For the Muslim community in London, the holy month of Ramadan has started this year with a sense of trepidation, Anadolu Agency reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spike in Islamophobia spurred by Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and recent break-ins at mosques have heightened fears and sparked calls for increased security measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since mid-February, there have been a series of incidents at mosques around London, including break-ins at three \u2013 Palmers Green Mosque, Southgate Mosque and Masjid Ayesha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has happened at a time when, according to Tell MAMA, a watchdog focusing on anti-Muslim incidents, Islamophobic incidents in the UK have more than tripled since 7 October, when Israel launched its deadly war on the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With more Muslims going to mosques during Ramadan, including for the late night tarawih prayers, there is a great need for the community \u201cto be very careful,\u201d according to Bibi Rabbiyah Khan, President of the London Islamic Cultural Society (LICS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIslamophobia is on the rise and people within our community have been subjected to attacks because they\u2019re Muslim, but they don\u2019t necessarily report it,\u201d she told Anadolu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the recent incidents at mosques, Khan said it seemed that the perpetrators wanted to damage things like CCTV surveillance systems and take hard drives from computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense that people are doing that instead of even trying to get to the money kept at the mosques,\u201d said Khan who is also the chairperson of the North London Council of Mosques, which oversees 13 mosques in Haringey, Enfield and Barnett, including the three mosques that were targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe anticipate that perhaps during Ramadan that whoever is doing this, they know it takes time to get CCTV back working again, or even to get the hard drives. So probably, is it something that\u2019s going to occur again, when these things are not in place? We don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018We\u2019re worried for our children\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n She also mentioned some other recent incidents at Wembley Mosque at the beginning of March and other mosques in Leicester, and stressed the imperative need for strict security measures in Ramadan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are worried about the rise in Islamophobia. We\u2019re worried for our children and our attendees at the mosques. And, during Ramadan, of course, it\u2019s going to be late. We also have a late night tarawih \u2026 We have to have the same security,\u201d said Khan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are very, very worried,\u201d she said, adding that there may be more incidents due to the worsening situation in Gaza, where Israel has already killed more than 31,100 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 72,700 others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population facing famine and starvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli war has pushed 85 per cent of Gaza\u2019s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave\u2019s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know because people are really upset and really worried about what\u2019s going on. There are people who are worried and there are people who are angry, because how can we look and tolerate so many children being killed and not be worried about it?\u201d said Khan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said they are coordinating with police to make sure that all mosques have working surveillance systems and proper safety mechanisms are \u201cplanned, programmed and then implemented\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Significant increase in hate crime across London\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to Anadolu\u2019s question about efforts to address safety concerns during Ramadan, the Metropolitan Police said they have been working closely with representatives from the capital\u2019s Jewish and Muslim communities since 7 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officers have been deployed to provide reassurance and to investigate offenses in the vicinity of faith schools, places of worship and in those communities where we know the levels of concern are highest, a police spokesperson said in a written response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRegrettably, despite the increased presence of officers we have seen a significant increase in hate crime across London,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These include abuse directed at individuals or groups in person or online, racially or religiously motivated criminal damage and other offences, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe continue to encourage anyone who experiences hate crime to report it to the police. It is not acceptable and we will investigate,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Source: MEMO)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the Muslim community in London, the holy month of Ramadan has started this year with a sense of trepidation, Anadolu Agency reports. A spike in Islamophobia spurred by Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and recent break-ins at mosques have heightened fears and sparked calls for increased security measures. Since mid-February, there have been a series …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":9387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9389,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386\/revisions\/9389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}