Muslim woman in niqab told she should be ‘shot’

August 17, 2018 Article

A Muslim woman, who wears the niqab, confided to Tell MAMA that she is fearful of another Islamophobic attack, following Boris Johnson’s recent ‘letterbox’ comments, as weeks earlier, a man told her that someone should ‘shoot’ her because of her niqab.

The incident took place on May 15.

She was returning home from work but found herself stuck in traffic, given the proximity of her home, she decided to attach her niqab, which she would otherwise not wear when at work.

It was during this traffic stop that a man approached her vehicle, noting her open window, and said to her: “My gosh look at you, you’re white too. Someone should get a gun and shoot you,” as he made a gun gesture with one hand, the other hand contained a can of open alcohol.

He then gestured to a man, who the woman believed to be a friend, to stand with him. The man continued to insult the Muslim woman, as she remained frozen in fear.

The man again suggested that she should be ‘shot’ and told her to “go back to your own country”.

Alone, feeling trapped, and unsure what else to do, she waited until the men left.

Despite the assumption that she was white, he racialised her religious identity with xenophobic language regardless.

Tell MAMA continues to document, how Muslim women experience racialised abuse because of their Islamic veils, including examples of white converts being called ‘p*kis’. Often, as academics like Dr Chris Allen have argued, the hijab can become a become a universal symbol of ‘Muslimness’.

The abuse has now made her fearful of being outside alone without her husband, adding that racism was already problem in her part of the West Midlands.

She described the perpetrator as white, male, and in his forties.

Her anxieties and fears of a future attack, of being outside without husband, have only intensified since Johnson’s comments.

Police had investigated the incident but were unable to locate the man responsible due to CCTV issues.

Tell MAMA saw a large uptake in reports following Johnson’s comments, with over 20 reports compared to 5 in the previous week.

Examples of abuse, including cases where women were called ‘letterboxes’, irrespective of their religious clothing, were published on our website this week.

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

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Categories: hate crime, News, Niqab

Muslim siblings shouted at and called ‘letterbox’ days apart

August 15, 2018 Article

Two Muslim siblings were shouted at and called ‘letterbox’ in separate incidents in the Exeter area, mere days apart.

The first incident occurred on August 10, days after Boris Johnson, had said that Muslim women wearing burqas and niqabs “look like letterboxes” and compared them to “bank robbers” on August 5.

Walking to Jummah prayers (Friday prayers), the woman with was her siblings, one of whom was a child, when a man shouted ‘letterbox’ at her multiple times. A friend of the abusive male challenged his friend, adding that, “you cannot say that, that’s racist.”

But three days later, on August 13, the oldest sibling who witnessed the Islamophobic abuse, was, herself called a ‘letterbox’ by a man as she returned home from work, and passing a group of people drinking outside of a nearby pub.

The abuse scared her. It left her unable to look at them, so to avoid any further hostility, she walked in the middle of the road to avoid them.

In both incidents, the perpetrators were white, male, and in their mid-to-late twenties or early thirties, according to one of the women who contacted Tell MAMA.

Neither woman, however, wears the face veil, as both women wear the hijab, which suggests something deeper: it relates to how the racialisation of Muslims frames their religious identity, irrespective of the diversity of religious and cultural clothing as culturally alien, and at fundamental odds with society.

Racialisation, after all, incorporates “cultural factors in addition to traditional, physical markers of race and ethnicity”. It also operates at a structural and institutional level, according to Dr Coretta Phillips, where, at a micro level, reactive groups of individuals composed of various ethnicities, classes, and genders interact through a process of ‘familial socialisation and shared cultural values’. Such group dynamics help us to understand the paradox of how some individuals can simultaneously hold positive and negative views of minorities and serves to demarcate between racist attitudes and prejudicial behaviours.

The argument that ‘Islam is not a race’, sometimes made in bad faith, has also resurfaced following Johnson’s comments on August 5. It’s true that Islam, particularly in England and Wales, is ethnically diverse, but an understanding of racism beyond biological markers, such as a ‘differentialist’ model of racialisation concerns the exclusion of others due to essentialised forms of cultural differences.

In 2017, 62 per cent of Muslim women reporting to Tell MAMA were wearing Islamic clothing when anti-Muslim and Islamophobic incidents occurred. Of that figure (353 women), almost one in ten had worn the niqab, and where available, the gender and ethnic breakdown of perpetrators again pointed to a gendered form of Islamophobia, with many falling into the categories of white and male.

We have noted a rise in reports to our service following Johnson’s comments from visibly-identifiable Muslim women.

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Categories: hate crime, Hijab, letterbox, News

Muslim family called ‘f****** terrorists’ by motorist

August 14, 2018 Article

A Muslim family were called “f****** terrorists” by a motorist following an accidental collision in the West Midlands area.

The incident occurred on August 11 at around 22:00 GMT.

A member of the family has consented for Tell MAMA to share a clip of the Islamophobic abuse to help raise awareness.

Following the accidental collision, a member of the family had attempted to speak with the other driver and check to see if they were hurt, but the driver began to abuse the family members instead.

The abusive comments included “is this woman legal to drive?” and “are you sure she’s legal?”.

Despite repeated requests for their insurance details the perpetrator was less than forthcoming and refused to accept any of the apologies from the Muslim family.

When one family member mentioned contacting the police, the perpetrator’s language morphed into a paroxysm of Islamophobic abuse, as they said: “Call the police, you guys are the f****** terrorists”, before returning to their car and leaving the scene.

West Midlands Police are investigating the incident.

The perpetrator is described as female, black, and in her 20s or 30s.

In 2017, Tell MAMA verified 58 incidents (7 per cent) which involved cars or other vehicles.

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Categories: hate crime, News

Muslim children shouted at and told ‘this is not your community’

August 9, 2018 Article

A group of Muslim children, no older than 6-years-old, were racially abused by a man as they returned from a mosque in the Lancashire area.

The abuse was witnessed by a Muslim woman who contacted Tell MAMA to report the incident.

The incident occurred on July 20.

She added the man had shouted and sworn at the children and said, “get out of here, this is not your community” among other abusive terms.

The children appeared intimidated and were unsure what to do or where to look during the incident.

Tell MAMA reported the incident to Lancashire Police on behalf of the witness once they had spoken with our staff and given their consent to do so.

The witness described the perpetrator as being white, male, and in his 30s.

In 2017, Tell MAMA verified 441 reports of abusive behaviour, which accounts for 52 per cent of all verified reports last year.

Tell MAMA’s Annual Report for 2017 Shows Highest Number of Anti-Muslim Incidents https://t.co/rjSwErlvUW… pic.twitter.com/9NLd7TNypQ

— TellMAMAUK (@TellMamaUK) August 7, 2018

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Categories: hate crime, Lancashire, News

Tell MAMA’s Annual Report for 2017 Shows Highest Number of Anti-Muslim Incidents

July 22, 2018 Article

Beyond the Incident: Highest Number of Annual Reports Logged by Tell MAMA Since Launch in 2012

Director of Tell MAMA, Iman Atta OBE says, “we are in deeply worrying times where people are looking for certainty and what they are getting is instability at a political and societal level. This means that at times like this, minority groups are the ones who suffer the anger of those looking to vent their fears, insecurities and concerns.

“We are seeing more aggressive street-based incidents, younger perpetrators, between the ages of 13-18, increased vandalism and international interference by well organised social media accounts playing groups off in the UK. More than ever, we need to come together and redouble our efforts against those who seek to divide and play communities off against each other”.

Key Points

In 2017 Tell MAMA recorded a total of 1,330 reports. Of these reports, 1,201 were verified as being anti-Muslim or Islamophobic in nature and as having occurred in the UK between January and December 2017. More than two-thirds of verified incidents occurred offline, or on a street-level (70%, n=839), which represents a 30% rise in offline reports when compared to the previous reporting period (n=643). An offline, or street-level, incident means that the incident occurred in-person between a victim (or property) and a perpetrator. There were therefore more street incidents of anti-Muslim hatred reported into Tell MAMA.
Crimes or incidents that are classified as ‘online’ occurred on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, or on other Internet-based platforms, were verified as having happened within the UK, and account for a third of reports in 2017 (n=362), which represents a 16.3% rise in reports when compared to the previous year (n=311). This small rise can be partially attributed to the way in which ideologically-motivated accounts felt emboldened by major trigger events, (such as terrorist attacks) and broader Islamophobic discourses in the public sphere.
The ‘online hate’ figure, however, should be viewed as part of a wider trend in our datasets where there has been a marked shift towards more serious offline incidents such as physical attacks, threatening behaviour and abuse more generally, along with a growing awareness of Tell MAMA in Muslim communities, among key stakeholders, and partners, resulting in a greater willingness amongst victims and witnesses to report.
Tell MAMA has listed in its annual report examples of ‘Twitter bots’ that have sought to cause disruption and division in community perceptions and which have actively promoted anti-Muslim hatred. One such Twitter account was @DavidJo52951945 . Responses to the rhetoric on this account, called for violent action against Islamic institutions and on August 30^th 2017, the Times reported that this bot originated from Russia. Furthermore, a Twitter account called @SouthLoneStar, which had amassed some 16,500 followers, was responsible in starting a global trend after the Westminster terrorist attack.

The @SouthLoneStar account made several tweets about the terror attack on Westminster Bridge before sharing the photo of a Muslim woman walking across the bridge on a mobile phone, just after the vehicle had mown down pedestrians. It used the major hashtags (#PrayForLondon and #Westminster) to post tweets which described Islam as a ‘cult of death’ and added the #BanIslam hashtag. An earlier tweet called for Islam to be ‘outlawed’.^[1] An archive of the @SouthLoneStar account in January 2017 revealed many pro-Trump tweets and how the account had followed a far-right account named @pepethetroll, which remains active on the platform.^[2] Nor was the anti-Muslim content specific to the United States or even Britain. Further archive research of the account reveals that the @SouthLoneStar had attempted to stir-up anti-Muslim views in other European countries. For example, on 11 March 2017, @SouthLoneStar used the ‘#BanIslam’ and ‘#Rotterdam’ hashtags in a tweet which shared an image of about Muslim conquests and the Crusades.^[3]

The Guardian reported that the @SouthLoneStar account was the “creation of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll army” based in St Petersburg. This is where, in rooms of about 20 people working 12-hour shifts for pay of between 45,000 and 65,000 rubles a month (£575-£830), a modern disinformation campaign is crafted.” Whilst these are some examples of Twitter and social media accounts promoting direct anti-Muslim hatred, we need to maintain vigilance against foreign interference, in these cases, emanating from Russia, which seek to promote division and intolerance in the UK.

Social media agencies such as Twitter conduct a haphazard removal process for content. Our report highlights inaction from Twitter even on material that glorifies anti-Muslim hatred and violence against Muslims and Islamic institutions. Furthermore, Twitter’s inactivity in removing anti-Muslim hate material is deeply worrying and shows a wanton lack of desire to understand this hatred on its platform. Twitter has also demonstrated to us in Tell MAMA, its inability to stop individuals opening up new accounts repeatedly, when they have been banned from using the platform. In one case, a victim had to report in eleven separate accounts for harassment and with Twitter unable to stop the creation of new accounts and even dismissing reports on the same individual when multiple accounts linked to him were reported in through the ‘reporting in’ channels for Twitter.
In 2017, vandalism replaced threatening behaviour as the third most common anti-Muslim hate incident. There was a 56% increase in anti-Muslim vandalism when compared with 2016, with one in ten ‘real-world’ incidents being classed as vandalism. (The most widely reported anti-Muslim hate incident was classified as ‘abusive behaviour’ with the second most reported frequency of incident classed as a ‘physical attack’. This demonstrated a rise in physical intimidation and actions against Muslim faith institutions and property.) Discrimination was the fourth most common anti-Muslim incident reported to Tell MAMA in 2017, with a 77% increase in incidents when compared to 2016. This category included mistreatment, denial of opportunities or denial of services based on Islamophobic prejudice, some of which was institutional in nature.
Places of Anti-Muslim Hate Incidents: Consistent with previous years, the largest proportion of street-based incidents took place within public areas such as parks and shopping areas and the second most common place for incidents was public transport networks, such as trams, buses etc.
Gender Variances in Attacks: 2017 data showed that at a street level nearly 6 out of 10 victims of anti-Muslim hate were women and 8 in 10 of the perpetrators were male, re-affirming previous findings over the years, that anti-Muslim hate or Islamophobia at a street level is also male on female abuse in addition to anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry.
Victim Ethnicity – Predominantly Asian females

	Victim gender
Victim Ethnicity	Female	Male	Unknown	Total
Asian	201	178	0	379
Unknown	215	115	41	371
Arab or North African	42	32	3	77
White	41	7	0	48
Mixed or multiple ethnicities	19	18	0	37
Black	21	13	0	34
Somali	21	6	0	27
Turkish	2	1	0	3
Any other Ethnic Group	0	2	0	2
Total	562	372	44	978

10). Perpetrator Ethnicity – Predominantly white males

	Perpetrator Gender
Perpetrator Ethnicity	Male	Female	Unknown	Total
White	518	114	3	635
Unknown	167	57	210	434
Black	43	15	0	58
Asian	10	6	0	16
Mixed or multiple ethnicities	7	4	0	11
Any other ethnic group	3	2	0	5
Arab or North African	2	0	0	2
Total	750	198	213	1161

11). Victim and Perpetrator Age Ranges

Where age group data was available, the most common age for victims was 26-35.

The most common age for perpetrators was 13-18.

References

^[1] Ibid.

^[2] Texas Lone Star. Twitter post. 2016. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112123756/https://twitter.com/SouthLoneStar/ (retrieved 18/06/2018).

^[3] Texas Lone Star. Twitter post. March 11 2017, 20:01. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112123756/https://twitter.com/SouthLoneStar/ (retrieved 18/06/2018).

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Categories: Annual Report 2017, Islamophobic discourse, Muslim women, Muslim Young people, News, online hate, reports, Rise in Hate Crimes, Russia, Street Based hate crimes, Terrorist Attacks

Muslim family repeatedly called the N-word and ‘suicide bomber’ on London bus

July 5, 2018 Article

A Muslim mother and her young daughter were racially abused and taunted with Islamophobic abuse on a London bus by two drunk Polish men.

The incident occurred on the afternoon of June 19.

The woman, who wears the niqab, was waiting to board the bus in south London with her daughter when the men behind them repeatedly shouted the N-word during a conversation in their first language, which the woman understood to be Polish, given her familiarity with it through her friends.

Speaking to Tell MAMA in confidence, she felt targeted because they are black Muslims, adding that Poland was due to play Senegal in a World Cup fixture hours later, which may have influenced their decision to target them.

To her dismay, no other passenger sought to challenge the initial racial abuse.

But the abuse continued as the men followed them upstairs and sat behind the family, and started to repeat the slur ‘suicide bomber’ at them.

Whenever she turned to challenge the abuse the men would ignore her.

Upon leaving the bus, one of the men shouted, ‘Allah is paedo’, which caused her great upset but she was determined to challenge them.

She asked the men ‘what they wanted’ and to explain why they were targeting them with racist and Islamophobic abuse.

One of the men would only respond in Polish and blew kisses at her young daughter. His only English-language word in this exchange was the slur ‘paedo’ which caused her young daughter to cry and to beg her mother to ignore them and get off the bus.

A fellow passenger did intervene which comforted the woman and her daughter.

Tell MAMA reported the incident to the Metropolitan Police on her behalf following the incident.

In 2016, 85 (13 per cent) incidents reported to Tell MAMA occurred on transport networks.

Tell MAMA has long documented the often-disproportionate abuse and violence directed at Muslim women who wear the niqab, which is an affront to their fundamental right to freely practice their religious beliefs and wear religious clothing, regardless of how conservative some interpret it.

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Categories: hate crime, n-word, News, Niqab, Suicide Bomber

A ‘Root and Branch Review’ Within the Conservatives Needs to be Undertaken for Public Confidence

July 4, 2018 Article

A few weeks ago Brandon Lewis rightly stated that action needed to be taken to root out all forms of bigotry, including anti-Muslim bigotry or Islamophobia. The Chairman laid out his steps to ensure that such bigotry was countered and reduced and he did so with some fervour and vigour.

Three weeks have now elapsed and public confidence within sections of Muslim communities is being critically affected. This is not some hard left or Islamist organisation saying this, we are stating what is becoming vocalised within mainstream sections of Muslim communities who do not normally take party political positions. When this starts to happen, it is clear that inaction is starting to be read as complacency or worse, as a disregard for their concerns.

It is essential that any political party be seen to act quickly and with vigour and determination to root out issues of bigotry. The Conservatives have stated that cases have been at local levels and that people have been suspended, though in some of these cases, final decisions on investigations have not been taken. Furthermore, this argument also misses a key point. That trust and confidence from Muslim communities is dropping and that will affect future potential candidates applying to be part of mainstream political parties. In other words, how representative will the Conservatives be in the next 5 years is a pertinent question and even more pertinent since they are in power.

We are therefore urging that the Conservatives set up a panel who can lead work for a ‘root and branch’ review of processes and systems to weed out candidates and members who subscribe to bigoted and prejudiced views. There are further recommendations that we are willing to make, if there is a seriousness to act. We believe that there is, though there cannot be any more delays in enacting this review. Time is seriously running out and each day brings a detachment of trust between the Conservatives and Muslim communities.

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Categories: Brandon Lewis, Conservatives, Inquiry, Muslim communities, Opinions, Review, Sayeeda Warsi

Will UK Border Agency Allow in Janusz Korwin-Mikke?

July 4, 2018 Article

We have previously written about Janusz Korwin-Mikke, someone who has previously stated that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust. His comments have previously targeted Jews, Muslims and Black communities.

Faith Matters highlighted his impending arrival in late May 2018, about a week before he arrived. Having informed the Home Office about his visit to speak in the UK, no action was taken and Korwin-Mikke was allowed in the country. According to this flyer, he is supposed to be speaking in London on Sunday the 8th of July.

Sharing a Platform

Korwin-Mikke spoke at the far-right ‘free speech’ rally in London on May 27th alongside Anne-Marie Waters,(ex-UKIP), and now with the ‘For Britain’ party. The speech was also highlighted by Independent anti-Islam councillor, Ryan MacPherson and was streamed through the ”Pro Great Britain’ Facebook page. Macpherson is a councillor in Ashford, Kent, and has previously called Islam ‘Earth’s most lethal killing machine’.

A day later after the event, MacPherson wrote:

“With Janusz Korwin-Mikke in London yesterday talking about democracy and why the United Kingdom desperately needs electoral reform in order to break the two-party state.”

Visible at the time of Mikke’s speech in May is a person flying a ‘Kekistan’ flag. The ‘Kekistan’ flag is modelled on the Nazi’s Reichskriegsflagge.

The question we therefore pose to the Home Office and the UK Border Agency is, will Korwin-Mikke be allowed in again?

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Categories: Antisemitism, Far Right groups, Holocaust, Home Office, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, News

Abuse directed at Muslim woman shows how racism and misogyny intersect

July 3, 2018 Article

A Muslim woman was racially abused and shouted at by a passing motorist and who called her a ‘f**king black c*nt’.

The incident occurred on June 29 when the woman was out walking by herself near an Underground station in North London.

Following the abuse, the woman found herself being stared at by various witnesses at a nearby bus stop, but no one came forward to support her which left her too uncomfortable to walk past them, and instead, she changed direction.

She instead walked to a nearby shop where she is on good terms with a member of staff, and having explained what had happened, he consoled her and offered to walk her home. Such acts of solidarity and support can have a transformative effect on those who experience such abuse or discrimination.

In 2016, over half (54 per cent) of verified reports were categorised as abusive behaviour, a 4 per cent rise on the 2015 annual report. The abuse is verbal or non-verbal in spaces that occupy the day-to-day lives of Muslims. Meaning such incidents took place in public areas, which include streets, public parks, and any other public space, on transport networks, the workplace or when out shopping.

She felt targeted because of her race and religious identity, which she expresses by wearing a hijab. Speaking to Tell MAMA, she stated that previous incidents against her reflected a post-9/11 climate, and the election of Donald Trump had further normalised Islamophobic sentiments.

Tell MAMA continues to highlight the gendered dynamic of such abuse and discrimination, as the language of some male perpetrators often fuses xenophobic or racialised language with misogyny.

The process of racialisation, as Amy Cooter argues, “incorporate cultural factors in addition to traditional, physical markers of race and ethnicity”. This form of racialisation, notable in the United States, has a long history which has been documented at length by Dr Khyati Joshi, as other academics have explored the role of racialisation in US law.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American legal scholar, coined the term ‘intersectionality’ in 1989. She argued that “because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.” Whereas Gail Lewis argued in Race, Gender, Social Welfare that the intersection between race, gender, and class are in fact subjectively lived experiences which form part of the wider social structure and involve differential or, at times, discriminatory treatment. Others use the term misogynoir to highlight particular forms of racist and sexist tropes.

Tell MAMA reported to the abuse to the Metropolitan Police for intelligence on behalf of the woman.

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Categories: Misogny, News, racialisation

Muslim woman told to ‘get out of the country’ by an abusive teenage boy

June 29, 2018 Article

A Muslim woman was abused and told to ‘get out of this country’ by a teenage boy when out walking in London.

The woman was crossing a major road near a supermarket on June 14 when the incident occurred.

The perpetrator shouted, “F**king Muslim, get out of this country” at her, despite being on the phone at the time of the incident, the Muslim woman turned to the boy and replied: “Excuse me, this is my country as much as it’s yours”.

Tell MAMA reported the incident to the Metropolitan Police on her behalf for intelligence.

She also consented to have her story told anonymously.

The woman added that the perpetrator was with another boy of a similar age who said nothing, nor did he challenge the abuse, adding that he soon ran from the scene shouting further abuse which was unable to discern.

Our previous annual report found that over half of reports (54 per cent) offline constituted ‘abusive behaviour’. The abuse is verbal or non-verbal in spaces that occupy the day-to-day lives of Muslims, including public areas, on transport networks, in the workplace, or when out shopping.

Data published by the Home Office last year found that hate crimes are a disproportionate (89 per cent) issue of public order offences and violence against the person.

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Categories: News, verbal abuse, Xenophobia