British Muslims fear backlash after David Haines murder

Communities across the UK say risk of reprisals rises with each report of violence by extremists using cloak of religion

British Muslims are bracing themselves for a backlash after the beheading of David Haines by Islamic State militants, leading community figures have said.

Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said a backlash was experienced virtually every time violence carried out by extremists who claimed to act in the name of religion received high-profile media coverage.

Anxiety among Muslim communities was already heightened this weekend before news of Haines’s murder, after a mosque in Rotherham was attacked in the wake of a protest by the extremist English Defence League.

Khan said: “Somebody somewhere is going to react, it’s been proven, it’s happened many times: after 9/11, after 7 July [2005 attacks on London] and after [the murder of] Lee Rigby.”

He said the greatest fear was of attacks on Islamic buildings such as mosques, and on vulnerable people, such as women wearing the hijab.

At the East London mosque in Tower Hamlets worshippers said the risk of reprisal attacks in the UK increased with each new report of violence. “Isis and the beheading is not something we recognise at all,” said Amir Younis, 42. “Everyone I’ve spoken to regards those people as complete lunatics. We don’t know who they are, they’ve come from nowhere, and all of a sudden they’re claiming to represent the whole of the Muslim community.

“But in terms of Islamophic reprisals, I don’t think things are going to get any worse than they already are. Islamophobia is something that the Islamic community needs to stop tolerating – we allow people to say the most ridiculous things.”

Two young women visiting the mosque, Aysha Islam and Shakila Hoque, said news of the beheading of Haines would spur on the EDL. “People talk about it a lot,” said Islam. “This area is more safe than places like Luton, but you never know what’s going to happen.”

She added: “They [Isis] divide people into believers and non-believers. But that’s not really what Islam is about. We see everyone as one; everyone is equal.”

“There’s always a fear,” said Ifta Ahmed. “Whenever something like this happens, you never know what is going to happen in response. But we all condemn what’s happened. For them to use the name Islam is wrong.”

The monitoring group Tell Mama said there had been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents after the release of a video showing the beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff nearly a fortnight ago. Extremists were also making threats online, using social media platforms.

Police have a system of tension indicators to monitor strains in community relations, and will be assessing those and other intelligence in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said a phenomenon he called “soft radicalisation” – informal groups exposing young people to views that led on to more extremist positions – had not been tackled.

He added: “They won’t say join Isil [Islamic State], but they will expose you to a Salafi [school of Islamic thought associated with fundamentalism] or extremist view, such as a belief in the caliphate [Islamic state], and to reject other moderate schools of Islamic thought.”

He pointed to the case of Yusuf Sarwar, 22, from Birmingham who pleaded guilty to linking up with an extremist group fighting jihad in Syria. Mahmood said the youngster was a moderate who had been radicalised within six months, and his journey to extremist views was aided by an Islamist book shop in Birmingham. Police were alerted by his family and on his computer were images of Isis flags and martyr literature. Officers also found social media and email conversations between with Islamic extremists.

Mahmood said religious leaders had to step up efforts to show young people that Isis’s views and actions were not rooted in Islam. “Kids don’t understand the religion. When they hear someone quoting the Qur’an in Arabic they think they are right.”

Ghaffar Hussain, managing director of the anti-extremist thinktank Quilliam, warned the government against headline-grabbing measures: “We must maintain a long-term vision and embrace a patient and balanced approach that is not knocked of course by specific terrorist acts. We must keep faith in the notion that their dystopian worldview will eventually lose appeal and wither away providing we stay true to our values and principles.”

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