Elham Asaad Buaras
A man has been arrested after a viral video showed a group of Muslim women being subjected to Islamophobic and racist abuse while walking down the street in East London.
The disturbing video, filmed in Romford on April 21, captures a man trailing a group of women carrying the Palestinian flag and wearing kuffiyehs as he unleashes Islamophobic slurs at them. In the footage, the man can be heard labelling the women as “Muslim *” and insisting they “F off out of England.”
The man then told the women: “Go away, you f***ing idiots.” One of the women could be heard pleading with the man to stop and insisting he was “being racist,” but the man continued to verbally harass them, shouting, “You are a cancer on our country.”
The man referred to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas as he harassed the women. He then told the women, “**** off back to Muslim [inaudible]. We are a Christian country.” It is not known who filmed the racist tirade, but the man appeared unaware that he was being recorded and, at one point, brazenly walked right up to the women and stuck his finger in their faces.
“We don’t like you,” the man continued. “We are a Christian country, and we don’t f****ing like you.” Multiple accounts had shared the video on various social media platforms. On X, formerly Twitter, the clip has been seen more than 600,000 times.
The footage was originally posted online by Redbridge Community Action Group, a London-based charity, which called for people to help them identify the “sick racist.”
They said, “Watch as this coward physically threatens and subjects a group of women with his vile, horrific, racist, and Islamophobic slurs. We stand with them in solidarity!”
The organisation later issued a longer statement, which said, “This is yet another horrific incident of Islamophobia that many Muslims have to face. What these brave women had to endure is simply unthinkable, and thankfully they were able to ward off his violent intimidation by defending each other. One can only wonder what may have happened if they were alone. The fact that no one intervened just shows how frightened people are to confront Islamophobic racism.”
In a statement to The Muslim News, a spokesperson for Havering Police confirmed a 55-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences following “distressing footage.”
“This follows distressing footage shared earlier of a group of women being racially abused in South Street, Romford. The man has been taken into custody,” Spokesperson said.
According to a February 2024 report by TellMAMA, an organisation that measures anti-Muslim attacks, there had been a 335 percent increase in cases comparing the last four months of 2023 to those in 2022. It added that more than 2,000 anti-Muslim cases had been recorded in the UK since the deadly attacks by Hamas terrorists in Israel on October 7.
(Photo credit: video capture Redbridge Community Action Group)
