Three charged for racist posts on anti-mosque Facebook page
Categories: Latest News
Monday November 17 2014
The Bolton News and Asian Image draw attention to the arrests of three men who have been charged with racially aggravated malicious communications for posting offensive messages on the ‘Stop The Astley Bridge Mosque’ Facebook page.
Leon Richmond, 18, and Darren Hubble, 23, are expected to appear at Bolton Magistrates’ Court on 3 December while Andrew Edge, 44, who is already in custody, is due to appear at Wigan Magistrates’ Court via videolink on 26 November.
The ‘Stop The Astley Bridge Mosque’ social media page was set up in protest at plans to build Taiyabah Mosque whose planning application was approved at a meeting of Bolton Council in July this year.
Moreover, in September, the social media page created in opposition to the mosque was associated with a further hate incident after a YouTube video, “Ice Mosque Challenge,” was uploaded onto its page. The footage showed a semi-naked man wearing a homemade ‘burqa’ and carrying out the ice bucket challenge outside Zakariyya mosque in Bolton.
The local paper further notes that two ‘large-scale’ protests have also taken place at the site of the mosque. One of the protests, which attracted approximately 50 protestors, was held by the British National Party in the summer.