A mosque in Manchester has been badly damaged by a fire that worshippers said was the third there in three years.
Police have begun an investigation into the “suspicious” blaze at the Nasfat Islamic Centre, in the northeast of the city, at 11.40pm on Sunday.
Monsurat Adebanjo-Aremu, the mosque secretary, said that in the past year somebody had thrown two pigs’ heads inside the building and urinated outside. Shamusideen Oladimeji, a spokesman for the mosque, added that it was the third fire at the building since 2014 and that the reason for them was “just hatred”.
The fire, which police believe was started when someone forced open a window and placed an “unknown accelerant inside”, is being treated as a hate crime by Greater Manchester police. In the month after the Manchester Arena bomb in May there were 224 reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the city compared with 37 in the same period last year.
[TOP RATED COMMENT] So sad to hear this but it is about time this community stops demanding their 'rights' day in day out of others in this country. About time they start accepting that the rest of 64 miliion here have nothing whatsoever to do with their religion.
[ANOTHER] If Muslims just integrated, quietly got on with life and earning a living - like Sikhs and Hindus - no one would mind.
There's a reason for the widespread dislike and fear about terrorism. Deliberately creating a parallel legal, and cultural system that rejects being British - yet demands all the advantages of the welfare, education and healthcare budgets doesn't encourage others to embrace it.
Given what a tiny % of the population Muslims represent, they're in the news for negative reasons an awful lot. There are reasons for this.
[ANOTHER] At least they didn't have a suicide bomber walk in and blow the place up when full of people...could have been worse. [The Times (£)] Read more
