The largest Muslim organisation in Britain has warned its members and mosques that they may face attacks in the wake of the killing of Sir David Amess MP.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that the Somalian community in the UK is facing threats after it emerged that 25-year-old Somali heritage Ali Harbi Ali was arrested in connection to what is believed to have been an Islamist-inspired killing of the Conservative MP.
Speaking to the UK’s leading left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, the secretary-general of the MCB, Zara Mohammed said that there is “definitely an apprehension for Muslim communities at this time”.
Mohammed, who became the first female leader of the organisation earlier this year, added that there has been anecdotes of threats against Somali organisations and “visibly Muslim Somali women” following the killing.
The Muslim Council of Britain leader also claimed that her organisation’s social media “has been rife with hatred”.
In response to the alleged threats, the MCB has told all mosques to step up security protocols, including making risk assessments, ensuring that CCTV cameras are operational, and to work with “local communities and friends”.
Mohammed said that the MCB “utterly condemns” the killing of Sir David, saying: “Nobody in the local Muslim community could believe how anybody could brutally murder anyone, never mind Sir David, who was so engaged with them.”
The director of the Council of Somali Organisations, Kahiye Alim said that his organisation, which is comprised of 200 groups and 40 mosques, is bracing for attacks on the Somali community.
“We are preparing material for community safety and personal safety on how to report hate crime,” he said, claiming that one member had recieved a death threat in London on Friday.
“We are concerned the way this story has been running,” he said in response to the alleged killer’s Somali heritage being reported in the media.
Many have noted that the mainstream media has shied away from focussing on the alleged Islamist links to the killing, with Sky News and the BBC focussing heavily over the weekend on the supposedly contentious state of British politics as a possible reason for the attack.
The chief political writer for Spiked magazine, Brendan O’Neill said on Monday that he found the discussion surrounding the killing “very strange and bizarre” as the “chattering classes” have focussed soley on the need for more kindness in politics and an end to name-calling, rather than focussing on the issue of radical Islam.
O’Neill said that there is an “Islamist denialism in this country,” saying that there is an “unwillingness to confront the fact that scores of Britain’s have been killed by radical Islamists over the past five years.”
The Muslim Council of Britain has previously criticised the media for allegedly spreading “Islamophobia” by reporting when terrorists shout the phrase “Allah hu Akbar” during an attack, suggesting that it falsely implies that Islam was a motivating factor in Islamist attacks.
The organisation, which has previously been accused by the government of having ties to the terror organisation the Muslim Brotherhood, said that there is a “disproportionate focus on Muslims” in the media when reporting on terrorism, despite the fact that Islamist attacks make up the vast majority of attacks in the UK.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.