The white supremacist behind the UK’s “Punish a Muslim Day” campaign was sentenced to 12 years and six months on Tuesday – to be served in hospital until he is well enough to be transferred to prison.
IT programmer David Parnham, 36, who called himself “Muslim Slayer”, sparked widespread fear through his “Punish A Muslim Day” letters in 2018, which encouraged violence in the community – as well as targeting prominent figures with hate mail such as the Queen and former prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron as part of a two-year terror campaign.
Parnham sent scores of malevolent letters targeting mosques, politicians and the Queen over a decade, a court in London heard on Monday, where he admitted offences including soliciting murder, encouraging crime, and sending letters with intent to cause distress.
London-based monitoring group Tell Mama said Punish a Muslim Day letters sent across the UK in March 2018 caused a spike in Islamophobic incidents, as well as grooming gang cases, Donald Trump’s visit and debates around the refugee crisis.
Fiyaz Mughal, founder of UK-based policy group Faith Matters, told Arabian Business it was ‘striking’ that Parnham managed to create such fear and trepidation with his Punish a Muslim Day letters and pamphlets.
Mughal said Parnham’s actions caused many Muslim women to seek support and advice from Tell Mama about whether it was safe to go to work on the day, and many also asked employers to work from home.
“Parnham’s actions meant that we had to issue security bulletins to mosques in order to review security and to reassure congregations,” Mughal said.
Boris Johnson backlash
Islamophobic incidents also rose by 375 per cent in the week after Boris Johnson compared veiled Muslim women to “letterboxes”, Tell Mama research has shown.
The Daily Telegraph column written by the now-prime minister was followed by the biggest spike in anti-Muslim hatred in 2018, as his words were repeated by racists abusing Muslims on the street and online.
In the three weeks after the article was published last August, 42 per cent of offline Islamophobic incidents reported “directly referenced Boris Johnson and/or the language used in his column”, the latest Tell Mama report said.
Johnson had said full-face veils should not be banned, but it was “absolutely ridiculous” women chose to “go around looking like letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
Many assaults were directed at visibly Muslim women who wore the niqab or other veils, who were called “letterboxes” and “ninjas”.
Online abuse reported to Tell Mama repeated the same words or incorporated them into pictures and memes that were sent to Muslims online.
Mughal said: “Politicians need to be very careful about their language and the Boris Johnson comments about ‘letterboxes’ had impacts on Niqab wearing women – some of whom were targeted because of flippant comments.
“Whilst the current prime minister defended the right for Muslim women to wear what they want, the flippancy of the comments fuelled some to use them against veiled women.”
Women targeted
Tell Mama’s research shows Muslim women already endure the highest levels of Islamophobic hatred and make up the majority of victims, while most known perpetrators are white men.
The organisation’s annual report, entitled ‘Normalising Hate’, said some politicians had defended Johnson and suggested a “distressing willingness of some MPs to stir anti-Muslim sentiments because they regard it as a vote-winning strategy”.
The EU referendum was followed by a wave of anti-Muslim hate crime in 2016, while Isis-inspired terror attacks acted as “trigger events” in 2017, Tell Mama said.
“Now we are seeing attacks inspired and influenced by other anti-Muslim attacks,” the report added.
Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, said that Britain is in “a period of instability, politically and socially”.
“Even in 2018, when there were no major terrorist attacks in comparison to 2017, levels of anti-Muslim hatred or Islamophobia have remained stubbornly high. In fact, levels in 2018 equalled those of 2017 when the major terrorist attacks took place,” Atta said.
“Anti-Muslim hatred has become an issue that is not going away… it has been growing since we started supporting victims of anti-Muslim hate in 2011. We ask all politicians to reflect on the future of our country,” he said.
Follow us on
