40% rise in Islamophobic hate crimes in London linked to terror attacks

A sharp rise in Islamophobic crimes in London last year is directly linked to the London Bridge and Manchester Arena terror attacks, Muslim leaders have said.

1,678 anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported in London last year, almost a 40% increase compared with the 1,205 reported in 2016.

Scotland Yard has warned that these figures, released by the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, do not accurately reveal the full extent of Islamophobic crimes in the capital.

Muslim leaders have attributed the rise in Islamophobia to last year's terror attacks.

Three terrorists, declaring allegiance to Isis, killed eight people and injured 48 in an attack at London's Borough Market, less than two weeks after Salman Abedi detonated a bomb outside the Manchester Arena, killing 22, including ten victims under the age of 20.

Iman Atta, director of campaign group Tell Mama which aims to tackle Islamophobia, told the Evening Standard that the attacks were to blame for the rising number of anti-Muslim crimes.

"These attacks had ripple effects, triggering Islamophobic attacks and the large increment rise you have seen," he said, adding that the increase in crimes had "created a heightened sense of tension in Muslim communities."

Earlier this month, former Tory minister Baroness Warsi said that "Islamophobia is Britain's bigotry blindspot."

"There is widespread Islamophobia across Britain and anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-Muslim discrimination," she said, adding that the situation today is "far worse" than in 2011, when she claimed that prejudice against Muslim hadn't "passed the dinner-table test."

When anti-Muslim hate crimes spiked following the London Bridge terror attack, London mayor Sadiq Khan vowed that police would take a "zero tolerance approach."

"If you commit a hate crime, you face arrest," he said. "Just as the police will do everything possible to root out extremism from our city, so we will take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime."

"I'm calling on all Londoners to pull together, and send a clear message around the world that our city will never be divided by these hideous individuals who seek to harm us and destroy our way of life," Khan said in June.

Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer, head of community engagement at Scotland Yard, said that despite a rise in the number of people reporting hate crime, religious and racist attacks still remain "hugely underreported."

"No one should suffer in silence," he said. "London is such a diverse and tolerant city, but too many still feel marginalised, or worse intimidated to go about their daily lives due to their race, faith, sexual orientation, gender or disability."