Since Paris, the number of attacks on Muslims in London has more than tripled
A huge increase in Islamophobic hate crimes in London highlights the need for strong local policing, Labour London Assembly Equalities spokesperson Jennette Arnold has said.
Figures released by the Met today show that since the attacks in Paris on 13 November, the number of Muslims attacked each week in London has more than tripled. In the week prior to the attacks, the Met recorded 24 Islamophobic incidents. Two weeks after they recorded 76.
The figures also show that the annual number of incidents has increased, with the majority of reports relating to harassment. There were 576 incidents reported in the 12 months up to October 2014; the following year this had increased by 47.6 per cent to 845. Mussurut Zia from the Muslim Women’s Network UK said the community was ‘fearful’.
Jennette Arnold said today:
“The events in Paris shook many people to the core, people of all faiths. These cowardly acts of hatred have no place in London which prides itself on being a city where all are welcome, whatever faith, or personal creed.
“The mayor has argued that recent increases in hate crime can simply be attributed to increased confidence to report. We know there is more to it than that, and you’ll never tackle hate crime if you solely attribute any rise to increased reporting.
“During these uncertain times, the role of local policing in strengthening community bonds is more important than ever. With cuts to the Met budget still approaching, Boris Johnson needs to fight tooth and nail to retain neighbourhood policing so that we can meet the rising challenge of hate crime in London.”
Since 2010, 1,414 police officers, 2,718 PCSOs and 63 police stations have been axed in London. Neighbourhood policing is in many areas being replaced with a cheaper area-based approach, with teams of six cut down to only two officers in each ward.
The impact this has on the safety of Londoners is clear. Over the last 12 months violent offences including stabbings, have spiked 24 per cent; an additional 40,748 violent offences.
Responding to today’s figures, the Met said it is providing extra patrols and has more than 900 officers investigating hate crime.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward
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25 Responses to “Rise in Islamophobic hate crimes highlights the importance of local policing”
Zarniwoop
Hummm so out of a total population of how many millions in London and you get a tripling from “recorded 24 Islamophobic incidents. Two weeks after they recorded 76″
I wonder how many general muggings rapes and petty theft go on each day? Well here’s a snippet ”
Latest Metropolitan Police crime figures show street crime is rising in every London borough.
In some areas it has leapt by more than 70 per cent in a year.
Perhaps we should worry about rapes?
“As evidence of the problems blighting London, the report points out that rape and penetrative offences recorded by the Met have risen by 68 per cent since 2005/6, totaling 5,179 in 2013/14.” yet Left Foot are concerned about a rise of some 50 islam-ophobic incidents???
Get real!
Brad JJ
Mutual contempt between Afro-Caribbean and Africans (Brits or migrant) leads to multiple exchanges of abuse per day with violence, street fights and murders also occurring regularly. Since demise of Trident analysis of this has become more difficult as the more generic and less informative ”black-on black” crime is used. Add in conflict between Somalis and all non-white groups in East London.
The Muslim community are right ot raise issues of aggression towards them. Not all communities have a word they can use to account for what is happening ti them.
The term, ”Islamophobia” provides an easy conceptualisation which often, I believe, overemphasises the significance ot these events IN COMPARISON with many others.
Mike Stallard
If we welcome everyone from all over the world, that does not mean that on the plane over here (or the lorry) they suddenly turn into British citizens with our reserve, our history, our traditions and our religious background.
If people who say they are Muslim go around breaking up society by shooting innocent people because they hate them in USA, in France, in Africa and in Turkey, then some people are going to take the law into their own hands aren’t they. I do not approve but I am human and I do understand why they do it.
Luckily the middle aged Muslims in the mosques who have everything they need – women, children, money, jobs, power – have woken up to the fact that they ought to condemn these atrocities.
Michael Worcester
This is an interesting point. Would dropping all efforts at multiculturalism help? Perhaps looking at the US way of integrating large amounts of immigration might help. They balance migrants ie if there are ghettos forming they reduce the visas from that group and actively encourage new migrants to break up the ghetto (note there isny an automatic right to citizenship). Multiculturalism is discouraged eg documents only in English, no money to subsidise religious groups especially in education. They encourage all migrants to work by protecting benefits (we protect work thus ensuring benefit dependency).
Brad JJ
I lived in South East London for twenty years and what is most amazing is the rapidity of demographic change. There was a time when flats above a stretch of old shops that had lain empty for years were occupied by Brazilians four to a room all working in up-scale restaurants. One Brazilian friend told me he thought they totalled around three hundred and had all arrived in the space of a month.
Nigerians in Peckham were few in number the and a few years later they are everywhere. Six new churches within five hundred yards of my house. The Church of Strong Prayer. The Church to Banish Curses. All Spells can be banished here. Magical practises all around and then the torso of the kid in the Thames.
Then the Francophone West Africans occupied around a dozen shops in Rye Lane and suddenly the street was filled with gigantic women shouting French at one another.
I have lived and worked in six countries on four continents and I found London’d constant turnover of people hard going.
The Somali community in London has grown at an incredible pace and continues to do so with five children the average. I speak some Arabic so I took a wander down one of the areas they now dominate and spoke to a couple of guys. They are bored out of their minds so they are becoming wise guys, living off their wits and after a few years you have ethnic gangsters.
You are right. We should allow everyone to work and we should have serious penalties for avoiding PAYE and Nat Ins. We should also have workfare immediately for asylum seekers. Nothing for nothing. Like you say our present system is breeding dependency. Worse, it is breeding anti-social self-ghettoisation.
The USA has the advantage that citizenship carries a much more powerful identity which is open and welcoming. It is an invitation to modernity.
In the UK citizenship is a process whereby ridiculous questions about the monarchical past form quizzes to test knowledge of the culture. Totally stupid.
Then there are the schools. Oh my god. They are so bad.