The racist backlash goes on…


The racist backlash goes on…

Written by: IRR News Team


In the seven weeks after the London bombings the racist backlash against has continued.

  • 21 August 2005: Racists graffiti is painted all over the Daud Tandoori in Llandudno, just days after windows at the restaurant were smashed and paint thrown at the building. (Wales Daily Post 24.8.05)
  • 21 August 2005: Newcastle Sunday Sun reports that racist attacks in the Cleveland area have risen by 36 per cent and in Durham police report a 16 per cent increase. (Newcastle Sunday Sun 21.8.05)
  • 19 August 2005: Somali community in Strathclyde meets with police to discuss how the rising number of racist attacks on the community can be stopped. Somali Families in Action appeals to the victims of racist attacks to report them to the police. (PA News 19.8.05)
  • 19 August 2005: Sheffield Star reports that Nzidi Samba, a Sheffield Hallam university student, had racist abuse hurled at him in two separate incidents while on a night out in Barnsley with friends. (Sheffield Star 19.8.05)
  • 19 August 2005: Glasgow Evening Times reports that three racist attacks every week are committed by young people. It also reports that the council has issued advice to all schools on how to handle racial tensions following the London bombings. (Glasgow Evening Times 19.8.05)
  • 18 August 2005: A refugee family from Turkmenistan, Mahmud and Tarana Tahrov and their 10-year-old son Araz, are attacked by dogs in a Leeds Park. The family allege that the White man ordered his dogs to attack; the entire family suffer dog bites on their bodies. (Yorkshire Post 22.8.05)
  • 17 August 2005: BBC News reports that the Filipino partner and child of Indian nurse Sichit Simon have left the UK after being subjected to numerous racist attacks at their Liverpool home. The family has had every window in their car broken and a gang has tried to force their way into their home. (BBC News 17.8.05)
  • 17 August 2005: Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports that an Asian family living in the Thornhill area of Huddersfield had pigs’ heads left in the garden of their home where a bedroom window was also smashed. (Huddersfield Daily Examiner 17.8.05)
  • 16 August 2005: A 25-year-old Sikh man suffers stab wounds to his legs and arms after being abducted from a Peterborough street by four men wearing balaclavas who tied him up and attacked him. Police are treating the attack as racially motivated. (The Panthic Weekly 21.8.05)
  • 16 August 2005: An Iranian take-away owner is racially abused and hit in the face with a toy hammer; his young White assailant later returns with a real hammer and smashes the windows and counter in the Durham takeaway. (BBC News 17.8.05)
  • 16 August 2005: A ‘firework bomb’ is thrown in the kitchen at the rear of an Exeter takeaway owned by a Turkish family. Damage is caused to roof panels and windows. (BBC News 18.8.05 and Western Morning News 18.8.05)
  • 16 August 2005: Bacon is left around the Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Seven Kings, east London. (The Panthic Weekly 21.8.05)
  • 16 August 2005: Victim Support Southwark reports an increase in racially motivated crimes. The service is currently dealing with 43 cases compared to 23 at the same time last year. (South London Press 16.8.05)
  • 15 August 2005: A 15-year-old Black schoolgirl is attacked by two White men as she waits for a bus in Peterborough. The men approach the girl and racially abuse her and then begin punching her until she drops her school bag; they steal her bag, phone and £2 bus fare. (Peterborough Evening Telegraph 19.8.05)
  • 15 August 2005: Two men attack a Portuguese restaurant in Chard, Somerset. The windows were all smashed with baseball bats, for the second time in two weeks. (Western Daily Press 17.8.05)
  • 14 August 2005: A 33-year-old Sikh man has his turban pulled from his head by two White men who also racially abuse the man who is walking down a street with his father and brother in Rushden, Northants. (BBC News 16.8.05)
  • 14 August 2005: Staff at a pizza shop in Hartlepool are racially abused and accused of being suicide bombers by a shaven-headed White man; the man returns with four others in a car and they throw a boulder through the window. (Hartlepool Mail 16.6.05)
  • 14 August 2005: A car-wrecking yard owned by two Asian business partners is set alight and burgled on the same day. The business has been targeted at least 28 times over the last ten years. Recent attacks have also included racist graffiti. (Bedford Times & Citizen 14.8.05)
  • 14 August 2005: Buck Free Press reports that racially aggravated crime in the Thames Valley area has risen by 40 per cent since the London bombings. (Buck Free Press 14.8.05)
  • 12 August 2005: A man enters Regents Park Mosque during Friday prayers and threatens to blow himself up. The man claims to be Jewish; security guards at the mosque detained the man who was then arrested by police. (Asharq Alawsat 14.8.05)
  • 12 August 2005: Streatham Post reports that worshippers at the Shree Ghanapathy Temple in Wimbledon have been targeted in the street outside the temple by young racists who shout racist abuse; one man has also had his car damaged. (Streatham Post 11.8.05)
  • 12 August 2005: Cumbria Online reports that Carlisle’s 300-strong Bangladeshi Community is being advised to stay away from the Botchergate area after a rise in racist attacks. (Cumbria Online 12.8.05)
  • 9 August 2005: The windows of a house in Bletchley, near Milton Keynes, are smashed, two days after a Somali family move in. The following night, adults and children stand outside the house and shout racist abuse and throw missiles, including fence posts, rocks and a wrench. The family is moved from the area the following week. (Milton Keynes Citizen 18.8.05)
  • 3 August 2005: South Wales Argus reports that an Asian doctor is followed around Abergavenny town centre by four men in a car who racially abuse him and throw eggs at him. (South Wales Argus 3.8.05)
  • 2 August 2005: 30-year-old Fawad Qayyum suffers a broken jaw after being punched and kicked to the ground by two White men who also make anti-Muslim comments near the Finchley Road, London. His speech may be permanently damaged as a result of the attack. (Hampstead & Highgate Express 12.8.05)
  • 29 July 2005: Mohammed Suleman, his wife Clare and their seven-month-old daughter are targeted by a gang of racists in Siddal, Halifax, who follow them home and attack them again. The family are racially abused, punched, kicked and attacked with crowbars; the police have moved the family for their safety. (Halifax Courier 11.8.05)
  • 25 July 2005: Stephen Clement, 44, a disabled man scares members of the public in St Ives when he praises the London bombers and al Qaeda and claims that the Nazis were ‘right’. He later admits racially aggravated and disorderly behaviour and is conditionally discharged for two years and ordered to pay compensation and costs. (Cambridge Evening News 13.8.05)
  • 22 July 2005: The Abergavenny home of 73-year-old Syed Abid, a Pakistani man, is daubed in racist graffiti. (South Wales Argus 3.8.05)
  • 20 July 2005: A 29-year-old man requires stitches to his ear and face after being attacked at South Croydon bus garage. The man was waiting for a bus when he was approached by three White men who cornered him and then took it in turns to punch him. (IC Croydon 5.8.05)

Related links

IRR News story 11.8.05 The racist backlash to the London bombings continues

IRR News story 4.8.05 Anti-Muslim backlash goes on

IRR News story 28.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash intensifies

IRR News story 21.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash continues

IRR News story 14.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash begins

Islamic Human Right Commission

Islamic Human Rights Commission on-line racist incident reporting form

Positive Action in Housing on-line racist incident reporting form

Positive Action in Housing

Muslim Public Affairs Committee


See also: IRR News story 14.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash begins, IRR News story 21.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash continues, IRR News story 28.7.05 The anti-Muslim backlash intensifies, IRR News story 4.8.05 Anti-Muslim backlash goes on and IRR News story 11.8.05 The racist backlash to the London bombings continues. The Institute of Race Relations is monitoring racist incidents. Please contact us if you have any information on attacks committed in the wake of the London bombings. Alternatively you can report racist incidents to the police or the Islamic Human Rights Commission or Positive Action in Housing. Both organisations have created an on-line reporting forms that can be filled in anonymously, see the Islamic Human Rights Commission on-line racist incident reporting form and Positive Action in Housing on-line racist incident reporting form.


The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

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