Scottish Friends support Elgin mosque
Quakers in Forres have pledged their support to the Elgin Islamic Centre after it was vandalised with anti-Islam graffiti
Friends in Forres, north Scotland, have pledged their support to a local mosque that was the victim of a hate attack.
The Elgin Islamic Centre in Elgin was spray-painted with anti-Islamic graffiti including a swastika symbol in May. Scottish police charged a forty-two-year-old man for the crime and described it as ‘completely unacceptable’.
Quakers from nearby Forres Meeting met with the mosque’s chairman to express their support, along with other members of the Interfaith Moray group. The group also included a Hindu, a Jewish woman, an Interfaith retreatant, a representative from Interfaith Scotland, a Catholic priest, and members of the Church of Scotland and the Episcopal Church.
Lynden Easterbrook, from Forres Meeting, told the Friend: ‘All were greeted warmly by the chairman, Lansana Bangura, who took his time learning where each person had come from. Lansana said that they were of course worried by the graffiti but in spite of this he expressed his openness to the surrounding neighbourhood. He explained that he had refused the police’s offer to patrol the mosque regularly, saying that he didn’t want to present a defensive or threatening image to the people in the area. The visiting Friends were moved and inspired by how, in the face of hostility, he continued to show unshakeable openness and love.’
The incident is just one of many anti-Muslim hate crimes, which have soared in number since the Christchurch mosque shootings in March. In Essex last month Islamophobic posters were put up on lamp posts depicting a crusader on horseback chasing a pair of figures carrying AK-47s, including a burka-clad Muslim woman, with the caption: ‘Islamists not welcome.’ Windows were also smashed in March at five Birmingham mosques.
Detective inspector Martin MacDougall said of the Elgin attack: ‘There is absolutely no place for [these crimes] in our communities.’
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