Fiyaz Mughal is director of Tell MAMA, the UK’s national anti-Muslim hatred project, and Faith Matters, an interfaith charity www.tellmamauk.org | www.faith-matters.org | @tellmamauk | @faithmattersuk
A five-year old girl sent flying from the bonnet of a car, left unconscious in the road by a hit-and-run driver. A pregnant woman watching her husband being beaten up by her neighbour’s boyfriend, their children terrorised by constant abuse. A family forced from their home in Nottinghamshire, leaving behind graffiti and a ham-wrapped cross on their doorstep. Or a young woman who had faeces thrust onto her hijab in a south London street.
All these and more are just some of the 632 (and rising) cases reported during the first year of ‘Tell MAMA’, the UK’s national anti-Muslim hate crime project, which my organisation Faith Matters runs. We suspect that these are just a fraction of the total number of anti-Muslim incidents affecting ordinary Muslims up and down the country.
Our work within TELL MAMA reveals a disturbing picture of low-level anti-Muslim harassment: incidents in the workplace, in the street, between neighbours and particularly online, which may not always hit the headlines but can have a devastating effect upon peoples’ lives. From the internet, to the workplace, the street and even houses of worship, too often Muslim women and men are becoming the target of vicious, sometimes violent, abuse.
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