A quarter of 18 to 24 year olds in Britain do not trust Muslims, while only 16 per cent said they did not trust Hindus or Sikhs, according to a new BBC poll released here today.
Of the 1,000 surveyed, 28 per cent said Britain would be better off with fewer Muslims, while 44 per cent said Muslims did not share the same values as the rest of the population.
Some 60 per cent felt the British public had a negative image of Muslims, according to the poll conducted for BBC
Radio 1’s ‘Newsbeat’ show.
However, levels of distrust of other religious groups were lower with only 16 per cent saying they did not trust Hindus or Sikhs, while 15 per cent said they did not trust Jews, 13 per cent mistrusted Buddhists and only 12 per cent did not trust Christians.
The poll by Comres also found that only 29 per cent of people surveyed believed Muslims were doing enough to combat extremism in their communities, while 48 per cent agreed that Islam is a peaceful religion.
These findings indicate that we need to ensure young people are mixing at local levels and that they’re working on projects together so that people can get to know Muslims and vice versa,” Akeela Ahmed, from the cross-government working group on anti-Muslim hatred, said.
Made up of civil servants, academics, and members of the Islamic community, the group was launched last year and its job is to advise the government on how to tackle prejudice.
Its members said prejudice among young people was particularly worrying because they were thought to be more
liberal than older age groups.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard figures show a 61 per cent rise in anti-Muslim based crime over the last year in London alone.
The Muslim Council of Britain has also noted an “unprecedented escalation of violence” following the death of
soldier Drummer Lee Rigby in a street stabbing by suspected Islamist extremists in May.
The UK government is currently funding a service to record Islamophobic crime and provide support to victims called Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks (MAMA), coordinated by non-profit group Faith Matters.
A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson told ‘Newsbeat’ that the message from the
government is “unequivocal that there is no place for anti-Muslim hatred or any kind of hatred in Britain, and we are committed to tackling this unacceptable scourge”.
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