Muslim children left terrorised after violent attack by moped driver in London

A mother says she believes her family was targeted by a violent moped driver in east London for being Muslim.
2 min read
07 December, 2019
The moped driver allegedly followed the car before smashing the rear window [Getty]
A Muslim family was left terrorised after an angry moped driver followed their car as they collected their young children from an Islamic school in East London before violently smashing the rear windscreen with a weapon, according to anti-Islamophobia charity Tell MAMA.

The incident, which left extensive damage on the vehicle took place on Monday December 2 at around 4 in the afternoon.

The mother told Tell MAMA, the man made “indistinguishable” hand gestures towards her as they were driving, before making a U-turn in order to follow them.

She added that the moped driver gave her hostile looks as he approached their car, before suddenly brandishing a weapon and attacked their rear windscreen, just behind where two of her young were seated.

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The children screamed and cried but were not injured.

The family added they felt targeted due to their Islamic faith and ethnicity, as the mother and one of her children wear the hijab.

London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating the case. 

Tell MAMA, which monitors Islamophobic attacks in the UK, verified 43 reports of anti-Muslim and Islamophobically-motivated vandalism in 2018.

In its 2018 report, it identified two significant spikes of anti-Muslim hate crimes. The first occured after ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters sent were sent to Muslim homes, institutions, and places of work in March of that year.

A second and more significant uptick occurred in August after then-forign secretary and current Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote a newspaper column referring to veiled Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank-robbers’. In the week following his article, anti-Muslim incidents increased by 375 percent.

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