“It was a surprise to read that a mosque has been burned down today. How common is that, I wonder?”, someone asked on a recent thread after I reported on the arson attack in Missouri. This post is a partial response to that question.
Acts of vandalism of one sort or another seem very common indeed. For example this June, in Manchester, there were four separate attacks on Altrincham Mosque. And if you look at the map on the Tell Mama website you can see details of all recent reported attacks on UK mosques (click “damage and desecration of properties”) as well as other hate crimes.
Returning to arson – there was a less dramatic arson attack on the same Missouri mosque just a few weeks ago, on 4 July. In April a mosque in Luton was attacked. And a mosque in Wichita was severely damaged by fire back in November 2011. In May 2011 a mosque in Houston was subjected to an arson attack. It is asserted here that there were ten arson attacks on mosques in Berlin in 2010.
There have been quite a few arson attacks on mosques in Israel. This is just one example. In April this year a mosque in Corsica was torched. Here’s a report of a particularly frightening attack on a mosque back in January in Australia. And here’s footage of attacks on a New York mosque – there were 80 worshippers in the mosque at the time, although no one was injured. I’m deliberately linking to an offensive site to give some information about attacks on mosques in France.
Returning to the UK, arson attacks which stick in my mind include those on Hanley and Cradley Heath. Here’s a report about an arson attack on a Sussex mosque at the beginning of this year. Finally – just today the police in Surrey have been appealing for information about an attack (though not involving arson) on a mosque in Horley.
So – the executive summary – although it is not perhaps so common for mosques to be burned to the ground – it’s not for want of trying.
