Anti-Muslim hate crime has more than tripled in the UK over the past four months, according to monitoring agency Tell Mama. There have been 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February, up steeply from the 600 in the same period in the previous year. 597 incidents were reported in London alone. Women were targeted in two thirds of all cases. Slightly over 50% of incidents were hate speech circulated on social media, but physical assault, abusive behavior, threats and vandalism were also recorded.
Examples of incidents include a Muslim woman being assaulted on a London bus and told that “you Muslims are troublemakers”. Worshippers at a mosque were sent a written death threat. A woman’s car was daubed with a swastika and several Muslim women were verbally abused and called terrorists. Tell Mama founder Iman Atta emphasized that women wearing Muslim dress were especially at risk, describing persecution as “gendered” and “misogynistic”.
Anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic attacks in the UK have increased since the recent conflict in Gaza. The Community Security Trust reported a six-fold rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the four months following the Gaza tragedy. A phone-in by a Muslim talk radio station this week found that hate incidents increased during the conflict, although reporting and capturing of mobile phone footage has helped with prosecutions. Atta stated that despite the prevalence of online hate speech, there was a huge under-reporting of live incidents. In 2013, London’s campaign against hate crime Unity stated that around 80% of incidents go unreported.
The British government stated that hatred had “no place in our society”. A spokesperson declared it was giving further funding to communities to provide security “at places of worship and faith schools”
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