Muslim women do not feel secure in Britain: Report

LONDON (AA) – One in five British Muslim women do not feel secure living in Britain, according to Tell MAMA, a London-based group monitoring anti-Muslim incidents that released its 2015 annual report on Wednesday.

The monitoring group has released statistics on anti-Muslim incidents reported to Tell MAMA, and to police forces as well, in the UK in 2015.

“We documented 437 anti-Muslim crimes or incidents that are classified as 'offline', meaning they happened in-person between a victim (or property) and a perpetrator," said the report. “Our 437 incidents represent a 200 per cent increase over the previous reporting period.”

The group, which was established in 2012, has emphasized in its findings that Muslim women were “disproportionately affected” by hate crimes.

“Anti-Muslim hate is clearly gendered,” the report said. “[The] largest proportion of incidents involves Muslim women, usually wearing Islamic garments, facing attacks from white men.”

According to the reports, almost 19 percent of British Muslim women, i.e. one in five, said they have felt “insecure in Britain”.

The group said the anti-Muslim abuse and attacks relied on the misrepresentation of Muslims in Britain from “certain media sources, politicians and public figures”.

Meanwhile, various reports have also indicated an increase in instances of hostility towards Muslims and immigrants in the U.K. since the referendum vote to leave the EU.

The Muslim Council of Britain has announced that it had compiled “over 100 incidents reported of hate crimes following the referendum result”.

The Leave campaign has been blamed for putting “xenophobic” rhetoric at the center of their argument for Brexit.

National Police Chiefs’ Council announced Monday that following the Brexit vote, “there has been an of increase [sic] in reporting to True Vision [an online site that receives hate crime reports] since Friday compared to this time last month.”

“With the backdrop of the Brexit vote and the spike in racist incidents that seems to be emerging, the government should be under no illusions: things could quickly become extremely unpleasant for Britain’s minorities,” chair of Tell MAMA and former Labour justice minister, Shahid Malik, warned in the report.