“Are you ok? Was the first question Natasha Devon on LBC asked when she interviewed me about the rising Islamophobia.

We really shouldn’t be talking about Islamophobia. We should be talking about the tragedy of three little girls being brutally killed, the continuing violence against women and girls and the factors that led to these terrible murders.

But instead, the news is focussed on extremist thugs who have spread disinformation and caused chaos on our streets. Quite rightly Starmer and Davey have called it out.

And now our leaders have also said that these were not legitimate protests but riots targeting Muslims, asylum seekers and communities of colour.

I’m glad that there has been progress here. Words matter. And it shouldn’t take Muslim groups like the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) or Muslim commentators or Muslim politicians having to call out the racism we have seen recently.

Muslims need allies. They need the Government, MPs from all parties and community leaders to call it out too. When a riot starts because disinformation is spread about a killer being Muslim and then those rioters shout “f*** Allah” and attack a mosque – that’s called Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred or just simply racism!

People who have “legitimate concerns” (knife crime, immigration, law and order) do not loot, burn cars or attack police officers. You can demonstrate, protest and speak on pretty much any platform. We are a country that still allows these freedoms and we will continue to fight for those freedoms but not if it is to incite hatred or harm to others. The line has been crossed by these groups who have thrown bricks at police officers and attacked mosques.

Recently I called on the Mayor and Met to do more to protect our mosques. I also had asked for this to happen last year and if the Mayor would support mosques to receive funding for place of worship protection.

According to Tell Mama, a fifth of mosques hadn’t applied to the government scheme and many found the process too complicated. I hope the new plans coming in from the government will ensure that smaller mosques can benefit for the new scheme and support is provided. I was pleased to hear that the Met had “increased their engagement to reassure the public”. Later when I reached out to a few local mosques leaders I found out that this engagement hadn’t occurred to some of the smaller mosques. I hope it does. Mosque leaders need to feel confident that this engagement is meaningful and will have an impact. We will be asking the Met more about this in our scrutiny at the London Assembly.

But I also think that we can do something a lot simpler than all of this. Do what my Jewish friend did the other day, message your Muslim friends and colleagues (or any black or brown person who might be perceived to be Muslim) and ask them if they are ok. They most probably are. But it’s been tough seeing the constant images, videos and news items of people telling us we don’t belong here.

Make sure you’ve asked questions to ensure that your places of work are a safe environment for your black and brown employees. Visit your local mosques or asylum centres and make an effort to truly listen to the imams and community leaders. And do this soon. Make statements to support Muslims on your social media account and show solidarity in every way you can. It can feel lonely when you only hear from Muslims saying – “this is Islamophobia”. It gave me so much hope to see the response in Southport and other places where wonderful communities were cleaning streets and Imams in Liverpool feeding everyone outside their mosque.

But we need the hope to be louder than fear. We can eradicate Islamophobia with effort and political will – it can be done.

We can get through this together – let’s all be allies.

NOTES

 If you have faced any anti-Muslim or

Islamophobic incidents, please report them to the police via;

– 999 if emergency.

– 101 if non emergency.

Alternatively, you can report it to https://www.theiru.org.uk or https://tellmamauk.org

Some examples of such incidents are;

– Harassment or abuse online

– Targeted on public transport

– Threatened or physically attacked

– Damaged caused to your property

– Discrimination at work, school, or university

– Received hate mail by post or email

As a community, it is our responsibility and duty to report any incident relating to the above, no matter how small. The more visibility there is for the police force, the more they can support our community. Therefore, please take the time to submit any incidents.

* Hina Bokhari is the Liberal Democrat Leader on the London Assembly and the most prominent elected Muslim within the Liberal Democrats.