South Yorkshire Police has come under-fire over a string of offensive comments and threats concerning the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal left on its official social media page. More than 1,000 comments, some of which include anti-Islam and racist abuse, were posted on the force’s Facebook page in response to a message thanking members of the public for a ‘peaceful’ Muslim Youth demonstration.
The event, which took place outside the town hall on Saturday, came one week after an English Defence League march saw over 1,000 supporters of the far-right group take to the streets to protest against the findings of the Jay report, which news that at least 1,400 children were abused by gangs of men predominantly of Pakistani origin in Rotherham between 1997 to 2013.
Senior officers have come in for further criticism for failing to take down the messages, some of which threatened violence to fellow Facebook users and appeared to lay the blame for the scandal on the Muslim community. The Yorkshire Post understands more than one member of the public has reported the comments to SYP, but they remained on the site yesterday.
One Rotherham resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Yorkshire Post: “The messages which appeared are hateful and racist. It’s disgusting, there are all sorts of things on there, including threats and it is a public page the police use to get information out there. I complained about it on Saturday and the officer told me they’d pass it on to a supervisor, but still nothing has been done.”
A spokeswoman for the force said it did not intend to remove the comments, but would investigate any which appeared to break the law. She said: “We respect the rights of individuals to post comments reflecting their personal opinions and thoughts, provided those comments fall within the boundaries of the law.
“All social media activity is monitored and moderated. Any comment or post found to be offensive or racist, or any material deemed to breach legislation, will be investigated and the appropriate action taken. If someone sees a comment that they believe requires investigation, they should report this to police and not use social media as a crime reporting tool.”
Yorkshire Post, 22 September 2014
Here are some of the comments posted on the South Yorkshire Police Facebook page. Bear in mind that they date from 20-21 September and have still not been removed.
Comments specifically responding to the British Muslim Youth demonstration include:
“why have there got the right to march on are street after what them scum bags av dun n r still doin to them poor kids this place we live in makes me sick!”
“If they would of spoken out earlier maybe them poor white girls wouldn’t of suffered so much.too little too late. Let the dogs go on everyone of the paracites.”
“They protested that it should be legal to shag kids.”
“A false protest by muslim youth to condemn the racist rapes of white children..most of them will be related to the 8000 paedos fkn joke the muslim community new it was happening”
“ROLL OUT THE CUDDLEY MUZRATS”
“so no football aggresive policing as you did with edl, as ever suck up to the muslims in case its seems as rasist”
There are many other comments supporting the far right:
“Let the nf, edl and Britain first round em up.. Probably do a better job than the police”
“I started following the Edl as a direct result of mudslimes and there paeodophilic ways!”
“Edl arnt scum , they are making a stand for our country”
“The English defence league does have hindu,Sikh and Jewish support that is a fact….not hard to think why”
“all this will sorted when ukip get in they will make the police shape up and stop been racist against whites”
Unsurprisingly, many of the comments echo the far-right’s racist ideology:
“anyone who agrees with muslims is a traitor ,it teaches them in quran to con and trick you”
“is it possible to downgrade islam any more than it is ? gang rapes london bombings death of lee rigby the twin towers in new york need i say more ?”
“We’re not Avin sharia law in England”
“Islam the religion of peace! Stone’s women to death when they report their rape to authorities!”
“mo ham head married aisha aged 9 ……. need i say any more”
“1.6 billion muslims follow a peadophile”
There is the usual “go back where you came from” rhetoric: “If you want mosques go to a Muslim country”.
A Muslim woman who says she was “born and educated in this country” is told:
“Alisha Ali if a dog is born in a stable does that make it a horse, no, you don’t belong here, you people don’t want to integrate you don’t respect us as people so therefor GO, you are not welcome here.”
Anti-racists who complain about this outpouring of bigotry are accused of “still sticking up for the pedo cult”.
One is told to “get a f**king life, we don’t need arrogant ignorant bast**ds like you going on about spelling mistakes, ya f**king idiot, 1400 ‘WHITE NON-MUSLIM GIRLS’ have been gang raped by f**king muslims…..get a f**king grip”.
Others are told “you just keep sucking it up loving you’re Islamic friends you’re tolerance will get u killed fool” and “you lovers of the muzzie religion and race go live in Dubai or wherever”.
On top of this, there are quite explicit calls for violence.
One racist writes “next muzrat i see is going to get some”. Another is asked “If we kill all Muslims will that be the end of all child abuse!?” and replies: “I would happily beheaded every one of em if if meant no infestation of there rancid desease.”
So, nothing that is “offensive or racist” or could be “deemed to breach legislation” there, then.
You wonder why people bother to go the the EDL’s Facebook page to post their messages of hate and threats of violence, when South Yorkshire Police helpfully provides them with a forum where they can express these sentiments without hindrance.