No death threat will stop me being a proud Muslim ...and in a bikini SAYS

STAND AGAINST THE EXTREMISTS SAIRA KHAN

at home. I never even thought about it. My dad took me to the local comprehensive school. I wore the local school uniform.

“I participated in assemblies and sports because my parents came here to integrate and be part of British culture, to learn and be part of the opportunities. I don’t think that climate exists now.”

UNEXPECTED

She admits she expected her outspoken posts last week to create waves, after being abused online earlier this year for posing in her underwear with her Loose Women co-stars for the show’s body image campaign.

But the violence of the response was unexpected. She said: “I thought I’d get a backlash to my latest post, I’m used Cheeky hols snap Saira posted in response to idea eyebrow-plucking is sinful for Muslims to it, I’ve had it all my life. But I never thought in a million years somebody would issue a death threat.”

Saira insists her actions are not fanning the flames of division or hatred in the wake of recent terror attacks.

While a preacher’s criticism of beauty routines might seem trivial, she believes it is symbolic of a much Twisted troll’s death threat. Saira asked police to investigate it as hate crime wider problem for Muslim women so she felt duty-bound not to ignore it.

She adds: “People are going to think we’re all into the hatred and that’s not the case. I’m using social media to say: ‘Not in my name’.”

Saira married Steve Hyde in 2004 and the couple have two children, Zach and Amara.

“I had to keep my husband secret for four years because I can’t marry

somebody not of my religion,” she says. “Members of our community living in Britain have got to acknowledge that there is a problem. We have got to speak up.

“I’d really like to see more Muslim women doing things that defy extremist views.

“Right now, I am trying to do what is right for my daughter, for my son, for my family and to open up a more open-minded and tolerant society.

“And if I was scared of what people think, or what people say, I could honestly tell you now that I would have been married at 16 to a Pakistani man back in Kashmir, six kids by now, unemployed, a housewife. “That would have been my life.”

vikki.white@trinitymirror.com