Firebomb attack on Muslim prayer room in Blackburn café met with crickets from news media

On the morning of May 11, at 2:30am, CCTV cameras caught two masked individuals fleeing after firebombing a Muslim prayer room at the front of Café Raha in Blackburn. However, you’d be forgiven for being unaware of the attack. Thus far, only the Metro and the Lancashire Telegraph have covered the story.

Café owner Mohammed Awais believed the attack was targeted:

Seeing this was just to make us all depressed. We are also thankful to the fire teams and the local neighbour who appears to have alerted them straight away.

They could have targeted anywhere but why come to this area? From the outside you can see it is a prayer room through the glass. You can see the Arabic verses and the prayer mats.

‘We have not done anything to anyone’

In the daytime on Monday 11 May, staff had already begun to clean up the damage. This included two smashed windows and the remains of the burned prayed mats. At the time, Awais expressed his desire to re-open soon, along with his disbelief at the attack:

We have not done anything to anyone. Whatever it is, it should not push someone to do something so dangerous.

It is affecting people’s livelihoods and staff rely on their work to survive. There is no reason to do something reckless like this.

The blaze required three fire crews from Blackburn and nearby Hyndburn to extinguish, over the course of 2 hours and 40 minutes. Police are currently investigating the incident as a suspected arson attack. A police spokesperson stated that:

We were called at 2.32am today to a café premises on Whalley New Road, Blackburn, to a report of arson.

It was reported that a fire had been started at the premises. Colleagues from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service attended to extinguish the fire.

The cause of the fire is being investigated and enquiries are ongoing.

Anyone with information, please contact 101 – quoting log 0096 of 11th May.

Muslim prayer room, and the public outcry?

Back on 23 March, when masked individuals carried out an arson attack on four ambulances owned by Jewish community service Hatzola, the incident received widespread media coverage and condemnation from the government. The Met Police declared the attack as an antisemitic hate crime within three hours.

Given that both arson attacks appear to have targeted property closely affiliated with Islam and Judaism respectively, one might expect a similar treatment. However, thus far the silence from the mainstream media and the government has been near-total.

The public outcry at the Golders Green arson was right and proper. However, the (lack of) reaction from the same voices that condemned the attack on Hatzola speaks volumes about the Islamophobia of the UK’s public consciousness.

Featured image via the Canary