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.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS