Tower Hamlets and other parts of East London have been the focus of repeated attempts by Islamists to impose Sharia law on members of the public.
Extremist Muslim preachers — sometimes
referred to as the Tower Hamlets Taliban — have
issued death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been
plastered with posters declaring: "You are entering a Sharia controlled zone. Islamic rules enforced." And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims has been
vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.
The
Sunday Telegraph uncovered more than a dozen other instances in Tower Hamlets where both Muslims and non-Muslims have been threatened or beaten for behavior considered to be a breach of fundamentalist "Islamic norms." Victims said that police ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they feared being accused of racism or "Islamophobia."
One victim, Mohammed Monzur Rahman, was left partially blind after being attacked by a mob in Cannon Street Road, Shadwell, for smoking during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. "Two guys stopped me in the street and asked me why I was smoking," he said. "I just carried on, and before I knew another dozen guys came and jumped me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital."
A group of Muslim men
attacked a 23-year-old American student, who had only been in the country for three days, after they saw him drinking on an East London street. The student suffered extensive injuries, including a smashed eye socket. The perpetrators are now in prison.
The owners of restaurants and shops in Brick Lane in Whitechapel, a popular area of London, have been
warned that they faced 40 lashes if they continued to sell alcoholic products.
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