A Muslim man has been beaten to death outside a corner shop by a gang of youths who shouted anti-Islamic abuse at him, the Guardian reported yesterday.
The killing comes amid fears of a backlash against British Muslims following the London bombings.
Kamal Raza Butt, 48, from Pakistan, was visiting Britain to see friends and family. On Sunday afternoon he went to a shop in Nottingham, northern England, to buy cigarettes and was first called "Taliban" by the youths and then set upon.
Nottinghamshire police described the incident as racially aggravated, not as Islamophobic, angering Muslim groups and surprising some senior officers.
They say it was not connected to a backlash against Muslims following the London bombings, which has seen mosques firebombed and Muslims attacked in the street.
On Monday the case was discussed at the Muslim Safety Forum (MSF), where senior police officers and Muslim community representatives meet.
Senior sources who were at the meeting last night said it was the view of all present that the killing was a hate crime triggered by his faith.
Muslim leaders on Tuesday night said the killing and the fact that it was Islamophobic would heighten anxiety in their communities, which was already high before the London bombings and which has deepened with every report of attacks.
Nine youths, some of them juveniles, have been arrested by police.
According to several sources, the man had gone to a shop in the The Leadows area of the city around 4.30pm on Sunday to buy cigarettes when the youths asked him to hand them over.
When he refused they shouted that he was Taliban, a reference to the hardline Muslim government that ran Afghanistan and harbored al-Qaeda terrorists.
The man was punched and fell to the ground and later died in hospital. Police have yet to officially announce the results of a postmortem examination.
Azad Ali, who chairs the MSF, said: "You can't class this as racist, there was no racist abuse shouted at him, it was Islamophobic."
"It is good the police have made arrests. We are disappointed that they have misclassified it, especially after all the advice to be more alert to Islamophobic hate crime," he said.
Planning for the aftermath of a terrorist attack on Britain has included extensive work on limiting any backlash and assuring Muslims, already distrustful of the police, that they could expect protection from any reprisals.
Guidelines from the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers say that forces should identify religious hate crimes and be open about it, because that may help their investigations and reassure the communities affected.
Ali added that the murder would stoke fears among Britain's 1.6 million Muslims: "This has sent shivers down the community. People are very worried, if this is the start of an escalation."
A police source said there was no clear evidence linking the murder to the backlash against Muslims following the bombings.
Superintendent Dave Colbeck, of Nottinghamshire police, said: "It would be inappropriate to comment on the possible motive."
"It is a localized incident and we are not looking at it as anything other than an isolated incident," he said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS