Muslim ladies reveal fears over leaving residence with hijabs on amid riots

Muslim women have revealed they feel too frightened to leave their homes wearing hijabs as Britain braces for yet more far-right riots – while company bosses have been letting worried staff work from home to keep safe from further chaos.

Anxious residents have shared their fears on social media including TikTok videos expressing their concerns while also exposing the racist abuse being suffered.

The fears come after days of disturbances in towns and cities across Britain, with at least 400 people arrested and more than 100 so far facing charges.

It emerged today that Telegram users in far-right groups have been sharing instructions on how to make petrol bombs and an ‘arson manual’ produced by National Socialism/White Power Crew – a Russian neo-Nazi group.

Militants have also been plotting attacks on immigration lawyers, with a list of solicitors’ firms and advice agencies shared on a Telegram group with more than 14,000 alongside a call to attack them at a specific time tomorrow night.

As MailOnline revealed, English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson has been stoking the race riots with video rants on X while on holiday in Cyprus.

Cabinet ministers have blamed social media for allowing hate and fake news to be spread, leading to violent protests by the far-right that have seen migrant hotels and mosques attacked in the wake of the Southport stabbings a week ago.

Last night hundreds of far-right activists and anti-racist protesters came face-to-face in Plymouth, where beer bottles, flares and a crutch were flung through the air, leaving police officers injured.

And in Birmingham a Sky News van was attacked by a knife-wielding man after Muslim people gathered amid claims far-right groups would target the Small Health area.

A group were later filmed attacking a pub, the Clumsy Swan, with Muslim elders subsequently visiting to apologise.

Anti-hate crime charity Tell Mama has urged Muslims to stay at home and ‘not be baited by far-right thugs’.

One TikTok user, Noor Jalil, posted a video in which she asked: ‘Any other hijbai wearers that don’t feel safe going out in the UK?’

She added: ‘The safest place is becoming one of the most dangerous.’

Comments in response included: ‘Me, my mum’s just asked me to take my hijab off because she’s scared that I’ll get attacked when I’m commuting to work on the train.’

Others wrote, ‘My husband won’t let me go out alone not even down the road’, and ‘I went outside today but I feel unsafe around the city centre’.

There was also a post saying: ‘It’s so scary now that I know what’s happening – I saw a protest and I just had to take my hijab off and run past it.’

Another TikTok poster shared a video of herself replacing her hijab with a hoodie as she prepared to go out, saying she was ‘remembering I don’t wanna get attacked’.

A young Muslim woman joked to TikTok viewers how she had ‘picked the wrong time to start covering my head’ – before later thanking people for their supportive responses and explaining how she used humour as a ‘coping mechanism’.

Former Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq has told how his relatives in Rotherham have felt unable to go out and live normally amid the ‘frightening’ violence there. 

Thugs attempted on Sunday to burn down a Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham which has been housing asylum seekers.

Six people were today appearing in court charged over the Rotherham hotel attack, as ministers promised hundreds of extra prison spaces and a ‘standing army’ of 6,000 specialist police officers were at the ready nationwide.

Mr Rafiq said: ‘On the family groups, everyone’s checking in on each other, staying in communication and keeping each other safe.

‘It’s petrifying going to sleep at night in your home and not feeling safe – it’s not something you should be thinking about but that’s the situation for most people right now.

‘Everyone’s encouraging each other to, if there is some necessity to go out for, then you are not on your own – but if you can avoid it, then do that.

‘That’s the same for my family. We’re speaking, trying to monitor where these riots are, to try keep ourselves out of harm’s way.’

And worried staff have described on X, formerly Twitter, how their employers have allowed them to work from home rather than risk getting caught up in any clashes.

One posted: ‘Working from home some of this week cause apparently something near where I work might be targeted in the riots.

‘Thank god this place is comfortable with this stuff, my mother still has to go to her office.’

A different X user wrote: ‘My office is based in South London, but in the field I work in, I usually have to also regularly travel around the UK.

‘But with all these ongoing riots and terror attacks, my manager has been really sweet and told me to keep safe and just WFH for now.’

Another commented: ‘I checked my emails just to know what I’m getting into when I return to work tomorrow. 

‘Seeing exec acknowledge the ongoing riots in the country and allow for WFH arrangements to be made for employees of colour is comforting.’

And a woman working in Birmingham posted: ‘One of my senior managers is based in Manchester and she was really teary this afternoon because one of our other colleagues (a Muslim lady) was just too scared to travel and it was really upsetting.’ 

Muslim women in Manchester have also told of their fears, after an anti-immigration ‘Enough Is Enough’ demonstration turned violent in the city last Saturday – before similar scenes in nearby Bolton the following day.

Secondary school teacher Jamila Kossar told the Manchester Evening News: ‘For me, being visibly Muslim, wearing a hijab and my friends wearing a hijab, we would usually be out, socialising and going for walks.

‘A friend wanted to organise a trek and we said to leave it for a couple of weeks because we don’t want to be in the wilderness alone.

‘No matter how brave you are, you don’t want to be in a situation where you are on your own – so it makes you anxious and makes you think twice about the plans that you have at the moment.’

Another local woman, 30-year-old Maryam, described how only the ‘sheer necessity’ of an important errand took her outdoors briefly – and that she was ‘constantly looking around to make sure there was no unexpected attacks’. 

The nationwide violence, also seen in cities including London, Liverpool and Belfast, followed false speculation online that the suspect in the Southport stabbing frenzy was an illegal immigrant who arrived in the UK on a small boat.

It was later revealed by police that murder suspect Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and lived in Banks – a Lancashire village less than 15 minutes from Southport.

Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, six-year-old Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed when a knifeman attacked them during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on Monday last week.

Eight other children were injured along with two adults, yoga instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

There have been about a hundred charges in the wake of disorder around the country, Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson has said.

He told the BBC: ‘There have been about 100 charges that have been laid. As we heard last night, around 400 people arrested. So the majority of people have been released on bail pending further investigation.

‘And what the police will be doing now is building those files. They will be resubmitted to us and then we’ll be making charging decisions.

‘I should say that we are able to make immediate charging decisions. In fact, I made a direction to my colleagues that I would want them to make immediate charging decisions if we got the key evidence in place.

‘But for the most part, the police have made the decision to release people on bail and then they’ll come to us at later stage. That means that we can manage the flow quite easily because not all these people will come back at the same time.

‘So I’m confident actually that we have the capacity and the capability to deal with the work that’s there and the work that we anticipate coming forward.’

Meanwhile, Lancashire Police have opened a hate crime investigation after gravestones in the Muslim section of Burnley Cemetery were vandalised by being splashed with grey paint.

Sir Keir Starmer condemned the riots plaguing Britain’s streets as he chaired today’s Cabinet meeting.

According to Downing Street, the Prime Minister said: ‘This is something no-one would have ever wanted to see and we need to be calling it out for what it is. It is not protest. It is violent disorder and needs to be treated as such, as criminal activity.

‘99.9% of people across the country want their streets to be safe and to feel safe in their communities, and we will take all necessary action to bring the disorder to an end.’