The spiritual leader of the Church of England, Rowan Williams, warned Monday against making Muslims "scapegoats" for the London bombings after a number of attacks on mosques. Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, told the General Synod in the northern English city of York that Muslims must not be made "scapegoats" for the terror attacks.
The archbishop said that a day of visits to Islamic institutions Monday was an opportunity to stress the routine nature of friendly relations between Muslims and Christians across Britain.
These were sentiments "we shall all need to be heard saying quite a lot in days ahead, when the temptation to scapegoat our Muslim neighbours may be strong for some in our communities," he added.
"Routine friendship and co-operation remains the best hope we have in any conflict of finding ways forward," said the archbishop who had joined other Christian leaders as well as Muslim and Jewish clerics in a show of unity on Sunday.
Police said four mosques in Leeds, Belvedere, Telford and Birkenhead had been damaged by fires lit deliberately since London was hit Thursday by terror bombings that killed at least 49 people and left some 700 injured. Authorities suspect the attack was carried out by Islamic militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Police also said there was evidence of verbal abuse against Muslims in the street and criminal damage to homes, businesses and cars.
The Muslim News monthly said three other mosques had been hit in recent days, two in Bristol, south-west England, and one in east London, where the Mazhirul Uloom mosque saw 19 windows broken Saturday.
The two Bristol mosques were hit with stones, with one having several windows smashed, the paper said.
The Bristol Muslim Culture Society's community development officer Farooq Siddique called for the city's Muslims to stay calm and hoped no further attacks were to come.
"We are concerned for the community and we are working closely with the police," he told The Muslim News.
He added that community relations in the port city were "good" and the attacks came as a surprise.
Chris Fox, president of the Association of Police Chief Officers, vowed police would undertake a "very robust enforcement response" to any attacks on minority groups.
Fox said several incidents against minority groups would have gone unreported but was positive about the response to attacks so far.
"There is no doubt that there will have been other low-level incidents that have not yet been reported to police.
"We encourage everyone to report this type of obnoxious and dangerous behaviour, from whatever quarter.
"We are encouraged by the overall calm community response to these terrible events. I am cautiously optimistic that common sense and the best instincts of everyone are prevailing."
The perpetrators of the London bombings were criminals who committed mass murder, he said, warning that the bombers would relish reprisal attacks.
"It is therefore absolutely crucial that there should be no reaction against any section of the community. That would simply play into the hands of the murderers."
Comments
Comments are closed.