Leeds Muslims Report Spike in Hate Crime Following Paris Attacks
A Muslim community organisation in Leeds has told Radio Aire the number of Islamophobic hate crimes reported to them has rocketed in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.
A Muslim community organisation in Leeds has told Radio Aire the number of Islamophobic hate crimes reported to them has rocketed in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.
A meeting will take place at the Hamara Centre this afternoon to mark Islamophobia Awareness Month, with local faith leaders, police, education providers and other agencies coming together with the public to look at how to tackle the issue.
There will be a focus on how to report hate crime, as well as how to identify an Islamophobic incident.
"I've had report after report, there are lots of different things coming through," says Kauser Jan, who chairs the Muslim Community Safety Forum in Leeds.
"I had a report the other day for example from a local butcher in Armley. He'd been approached by a very well-dressed man twice wanting to buy pigs' heads and feet en masse. When asked 'why do you want to buy these' he said 'I want to desecrate every mosque there is.'
"Yesterday I was told of a woman who had gone to Asda doing her shopping with her child. She had her hijab on. Here child was misbehaving as children can do in a supermarket. The child was grabbed by one of the customers and shook and told 'you're a future terrorist, why don't you go and blow up your own country?' This was in front of people and nobody stepped in to help that woman."
Kauser says this kinds of abuse has been going on for years, but she notices a clear spike following events like the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, the Charlie Hebdo attack and most recently, the Paris terror attacks.
She thinks the problem will only get worse because people are too afraid to speak out against it or stand up for each other.
She described to Radio Aire how a young woman from Leeds recently received verbal abuse on a train in London: "There was a group of people who actually subjected her to a range of Islamaphobic abuse. Only when she got off the tube did a woman approach her and say 'I saw what happened, are you okay?'
"When she told her mum, her mum said 'take your hijab off, don't travel with your hijab on.' And the girl did initially take her hijab off, but then said 'I didn't feel happy about it, I felt as if I was giving in'.
"Lots of people are being put under pressure to repeatedly apologise for what happened in Paris. Well I quite clearly say I am not an apologist. Unfortunately it is a sign of the times, but we need to stop this tide."