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 recent study revealed that nearly 60% of Muslim students in New York have experienced bullying at school by their peers, especially after Israel’s onslaught in the Gaza Strip.

The survey “Feeling The Hate In Our Schools” was conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in New York, and revealed that “58.2% reported being bullied at school by another student because they were Muslim.”

“Almost half (44.7%) of students who wear a hijab reported their hijab was tugged, pulled, or offensively touched by another student rarely, sometimes, often, or very often,” the findings said.

The survey also revealed that “64% of students have witnessed a Muslim student at school being bullied by another student,” and nearly 65% of students have seen “their school make offensive comments or posts about Islam or Muslims online.”

According to the survey, many students (43.6%) did not feel it was necessary to report them, believing it would not make a difference. The survey noted that “74.6% of students said that they did not report to an adult at their school about being bullied by another student for being Muslim.”

The CAIR report also included a special note on Palestine, highlighting a surge in “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian sentiment within the fabric of New York City” when the conflict in Gaza escalated in October 2023.

“In 2023 alone, CAIR-NY received 555 requests for legal assistance, with 43% directly linked to Palestinian solidarity, highlighting the urgency of this issue,” it added.

It further stated that 32% of students reported school silencing for voicing opinions on Palestine, while 13% faced unwanted attention from staff, 11% from authorities, 10% experienced online harassment or doxing, and 9.5% reported social isolation.

The report was based on a survey of 500 Muslim students, 91.7% of whom attend public schools, 4.6% attend charter schools, and 3.8% attend non-Islamic private schools.

Source: Anadolu Agency

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)

As Florida lawmakers continue their push for a commission for what they say is a rise in antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, some organizers say a commission is needed to protect the state’s Palestinian and Muslim communities.

Between Oct. 7 and Nov. 4, the Council on American-Islamic Relations received 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias across the country, compared to 406 complaints within an average 29-day period in 2022. Anti-Muslim discrimination had already been on the rise in 2020 and 2021, which organizers attribute to increased volatility in domestic politics at the time, though reports decreased in 2022.

“This alleged violence and hate have absolutely no place in Florida,” said CAIR-Florida Media and Outreach Director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz in a public statement following an anti-Muslim hate crime in the state. “We will make sure to follow up on this and any other case to ensure they are prosecuted to the fullest extent to deter others from engaging in this criminal anti-social behavior targeting anyone, regardless of their race or religion.”

Florida has seen a major uptick in anti-Muslim incidents. “We’re getting calls faster than we can document,” said Omar Saleh, CAIR-Florida lead attorney. “Here in Florida, our rate of calls, which we might get about 45 per month prior to Oct. 7, has since doubled, and a majority of those calls involve bullying of students because they are either Palestinian or support Palestine anywhere from the elementary stage all the way to the university stage. We’re seeing it most in employment.”

Florida lawmakers have largely ignored the rise in Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian incidents, often stoking the racism themselves and conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

In December, federal lawmakers introduced House Resolution 6578, also known as Commission to Study Acts of Antisemitism in the United States Act with the aim of targeting critics of Israel. Civil rights groups and organizers worry that HR 6578 would usher in a new era of McCarthyism during a pivotal time of resistance and legitimate criticism of the apartheid state of Israel and its violent occupation of Palestinian territories.

The Florida House resolution was found favorable by the State Affairs Committee and was released to the House calendar for a second reading.

Source: Prism Reports

Europe was heading into a period of fluidity and turbulence, “which raises the question to what extent can you ensure the continuity of the Jewish community in Europe,” he said. A new mood of hostility to minority religions was being fueled by fears over immigration and terrorism. “In general what we see is a reaction to immigration from the Middle East which has brought millions of Muslims to Europe. Europe is now engaging in anti-immigration measures and [dealing with] the fear of Islamic terrorism. But instead of engaging with the problems, there is a strong attack against minority religions in general. “We [Jews and Muslims] definitely have a common cause in fighting for religious freedoms.”

Goldschmidt cited calls to close mosques, ban methods of ritual slaughter in the production of halal and kosher meat, outlaw circumcision – practiced by Jews and Muslims – and last month’s European court of justice ruling that employers could ban workers from wearing religious symbols or clothing. Concerns over religious freedom in Europe led to the formation of the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council in September 2015. Its leaders said it was the “first common platform for European Muslims and Jews”.

With the victory of Trump, we have ultra-nationalist parties feeling invigorated and strengthened. Jews had been victims of Islamist terrorism in Europe, Goldschmidt pointed out. “We are the last ones to say it is not a problem. But what we are saying is that you don’t counter and fight Islamic terrorism by fighting Islam. It’s extremely important to mark a red line between normative Islam and radicalism and terrorism using the name of Islam. That red line must be seen and recognized by everyone. But populist parties in France, Holland, Austria and Germany are trying not to see this red line. It’s imperative for us and millions of Muslims living in Europe to show everyone this red line exists.”

The rabbi also warned against “covert antisemitism” under the banner of the movement to boycott Israel in protest at its 50-year occupation of Palestinian territories. “It’s not politically correct to be an all-out antisemite, but in many instances the state of Israel has replaced the Jew. To some extent, organizations … which are trying to delegitimize the state of Israel is a covert expression of antisemitism.” There was a “great distance” between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, he said. The festival of Passover, during which Jews commemorate the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt, told in the biblical story of the Exodus, begins at sunset on Monday and lasts for eight days.

Source: The Guardian