£1m fund to protect religious buildings from hate crime

CHURCHES, MOSQUES, temples and gurdwaras can bid for a share of £1m of Government funding to help protect against hate crimes.

The national scheme will fund security measures including CCTV, alarms and improved locks at places of worship which are vulnerable to attack.

The announcement comes in the same week that a mosque and a Sikh temple in Leeds were targeted in two linked arson attacks.

Fires were started at the front doors of the Jamia Masjid Abu Huraira Mosque in Hardy Street, Beeston, and the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha Gurdwara in Lady Pit Lane during the early hours of Tuesday.

Police said yesterday that a 42-year-old man who was arrested at an address in Leeds on Tuesday night had been released under investigation.

Announcing the funding, Prime Minister Theresa May said: “We are a country of many faiths, and as I said following last year’s appalling terror attack in Finsbury Park, an attack on one community is an attack on all of us. Freedom of worship, respect and tolerance for those of different faiths is fundamental to our values and I am determined to stamp out extremism and hate crime wherever it occurs.”

Successful applicants in England and Wales will get up to £56,000 for improved security. Previous funding went to places of worship subjected to offensive graffiti, defacing of religious symbols or attacks on worshippers.