Ever since the rumours spread online that the 17-year-old suspect behind the mass stabbing that killed three girls in northwest England was a Muslim, anti-immigrant demonstrators have been targeting Islamic places of worship, making the Muslim community in the UK “deeply anxious”. 

On Tuesday night, the demonstrators threw bricks at a mosque in Southport, the city where teenage suspect, Axel Rudakubana, is accused of carrying out the mass stabbing. The police have blamed the far-right English Defence League for the riots.

Thereafter, on Friday evening, protesters shouted Islamophobic chants, as they threw beer cans and bricks at police outside a mosque located in the northeastern English city of Sunderland, news agency AFP reported.

A BBC report stated that the demonstrators even overturned vehicles and set a car on fire, which started a fire next to a police office.

“The Muslim community is deeply anxious right now, really distressed about what they’ve seen,” Zara Mohammed, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), told AFP.

As per AFP, the demonstrations were underway in several cities in UK, including Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, London, Belfast, and Portsmouth. 

Police were also on high alert after 10 people were arrested, following the riot in Sunderland, wherein four officers were rushed for treatement after being injured on Friday.

These riots have put Britain’s Muslim community on edge and have posed a massive challenge before Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s month-old premiership.

Starmer has accused “gangs of thugs” of “hijacking” the nation’s grief to “sow hatred”. He also pledged that anyone who is found engaing in violent acts will “face the full force of the law”, AFP reported.

In view of the further threat of violence this weekend, the MCB held a meeting with mosque leaders on Thursday night, to discuss security arrangements.

‘We Are Going To Attack You’

One of the leaders present at the meeting said that he received “threatening calls saying ‘We are going to attack you”.

Other leaders, meanwhile wondered if it was safe to ahead with planned activities, such as children’s classes and women’s meetings, Mohammed said.

“Some of Britain’s approximately 2,000 mosques could afford to pay security guards,” she added.

The director of the company Mosque Security that provides protection services to Islamic places of worship in the country, stated that he had received inquiries from over 100 mosques “seeking help and advice”.

“Many mosques have expressed their vulnerability and fear to us,” Shaukat Warraich, the company’s director, told AFP.

After online rumours of attack on the Abdullah Quilliam mosque, situated near Southport in Liverpool, the mosque managed to garner support of many local residents, who weren’t all Muslim. They turned up to protect the building from being targeted.

“I’m here in solidarity for another community who are my neighbours really. These are all people who live in my streets. These are people who live in my city,” Daniel, who did not give his surname, told AFP.

Several worshippers, who had gone to the London Central Mosque, told AFP after the Friday prayers, that they were worried about the violence against Islam, that has been escalating in the last few days.

“Before it was hidden but now people dare to say what they really think and it is very frightening,” said Hishem Betts, a 24-year-old student.

Voicing alarm that social media rumours mght have led people to target mosques, Imran Mahmood, a 52-year-old computer programmer, said: “Instead of looking at the facts, they started blaming Muslims. It is brainwashing.” 

‘Shocking To See How Quickly Fake News Campaign Has Caused This’: MCB

Reffering to the Islamophobic protests, MCB’s Mohammed said, “It is just really shocking to see how coordinated and planned this is, how quickly a disinformation fake news campaign has resulted in this.”

She further pointed out at a “strain of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment” in the UK, adding that it “hasn’t come out of a vacuum”.