Revolting thugs urinated on to shoes and clothes belonging to worshipping Muslims. Police are treating the incident as a hate crime against Bath’s Muslim community and say they are determined to track down the perpetrators. The two male offenders entered the lobby of the Bath Islamic Centre in Pierrepont Street during evening prayers, before urinating on clothing and shoes left in the entrance by worshippers. Their mindless vandalism has disgusted members of the mosque and left the belongings of five people damaged.
Imam Rashad Amazi, a leader at the Bath Islamic Centre, said the victims were disgusted by the crime. He said: “They felt disbelief and they were horrified. While they were doing their prayers they heard very loud shouting inside the building. They couldn’t break their prayers but they were terrified. As soon as they’d finished, they ran to the ground floor where they thought the shouting was coming from. By that time the people had left. They smelled the alcohol and the urine and then found there was urine in their shoes and on the carpets.”
Rosco Jones, from Bath and North East Somerset Racial Equality Council, said he was concerned that other victims of hate crime were keeping quiet about their experiences in an effort to evade more attention. He said: “The main concern is that not as many victims of hate crime resulting from the heightened concerns around Islamic-based terrorism are coming forward to say they’ve been attacked. People on the whole are just keeping the information to themselves. That is quite bad. The police and authorities such as ourselves need to be aware so we can take normal community safety preventative action.”
Bath Chronicle, 3 September 2007
The British National Party are not happy: “The police, instead of treating it as a stupid misdemeanor, are pulling out all the stops to track down the two culprits, for no other reason than to curry favour with Bath’s growing Muslim community.”