Anti-Muslim hate crimes have surged in the U.K., with the highest concentration of reported incidents in London.
Muslim women are the victims of 2/3 of reported incidents.
Tell Mama has documented 2,010 instances of Islamophobic incidents between October 7th and February 7th- a substantial increase from the 600 recorded during the corresponding period the previous year. This marks the highest number reported over a four-month period since the charity’s establishment in 2011.
Tell Mama, acclaimed as the foremost authorities on tracking anti-Muslim hate crime, stated that just over half of the incidents in the past four months involved instances of hate speech on social media. However, the organisation also documented cases of physical assault, verbal abuse, threats, and vandalism, with the highest concentration of incidents- 576 cases- occurring in London. The charity further noted that Muslim women were the victims in two-thirds of the recorded incidents.
Examples documented by the organisation encompass:
- a Muslim woman in Islamic clothing being assaulted on a bus in east London and told “you Muslims are troublemakers”
- a written death threat to worshippers at a mosque
- a woman whose car was vandalised with a Nazi swastika
- cases of Muslim women being called “terrorists”
Tell Mama director Iman Atta asserted, “Individuals walking down the streets are being targeted, harassed, households have been doodled with graffiti calling people ‘killers’, ‘terrorists’, ‘Hamas sympathisers’.
“Anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia is gendered – it’s misogyny as well as the visibility of that woman being either of an Asian background or wearing visible Muslim attires.”
Reports of hate incidents in the UK have surged since October 7th.
“The war unfortunately is impacting our communities here in the UK,” Ms Atta said.
The U.K. government responded to the report:
“We expect the police to fully investigate all hate crimes and work with the CPS to make sure the cowards who commit these abhorrent offences feel the full force of the law,” a spokesperson said, adding that further funding had been made available to communities to provide additional security at places of worship and faith schools.
