Britain’s First enters NW mosques with “Muslim grooming” campaign

The Asian Image reports on Britain First’s (BF) ongoing campaign against ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ where the far right group’s supporters have been visiting mosques and handing out inflammatory, anti-Muslim literature.

On BF’s website, the group has posted a video of its most recent “Day in Action” in the North West of England. According to the website, BF members have visited ‘mega’ mosques in Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Burnley as “hundreds of items of literature were distributed to imams and residents of Muslim areas”.

Members of the group have recorded themselves visiting the Jamia Madina Mosque in Bolton, the Jamiyat Tabligh-ul-Islam mosque in Oldham as well as the Golden Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre in Rochdale.

The video shows four far right supporters entering the Jamia Madina mosque. Paul Golding, BF’s Chairman and candidate in this year’s European Parliament elections, displays the group’s “Muslim grooming literature”. In the empty mosque, he states he has come to speak to the imams and demands “they take firm action against this problem all across the North of England because it has been going on for too long.”

He purports “There’s scandal after scandal after scandal. [There are] arrests and high profile trials happening all the time”.

The video also shows a clip of four far right supporters holding a banner with “no more mosques” imprinted on it outside the mosque.

The BF supporters then handed over inflammatory and anti-Muslim leaflets to an elderly worshipper during their visit to a mosque in Oldham. The worshipper was told to “give this to your imam. Tell him to read it and we need some action within the Muslim community in Oldham because the Muslim paedophile gangs are widespread”.

At the Golden Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre in Rochdale, a far right supporter approached a man in his car regarding ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ in the area, urging that the imam should say it is not right.

Moreover, Britain First members also went to local MP Gordon Birtwistle’s home. They confronted him regarding his comments in the Lancashire Telegraph. He had previously told the paper that “This group [Britain First] is not welcome in East Lancashire… people should not be deceived by this group’s Christian façade.”

In the conversation with MP Birtwistle, Golding asserts that “[the police] deliberately ignored the Muslim paedophile grooming gang problem for ten years because of ‘community sensitivities’”.

The series of BF’s visits to mosques in the North West of England and to Gordon Birtwistle MP’s home follows their visit to the home of Councillor Salim Mulla’s where they pushed leaflets about ‘Muslim grooming’ through the letterbox.

Golding is standing in the upcoming European Elections in the South East region. The party’s website claims his election campaign “is gathering pace and surging forward”.