Leaders at a Liverpool mosque where a suspect package was found today said they feared the incident was aimed at stirring up hatred in the community. Two controlled explosions were carried out after the suspect package – feared to be a bomb – was left at a Liverpool mosque last night.
Police were called to Al Rahma mosque in Mulgrave Street, Toxteth at around 9pm. The force said this morning that no explosive materials were found at the scene but investigations were ongoing.
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports that the motorist who allegedly launched a vicious racist assault on three Muslim women in Saint-Jean-de-Braye near Orléans on 14 June has appeared before Orléans Criminal Court. The CCIF is a civil party in the case.
The accused is charged with “violence resulting in inability to work against the three plaintiffs” and “insult because of origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion”.
The case is due to be heard at the end of July. The accused has been placed under judicial supervision, is not to approach the victims or use his vehicle and must report to the police every 15 days.
A New York City man has been charged with attempted murder as a hate crime for allegedly stabbing a man as he unlocked a mosque for morning prayers last year. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says Friday Bernhard Laufer was awaiting arraignment on attempted murder and assault charges in the alleged bias attack.
Laufer was in custody Friday and unable to comment. Attorney information was not immediately available. Brown says he faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the top count.
Brown says Bashir Ahmad received stiches and staples after he was stabbed repeatedly while unlocking the front door of a Queens mosque last November. He says Ahmad was stabbed in his hands, legs and back. Brown says Laufer threatened him with an anti-Muslim slur.
Around half of mosques and Muslim centres in Britain have been subjected to Islamophobic attacks since 9/11, academics have warned as the far-right English Defence League prepares to march to the south-London scene of Drummer Lee Rigby’s murder.
The figures are highlighted in a report which also found that the number of anti-Islamic attacks increased by as much as tenfold in the days following the Woolwich attack.
Meanwhile, research by The Independent shows Islamophobic attacks spreading across Britain, with mosques being set alight and Muslims targeted at home in the past month.
Despite the warning signs, a senior Government adviser told The Independent that there remains a “lack of political will” to take on the rise of Islamophobic attacks in Britain. The adviser, who did not want to be named, said that attempts to “tackle this issue – even before Woolwich – struggled to attract buy-in,” with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, identified as the primary source of frustration.
A man threatened to bomb a mosque during a racist rant. Garith Wood yesterday admitted behaving in a racially aggravated manner during the incident on May 9 last year.
Livingston Sheriff Court was told that Wood, 27, made racist comments about a 14-year-old Asian boy near Deans Mosque, Livingston. He then turned his attention to another Asian, Abdu Raman Bismillah, calling him a “black b******”. Part of his hateful tirade included threatening to bomb the Livingston Sunni Islamic Centre and Mosque, the court was told.
Four men who smashed windows in a religiously-aggravated attack on a Poole mosque were jailed for four months today.
Before their afternoon attack on the Dorset Islamic Cultural Centre on May 23, Michael Manyweathers, Robert Mullins, Trevor Mullins and Jeremy Rochester had been drinking and discussing the murder of drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich the day before.
Bournemouth Crown Court heard that 34-year-old Rochester used a stick to smash six windows, encouraged by Manyweathers, 49, and Trevor Mullins, 38. Robert Mullins, 35, who drove them to the Ashley Road mosque, sat in the car nearby. They were interrupted by an off-duty police officer who was walking nearby with his elderly father, and later arrested.
All four pleaded guilty to racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage as the attack was deemed a joint enterprise.
A 75-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or damage property after a home-made bomb exploded near a mosque.
West Midlands police said the man was arrested at his home in Walsall on Thursday afternoon by detectives from the counter-terrorism unit. He has been taken to a police station in the West Midlands for questioning.
Officers are searching his home address as part of the investigation into the home-made explosive, the remains of which were found in an alleyway adjoining the Aisha Mosque and Islamic Centre in Rutter Street, in the Caldmore area of Walsall, last Saturday. The arrest comes as part of a major investigation by specialist detectives and experts from the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit.
This is a crosspost from Socialist Unity
Contrary to the right-wing myth that it is being transformed into “Britain’s Islamic Republic”, the east London borough of Tower Hamlets is in reality a highly diverse place. Residents of Bangladeshi heritage comprise 32% of the total population according to the 2011 census, only slightly more than those describing themselves as “White British”, who make up 31.2% of the borough’s population, while those in the third largest category, “White Other”, account for a further 12.4%. Muslims are the largest religious group, but at 35% of the population they are heavily outnumbered by people of other faiths and none.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey became one of the first senior trade union leaders to officially address worshippers at Friday prayers when he visited two mosques in East London on 21 June.
He brought a message of support and solidarity to the Muslim community in Tower Hamlets and the wider Muslim community across the UK when he addressed Friday prayers at Brick Lane mosque. He then walked through Brick Lane market with Tower Hamlets executive mayor Lutfur Rahman. They both then went to the East London mosque where Len McCluskey greeted worshippers and met Muslim community leaders.
Unite condemns the recent attacks on Muslim men and women by far right extremists and racists and offers the hand of friendship. Unite believes that every person in our community should live without fear and intimidation.
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports that on 14 June three Muslim women were subjected to an unprovoked attack while driving through Saint-Jean-de-Braye near Orléans. When they stopped at a red light a motorist got out of his car and proceeded to beat and kick the women, while shouting racist abuse at them, including “dirty Arab” and “I hate your religion”.