The daughter of a man killed on his way home from a mosque says she believes his death was racially-motivated. Mohammed Saleem, 75, was stabbed after leaving the Green Lane Mosque in Small Heath, Birmingham, on 29 April.
His daughter, Shazia Khan, said police were not listening to her family and her brother was threatened, apparently by the English Defence League, prior to their father’s death. West Midlands Police said it would work “tirelessly to find the killer” of Mr Saleem.
Nearly two-thirds of people believe there will be a ‘clash of civilisations’ between British Muslims and white Britons in the wake of the murder of a British soldier in Woolwich, a new poll shows. The number of those who believe such a clash is inevitable has increased by 9% from last year.
There has also been a small increase in the proportion of people who believe British Muslims pose a serious threat to democracy, up to 34% on Thursday and Friday from 30% in November 2012, according to the YouGov survey of 1,839 adults.
However the YouGov poll provides evidence that Britain does remain a tolerant country and that the far-right support remains at the margins of society. Nearly two-thirds (63%) believe the vast majority of Muslims are good British citizens, up by 1% from last November.
Members of the National Front held a rally in Swansea city centre this afternoon. Around 20 members from the far right group staged the meeting in Castle Square following the murder of drummer Lee Rigby in London on Wednesday. Amid a heavy South Wales Police presence, the hour-long rally passed without incident.
One man protesting against the group was National Union of Students Wales International Officer Edmund Schuessel. He said: “The extreme right was going to try and capitalise on the events of Wednesday and try and intimidate the Muslim community in Britain. This is a port city, a university city for a century. It has always been open to an international population. They want to see a return of the paranoid regression of the 1930s and 40s. They need to be actively resisted.”
The BNP and EDL are accused of attempting to fuel racial hatred, the Independent reports.
Community leaders have condemned an attack on a Grimsby mosque in the wake of the murder of a soldier in London.
In a united front against apparently racially-motivated vandals, church leaders, police chiefs and council leaders today said the behaviour of a gang of drunken youths was “disgusting and unacceptable”.
Muslim leaders were less than a metre away from where bricks landed inside their mosque – which had been lobbed by teenagers at the windows of the building, at the junction of Weelsby Road and Legsby Avenue, shortly after 11pm on Thursday. It is believed that an end-of-term house party escalated into a backlash against the murder of drummer Lee Rigby, in Woolwich.
Cars were also damaged and bins were overturned, and Humberside Police arrested 11 teenagers, aged between 16 and 17.
We, the undersigned British Muslim imams, organisations and individuals, wish to extend our condolences and deepest sympathy to the family of Drummer Lee Rigby, killed in Wednesday’s outrageous attack in Woolwich.
Islamic associations in Germany have said that four mosques were attacked on 10 consecutive days after the trial of the terrorist National Socialist Underground (NSU) group began and called for stronger measures and a more determined fight against Islamophobic attacks in the country.
The issue of Islamophobia in Germany came to the surface once again with the trial in which neo-Nazi suspect Beate Zschäpe and four alleged supporters of the NSU terrorist group stand accused of 10 murders.
Eight of the victims were Turks, one was a Greek immigrant and the final victim was a German policewoman. The first session of the trial, was held on May 6.
Despite the trial, Islamic associations in Germany claim that attacks against the Muslims in the country have not ceased. The Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM) has announced that mosques in Bullay, in the Rhineland-Palatinate state, as well as its capital, Mainz; the town of Lengerich in the Steinfurt district and the town of Düren in the district of the same name in North Rhine-Westphalia were attacked between May 10 and May 20.
Hope Not Hate has the latest news on Andrew Eccles, the former British National Party activist who was allowed to stand as a UKIP council candidate last year, having been personally recruited by the Bury branch chair, despite UKIP’s official ban on ex-BNP members joining the party.
Members of the English Defence League will march through Newcastle tomorrow, with police promising extra patrols to reassure communities.
Evening Chronicle, 24 May 2013
Mehdi Hasan takes on the Islamophobic assumptions behind conventional responses to the murder in Woolwich.