Hate Crime Probe After ‘Pig Remains’ Found, Thrown Into Finsbury Park Mosque

Hate Crime
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images
Virginia Hale

Police say they are investigating CCTV footage of a man throwing sausages over a mosque wall as a ‘hate crime’ and claim that “these offences” have a huge negative impact on both individuals and “communities”. The mosque’s chairman has demanded the culprit be jailed, as the incident was “really quite offensive”.

After finding a bag of sausages in the grounds of Finsbury Mosque, described as “pig remains” in one media outlet”, Islington’s police force released a CCTV image of a man throwing sausages over its wall, hoping members of the public can identify him as the perpetrator of what they say “is being treated as a religiously aggravated hate crime”.

The mosque’s chairman, Mohammed Kozbar, told the Islington Tribune: “This is really quite offensive to us. We are taking it very seriously.

“We want to put a very strong message out there that we will not put up with this. We want to see this guy prosecuted and behind bars. Ramadan is coming up soon and we will be very busy — we have to deal with this.”

Wikileaks files relating to America’s offshore terrorist detention centre, Guantanamo Bay, revealed that Finsbury Park Mosque was a reason Britain “became a haven for migrant extremists”.

The mosque, which the Telegraph says was seen as “an emblem of multi-cultural Britain” and “feted by the Prince of Wales”, radicalised countless Muslims, “taking impressionable immigrants and churning them out as killers-in-waiting.” At least 35 Guantanamo detainees “passed through” the mosque, which acted as a hub for recruitment to the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda.

The Al Qaeda recruitment network was led by an imam of the Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza, and Abu Qatada, an Islamist British intelligence have described as “Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to Europe.”

Detective Inspector Ralph Coates of Islington Community Safety Unit urged “anyone who recognises this man or has any information that will help the investigation to contact police.” He told the Evening Standard that: “We take hate crime extremely seriously as we know how destructive these offences can be, both to individuals and to communities.”

When the Evening Standard posted the link to the story on Twitter the majority of responses were disparaging of the fact a thrown sausage was being investigated as a “hate crime”, and some people drew comparisons to Rotherham, referring to Pakistani Muslims in the town targeting only white English girls for gang rape and forced prostitution.


There were also light-hearted responses to the Evening Standard’s tweet:

https://twitter.com/Nonjob6/status/736514484794195968

One user commented that the Met Police stated that they did not check whether the sausages were made of pork before disposing of them.

https://twitter.com/SimonT_Space/status/736532190113243136

If true, this raises a philosophical question: Would the throwing of chicken sausages, which are Halal and readily available from shops in areas with large Muslim populations, still be considered a “racially aggravated hate crime”?

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.