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Poll finds 75% of UK Muslims fearing safety after far-right riot attacks

Sunday, 18 August 2024 4:38 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 18 August 2024 5:39 PM ]

This image shows a view of the East London Mosque located in Whitechapel Road, London, UK. (File photo)

A recent poll has found that 75 percent of Muslims in the UK fear their safety after British far-right rioters staged nationwide attacks against Islamic institutions.

Riots by far-right extremists swept across cities in England and the north of Ireland at the end of July and the beginning of August sending shock-waves throughout the country.

The so-called English Defense League (EDL), which is a violent far-right organization, launched anti-Islam gatherings and Islamophobic attacks deploying its ruffians to various UK cities following false rumors of a stabbing incident involving an illegal Muslim asylum-seeker, which was all false.

Three-quarters of Muslims in the UK are concerned for their safety after the anti-Muslim riots, according to a survey by the Muslim Women’s Network.

Only 16 percent of the participants in the poll said they felt the same before the violence erupted.

Nearly 20 percent of those surveyed said they had encountered hostility in the UK before the first riot on July 30 in Southport which later spread to other cities.

UK rocked by far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim riots

The UK’s new Labour government is facing a national crisis.

Muslim women told local media about having a sense of a prevalent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant atmosphere among officials and authorities in the UK.

They said the current climate has made most UK Muslims fearful.

Among UK Muslims there is "almost a sense of the police aren’t going to protect us," said Lila Tamea, 26, a student.

The misinformation that spread on social media had attributed the mass stabbing of three young girls to an immigrant male Muslim.

However, the suspected Southport attacker was later identified as UK-born Axel Rudakubana, whose Christian parents came from Rwanda, where the majority is Roman Catholic and only about 1 percent of the population is Muslim.

Amina Atiq, a 29-year-old poet, told local media, “I felt as if it was not fair that we didn’t get a chance as a Muslim family to grieve for the three little girls. Because soon after that, we felt as if we were more suspect to that attack.”

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