LONDON (RNS) — The leading Muslim umbrella group in the U.K., the Muslim Council of Britain, has urged mosques to be extra vigilant and strengthen their security ahead of regular Friday prayers in the wake of this week’s violent attacks on a mosque in Southport, after false claims that a Muslim had killed three young girls.
On Monday (July 29), a man stabbed three children to death and attacked eight other children and two adults in the northwest seaside town of Southport, 20 miles from Liverpool, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Over the next 24 hours, misinformation spread across social media, claiming the attacker was a Muslim immigrant. By Tuesday night, an angry mob had descended upon the seaside town, making a beeline for the mosque.
While local people gathered at a peaceful vigil, rioters chanting far right slogans set fires, hurled bricks at the police and tried to stampede the Southport Mosque. They also trashed and looted several shops whose names gave the appearance they were run by members of ethnic minorities.
On Thursday, Muslim Council of Britain Secretary General Zara Mohammed said there are reports that other protests are planned and she condemned “far-right thugs causing havoc in our streets and seeking to intimidate Muslim communities and mosques.”
When the police proffered few details about the suspect arrested for killing the three girls and stabbing several others, rumors spread on various social media sites, including a false name attributed to the suspect. The posts on X with the false name were seen by millions. There were also false rumors that the suspect was a refugee who arrived in the U.K. by boat in 2023 and claims that he was Muslim.
Floral tributes on the junction of Tithebarn Road and Hart Street in Southport, England, near the scene where three children were fatally stabbed. (Video screen grab)
What the police had actually said was that the suspect — who was charged late on Wednesday night — was a 17-year-old, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, and that he had moved to a village near Southport some years ago with his family. The reason for withholding his name was the law: Suspects under 18 years old are not normally named.
The chair of Southport Mosque, Ibrahim Hussein, later let the cameras into the building and talked of the night when he and seven others had to barricade themselves inside.
“We were very scared. The whole building was shaking. They were throwing very big bricks,” recalled Hussein to the BBC. “They were definitely trying to get in. People who came from outside Southport did a disservice to the victims of Monday. Our prayers and thoughts should be turning toward them.”
Once, mosques tended to be found in large British cities such as London, Birmingham and Leicester, but as the Muslim population has grown in the U.K., they are now found in many small towns, like Southport. The latest England and Wales Census, in 2021, showed 3.9 million Muslims, up from 2.7 million a decade earlier.
The violence was not limited to Southport but spread elsewhere to other parts of Britain on Wednesday night, including London and Hartlepool.
In London at least 100 people were arrested after protesters set off flares and clashed with police near Downing Street in a protest over the Southport stabbings. Some shouted the slogan “Save our kids.”
Protesters across the country held placards saying “Stop the boats” — a reference to people arriving illegally via small boats sailing across the English Channel from mainland Europe. The majority of those arriving in this way come from the Middle East and Africa and have paid traffickers to get them to Europe and the U.K.
Politicians from both the Conservative Party — which lost power in the general election on July 4 — and the populist Reform UK party have continually complained about those arriving in the boats, including, they say, criminals. Earlier this week, Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, was criticized across the political spectrum for remarks he made in a video on Tuesday in which he questioned “whether the truth is being withheld from us” about the attack on Monday. He was accused of fomenting discord and undermining the police.
Just how neuralgic the relationship between religion and politics has become in Britain was also evident during the recent election campaign when Muslim activists urged followers of Islam to vote against several well-known Labour candidates because of their approach to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Among those who were defeated through this campaign was Labour politician Jonathan Ashworth, who was expected to join the new government.
The Israel-Hamas war has also frayed interfaith dialogue amid tensions between Muslim and Jewish communities in Britain. One major organization, the InterFaith Network, closed its doors after the previous Conservative government withdrew funding over the appointment of Hassan Joudi, a former deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, as a trustee. The council represents 500 mosques and the previous government refused to engage with it, criticizing its attitude toward Israel. The InterFaith Network’s demise has left a substantial gap in nurturing relations.
While many people, including the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, have voiced grave concern about the recent riots, and Starmer has said that social media companies must do more to counter misinformation online, another politician has called out her own colleagues.
Sayeeda Warsi, who is a former chair of the Conservative Party, has been a regular critic of politicians she says are Islamophobic. In an interview on Thursday morning, Warsi, whose book, “Muslims Don’t Matter,” will be published this autumn, said of Southport: “We have seen that people have used this tragic incident to perpetuate hatred towards a community which has no links to these killings.
“Defamatory claims by politicians and the media have stigmatized Muslims. It should not surprise us that we are now seeing it spread to our streets,” she said of the riots.
On Thursday, Senior Judge Andrew Menary told Liverpool Crown Court that he was taking the unusual step of naming the teen charged with the killings after learning that the suspect, whom he named as Axel Rudakubana, is due to turn 18 in just days. The judge also said he was revealing the suspect’s identity to stop misinformation from fueling further disorder.
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