December 18, 2016•Update: December 20, 2016
By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON
Racially motivated attacks targeting Muslims in the U.K. have shown a dramatic rise within the past week as individuals and places of worship came under attack.
The latest hate crime targeted the Cumbernauld Mosque in North Lanarkshire as the perpetrators wrote Islamophobic graffiti on its walls.
They sprayed “Deus Vult” (‘God Wills It’ in Latin) -- a term coined for unifying soldiers for an army of Crusaders to fight against Muslim Seljuk Turks in 11th century -- and “Saracen Go Home” on the walls of the mosque. Saracen is a medieval term for Muslims popular among Christian writers.
A statement by the police said the attack was carried out between 20:30 Friday and 07:30 Saturday morning and an investigation has been launched.
The attack was not the first of those targeting Muslims last week as a man was stabbed in a London train station by an individual who screamed “I want to kill a Muslim”.
Mohamed Askar Ali, a Muslim of Bangladeshi origin was hospitalized with stabbing wounds in his chest and eye.
The attacker was since arrested and charged with attempted murder.
A Muslim woman was targeted by another Islamophobic attack last week in Chingford area in capital London.
Two individuals wearing all black tried to pull a hijab off the woman and dragged her on the pavement.
According to a report by TellMama, a monitoring group recording anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.K., more than 100 mosques have been targeted in Islamophobic attacks in the last three-and-a-half years in the country.
Islamophobic attacks soared by 58 percent in the first week following the June 23 EU referendum according to figures released by the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
There are approximately 3 million Muslims currently living in the U.K.
