Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect identities.
When Akmal’s* mosque was vandalised last week in Basildon, a town in the English county of Essex, he felt shaken.
“I was so hurt,” said the 33-year-old electrical engineer, who requested Al Jazeera use a pseudonym. “It was so close to home. My local masjid [mosque]. It felt like a real kick in the teeth.”
The South Essex Islamic Centre in Basildon was defaced shortly before midnight on Thursday. Red crosses were daubed across its walls alongside the words “Christ is King” and “This is England”.
The timing, the night before Friday prayers, appeared to many as calculated – an attempt to intimidate a flurry of worshippers in the southeastern English county.
“My wife and baby are growing up here,” Akmal told Al Jazeera. “I want to move out of the area. I just cannot stay here.”
Community leaders condemned the attack.
Gavin Callaghan, the leader of Basildon Council, described it as “pathetic criminal cowardice”.
“Don’t dress it up. Don’t excuse it. It’s scum behaviour, and it shames our town … The cowards who did this will be caught,” he said. “To do this right before Friday prayers is no coincidence. That’s targeted. That’s intimidation. And it’s criminal.”
Wajid Akhter, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, said, “The St George flag is a symbol of England we should all be proud of. For it to be used in this way, [which] echoes how Nazis targeted Jewish homes, is a disgrace to our flag and our nation. Silence has allowed hate to grow.”
Essex police are investigating the incident.
Council staff and volunteers worked in the early hours of the morning to remove the graffiti before worshippers arrived, but a sense of fear is still lingering.
“I was shocked,” said Sajid Fani, 43, who lives in the area. “I didn’t expect something like that to happen here.”
Local bishops decried the misuse of Christian imagery in the attack. They issued a joint statement calling the vandalism “scandalous and profoundly misguided”, saying that invoking Christianity to justify racism is “theologically false and morally dangerous”.
Racism amid flag-raising campaign
The vandalism took place amid a tense atmosphere in the United Kingdom, amid protests against asylum seekers and a social media campaign dubbed #OperationRaisetheColours.
In recent weeks, those heeding the call have pinned the flag of England bearing Saint George’s Cross and Union Jacks to motorway bridges, lampposts, roundabouts and some shops across the UK. Red crosses have been spray-painted on the white stripes of zebra crossings.
According to the anti-far-right HOPE not hate group, the campaign is led by Andrew Currien, a former member of the Islamophobic English Defence League and now a security figure for the political party Britain First, also an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant group.
While some supporters frame the project as patriotic, it has been tied to racist incidents.
Racist graffiti has appeared in several other locations. Some 300 miles (about 500km) north of Basildon, for example, xenophobic slurs have been sprayed on buildings in County Durham and Houghton-le-Spring in northern England.
Some have blamed the media’s focus on the issue of asylum.
In recent months, British television networks and newspapers have dedicated significant coverage to asylum seekers, as some social media sites allow hateful content to proliferate.
Shabna Begum, head of Runnymede Trust, a race equality think tank, said the spate of vandalism is part of a “frightening intensification of Islamophobia” driven by political and media narratives scapegoating Muslim communities.
“The violence being played out on our streets and the vandalism of mosques is the product of a political and media soundtrack that has relentlessly demonised Muslim communities,” she said. “Whether it is policy or narratives, we have been fed a monotonous diet that tells us that our economic problems are caused by Muslims, migrants and people seeking asylum.”
She warned that history shows governments that fail to confront economic grievances while scapegoating minorities ultimately collapse.
“The question is how much will this betrayal cost for the Muslim communities that are served as political fodder,” she said.
Fani in Basildon said, “It’s the fear factor. They [media channels] put terror in the hearts of people when it comes to Muslims. I want to show people we are just like them. We’re just human.”
Days before the mosque was vandalised, a roundabout opposite was painted with a red cross.
“I wasn’t offended by England flags being flown,” said Fani. “But this is different. It crossed a line.”
In the wake of the vandalism, mosque leaders encouraged worshippers to attend Friday prayers in greater numbers as a show of resilience.
Fani said the turnout was larger than usual: “Alhumdulillah [Thank God], it resulted in more people coming to the mosque, so the outcome was positive.”
‘A line between being patriotic and being outright racist’
Maryam*, a Muslim woman who lives in Basildon, lamented the “attack on the Muslim community” as she emphasised that it reflects a dark climate.
“There’s a line between being patriotic and being outright racist or Islamophobic – and some people here are crossing that line.”
In her view, a wave of protests against housing asylum seekers at hotels earlier this summer has coincided with Islamophobic abuse – particularly in Epping, a nearby town where The Bell Hotel has been the focus of violent agitation.
Police data is yet to confirm a link or rise in racist attacks, but locally reported incidents tell a troubling story.
Last week, a man in Basildon was arrested after a hijab-wearing woman and her child were allegedly racially abused, while vandals sprayed St George’s crosses on nearby homes.
At the end of July, residents reported glass projectiles being hurled from the upper floors of a building near Basildon station, apparently targeting Muslim women and families of colour.
Beyond the headline incidents, Maryam reeled off a list of other recent examples of racism she has witnessed – a woman of East African origin called a racial slur, a driver mocking a Muslim woman in hijab as a “post box”.
“Unfortunately, I’ve [also] been subjected to a lot of Islamophobia in Basildon – often in front of my child,” she added. “It has affected my mental health … it’s created a lot of trauma and barriers to simply living a normal life.”
While the mosque attack prompted swift attention from councillors and police, isolated incidents against individuals often go unreported.
“If the police engaged with the community better, explained what hate crimes are, how they’re reported, how investigations work, it would remove barriers to reporting,” said Maryam.
