In Sheffield, a man sentenced to suspended prison for having released rats in front of a mosque

ByMuhammad

In Sheffield, in northern England, a 66 -year -old man was sentenced to suspended prison for having released rats several times before a mosque, in what the court described as a premeditated racist harassment campaign.

Between May and June, Edmund Fowler went four times in front of the great mosque of Sheffield with cages containing wild rodents, which he released on the sidewalk while filming the scene with his phone. In videos, it is addressed to rats: “Guess where you are going”, “say bye bye” or “I’m going to show you the right way”. Decognized by four facts of harassment, he was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months. He is also forbidden to approach mosques and certain districts of the city during this period.

The court spoke of “deliberate and repeated” acts, having caused a deep disturbance in the local Muslim community. The president of the mosque testified that several faithful no longer dared to come to pray, for fear of new incidents. Edmund Fowler did not give any clear mobile to his actions, but the defense spoke of a possible psychological collapse linked to the state of health of his wife with cancer. The Tell Mama association, which specializes in the fight against hate crimes, described the case as “deeply dehumanizing” and alerted to an upsurge in attacks against Muslim places of worship in the United Kingdom.

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Muhammad

Muhammad is a visionary thinker and passionate writer who has been contributing to Understanding Islam for several years.