'A worrying time to be Muslim'

2005-07-08 15:41

London - The bombs that ripped through London have posed a double threat for the city's large Muslim population: not only did two of them hit heavily Muslim areas but the community now fears a backlash.

"It is very, very bad. Both what has happened and what could happen to us," said Zahid Rahman, a Muslim further education college worker of Bangladeshi origin.

Gathered in a small huddle of friends, Rahman was speaking on the fringes of Brick Lane, a famous strip of Bengali restaurants just east of central London.

"It's a worrying time to be a Muslim," agreed Kaimul Haque, a travel agency employee standing with him.

The local population is predominantly Muslim, to the extent that the local lawmaker from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party was removed from office at May's general election by a left-wing candidate standing on a specific anti-Iraq war platform.

Hallmarks

After the bomb attacks, which Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said later "bear the hallmarks" of Osama bin Laden's global network al-Qaeda, British Muslim groups condemned the carnage.

"These evil deeds makes victims of us all," the Muslim Council of Britain said in a statement.

"The evil people who planned and carried out these series of explosions in London want to demoralise us as a nation and divide us as a people.

"All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers."

Rahman - who had been due to travel through Aldgate station at the time of the first blast on Thursday morning only to be called into work an hour early - agreed.

"Whoever has done it, it is not good at all. Islam is a religion of peace, and it does not agree with things like this. I hope the British government and the police work hard to catch the people who did this," he said.

Revenge attacks

Standing on the street beneath the minarets of the East London Mosque, mosque worker and community activist Abu Hanya said he feared the sort of revenge attacks on Muslims seen in the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"There is always the worry about problems like what happened after 9/11," he said, warning that attacks in Britain could aid the appeal of extremist far-right groups like the British National Party, or BNP.

"Relations are good and most people are sensible. But you have extremist groups like the BNP, and the concern is that people might feel slightly more receptive to their message," he said.

"This will make relations difficult, but we will deal with it as a community and see what happens."

- AFP