Aftermath of the Finsbury Park Mosque attack
Right-wing extremists responded to the Finsbury Park terror attack by praising attacker
Not a week has passed since the Finsbury Park Mosque attack that more acts of extremism against Muslims are being reported. A man was tasered after attacking people using a shoe horn at a London Mosque.
According to the Independent, Metropolitan Police were called at around 1:20 am and found the man waving “an item” that turned out to be a shoe horn. He was tasered and taken into custody at a central London police station.
While the incident is not being treated as an extremist attack but The Independent reported it shows deep rooted prejudices against the Muslims of UK. Right wing extremists responded to the Finsbury Park attack by praising the attacker and urging UK citizens to “rise up and cast Islam out of the country.”
Right-wing extremists have been using increasingly sophisticated tactics to radicalize followers online.
According to Tell Mama, the anti-hate and anti-Islamophobia group, the extremists are now using advanced techniques to hide their tracks with untraceable mobile phones and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) services. The Independent reports that extremists have also used less regulated social networks like the Russian-based VKontakte (VK) service to build up “spider’s web” networks of like-minded individuals who then support and radicalise each other.
According to The Independent, In December 2016 one extremist, thought to have been based in the West Midlands, responded to the Berlin Christmas market truck attack of December 2016, by stating on VK that it was time for Europe to act againt these "vile creatures" and to flush them out of their homelands into the sea.
Photographs posted on the extremist’s VK profile revealed him showing off his dagger, and posing in balaclava with the blade strapped to his belt. He also showed himself giving a Nazi salute.
Tell Mama passed his post to the counter-terrorism police, but Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell Mama, said that more generally: “There is a problem. The British authorities are way behind. We are not fully using all legal means to challenge the extremists’ narrative. Initiatives to create a counter-narrative are stalled. Right now, the British Government is fumbling.”
Elsewhere on social media, extremists sought to justify the Finsbury Park attack while stopping short of calling for violence.
Several UK based internet users have posted on social media in support of the attacker.
The far-right group Britain First posted on its Facebook page that “Finsbury Park Mosque was notorious as a haven for Islamist terrorists and extremists!” It added a video from a documentary about the extremist preacher Abu Hamza, despite him having had nothing to do with the mosque since his arrest for terrorism offences in 2004.
Tommy Robbinson, ex-English Defense League (EDL) leader, has also spoken up to praise the Finsbury Park terror attack.
The far-right group Britain First posted on its Facebook page that “Finsbury Park Mosque was notorious as a haven for Islamist terrorists and extremists!” It added a video from a documentary about the extremist preacher Abu Hamza, despite him having had nothing to do with the mosque since his arrest for terrorism offences in 2004.
The mosque has in fact now won national awards for its community work, but the post drew a series of negative and racist comments. However, Londoners also made their way to the mosque to pay their respects and express solidarity with the Muslim community.
