The UK has seen a significant surge in anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia in the year following the Israeli war on Gaza, according to a report released by a leading hate crime monitoring group.

Tell MAMA, a noted NGO that tracks hate crimes in Britain, recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia between Oct. 7, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024. The findings were revealed in a report on Monday.

Iman Atta, the organization’s director, described the alarming rise as unprecedented in the group’s history.

Since Oct. 7, Middle Eastern communities, regardless of faith, as well as visibly Muslim individuals, particularly women, have been increasingly targeted for their perceived support of Palestinian rights, Atta said.

These communities have endured verbal abuse, with people being called “terrorists,” and “Nazis,” in addition to facing threats, violence, and discrimination in public spaces, she added.

This growing hostility has not only threatened their sense of security but has also affected their social mobility, careers, and education, undermining their fundamental rights.

Abusive and threatening behavior

The report revealed that nearly two-thirds (63%) of the incidents involved abusive behavior, while 27% were categorized as threatening behavior.

Most of these cases were reported in major urban canters such as London, the Northwest, Yorkshire, and the Midlands.

The increase in anti-Muslim sentiment has left many questioning their safety and sense of belonging in the UK, especially amid rising far-right violence and incidents like the horrific stabbings in Southport.

Tell MAMA also emphasized that hate crimes remain severely underreported, with many victims becoming to daily abuse and choosing not to report incidents to the police.

The report warned that this rise in anti-Muslim hatred poses serious long-term risks to the economic and social well-being of Muslim communities in the UK, threatening community cohesion.

The NGO called on politicians, the media, and public institutions to take urgent action to address these challenges, counter harmful stereotypes, and prevent the normalization of narratives that link Muslim communities to violence and criminality.

Regional tensions have escalated due to Israel’s brutal offensive on Gaza, which has killed nearly 42,000 people, mostly women, and children, following a Hamas blitz last October.

The conflict spread to Lebanon with Israel launching deadly strikes across the country, which have killed more than 1,251 people and injured over 3,000 others since Sept. 23.

Source: TRT World

A mother and grandmother were reportedly walking with a 5-month-old infant in a stroller on Thursday evening at 4 Corners shopping center in Maple Valley, Washington. Both women wear a hijab, a head scarf worn by Muslim women. They were in a crosswalk with the right-of-way when an approaching vehicle saw the women walking and sped across the intersection, intentionally hitting the group. The driver allegedly sped off after striking both women as well as the stroller, causing it to tip over with the baby boy inside. The infant was uninjured, but both women were hospitalized with serious injuries, including a leg fracture and internal bleeding.

“We are absolutely horrified by the nature of this alleged assault, with two visibly-Muslim women walking with a five-month-old baby in a stroller being attacked in such a brutal manner,” said Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of CAIR-WA. “While we are truly thankful that the baby was unharmed and the injuries to the two women are not critical, we call on law enforcement authorities to investigate whether bias played a part in this crime against an innocent family.”

“It wasn’t just an attack on two women in hijab, but it was also an attack on a baby in a stroller. We believe this is a racially motivated and intentional attack, where the driver even went after a baby. It feels like a hit on humanity as a whole,” said Aamer, family member to the victims, who lives in Chicago.

Maple Valley Police arrested the driver of the vehicle, who is being held on $250,000 bail. The driver has been charged with a hit-and-run assault. While CAIR-WA applauds the Maple Valley Police Department’s quick response, it urgently calls for them to investigate this incident as a hate crime. Hate and bias against Muslims in America is at an all-time high.

From January to June 2024, CAIR documented 4,951 incoming bias complaints nationwide, a 69 percent increase over the same period in 2023.

Earlier this year, CAIR’s national office released its 2024 civil rights report, which revealed the highest number of complaints it has ever received in its 30-year history. Titled “Fatal: The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate,” the report documented 8,061 complaints.

Nearly half of all complaints received in 2023 were reported in the final three months of the year.

CAIR-WA’s 2024 Washington Muslim Survey found that respondents who identified as being visibly Muslim (due to wearing religious garb such as a hijab, niqab, etc.) were more likely to feel unsafe in their day-to-day lives. The full report will be published in late September.

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

Source: CAIR

After six nights of anti-Muslim and anti-migrant rioting, with looting, assaults on police and hotels set on fire, imams and Muslim community leaders are working with police to increase security at mosques across Britain.

Far-right groups launched the violent protests after falsely alleging that a foreign-born Muslim was behind the July 29 knife attack that killed three young girls and injured eight other children and two adults in a north English town. Authorities have since identified the suspect as 17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, reportedly to Rwandan Christian parents.

The riots have exposed divisions across the country over immigration and renewed concerns about the ability of far-right groups on social media to stoke unrest through misinformation.

In a now-deleted post on X, the killer was falsely identified as an asylum seeker named “Ali al-Shakati” said to be known to security services and to mental health agencies. These false claims were then amplified by other X accounts claiming to be “news outlets.” One of the accounts promoting this material, “End Wokeness,” has 2.8 million followers.

Over the weekend, the Home Office, the cabinet department responsible for domestic security, announced that mosques will be offered emergency protection if they are at risk, by way of a rapid security force that would aid local police.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to take legal action against the rioters. Over the past week, police arrested more than 375 people for what Starmer has called “far-right thuggery.”

“Whatever the apparent motivation, this is not protest, it is pure violence and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” he said Monday (Aug. 5) in a televised address after an emergency meeting with police and government ministers.

Hundreds more have participated in the violent protests, and police are still reviewing CCTV footage to identify suspects. Some of the first rioters to be charged appeared in court on Monday.

Meanwhile, British Muslims are increasingly concerned for their safety, with some staying home more for fear of being attacked. Muslim women in particular, often easily identified through their clothing, are particularly distressed about leaving home, said Abubakr Nanabawa, the national coordinator for The Muslim Vote, an organization that encourages Muslims to become involved in politics and vote.

In some areas affected by rioting, including the northern towns of Blackburn, Bolton and Liverpool, groups of young Muslim men have come out onto the streets, acting as street patrols, Nanabawa told Religion News Service.

“Community leaders have given them clear instructions to let the police do their job,” he said. “But we can show we are part of the community and won’t be pushed around.”

Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit that works against disinformation, polarization and extremism, found that the lack of information immediately following the knife attack helped false allegations online go viral.

“False claims surrounding the attack quickly garnered millions of views online, galvanised by anti-Muslim and anti-migrant activists and promoted by platforms’ recommender systems,” the institute reported. “Far-right networks — a mix of formal groups and a broader ecosystem of individual actors — used this spike in activity to mobilise online, organizing anti-Muslim protests outside the local mosque.”

Milo Comerford, the institute’s director of Policy and Research for Counter-Extremism, said the ability to seize on polarization allows activists to blame vulnerable groups, especially migrants and Muslims.

“It doesn’t have to have any basis of truth,” he said. “It really is just about this sort of preexisting campaign, and a preexisting disposition towards assuming that all problems that are facing the U.K. have to do with specific groups.”

Among the media platforms that have been used to foment discord are X, TikTok and groups on the messaging app Telegram. Some local Facebook groups take information from influencers and then pass it on to their neighborhoods.

Many of those involved in spreading false claims online that the knife attacker is a Muslim have long opposed migrants arriving to the U.K. and claim that they are largely responsible for economic ills. Those making false claims also often exhibit a particular dislike of Muslims as the Muslim population has grown over the past decade.

One of the far-right voices stoking the riots is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the alias Tommy Robinson. Yaxley-Lennon is the founder of the English Defence League, an anti-Islam group considered part of Europe’s “counter-jihad” movement. Though he lives miles away in Cyprus, where he has denied claims that he is fleeing a contempt of court case against him in the U.K., he has encouraged his nearly 900,000 followers on X to protest following the knife attack.

“Innocent British people are under violent attack across our nation & the police are nowhere to be seen,” Robinson said on X on Monday. “Kier starmer has caused this. Whilst he promises protection for mosques those who attend the mosques violently attack any non Muslims.”

Another well-known influencer, the actor Laurence Fox, who has more than half a million followers on X, said on the platform the time has come “to permanently remove Islam from Britain. Completely and entirely.”

In a later post viewed 4.4 million times, Fox denounced Starmer, calling him a “traitor” and declaring “war.”

Many Muslims have expressed surprise by the suddenness and ferocity of the attacks on their communities and other ethnic minorities. But according to Azhar Qayum, chief executive of Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), which aims to combat Islamophobia, “there is no surprise that these communities have been targeted now, because we have just come out of an election campaign which was marred by racist and Islamophobic messaging, by the far-right Reform Party but also by both mainstream Conservative and Labour Parties.

“There are serious issues with unregulated content on social media. However, we have to ask where that content comes from and what enables and mainstreams extremist views. This occurs when politicians and media pander to this demographic for votes.”

Qayum said many Muslims are experiencing “real fear,” and some of their homes have been broken into during the riots.

But there have been some signs of hope. In Liverpool, about 50 demonstrators protesting about Islam gathered outside the Abdullah Quilliam Mosque, the oldest mosque in Britain. They were met by hundreds of counter-demonstrators. Some mosque worshippers attempted to talk to the protesters and offered them food, with some visiting the mosque.

“We shook hands with people, we hugged people, we gave out food to people,” Imam Adam Kelwick told Metro, a U.K. news outlet. “We also exchanged numbers in a promise to arrange an event in the mosque to have further discussions.”

According to Kelwick, the demonstrators are people who are struggling with their health and the costs of living and fear stories about “Muslims taking over.”

Source: Religion News Service (RNS)