Posted on 11/04/2005 2:10:33 PM PST by Eurotwit
BIRMINGHAM, England - British police said Friday they were investigating the desecration of Muslim graves in a cemetery close to the scene of recent violent clashes between black and South Asian youths.
Some 30 headstones were knocked over late Thursday and early Friday in the Muslim section of Handsworth Cemetery in Birmingham, a city in central England, area police said. They said they were treating the incident as "racially aggravated criminal damage."
The officers said they were conducting forensic tests on literature that city workers found at the cemetery but gave no further details. Sky News TV reported that notes had been left on the graves reading "Death to all Muslim rapists," referring to a 14-year-old girl's alleged sexual assault by South Asian men.
Last month, fighting broke out between members of the Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities in Birmingham's Lozells district, following a meeting over the alleged sexual assault. A 23-year-old man was stabbed during the Oct. 22 fighting and police have charged three people with his death.
The meeting was partly meant to calm tensions and encourage the alleged victim to come forward. Police have yet to trace the girl or establish whether the assault occurred.
Lawmaker Khalid Mahmood, who represents the Lozells district in the House of Commons, said the cemetery desecration appeared to have been timed to coincide with the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
"This was a heinous attempt to inflame tensions in the community, and I don't think the community will rise to that bait," Mahmood said.
"Muslim" is not a race.
If Gummint won't resolve the problem, the people will handle it their own way. The people's way is often enough direct and brutal, hardly the kind of thing a civilized country should be experiencing so late in history.
..and the riots were called......
Doogle
The British aren't like the French...
Sure. Grave desecration will never give rise to the explosive violence that stems from sprinkling water on a Koran, or drawing a picture of mad Mo'.
Somebody needs to start selling some guns to both sides of that fight. Britain will be much better off when most members of both groups kill each other or are in jail.
I got over my sadness even before I finished typing this sentence.
Personally, I like to sprinkle Moozlims with bacon bits and watch 'em do the ants-in-my-pants-dance...
It's a race if you say it is these days.
If the protesters throw rocks the Brit's should throw their outlawed piggy banks at them.
Yup. It's menace.
You are right. There are 3 identified biological races : negroid, mongoloid, caucasian. I am sick of everyone misusing the term racist. Ethnicity or religion does not qualify under race.
bummer.
Don't ya hate it when that happens.
Why not call them what they are -- angry violent muslim males, instead of using that all encompassing label "south asian?
It's no worse than sawing the heads off of innocent civilians, and it isn't anywhere near as bad as sawing the heads off of teenage girls. F#$k Islam. F#$k Muslims.
"This was a heinous attempt to inflame tensions in the community, and I don't think the community will rise to that bait," Mahmood said.
Oh yes , I'm sure the English community will riot and
go beserk.
Knocking over Jewish or Christian gravestones would be "poor youths frustrated with lack of jobs, education" but knocking over Muslim graves is "racially aggravated criminal damage."
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