Spike in UK Islamophobia due to ignorance of Islam, Saudi-inspired terror: Expert
The high level of anti-Muslim attacks in the UK largely stems from Briton’s ignorance of Islam, as well as Saudi Arabia’s spread of hate and terror through Wahhabism, an expert says.
“There’s a great deal of ignorance about Islam in the UK and Islam in the West in general,” said Marcus Papadopoulos, the founder and editor of Politics First magazine.
“People in Britain are getting confused; they believe that what they see coming out of Saudi Arabia, they believe that what the terrorists (Daesh or ISIL) are saying in Syria equates to true Islam; well it doesn’t,” Papadopoulos told Press TV on Sunday.
“What Saudi Arabia preaches at home and abroad is not Islam; it is a perverse, twisted interpretation of what is a peaceful religion,” he added. “And the terrorists in Syria, once again, do not represent Islam; they follow Wahhabism.”
An anti-Muslim hate monitoring group says a record number of Islamophobic attacks and incidents of abuse were reported in the United Kingdom in 2017, with women disproportionately targeted by mostly male teenage assailants.
The London-based monitoring group Tell Mama said in an annual report that among 1,201 verified reports submitted last year, the UK saw a surge in anti-Muslim attacks by 26 percent from 2016 — the highest number since the group began recording such incidents.
Of the victims six out of 10 were women and of the perpetrators eight out of 10 were men, with the majority aged between 13 and 18.
“We are extremely concerned at a younger generation of mainly boys and men who are becoming more aggressive in their targeting of Muslims,” said Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama.
Focusing on the trend toward physical incidents, the monitoring group also said, “There has been a marked shift towards more serious offline incidents such as physical attacks, threatening behavior and abuse more generally.”
A UK police watchdog has warned of a “real possibility” that Britain’s separation from the 28-member bloc next year could trigger a further surge in hate crime.
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