By Ayodele Ifasakin
Most entrances have been blocked, men in high-vis jackets have been taking turns to patrol and a handful of worshippers have been sleeping inside at night — all necessary precautions, say officials at the Al-Rahma Mosque, during the UK's worst riots in years.
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| Liverpool's Muslims shocked by UK riots. |
The increased vigilance comes as some Muslims and ethnic minorities in Liverpool say they feel unsafe amid widespread violent, racist protests targeting mosques, immigration centres and hotels that haven't spared the famously left-leaning city in the north of England.
Both mosque officials and other Muslims in Liverpool described feeling shocked, after two mosques further north in England were targeted by violent mobs and hundreds of anti-immigration protesters and counterprotesters clashed in central Liverpool. Shops were looted and some police were injured.
A second mosque in Liverpool, the Abdullah Quilliam, which describes itself as Britain's first, has temporarily closed due to the violence, which was fuelled by a false narrative spread online that the killer of three girls in nearby Southport last week was an Islamist migrant.
Protests turn violent in Sunderland as UK unrest spreads after Southport killings
Northumbria Police said its officers had been "subjected to serious violence" and they were continuing to deal with ongoing disorder.
“I was born here, I was raised here. So seeing this, it just doesn't feel like home,” said Abdulwase Sufian, a 20-year-old student who helps at the Al-Rahma, referring to himself as a “Scouser”, the colloquial term for someone from Liverpool.
“Seeing what's happened, it's got me scared, not just for myself, but for the future,” he said, the yellow dome and pink-and-yellow minarets of the Al-Rahma behind him as dozens of men finished afternoon prayers and left.
Sufian added that the separate female entrance for the mosque, which serves a wide range of Muslims from ethnic Yemeni to Pakistani, had been closed to discourage women from visiting in the evenings, out of safety concerns.
He himself hasn't stepped outside his immediate neighbourhood out of fears for his safety, Sufian said, a sentiment echoed by others in the community.
Saba Ahmed, a community worker and another Liverpudlian Muslim, said she had felt “terrified” in recent days, and her 15-year-old son was preferring to spend his summer holidays indoors on his PlayStation.
Still, many of Ahmed's white English friends had been supportive, she said, with some neighbours offering to do the grocery shopping for her so she could remain safe at home.
“That's our people in Liverpool, that's our fellow neighbours here,” she said.
Others have been less fortunate.
Farmanullah Nasiri, a taxi driver, described being assaulted after picking up two passengers from Aigburth Road, Liverpool, in the early hours of Tuesday.
One of them, a woman, punched him on the face and broke his dashcam as she left his silver Ford Focus, after starting an argument over the fare and after abusing him once she learnt he was an ethnic Afghan, Nasiri said.
A 17-year-old male already in custody has been charged with murder for the deaths of three young girls.
Nairaland
