The Muslim Council of Britain has been made aware of an incident overnight in which a man reportedly armed with a machete attacked four people across West Edinburgh and Leith, several of them understood to be Muslim.
Video circulating from the scene shows the man arrested saying that he was “protecting this country from f*****g Muslim b*****ds”.
We are grateful to Police Scotland, who intervened swiftly and arrested the suspect. This incident comes not long after racist pogroms on the streets of Belfast that targeted minority families, and is a direct consequence of political rhetoric that demonises entire communities.
The Muslim community is rightly nervous and worried. To our community: stay vigilant, look out for one another, and please report any Islamophobic hate crimes to the police.
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