UK far-right Islamophobia raises alarm

There have been almost 500 anti-Islamic attacks in Britain since March, more than half of them committed by people linked to supporters of far-right groups.

New figures from the interfaith conflict resolution organization Faith Matters showed that there were 496 self-reported Islamophobic incidents across Britain in the last nine months.

More than six in 10 of these were against women while one in 10 was against a mosque.

It is believed the far-right surge could spark a new wave of political violence and lone-wolf acts of terror similar to Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

Fascism expert Professor Nigel Copsey told The Independent that the electoral decline of the British National Party (BNP) and the spreading of street-based protest organizations like the English Defence League (EDL) has created a potentially dangerous political vacuum on the far-right.

Copsey added that the far-right groups managed to spread their Islamophobic ideas online, which radicalised thousands of racists in the country to seek new and more violent ways to attack Islam.

“We have disturbing levels of hate crime in this country, which gets under-reported, and we need to know more about the level to which the far right is involved in this,” Copsey said.