently used to access the inside of the mosque, Paolantoni said, adding that a passerby alerted firefighters after seeing swastikas scrawled on the outside walls of the mosque and flames inside.
There are occasional reports of attacks on Muslim places of worship in France, as well as on Jewish synagogues, and authorities have increased surveillance
The attack on the Quimper mosque came as Muslims in France began celebrating Ramadan, the annual period of fasting.
The North London Mosque witnessed an attack at 1am on Tuesday 19 September 2006 as two unknown men entered the premises breaking two windows in the process and tried to set a fire. Police were contacted immediately after the two men were spotted, but they failed to act on time. The mosque, formerly known as Finsbury Park Mosque, previously hosted Abu Hamza as its Imam.
It may be that such attacks, coming so soon after the Pope’s address at the University of Regensburg, could have been incited by his remarks condemning the Prophet Muhammad’s actions as “evil and inhuman” and Islam as a faith that he claimed was “spread by the sword”. It could be that the mosque, once home to Abu Hamza and his followers, has become a target for those determined to act on the Pope’s words by, what they believe, is ridding England of intolerance and extremism.
The attack on the Mosque itself, however, “smacks of extremism and is reminiscent of the infamous ‘wars of religion’ that plagued Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, now seen as the historical pinnacle of religious intolerance”, said Harris Bokhari, MAB spokesperson.
“The fact that the mosque is now managed by the mainstream Muslim community reflects the efforts on its part to combat its extreme elements, and is a change that should be welcomed and applauded as opposed to being subjected to hostility. In light of this crime coupled with atrocities currently taking place against Muslim innocents in other parts of the world, the Muslim Association of Britain are organising a ‘Regional Day of Commemoration’ in Manchester on Friday 22nd September.”
Basildon’s Islamic Centre has been almost destroyed in a suspected arson attack.
The fire raged through the Triangle Community Hall in High Road, Laindon, which is leased to the Muslim community group, at about 3.30am yesterday. A large crowd gathered to watch as five crews of firefighters battled to contain the blaze. It severely damaged about one-third of the building, with the roof worst affected.
Sarfraz Sarwar, the centre’s founder and leader, said: “We are just lost for words at the moment. The building is completely gutted. The police think it was arson. But my aim is to get this busy place sorted out one way or another, and to keep on working. We are not going to run away or be defeated. We would like to carry on our community services as usual in a small corner of the town.”
Far-right extremists have adopted the tactics of Islamic jihadists by posting videos on the internet in which they threaten to behead British Muslims.
The films show balaclava-clad white British men brandishing guns, knives and clubs, calling on all Muslims to leave the United Kingdom or be killed. One appears to be a soldier who has served in the Gulf. In one film a man tells Muslims to “go home” or risk being burnt alive. He threatens: “I’ll cut your head off,” and claims to have “comrades” across Britain who have “had enough”.
The videos have all been made since the arrest three weeks ago of suspects connected to the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic jets. Their style mimics the “martyrdom videos” of Islamic radicals talking about their plans for terrorist outrages against the West.
The release of the videos on YouTube, an American-based open-access website, coincides with reports of a rise in the number of attacks on mosques. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said the videoed threats were extremely worrying. “There is no question there has been an increase in attacks on mosques and Muslims,” he said.