LONDON: Noor Miah was a student when riots broke out in northern England in the summer of 2001, with angry young British South Asians clashing with police after a series of racist attacks and incidents.
The northern town of Burnley was engulfed in riots that began an hour away in Oldham, as far-right extremists stoked racial tensions and minority groups accused police of failing to protect them.
More than two decades later, Miah recalled the dark period as he tried to calm Muslim youths in Burnley after several Muslim headstones in the local cemetery were vandalized and far-right riots targeted mosques in nearby towns.
“2001 was a difficult time for Burnley. We've moved on since then, picked ourselves up. The next generation has a lot of hope,” said Miah, now secretary of a local mosque.
On Monday, Miah received a message from a friend who found a family member's grave covered in paint.
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“When I rushed to the cemetery there were already a couple of families who were really worried, really emotional,” Miah said, with about seven headstones vandalized with gray paint.
The crime is being treated as a hate crime by local police.
“Whoever has done this is trying to provoke the Muslim community to get emotional and give a reaction. But we've tried to keep everyone calm,” Miah said.
“It's a very low thing to do. Nobody deserves this…things like this shouldn't happen in this day and age.”
The attack has raised fears among Burnley's Muslims, after anti-immigrant, Islamophobic riots occurred in other northern towns and cities in the past week.
The violence followed a July 29 mass stabbing in Southport, near Liverpool, in which three children were killed, which was wrongly blamed on social media on a Muslim migrant.
Miah worries about his wife going downtown wearing a hijab and has told his father to pray at home instead of at the mosque “to limit the amount of time he spends outside.”
“I helped build that mosque, I physically moved bricks there. I was part of that mosque, but I have to think about the safety of my family,” he said.
But Miah still hoped there would be no violence.
“We haven't had riots here yet. Hopefully the riots don't come to Burnley.”
In Sheffield, Ameena Blake suffered violence close to home. Just a few miles away in Rotherham, hundreds of far-right rioters attacked police and set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers on Sunday.
While Blake, a community leader on the board of two local mosques, said Sheffield is a place of “sanctuary”, Rotherham is “literally on our doorstep.”
Since the weekend riots, there has been “a sense of massive fear,” especially among Muslim women, Blake said. “I've had Muslim sisters who wear the hijab contact me and say, 'I'm worried about going out with the hijab'.”
Like Miah's family in Burnley, here too “people have lived in their homes”.
“I know of sisters who are usually very independent… who now won't go out without a male family member dropping them off and picking them up because they don't want to be out in the car alone.”
The government has announced extra security for places of worship in the wake of the violence, which reportedly left mosque-goers in Southport trapped inside the building during clashes.
While the last two major riots to rock England in 2001 and 2011 saw an outpouring of distrust and anger towards the police from minorities, police forces have this time worked alongside Muslim community leaders to call for calm.
“Historically there has been a lot of mistrust of the police between BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), Muslim communities,” said Blake, who is also a chaplain for South Yorkshire Police in Sheffield.
“Communities have almost put aside the mistrust and the historical issues to come together (with the police) to deal with this very, very real problem.”
The support from the police and government has been “really fantastic, and to be honest, quite unexpected”, Blake added.
As Friday prayers loomed this week, Muslims in Sheffield felt “quite nervous and vulnerable”.
But people will go to mosques, Blake said. “There is fear, but there is also a sense that we have to carry on as usual.”
