Wed, Jul 13, 2005 page7

• Muslims face attacks, resentment after terror strike

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Muslims all over Britain, in small towns and big cities, are beginning to feel the repercussions of Thursday's terrorist attack on London, confirming widespread concerns that resentment over the bombings would spill over into harassment and violence.

  In the span of a few days, at least four mosques across England, including one here, have been either partially set on fire or firebombed, according to the police, and others have had their windows smashed and their doors vandalized.

  Still others have had racist graffiti scrawled on their walls. In one case, a mosque was hit by bloody pig parts, a particular offense to a religion that eschews eating pork, said Azad Ali, the chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum, which serves as an advisory group for the police and has been tracking incidents from police reports and community groups.

  

  A man stands inside a mosque at Whitechapel in the East End of London on Monday. The mosque is the biggest in Europe and hosts about 7,000 Muslims. It has received hundreds of theatening e-mails since the London bombings last Thursday. London's Muslims have asked the government and the media not to link them with the terrorist attacks, saying they have already started to become the victims of racist assaults.

  PHOTO: EPA

  The good news, the police say, is that there has been no major damage nor any serious injuries. But across the country, there have been reports of vandalism of businesses, homes and cars, police say.

  Sitting on a downtrodden block of boarded-up shops, the Shahjalal Mosque is no more than a small room off the street, with an apartment above; it is as unassuming as it is popular among Muslims in Wirral, an area just across the Mersey River from Liverpool.

  ATTACKS

  But early Saturday morning, long after the assistant imam upstairs had gone to bed, someone tried to set it on fire. The attempt did not succeed, mostly because the fire department responded quickly. But the fire still scorched the front door, smoked out the inside and drove out the imam, who was rescued by firefighters.

  Now a police officer patrols outside the tiny mosque, just to be safe.

  "We are facing two fronts," said a Bengali worshiper at the mosque, who like the other men who came to pray, said he was too fearful to provide his name. "We are facing the terrorists and also the backlash. We were surprised by this. This is a nice community, a small community."

  Many mosques now have police officers posted outside, particularly during prayer hours. Others have rejected the offer, fearful of appearing more conspicuous.

  People, too, have been attacked and harassed. A Muslim man in London was beaten by two passersby, according to Ali. A young boy in Barking, East London, was attacked by a gang. Some bus drivers say they have been spat upon. In a few cases, women say they have been ridiculed and had their hijabs -- the head scarves worn by many Muslim women as a display of piety -- pulled from their heads.

  Lord Nazir Ahmed, the first Muslim to join the House of Lords, said that his title gives him no immunity from the racist sentiment. Just after stepping outside on Friday with his 85-year-old grandmother and 3-year-old granddaughter, a carload of men slowed down, shouted obscenities at them and made an obscene gesture.

  "I did not respond," he said in an interview. "We must have patience. We must report it to the police. But we must not fight back. Under any other circumstances, we would fight back. But not now. We must try to understand the hurt and the pain and not give the opportunity to those thugs."

  HOLY WAR

  Racist e-mail messages have poured into the Web site of the Muslim Council of Britain, one of Britain's largest Muslim groups, shutting its system down for a time. One warned, "It's time for war on Muslims throughout Britain."

  While acknowledging that many incidents go unreported, most that the police know about have been sporadic, isolated and appear not to be getting worse as days pass, reported the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  "We are encouraged by the overall calm community response, locally and nationally, to these terrible events," said Chris Fox, president of the association.

  "I am cautiously optimistic that common sense and the best instincts of everyone are prevailing," Fox said.
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