Britain First is a far-right organisation which targets Muslim communities aggressively. A teacher at a Bradford school is alleged to have shared a Facebook meme originating from this group. This would seem to be an image of three women wearing niqabs captioned ‘share if you find this offensive’. Now it is being reported that the police have been called in to investigate the incident. There is a further complication in that the teacher claims her account had been hacked. The report doesn’t make it clear whether the alleged hacking or the post itself is to be the main target of the police enquiry.
But police are also looking into a complaint by the staff member, Angie Dunn, a member of non-teaching support staff, that her Facebook account was maliciously hacked.
A screen-shot appears to show that she shared a post by far-right organisation Britain First which described the niqab, or Islamic face veil, as offensive.
Last night, school principal Jen McIntosh said: “We have dealt with this matter swiftly and informed the police right away.
“It will now be investigated in the proper way and will be dealt with accordingly.
However this report clarifies that the school has asked the police to investigate the post as a hate crime.
Visibly Muslim women are vulnerable to abuse, and Britain First is an extreme group. However many people find the niqab offensive – Taj Hargey and Yasmin Alibhai Brown for example – including many, of course, who are strongly opposed to far-right extremism.
