A man has been found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence after burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London, in a case that has reignited debate over the limits of free speech and the line between protest and hate.

Hamit Coskun, 50, was accused of chanting Islamophobic slogans as he held up a burning copy of the Islamic holy text in Knightsbridge, west London, in February.

District Judge John McGarva ruled on Monday, June 2, that the defendant’s actions were “motivated at least in part by hostility towards Muslims” and that his conduct “was not a reasonable exercise” of his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Delivering the verdict, McGarva said on Monday: “Your actions in burning the Quran where you did were highly provocative, and your actions were accompanied by abusive language in some cases directed toward the religion and were motivated at least in part by hatred of followers of the religion.”

The defendant argued that he was exercising his “right of freedom of speech” in his action, which sparked a large reaction in Britain as footage of the incident went viral on social media platforms.

Public Disorder

However, the judge rejected the defendant’s narrative, noting that he “clearly holds a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers. His attempt to distinguish between the religion and its adherents was not sustainable.”

In his verdict, Judge McGarva found the defendant’s actions on the day in question to be deliberately provocative.

Standing outside the embassy, the man held up a Quran, set it on fire, and repeatedly shouted, “The Quran is burning,” while using what the judge described as “abusive language,” including expletives directed at Islam.

The demonstration provoked two assaults against him – though unjustified – which the court said showed the extent of “serious public disorder” the act had triggered.

The judge concluded that the defendant had intended to cause such a reaction.

“The timing, place and the conduct you chose. You knew Muslims would be present, and you were aware that his conduct was likely to be provocative,” he said.

Source: TRT Global

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

Some 80 Muslim organizations and community leaders called the UK government to take tangible steps to address rising Islamophobia in the country.

In a statement, the organizations and community leaders, organized under the Islamophobia Action Group, drew attention to the normalization of Islamophobia, which recently fueled riots in some cities, and urged the government to officially adopt the All-Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) definition of Islamophobia “to send a clear message that Islamophobia will not be tolerated.”

The statement also called on the government to initiate an independent investigation that would focus on the role of social media platforms, mainstream media, and political narratives in disseminating hate and Islamophobia.

“The government must engage directly with legitimate, democratically elected representatives of Muslim communities, particularly the Muslim Council of Britain, to ensure that Muslim voices are heard and addressed,” it added.

Commenting on the issue, a spokesperson for the Islamophobia Action Group said: “This is a critical moment to address the root causes of hate and to protect our society.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

Robert Jenrick has been criticized by a rival for the Conservative leadership and Muslim parliamentarians for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

The former immigration minister was speaking on Sky News about the accusations that police have been treating far-right marches and violence more harshly than other protests.

Jenrick said on Sky News he had been angered by the way pro-Palestinian demonstrations had been policed. “I have been very critical of police in the past, particularly around the attitude of some police forces to the protests we saw since [the Hamas attack on Israel on] 7 October.

“I thought it was quite wrong that somebody could shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ on the streets of London and not be immediately arrested; project genocidal chants on to Big Ben and not be immediately arrested. That attitude is wrong and I’ll always call out the police for it.”

Jenrick, who is one of the favorites to win the Conservative leadership, was criticized by Mel Stride, the former work and pensions secretary who is also vying for the leadership, as well as by the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi. Jenrick said his comments were about the words in the context of protests.

Stride said the “suggestion of wholesale criminalization of the words Allahu Akbar is unwise and insensitive”.

“Any threat in the use of these words can only ever be implied in the very rarest of circumstances,” he added. “Context clearly matters hugely here.”

Rayner, who was speaking in Rotherham as reports spread of further far-right violence on Wednesday night, August 7, said: “People like Robert Jenrick have been stirring up some of the problems that we’ve seen in our communities. Actually, what we want to see is communities coming together, and the vast majority of the public want to see that.”

Muslim politicians criticized the Tory former minister, one of six bidding to be the party’s next leader, accusing him of Islamophobia.

When Jenrick’s comments were first aired, Lady Warsi, a former Tory cabinet minister, wrote on X: “Every day before we start parliamentary business in the Commons and Lords we say a prayer and praise God – we say our parliamentary version of Allahu Akbars at the heart of democracy – a process Robert Jenrick is a part of. This language from Jenrick is more of his usual nasty divisive rhetoric – he is such a tool.”

Naz Shah, the MP for Bradford West, said: “This is complete ignorance and textbook Islamophobia from Robert Jenrick. It literally equates every Muslim in the world with extremism … It’s a basic Islamic saying that every Muslim in the world says in prayer.

“Imagine in this climate, either being that ignorant or deliberately trying to stigmatize all Muslims. He should apologize and speak to Muslim communities and learn more about our faith.”

Afzal Khan, another Labour MP, said: “Another day, another senior Tory being Islamophobic. Allahu Akbar means God is great – the Muslim equivalent of hallelujah. Jenrick’s confidence in going on national TV to say people should be arrested for saying Allahu Akbar exposes his deep-seated prejudice against Muslims.”

Speaking later on Times Radio, Jenrick stood by his comments. “I fundamentally disagree with Sayeeda Warsi … If a politician like myself, a political leader who aspires to be leader of the opposition of our country, cannot speak out about the undoubted problem we have as a country with Islamist extremism for fear of being falsely labelled as a racist by an individual such as Sayeeda Warsi, then that is a very troubling situation.”

The Muslim Council of Britain said: “We are shocked at Robert Jenrick’s claim on Sky News this morning that those who proclaim ‘God is great’ (or Allahu Akbar) in public should be arrested.

“As a prospective leader, Mr Jenrick should be showing leadership, reassuring our communities when fear is palpable. Instead, calling for a well-worn religious phrase to warrant arrest is the kind of divisive language we would come to expect by sections of the media and politicians. This divisive rhetoric has emboldened the far-right thugs we see on our streets today.

“He should apologize, fully retract his comments and speak to ordinary Muslims to understand why his remarks are so outrageous. Rather than inflaming tensions, he should focus on ways to bring communities together.”

Jenrick posted on X later on Wednesday, August 7, that he acknowledged it was a religious phrase, but said it could also be used as part of public disorder.

Following the backlash, the former immigration minister doubled down by posting a video on X of a march through Bolton with people chanting “Allahu Akbar”.

He said: “’Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives. But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening.

“And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.”

But he was accused of trying to justify what he said rather than apologize by other senior Conservatives.

Baroness Warsi addressed Mr Jenrick directly on X, saying: “No Robert, you do not get to go on national broadcasters and say one thing and try and pretend you said something else after!

“If you genuinely feel your comments on Sky News were inappropriate, offensive, incendiary and anti Muslim (which they were) then start by apologizing.

“Then you can go back to pretending you a responsible candidate for the leadership of our party.”

Former Tory Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad said the comments fuel Islamophobia “at a time when communal tensions are high”.

He said: “Don’t try and ‘qualify’ your comments – just apologize!”

Mr Jenrick also faced criticism from Muslim organizations, with the Muslim Council of Britain saying his remark “only goes to show that institutional Islamophobia is alive and well in the Conservative Party”.

Responding to Ms Rayner’s comments, a spokesperson for Mr Jenrick said: “Robert has called out all disorder in the strongest possible terms, whether from the far-right or retaliatory violence from sectarian mobs.

“We are yet to see one Labour politician do the same. The country needs strong leadership, not squeamishness.”

Source: The Guardian

Tell MAMA was formed in 2012 as an initiative of the community interest company Faith Matters and receives millions of pounds in public funding as the Government’s flagship agency monitoring anti-Muslim hate crimes.

But, from 2017 to 2022, the figures it has compiled are consistently lower than anti-Muslim hate crime statistics published by the Home Office based on police data – raising fundamental questions about the accuracy and value of Tell MAMA’s figures.

A Byline Times analysis comparing Crime Survey estimates with Home Office data shows that police records severely under-report anti-Muslim hate crimes in Britain by nearly 90%. This suggests that Tell MAMA’s data provides an even poorer picture – failing to capture what is likely to be many tens of thousands of incidents every year.

As anti-Muslim hatred appears to have reached epidemic levels since 2019, the Government lacks the institutional capacity to understand the scale of this national crisis.

Faith Matters did not respond directly to this newspaper’s questions.

Instead, it replied through its legal representatives, Mishcon de Reya, and published a public response. According to Mishcon de Reya, Tell MAMA’s under-reporting is entirely legitimate as the agency cannot be expected to report more incidents than the police – even though other hate crime monitoring services such as the Community Security Trust tend to produce higher figures for antisemitic hate incidents than those published by the Home Office.

A Decade of Failure?

Last July, Tell MAMA published a major report, ‘A Decade of Anti-Muslim Hate’. This was the first time it had released statistics on anti-Muslim hate crimes since its annual report in March 2020.

According to Mishcon de Reya, “this shows that the number of cases reported has increased steadily over time, including increasing from 1,223 in 2016 to 2,301 in 2021”. It described the report as evidence of Tell MAMA’s national monitoring service since 2012.

“The figure for 2022 is 2,656 and the figure for 2023, which is yet to be published, is higher still… In total, over 20,000 Muslims in the UK have used Tell MAMA’s reporting and monitoring service.”

But, from 2017 to 2022, Tell MAMA’s statistics were consistently lower than anti-Muslim hate crime figures published by the Home Office based on police data.

This is particularly questionable given that, as the UK Statistics Authority points out, police data systematically underestimates hate crimes. Under-reporting is likely worse for anti-Muslim hate crimes due to a lack of trust among communities in how authorities deal with such issues.

For 2017/18, the Home Office reported 2,965 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England and Wales based on police data. For 2017, Tell MAMA reported 1,400 anti-Muslim hate crimes across the entirety of the UK (1,565 fewer cases).

The Home Office reported 3,530 anti-Muslim hate crimes for 2018/19; Tell MAMA reported 2,000 for 2018 (1,530 fewer). The Home Office reported 3,089 for 2019/20; Tell MAMA reported 2,100 for 2019 (503 fewer). The Home Office reported 2,703 for 2020/21; Tell MAMA reported 2,200 for 2020 (503 fewer). The Home Office reported 3,459 for 2021/22; Tell MAMA reported 2,301 for 2021 (1,158 fewer). The Home Office reported 3400 for 2022/23; Tell MAMA reported 2,656 for 2022 (744 fewer).

Despite stating that it works in close cooperation with UK police forces, Tell MAMA’s 10-year report throws little light on how the cases logged in this period relate to police data. The report also adopts a way of categorizing each year that isn’t consistent with Home Office annual reporting, further undermining ways to compare data.

If Tell MAMA’s national monitoring service was robust and useful, its figures would be expected to fill the gaps missed due to police under-reporting.

Overall, from 2017 to 2022, the police recorded 19,146 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England and Wales (excluding Scotland). In the same period – which is when Faith Matters ceased mentioning that it was running a national anti-Muslim hate crime monitoring service in its CIC filings – Tell MAMA reported 13,143 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England, Scotland and Wales combined – 6,003 fewer than the police figures.

Tell MAMA’s figures in this period were, on average, 32% lower than police data.

Police Not Seeing Most Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes

Tell MAMA’s figures therefore offer even less of a useful picture than that provided by flawed police data.

How badly police data under-reports anti-Muslim hate crimes can be understood by comparing data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which provides large-scale statistics based on long-term trends derived from surveying the public, with recorded police data published by the Home Office.

The latest available data from the Crime Survey is for 2019/20. It shows that the estimated number of hate crimes was about 190,000. That is approximately 45% higher than hate crimes recorded by the police which were 105,090, indicating that police figures are nearly half the real scale of hate crimes.

The gap is even wider for anti-Muslim hate crimes.

That year, the Crime Survey estimated that 0.8% of the Muslim population (about 3.8 million people according to the 2021 Census) had experienced religiously-motivated hate crimes – which would translate into an estimated 30,400 people experiencing hate crimes. In contrast, the police recorded just 3,089 anti-Muslim hate crimes.

According to the latest data, then, the police under-report anti-Muslim hate crimes by a little under 90%.

Given that Tell MAMA’s statistics from 2017 to 2022 are overall 32% lower than police figures, this suggests that Tell MAMA underestimates the scale of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Britain even further – by more than 90%.

And, after 12 years in operation, Tell MAMA not only appears to lack any strategy to do anything about this, but seems reluctant to even acknowledge the problem.

Distorting the National Picture

The statistical significance of missing more than 90% of anti-Muslim hate crimes cannot be overstated. It means that anti-Muslim hatred is now a national crisis – but one the Government is largely blind to.

Earlier this year, Tell MAMA reported 2,010 incidents of anti-Muslim hatred between 7 October 2023 and 7 February 2024. This is likely to be a small fraction of the real number, which could be closer to more than 20,000 hate crimes (the same number of users Tell MAMA says it has served since 2012).

Tell MAMA’s figures obscure rather than illuminate this crisis, leaving the Government asleep at the wheel on one of the most divisive issues of our time – a challenge which plagues both political parties.

The prevailing approach to this crisis is not based on reality, but on statistical artefacts derived from a tiny fraction of actual incidents.

When Byline Times’ findings were put to Faith Matters for comment, Mishcon de Reya made clear that it wanted this newspaper to refrain from publishing the article until it had sent over a “substantive” reply. Before that reply was sent, however, Tell MAMA published a statement on its website responding to Byline Times’ analysis of its figures.

In this statement, Tell MAMA did not dispute the analysis, but claimed that “it is impossible to record all hate crimes and particularly difficult given the scale, nature, geographical location and nationality of British Muslims from over 50 Muslim-majority countries”.

“We are not meant, nor resourced to be, an organization that looks for hate incidents or crimes on the internet or at a street level,” it said. “We report on what is provided to us by victims, and which is unsolicited.”

It added: “No third-party hate crime reporting service will have data that is higher than police forces. That is a simple fact.”

Yet, during the past five years, figures for antisemitic incidents in the UK produced annually by the Community Security Trust (CST) – the Jewish community service which Tell MAMA was modelled on – have been consistently higher than national police figures.

For 2023, CST reported 4,103 incidents of anti-Jewish hate, whereas the Home Office recorded only 1,510 anti-Jewish hate-crimes in this period. In 2021, CST reported 2,261 incidents, while the Home Office recorded 1,288 incidents. In 2020, CST recorded 1,684 antisemitic incidents, while the Home Office recorded 1,205 incidents. (In the past five years, CST figures were only lower than police figures in 2022, by around 300 reports).

The Tell MAMA statement appears to concede that the organization does little in terms of outreach work to ensure that it can detect cases more accurately, noting: “We do not go looking for cases or seeking material online or offline. If we did so, we would be here with a workload that would far exceed the limited resources we have and the data would not be credible.”

It accepted that “of course, the numbers of cases we receive will be less than the police”.

Given that police data systematically fails to capture the vast majority of cases of anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country, Tell MAMA’s statement is notable for at once admitting that its figures are even lower than the police’s, while simultaneously failing to acknowledge that missing 90% of anti-Muslim hate crimes is a problem that must be urgently addressed.

The evidence of poor quality data reinforces concerns raised by cross-bench peer Baroness Shaista Gohir – supported by a number of British Muslim members of the House of Lords including former Conservative Party co-chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi – in several letters sent to ministers of the last Government, seen exclusively by Byline Times.

As reported in the first part of this investigation, those letters raised concerns about Tell MAMA’s opaque governance, its lack of transparency in use of public funds, poor data practices, and a lack of accountability.

Against this backdrop, the question of how the new Labour Government will address rising Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred is urgent but unclear.

Faith Matters appears to have spent a considerable resources attempting to silence criticism, rather than addressing concerns. The idea of a government-funded entity threatening litigation to block publication of criticisms of its work raises a question of its own: is it financing this using public funds? Like much else about the organization, we may never know.

Source: Byline Times

Britain’s largest Muslim group has written to the Conservative party to call for an investigation into “structural Islamophobia” within the party’s ranks.

In a letter addressed to the Conservative chair, Richard Holden, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Islamophobia in the party was “institutional, tolerated by the leadership and seen as acceptable by great swathes of the party membership”.

The secretary general of the MCB, Zara Mohammed, wrote that “Islamophobia was on public display this week” and highlighted inflammatory comments made by the former home secretary Suella Braverman, the former Tory party deputy chair Lee Anderson and the former prime minister Liz Truss.

The letter said Braverman’s article in the Daily Telegraph, in which she wrote that “Islamists … are in charge”, fell into a “well-trodden Islamophobic path”.

The letter also addressed Anderson’s comments on GB News where he claimed “Islamists” had “got control” of London and the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. Anderson, who had the Conservative whip withdrawn from him after refusing to apologies, was criticized by the MCB for engaging in “Islamophobic tropes”.

Khan said Anderson’s comments were “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and that they “pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred”.

Mohammed said the MCB had shared the letter with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to encourage Holden “to take this complaint seriously and take actions”.

Tell Mama, a charity that records anti-Muslim incidents, said there were 2,010 cases of Islamophobic hate during a four-month period from 7 October – a steep rise from the 600 recorded in the same period of the previous year.

Continue reading at: The Guardian

It comes amid a 365 percent surge in anti-Muslim hate incidents across the UK since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

She said: “There’s been an explosion of Islamophobia since October 7 – but there’s also a huge underreporting of the issue.”

“In my constituency, people report it to me but not the police. They kind of just put it down to the price you pay for being a Muslim in this country, (but) reporting is then what drives police policy, social policy and potential legislation. We all have a role to play.”

Ms Mahmood made the comments after the recent screening of HIJABI, a documentary created by BAFTA award-winning filmmaker, Samir Mehanovic, at the House of Commons.

The documentary charts the journeys of five British women who choose to wear the hijab and their experiences of Islamophobia in the UK and was unveiled to mark the International Day To Combat Islamophobia and International Women’s Day.

The heartwrenching story of a Muslim grandmother left devastated after an Islamophobic attack by teenagers and forced to flee Britain formed part of the testimonies heard in the film.

During a panel discussion after the screening, Ms Mahmood, who has been MP for Birmingham Ladywood since 2010, added: “Islamophobia has passed the dinner party test – it’s seen as acceptable. This is not just a Muslim problem, it should be addressed by all of society.”

According to Tell Mama, an organization dedicated to fighting Islamophobia, 65 percent of all incidents target women, with those who wear a hijab or niqab especially vulnerable.

Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chairman, was suspended from his party last month after accusing Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, of being controlled by Islamists.

Mr Anderson has refused to apologise for the remarks despite Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first Asian prime minister, labelling them “wrong”.

Speaking after the screening, Labour MP Afzal Khan said: “With Islamophobic hate crime having trebled since October and senior members of the Conservative Party spouting Islamophobia through the media in recent weeks, there has never been a more pressing time to listen to the testimonies of visibly Muslim women in Britain.

A government spokesperson told The Independent: “British Muslim women make a huge contribution to the United Kingdom and in strengthening the ties that bind our country together.

“It is unacceptable for anyone to feel unsafe while practising their religion and we take a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Muslim hatred.

“We expect the police to fully investigate all hate crimes and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to make sure the cowards who commit these abhorrent offences feel the full force of the law.”

Shaista Aziz, who was among the first Labour councillors to resign in protest over Keir Starmer’s response to the Gaza attacks said: “When it comes to Islamophobia, there’s rightly lots of focus on the government and what is they are doing and not doing. There’s no focus though, on the man who wants to become the next leader of this country: Keir Starmer.”

A recent poll by HOPE not Hate revealed that 58 percent of Conservative Party members think Islam is a threat to the British way of life while Labour’s support amongst British Muslims has plummeted amid major concerns about Sir Keir Starmer’s handling of the Gaza war.

London-based charity Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU) reports that many Islamophobia incidents have involved people being targeted over their support for Palestine, as the Israel-Hamas war spirals on.

Source: The Independent

CAGE International notes a 455% increase in the number of cases it has handled since the last upsurge in 2021. Between October and December 2023, CAGE International handled 214 cases, spanning 118 school and college cases, 35 workplace cases, 35 protest and related cases, 13 university cases, and 13 mosque cases. This substantial rise signifies a broad and alarming clampdown on pro-Palestinian activity.

CAGE: “Our casework observations provide evidence of a full-spectrum coordinated attack instigated by right-wing interests, mainstream media, politicians and lobby groups. This represents a wholesale assault on the Freedom of Expression under Article 10 and Right to Privacy under Article 8 of the ECHR.”

Key findings of the report include:

– An aggressive and authoritarian response from the government to legitimate activism in support of Palestine.

– A disturbing double standard compared to the government’s responses to the Russia-Ukraine conflict revealing hypocrisy in public spaces, schools, and workplaces.

– The Islamophobic nature of censorship, with 209 out of the 214 cases involving Muslims.

– The weoponizing of PREVENT and PREVENT referrals in suppressing support for Palestine.

– A consistent pattern nationwide across towns and cities, from Newcastle to Portsmouth.

Read the full report HERE.

More information on: CAGE International