Fascist graffiti attack on Le Barp mosque last September

The Muslim prayer hall at Le Barp, in Gironde, has once again been the target of an Islamophobic attack. Racist graffiti has been found on the front of the mosque. This is a new slap in the face for the Muslim community in this quiet town of 5,000 inhabitants.

Racist graffiti had already been found last summer during the month of Ramadan. After being erased, it reappeared on two occasions in August. In response, Christiane Dornon, the mayor of Le Barp, denounced an “intolerable act of human stupidity” and organised a rally in support of the Muslim community, which brought together a hundred local people.

But in September swastikas and xenophobic slogans such as “Dirty rats out” and “France belongs to us” appeared once again. Some of the graffiti also targeted the mayor as a “collaborator”.

In December the aggressors went even further in their demonstration of hatred by throwing a Molotov cocktail (made with a wine bottle and a piece of cloth as a fuse, according to Sud Ouest) against the mosque, without however causing any injuries.

The Moroccan Assocition of Val de l’Eyre which manages the Muslim prayer room in the town has on each occasion registered a complaint, but to this day not a single suspect has been arrested. The police investigation remains open.

The CCIF condemns with the utmost firmness this new series of cowardly and provocative Islamophobic attacks and insists that the perpetrators are quickly identified and that they are given an exemplary punishment.

Impunity for the attackers at Le Barp, and elsewhere, encourages the repetition of Islamophobic attacks, and it is therefore the responsibility of the justice system to apprehend these delinquents.

In any case, let us all take action by signing and disseminating the petition calling for the establishment of a parliamentary committee on Islamophobia and against laws that threaten freedom: http://change.org/stopislamophobie

Collectif contre l’Islamophobie, 9 April 2013

For the latest news on the CCIF’s campaign against Islamophobia see here. So far more than 30,000 people have signed the petition.