LONDON: UK law enforcement authorities are investigating the April 3 ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters as potential terrorist threats, according to statement released by the National Police Chiefs’ Association on March 29.
The fliers distributed in London, the Midlands, and Yorkshire called for violence against Muslims on April 3.
Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), an organisation devoted to tracking violence against Muslims in the UK, says that they are cooperating closely with police officials in order to trace the origin of the mails/fliers.
Reports about the fliers first surfaced on social media on March 9.
“Punish a Muslim Day” threat letters being mailed in #EastLondon, with “rewards” from verbal abuse to murder and destruction of #Mecca. Disgusting & “Abu Lahabish” at best if true. | #London #Britain #UK #Makkah #Islamophobia #Kuffarism #مكة_المكرمة #لندن #SriLanka #Myanmar #EDL pic.twitter.com/kb2N2jfV8b
— Omar Alikaj (@Andalusio) March 9, 2018
“…they are allowing the white nations of Europe and North America to become over run by those who would like nothing more than to do us harm and turn our democracies into Sharia led police states,” read the letter.
UK Police soon responded to the threats of violence with Assistant Chief Constable Angela Williams of the West Yorkshire Police releasing a statement over the issue.
“What I want to do is to reassure the communities of West Yorkshire that these communications are being taken extremely seriously.”
“We are working with the communities we serve to reassure residents that, as always, everything possible is being done to ensure their safety and to catch the person or persons responsible for this,” the statement added.
“We have every confidence in our police service, that they will do whatever it takes to protect us. The police are looking at the full scale of the distribution as this clearly constitutes an offence,” said Leicestershire Federation of Muslim Organisations (FMO) Spokesman Suleman Nagdi.