A MULTI-FAITH gathering took place in Glasgow yesterday to remember the victims of the Christchurch terror attack last Friday which left 50 people dead.

Justice Minister Humza Yousaf was joined by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard and his party colleague Anas Sarwar.

Addressing the gathering after joining others in attaching messages of peace to a tree, Yousaf said: “That attack didn’t happen in a vacuum. The political discourse, the media discourse on Islam, on Muslims, on minorities is adding a gallon of petrol on a fire that does not need to be there.

“When Boris Johnson says that women in niqab look like bank robbers, or letterboxes – Boris Johnson, shame on you because you’re the one that’s adding fuel to the fire.”

Yousaf added: “When politicians talk about swarms of immigrants, talk about villages and towns being swamped by immigrants, then you are part of the problem.”

Following the event, Glasgow Labour MSP Anas Sarwar told BBC News that people of all faiths should express solidarity with New Zealanders in the aftermath of the country’s worst-ever shooting.

“(We are) imploring people to please come together and work together to challenge all forms of prejudice and hate,” he said.

“We can see right around the world that prejudice and hate are on the rise. There are people who want to divide our communities, who want to create ‘the other’ and create an us-versus-them society.

“We’ve got to challenge that and confront that,” he added.

Over 3000 people walked through Christchurch yesterday for a “march for love” intended to honour victims.

“We feel like hate has brought a lot of darkness at times,” said Manaia Butler, a 16-year-old student who helped to organise the march. “Love is the strongest cure to light the city out of that darkness,” she said.

People were allowed to enter the mosque in groups of 15 as members began a slow return to normality.

With armed police patrolling the area, worshippers returned to find the building repainted with bullet holes in the walls filled in.

Police confirmed that the Linwood Mosque, where the second unfolded, had also reopened.

“It is the place where we pray, where we meet, we’ll be back,” Ashif Shaikh, who was in the mosque during the shooting, told Reuters on Friday.

While the Al Noor mosque had not yet fully reopened on Friday, it was a powerful symbol of the solidarity of the Muslim community in New Zealand and the country as a whole.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined thousands of other people in Hagley Park, opposite the mosque, to observe the call to prayer.

“New Zealand mourns with you. We are one,” she said.

The event, broadcast live on national TV, was followed by two minutes of silence.

Hundreds of Muslim men then sat in socks or bare feet readying for the prayer.

The Al Noor mosque imam, Gamal Fouda, expressed his thanks to the people of New Zealand.

“This terrorist sought to tear our nation apart with an evil ideology ... But, instead, we have shown that New Zealand is unbreakable,” he said.

“We are broken-hearted but we are not broken. We are alive. We are together. We are determined to not let anyone divide us,” he added.