Manchester sees spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes

Police in Manchester said the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the area rose 500% to 224 in May after a terrorist attack in the same month.

The chilling statistic is a sliver of what some say may be a growing trend of antagonism toward Muslims in the country. 

In London, extra police have been deployed to reassure the Muslim community following the attack on worshipers in Finsbury Park on Monday. that incident has also raised fears of far-right and Islamophobic extremism in the UK.

Many in the UK want Prime Minister Theresa May to do more to tackle hate crimes.

“Something has to be done by the government to tackle this disease called Islamophobia and she promised to do something about it,” said Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of Finsbury Park Mosque.

Dr. Usama Hussan at Quilliam International, a counter-extremism think-tank, said the big fear is Britain could descend into a cycle of sectarian killings and murders.

“Sometimes you just need to introduce people, to nice people, ordinary people, from the other side whom they regard as enemies to see they’re actually just human beings like the rest of us, to humanize the enemy who is demonized and de-humanized by the violent extremists," Hussan said.