Fueling anti-Muslim hate?
The number of Islamophobic attacks increased following a Boris Johnson column and ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters last year
REPORTS of antiMuslim abuse spiked twice last year, coinciding with high-profile incidents.
The report by Tell MAMA - a national project which records antiMuslim incidents across the UK - said the first jump came in the wake of a string of ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters sent to Muslim homes, institutions, and places of work in March 2018.
In total, Tell MAMA received reports of 37 offline incidents that directly referenced ‘Punish a Muslim Day.’
The second and bigger spike occurred in August after the former foreign
secretary Boris Johnson wrote a column referring to veiled Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank robbers.’
In the week following his article, reports of anti-Muslim incidents rose to 38 from just eight the previous week.
While the charity saw the overall number of anti-Muslim incidents fall slightly - from 1,330 in 2017 to 1,282 in 2018 - some types of abuse are on the rise.
According to the charity, there were 18 reports of hate speech (up from 11), and 58 reports of anti-Muslim literature (up from 28).
Tell MAMA identifies hate speech as speaking to an audience and encouraging anti-Muslim hate or spreading harmful information about Muslims.
Reports of discrimination were up from 72 in 2017 to 87 in 2018.
Of 1,282 total reports last year, 1,072 were verified as being antiMuslim or Islamophobic in nature.
Some 54% of the reports related to abusive behaviour, while 13% (98 reports) involved an assault.
There was an 11% increase in attacks that either took place within, or targeted, the victim’s household or private property.
Reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the workplace rose by 8%.
Iman Atta, Director of Tell MAMA, said: “Anti-Muslim hate is not a ‘fringe issue’ that only affects Muslims.
“It affects social cohesion, extremism and polarises local communities, whilst emboldening haters and extremists.
“In today’s day and age, tackling it means ensuring that other communities feel a sense of re- assurance and thereby mobilise to assist others.
“This ‘self-mobilisation’ only takes place when we have up st anders and not bystanders in communities. This also means that it is imperative on us all, to counter and challenge anti-Muslim hate where we come across it.
“We therefore hope that this report adds the volume of data that now clearly shows much more needs to be done to tackle the poison of anti-Muslim hate. The time for talking is over and the time to defend our nation’s values, based on pluralism, is here.”
The figures are based on reports to Tell MAMA and data from more than 20 police forces in England and Wales, that share data with the charity. Home Office data shows 3,530 hate crimes were reported to police in 2018/19, where the person was perceived to be Muslim. That was up from 2,965 such crimes in 2017/18.