Britain has an “acceptance” of anti-Muslim rhetoric that would not be tolerated for other minorities, it has been claimed.
Matthew Feldman, who studies the contemporary far-right in Europe, also outlined how attacks on mosques or Muslim centres take place “less than once every fortnight” in the UK.
The academic spoke to Sky News in the wake of the suspected terror attack on Muslim worshippers in north London on Monday.
It followed terrorist attacks in Manchester and London Bridge, which Dr Feldman said had led to a spike in anti-Muslim hate crime.
He described a five-fold rise in reporting of Islamophobic crimes following the Manchester attack and a two-fold rise after the London Bridge atrocity.
Dr Feldman suggested there were “increased rates of reporting when the Muslim community feels more threatened and more at risk after events like these”.
But he also voiced fears such spikes never completely fell back to their previous level.
He told Sky News: “One of the concerns is that we don’t go back to normal, we have an elevated level of hate crimes and hate reported incidents after these kinds of attacks.”
Source: http://news.sky.com/story/is-islamophobia-on-the-rise-in-the-uk-10921247
