THE National made a mistake on our front page on Saturday – we said there had been 71 cases of “racially motivated crimes” in the whole of 2014, and 64 in the week since the terrorist attacks in Paris.
This was wrong. In the recorded crime figures for 2014/15 there were 130 racially aggravated harassment incidents reported and 2,326 racially aggravated conduct incidents reported, giving a total of 2,456 reports. There were 71 charges relating to Islamophobic hate crime in 2014-15.
The National apologises for the error, the confusion and any upset this may have caused. Police Scotland confirmed there had been an increase in reports of racial or religiously motivated attacks since the terrorist attacks in Paris.
At a meeting at Glasgow Mosque on Friday, police said there had been 64 reports of racially and religiously motivated crime. By yesterday afternoon that had increased to 98.
Jamil Moghul of Glasgow Central Mosque claimed that in the wake of Daesh-claimed attacks on the French capital, “innocent Muslims are facing a fierce backlash”.
Safer Communities Chief Superintendent Paul Main said: “It is important we continue in our united support against these atrocities.”
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