BNP deliberately spread Islamophobia - in Essex

Epping Forest Monday 3rd August 2009

"THE British National Party has been accused of whipping up racial tensions in the district after it issued an inflammatory leaflet about a local Muslim community group.

In the latest edition of the BNP's Epping Forest Patriot, delivered to many households in Loughton, the group attack the use on Friday afternoons of the Murray Hall, in Borders Lane, for Islamic prayer sessions.

Under a picture of a union flag being eaten away by the Islamic moon and crescent the leaflet says: "In parts of neighbouring Redbridge and east London the Islamification process is almost complete. We'll do all in our power to prevent Islam creeping into our town."

.....Epping Forest BNP group leader Pat Richardson said she had seen the leaflet and "didn't disagree with it."
Loughton Inspector Tom Simons said the leaflet was "unhelpful" but did not break the law."

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 August 2009

"Racist attackers abducted a Muslim community leader at knifepoint, bundled him into a car and threatened his life unless he stopped running prayer sessions in a community hall that has been the target of a British National party campaign.

Police have confirmed they are treating the incident as a hate crime and are investigating links with an earlier firebomb attack on the same man's home.

Ramjanally said he was abducted from his home in daylight by two white men who threatened him with a knife, bundled him into a car then drove him into woodland. They demanded he stop organising the Friday prayer sessions at Murray hall community centre. He said the words from his abductors matched the BNP propaganda opposing the Muslim prayers. The same demand was contained in hate mail he received last month threatening his wife and child, he said.

On 2 July, Ramjanally received an anonymous threatening letter telling him to stop using the hall for prayers and stating the author knew which school his child went to and which car he drove. The next day his flat was firebombed. The BNP has four councillors in the area and its leafleting campaign in late July has been attacked as inflammatory and divisive.

Mohammad Fahim runs the nearest mosque to Loughton which was firebombed in 2000. He said racists have used the fears of new mosques in the area to stoke racial and anti-Muslim tensions.

The BNP describes Fahim's mosque, in south Woodford, four miles from Loughton, as "notorious" and claims it has incited violence.

In fact, Fahim works as a chaplain for the Metropolitan police.

Loughton, which borders the eastern fringe of London, is affluent in parts, with a number of houses on its millionaire's row, called Alderton Hill, owned by British Hindu families. It is also a road, said Fahim, where women wearing headscarves are racially abused by passing white motorists. He advised one Muslim woman to remove her headscarf to avoid being a victim of hate crime.
According to the 2001 census, just over 1%of the area's residents describe themselves as Muslim

Abdurahman Jafar, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which advises the police, said: "The campaign of terror has followed a campaign organised by the BNP whereby they delivered hate literature to locals citing the small Friday prayer sessions as evidence of how 'the Islamification process is almost complete'." Recent months have seen a sharp rise in religiously motivated attacks against the Muslim community including attacks on outwardly Muslim appearing individuals, mosques and pogroms directed against the Muslim Community."