MEND Statment: Targeted Violence in Edinburgh

Four people were attacked and hospitalised across West Edinburgh and Leith last night. Several are Muslims. Our prayers are with them – may Allah grant them healing and protection.

This did not come from nowhere. From footage circulated online, it shows the man arrested shouting “I’m protecting the country from these fucking Muslim bastards raping our young daughters”.

That is not one man’s outburst. It is the “Muslim rape gang” libel now pushed daily by politicians, pundits and online agitators who know what they are inciting.

This is what that rhetoric produces. Brand a whole community as predators, and you license violence against it as if it were justice.

Whipping up this type of vigilantism and emboldening far right terror is whole point of this poisonous narrative.

Police Scotland must treat this as what the evidence indicates: Islamophobic, far right terror. To investigate these attacks while ignoring a motive shouted aloud at the point of arrest would tell every Muslim in Scotland the law does not see the hatred aimed at them. We expect a hate crime investigation and prosecution, and we stand ready to support the families.

To our community: stay vigilant, look out for one another, report what you see. You are not alone.