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WALES: Mosque official dies after attack

01 May 2002

The treasurer of a Llanelli mosque, Muhammed Ashraf, died from a heart attack after witnessing members of his congregation being attacked by a racist gang. Twelve white men in their early twenties carried out the attack on the group of elderly worshippers at the beginning of June, as they made their way to the mosque. Four men have been arrested and charged with assault and police are looking for a fifth attacker. Mr Ashraf was reported to be totally dismayed by the assault, which included racist abuse as well as physical violence, and collapsed in front of his wife inside the mosque. He died on route to hospital. Dyfed-Powys police, however, say that they are not treating Mr Ashraf's death as a racist incident, claiming that he died from natural causes.
There has been an alarming increase in Islamaphobia and racist attacks on Muslims across Europe since 11 September, according to reports by the Institute of Race Relations and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. At least some of the hostility is stimulated by a "culture of suspicion" endorsed by governments and in the media. Inflammatory pronouncements by the UK Home Secretary David Blunkett, combined with press attacks identifying refugees and asylum seekers as terrorists, have given the green light to racists across the UK.
A colleague of the Ku Klux Klan leader Alan Beshella, who was jailed for racially harassing an Asian shopkeeper in March, has been imprisoned for his role in a campaign of intimidation against Mohammed Nawaz, (see Statewatch vol. 12 no. 2). Evan Short who admitted harassing Mr Nawaz at his shop in the south Wales village of Maesteg by making racist comments and threatening to kill him was sentenced to 12 months in a young offenders' institution and placed under a restraining order.

Western Mail 31.5.02.