{"id":249388,"date":"2025-11-07T13:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T13:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/249388\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T13:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T13:46:09","slug":"flags-and-christian-nationalist-slogans-feature-in-soaring-attacks-on-uk-mosques-islamophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/249388\/","title":{"rendered":"Flags and Christian nationalist slogans feature in soaring attacks on UK mosques | Islamophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attacks on mosques in the UK have soared in recent months, the government\u2019s Islamophobia<\/a> monitoring partner has said, with more than 40% of incidents featuring British or English flags and Christian nationalist symbols or slogans.<\/p>\n

In the past three months, a mosque was set alight<\/a> in East Sussex; in Merseyside the windows of a mosque were shot with an air gun while children were inside; in Greater Manchester, a paving slab was thrown at a window; and in Glasgow, a window was smashed with a metal pole.<\/p>\n

Data compiled by the British Muslim Trust<\/a> (BMT) shows that between July and October, 25 mosques across Britain were targeted in 27 attacks \u2013 more than a quarter of which were violent or destructive. Other incidents included graffiti and the affixing of crosses and flags. Three mosques were targeted repeatedly.<\/p>\n

The BMT said 40% of incidents included the use of British and English flags or symbols and slogans including \u201cChrist is king\u201d and \u201cJesus is king\u201d in a Christian nationalist<\/a> context, reflecting how the hard right had attempted to weaponise Christian symbolism and idioms.<\/p>\n

In January, before the period examined in the data, there were seven attacks in London followed by a period of relative calm. Incidents across the country escalated in the summer \u2013 from one in July to eight in August, rising to nine in September and a further nine in October, the BMT said.<\/p>\n

The BMT was appointed by the government in July<\/a> to track and respond to anti-Muslim hatred across the UK. Its report, A Summer of Division, has been seen by the Guardian.<\/p>\n

August marked a clear shift, with incidents evolving from \u201csingle acts of vandalism to coordinated symbolic intimidation and violent attacks \u2013 and repeat targeting, signalling a sustained increase in both scale and intent\u201d, the report says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile some framed this summer\u2019s Raise the Colours campaign<\/a> and the Unite the Kingdom rally as a call for national unity, this briefing confirms that, in practice, the two coincided with a wave of incidents in which the flag itself became an instrument of ethnonationalist intimidation to drive division.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AerialAerial footage shows scale of ‘unite the kingdom’ rally \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The BMT said while the data could not establish direct causation, \u201cthe temporal correlation between these public mobilisations and the spike in mosque-targeted incidents is striking. It suggests that mainstream visibility of nationalist campaigns helped normalise or embolden anti-Muslim behaviour in local contexts\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BMT is calling for UK statutory authorities to develop \u201crapid response\u201d and security protocols for mosques<\/a>, and to streamline the application process for security funding, as well as community cohesion education to emphasise mosques\u2019 roles as \u201ccivic anchors\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The report says victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes consistently reported limited follow-up from police and online platforms, fuelling a perception that anti-Muslim hatred is tolerated or minimised.<\/p>\n

The BMT chief executive, Akeela Ahmed, said: \u201cThe evidence from this summer is incontrovertible: anti-Muslim hate in Britain is rising in both visibility and severity \u2013 and mosques are being targeted on a staggering scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report must be a wake-up call \u2013 something has changed for the worse and, as a country, we need to put it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department for Communities and the Home Office have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attacks on mosques in the UK have soared in recent months, the government\u2019s Islamophobia monitoring partner has said,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-249388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}