A man launched a smoke grenade into a mosque and threatened to kill Muslims after he “snapped” following his brother’s death. Geoffrey Ryan, 44, approached the Al-Falah Braintree Islamic Centre, in Silks Way, Braintree, armed with two knives on the evening of May 22.
He was jailed for nine months on Monday after admitting two charges of having a bladed object in a public place and one charge of affray.
A pregnant woman wearing a headscarf was harassed and assaulted in a south Stockholm suburb at the weekend, prompting a call on Monday urging woman to bear headscarves in show of support, regardless of their religious affiliation.
The woman was hospitalized with a concussion late on Friday night after having her head slammed into a car and passing out, she told Sveriges Television (SVT). “She was wearing a headscarf and she thinks her faith is the reason she was assaulted,” Klas Jensgård of Stockholm’s southern district police told the TT news agency.
No arrests have been made in the attack, which took place shortly before midnight in the south Stockholm suburb of Farsta.
Speaking with Sveriges Radio (SR), a friend of the pregnant woman explained that the victim had her headscarf ripped off during the incident. Several other women have since come forward with their own accounts of being harassed because they wear headscarves.
The incident, which also involved racist taunts, has sparked a call for all women to don headscarves in a show of solidarity with the pregnant woman.
A man has been issued an Asbo banning him from going near a number of Islamic premises in Cambridge after he threatened to burn down a mosque.
David Camp, 35, of Thorpe Way, off Ditton Lane, Cambridge, was made subject of an anti-social behaviour order at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court yesterday after he was convicted of several racially aggravated offences..
Camp had previously admitted to posting a large number of offensive anti-Islamic messages on Twitter between April 1 and June 5. He had also admitted to three further public order offences following a drunken outburst in Mill Road on June 30 during which he shouted abuse at members of the public. During that incident Camp threatened to burn down a mosque, he continued to shout abuse at the officers who then arrived and arrested him.
He was sentenced to a 12-month supervision order with alcohol treatment requirement on July 12.
Following an application by police, a two year criminal Asbo was granted, banning Camp from entering parts of Mawson Road, Tenison Road, Devonshire Road, Mill Road or Whitechapel Road, in London. He is also banned from entering St Paul’s Road or Darwin Drive in their entirety, or from going within 50 metres of Omar Farouk Mosque in Kirkwood Road.
A racist thug jailed for attacking Kingston Mosque is back in prison months after being released – this time for brutally stabbing a man during a wake. David Morris knifed construction worker Edminas Samulionis at Hart’s Boatyard in Surbiton on December 13, 2012.
In what police described as a “deeply disturbing” act, Morris – who had played no part in the fight up to that point – was captured on CCTV leaving the Portsmouth Road pub and walking to his van in the car park.
He returned with a 7in blade and stabbed Lithuanian-born Mr Samulionis repeatedly, before leaving in his van at speed. The victim suffered a punctured lung and has still not fully recovered from the attack. It is understood he has since returned to his home country.
On Friday at Kingston Crown Court, Morris, 22, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm. He had originally been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The Huffington Post has a shocking account by Aissetou, a 16-year-old school student, who was attacked by racists in the western Parisian suburb of Trappes.
See also “French teen ‘attacked for wearing Muslim veil'”, The Local, 15 August 2013
As the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France points out, this is not the first time that a young Muslim woman has been attacked in Trappes.
A French Muslim leader has condemned the “climate of Islamophobia” in France after a soldier was arrested for planning a terrorist attack on a mosque. Citing figures that racist attacks had risen by 60 per cent, he accused the government of inaction.
Mosque rector Kamel Kabtane addressed over 100 supporters gathered outside the El Forkane mosque in the Venissieux suburb of Lyon on Monday. He condemned the arrest of a 23-year-old sergeant who was taken into custody suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the mosque as evidence of increasing hostility towards French Muslims.
The officer was detained at Mont Verdan airbase last Wednesday for being “possession of ammunition linked to a terrorist enterprise” against a place of worship.
“The fact that a soldier has been arrested for a terrorist plot shows a climate of Islamophobia reigns in France today, we cannot deny it,” Kabtane told supporters. He stressed that the presence of a “black sheep” in the army was evidence the institution had been “infected” by the extreme right. “Muslims are afraid, veiled women don’t dare leave the house,” said Kabtane, comparing the current racial tension to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s.
A French soldier has been arrested in connection with alleged plans to attack a mosque in the city of Lyon, police said.
The man, 23, was arrested at an air base in Lyon after relatives told police they found suspicious documents in his possession, Radio France International reported Monday. The Interior Ministry said charges against him include planning to damage a place of worship “in connection with a terrorist enterprise.”
Investigators said the soldier told them he planned to fire shots at a mosque in Venisseux, a Lyon suburb, on the last day of Ramadan. He also admitted to throwing a firebomb at a mosque in southwestern Libourne in August 2012.
A high-level taskforce set up by David Cameron to tackle extremism will focus on violence against Muslims at its next meeting, the Prime Minister has said. The move comes after a wave of attacks on mosques and Islamic centres following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May.
Mr Cameron said the next meeting of the tackling extremism and radicalisation taskforce would be “looking at the problem of violence against Muslim communities”. He told The Muslim News: “I condemn these attacks absolutely, but more important than condemnation is action. I think we can say that this Government has taken action. The police have acted very robustly in response to these attacks.”
Sud-Ouest reports that a Muslim prayer room in Lesparre-Médoc which was the target of an arson attempt and Nazi graffiti only a few days ago has suffered a second graffiti attack.
Two more swastikas have been sprayed on the front of the building. The cars of two local Muslims, including the president of the prayer room Mohammed Boukourat, were also defaced with fascist symbols. Three further swastikas were sprayed on the wall of another building.
Four windows have been smashed overnight at a mosque in a village near Neath, leaving broken glass along a busy walkway. The religious building, at St Anne’s Terrace, Tonna, was damaged in the early hours of this morning.
Police have been on the scene in the village throughout the morning, questioning neighbours and passers by. A spokesman for South Wales Police confirmed officers were investigating a criminal damage incident at the site, which occurred at 1.10am. “Enquires are ongoing at this time,” said a spokesman.
Anyone with any information regarding the incident is asked to contact South Wales Police on 101 quoting incident number 103 of 10 August 2013.