Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
By Ahlam Ben Saga
Rabat – “Punish a Muslim day, April 3rd, 2018” urges the title of an anonymous letter recently sent to people across England.
Hair-raising letters were sent to people in numerous communities throughout England; residents of London, West Yorkshire, and other regions reported receiving “malicious” letters inviting them to commit acts of terrorism against Muslims.
The letters are identical in content—and the pale envelopes in which they arrived provide no clues to identify the sender.
Printed in red and black ink, the letters begin with “Punish a Muslim day, April 3rd 2018” and continue, “They have hurt you, they have made your loved ones suffer, they have caused you pain and heartache, what are you going to do about it? […]”
Furthermore, the letters contain charts which classify eight different criteria for non-Muslim to accumulate “points” in this proposed game: ‘25 points’ for pulling off the headscarf of a Muslim woman, ‘50 points’ for throwing acid in the face of a Muslim, and ‘1,000 points’ for bombing a mosque.
Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama, an organization dedicated to monitoring anti-Muslim incidents in the United Kingdom, said that Muslim communities were disturbed by the unsettling letters.
“[These letters have] caused quite a lot of fear within the [Muslim] community […] They [Muslims] are asking if they are safe and if their children are safe to play outdoors. We have told them to remain calm,” Atta said after her organization received reports about the letters from habitants of Cardiff, Leicester, London, and Sheffield, reported the Washington Post on March 13.
A member of UK Parliament, Naz Shah, also spoke on behalf of the Muslim community, saying that the letters have caused immense distress not only to the ones who received them, but also to a wider range of communities.
People took to social media to decry the letters, and UK police forces are conducting an investigation to identify the source of the “hate letters”.
