An office worker who left a severed pig's head outside a Muslim place of worship on Boxing Day has been spared jail.

Liam Ferrar was sentenced to 12 weeks' imprisonment, suspended for a year, after a court heard he was disgusted by his actions and had written a letter of apology to his victims.

Ferrar, 24, of Leicester, pleaded guilty last month to causing religiously aggravated harassment after leaving the frozen pig's head on the steps of the city's Thurnby Lodge community centre.

Sentencing Ferrar at Leicester magistrates court, the district judge John Temperley described the offence as being "to some extent planned, premeditated and targeted".

He told Ferrar: "You were well aware of the significance of your actions. You knew that what you did would cause great distress, indeed that was your intention."

The court heard that Ferrar was under the influence of alcohol when he placed the pig's head – which had been stored in a freezer for several months – in an area where it could not be avoided by adults and children arriving for prayers.

Stressing that the offence had taken place against a background of protests over the community centre's use as a place of worship, Temperley added: "It is easy to imagine the shock, distress and disgust [those who discovered the pig's head] would have felt.

"The witnesses statements I have read bear testimony to the serious impact of your actions, but the harm you caused goes further. Others in the local community and beyond would also have been affected when news of this incident spread, prompting profound alarm, fear and insecurity.

"It should have been obvious that what you did was intimidatory and would only serve to inflame an already tense and volatile situation."

Suspending the 12-week prison term because of Ferrar's personal mitigation, including his previous good character, the district judge accepted that the defendant regularly gave his time and energy to local good causes.

"The character references I have read do you great credit. I also accept that you have demonstrated genuine remorse and regret for your actions. You co-operated with the police and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity," Temperley said.

He ordered Ferrar to complete 250 hours of unpaid community work and to pay £85 in costs.

Louise Cox, prosecuting, told the court that a group calling itself Forgotten Estates had stepped up protests at the community centre last summer.

The defence solicitor Stephen Morris said the protest group, of which Ferrar was a member, aimed to highlight the lack of facilities in the Thurnby Lodge area.

Claiming that his client had chosen to distance himself from Forgotten Estates in September last year, Morris said: "The behaviour by Mr Ferrar on this occasion is out of character – he is not somebody who displays racist tendencies."

Press Association, 18 February 2013

See also Leicester Mercury, 18 February 2013

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A man who placed a pig's head outside a community centre used for prayers by Muslims has been warned he faces a possible jail sentence for the offence.

Liam Ferrar (24) appeared at Leicester Magistrates' Court today to admit religiously aggravated harassment aimed at the Muslim community.

The court heard that Ferrar had acquired the pig's head at a wedding the previous summer and kept it in a freezer at his home in Brook Road, Thurnby Lodge, Leicester.

On Christmas night, December 25, he went to the Thurnby Lodge Community Centre, in Thurncourt Road, and placed the head by the locked doors, facing out towards the Muslim worshippers who arrived at the centre the following morning.

The community centre has been the scene of regular protests over a former Scout hut nearby which Leicester City Council was going to allow Muslim group As Salaam to use for prayers. The protesters wanted the Scout hut to be kept for use by the wider community.

The court was told the protests had involved racial abuse being shouted by members of the Forgotten Estates campaign group, and other insults.

Group member Ferrar, who at times acted as a liaison between the protest group and the police, was recognised by officers viewing CCTV footage. After being arrested on December 28, he "became tearful" and confessed, the court was told.

Louise Cocks, prosecuting, said: "The defendant is a member of the Forgotten Estates group that has been involved in the protests about the use of the Scout hut. There's intelligence about this defendant playing a fundamental role in the protest group."

Miss Cocks said that on Boxing Day morning, members of As Salaam arrived at the community centre to find the pig's head. Moulana Mohammed Lockhat, the Imam for the As Salaam group, decided to call the police, who went to remove the head.

Miss Cocks said Mr Lockhat said in his statement that the incident was "extremely distressing". "The pig is a creature Muslims are forbidden from using any part of," she said. Miss Cocks added: "He says that prior to the pig's head incident he received malicious communications in relation to pig's heads and blood."

After Ferrar's guilty plea, the case was adjourned for a probation report. District judge John Temperley told Ferrar it was an "extremely serious case" and that "all options, including custody" were being considered.

Ferrar has been required by a court order to live outside the area and has been staying with a relative in Leicester's West End. Steve Morris, representing Ferrar, made an application for his applicant to be allowed back onto the Thurnby Lodge estate, but the application was declined.

Ferrar is due back at Leicester Magistrates' Court at 10am on Monday, February 18, for sentencing.

Leicester Mercury, 24 January 2013

For the background to Forgotten Estates see here and here. Despite the organisation's clear links to the far right, Leicester mayor Peter Soulsby saw fit to give them control of the disputed scout hut rent-free for the next two years. As Salaam, meanwhile, have been offered alternative premises at an unaffordable rent. Did someone mention a "two-tier system"?

EDL member Chris Hopewell presents Forgotten Estates petition to Peter Soulsby

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Pasco County deputies are investigating an attack outside a Walmart as a hate crime. It happened around 3 a.m. Wednesday at the Walmart at 1575 Land O'Lakes Blvd in Lutz.

Deputies say a man and a woman in their 20s were heading out to their car in the parking lot. Another man, also in his 20s, approached them and asked them a series of questions.

"The first question to the male was 'are you of Middle Eastern descent?'" explained Doug Tobin, spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Tobin said the male victim responded, "No, I'm not."

Then the man asked another question: "Are you Muslim?" The victim again responded, "No, I'm not a Muslim."

Deputies say the suspect then yelled a racial slur, alluding to the fact the victim was "with a white woman." Then the man pulled out a BB or air soft gun.

"The suspect shot about 20 rounds of this air soft/Pellet gun, toward our victims. Fortunately, they weren't seriously hurt. But it's a serious crime," Tobin said.

The man was hit twice in the face. He was treated on the scene and released, and the woman he was with was not hurt.

Surveillance cameras caught the attack. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is working with Walmart to get that video.

A shopper and a store employee witnessed the attack and told deputies the man ran off towards Dale Mabry Highway. A K-9 picked up his scent but lost it at the road. So it's unclear if a car was waiting nearby for the man.

The sheriff's office is asking for the public's help. "If someone may have said something, like if this person bragged about what he'd done to someone else, we ask for them to step forward and call our Pasco County Sheriff's Office," Tobin said.

Their tip line is 800-706-2488.

The suspect is described as between 18 and 30 years old, with blond, short hair, about six feet tall, weighing around 180 pounds, wearing blue jeans, a brown jacket and green sandals.

The Council on American Islamic Relations released a statement this afternoon urging local Muslims to be cautious.

MyFox Tampa Bay, 3 January 2013

See also "CAIR asks FBI to probe shooting of 'Middle Eastern' man in Fla.", CAIR press release, 2 January 2013

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After facing months of harassment the Muslims of Thurnby Lodge faced a new horror in the campaign of hatred against the proposed prayer centre at the abandoned scout hut in Thurnby Lodge when a pig's head was left for them on Wednesday morning.

Muslims have faced nightly protests at the community centre they use for prayers at the moment, sometimes attended by the BNP and EDL. These are racist, anti-Muslim organizations known for their extreme views and violence at which 9 people so far have been arrested.

Though local Muslims have every sympathy for the feelings of non-Muslims in our community who feel neglected by the authorities and powerless to stop things getting worse on our streets, we do feel they are being manipulated by far right groups active in Thurnby Lodge recently.

One of the organisers of the anti-Muslim campaign is EDL member Chris Hopewell and who is pictured in the Leicester Mercury handing in a petition. Though he looks respectable in the picture, he is normally more than willing to bare his nationalist tattooed chest when trying to intimidate Muslims in Leicester city centre.

The Imam, Moulana Mohammed Lockhat said: "So far 9 arrests have been made which just goes to show the kind of people we are dealing with."

"There are protests almost daily around Isha (evening prayers) time just to intimidate & harass brothers who come for salaah (formal prayers). We are shocked and saddened by this development which is indeed a discriminating and hurtful act of religious intimidation", he added.

The pig's head did not stop fajr (early morning) prayers going ahead at the community centre, and it is a common misconception amongst the ill-educated thugs who make up far right anti-Muslim movements that the presense of pig remains or blood will some how stop Muslims from building mosques or Muslim community centres.

"Very sadly for those who tried to offend the Muslims, this has just increased our commitment to stay right here," said the Imam.

Volunteers for Outreach4Islam as well as other Leicester based Islamic groups are planning on increasing their efforts to call the non-Muslims of Thurnby Lodge to dialogue and understanding, and to separate those with understandable worries and complaints from the narrow minded violent organisations like the EDL.

Outreach4Islam press release, 27 December 2012

The racist minority among the white population of Thurnby Lodge is not only filled with hatred towards Muslims but is openly hostile to any non-white presence on the estate. Before Christmas, when Leicestershire's only female black firefighter, Velma Simms-Stewart, was on the estate collecting money for charity, one white inhabitant told his daughter not to give money to "the darkie".

Update:  The EDL's Leicester division have offered their own explanation of the appearance of the pig's head – it was the work of anti-fascists!

Update 2:  See "Pig's head dumped at Thurnby Lodge centre used for prayers by Muslims", Leicester Mercury, 28 December 2012

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The small, black pig lay dead on its side upon the wooden deck, a deep gash on the side of its belly.

That's what a congregant at the Islamic Outreach Center saw Tuesday evening when he and a handful of other worshippers arrived for nightly prayers. Worshippers also found blood stains near the door of the Harris County mosque.

"It looked like someone was trying to take it inside, but it was locked," said Ilyas Choudry, who helps run the center.

At the end of a news conference on Wednesday about the incident, mosque officials also discovered what appeared to be animal intestines hanging from the facility's front gate. The intestines may have come from the pig, which appeared to be cut open.

Mosque officials believe someone may have left the pig at the Cypress-area center as an act of hate. They called the Harris County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating.

Houston Chronicle, 5 December 2012

See also "Slaughtered pig left outside of Cypress mosque a possible hate crime", Houston Press Blog, 5 December 2012

And CAIR press release, 5 December 2012

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A Queens man was stabbed repeatedly outside a mosque by a would-be killer who shouted anti-Muslim comments, police said.

The victim, identified by friends as Bashar Mohammod, 57, was attacked from behind while opening the Masjid Al-Saaliheen mosque for prayer around 4:45 a.m., police said.

The attacker, described as a Hispanic man in his 40s, stabbed Mohammod repeatedly while shouting anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim slurs.

The victim might have lost a finger in the attack, said a friend, Mohammad Omar, who visited Mohammod at Queens General Hospital where he was treated and released. "The person told him that he doesn't like Muslims," said  Omar. "That person was trying to kill him."

Fellow worshippers described the victim, originally from Afghanistan, as a devout Muslim who often led morning prayer at the Kissena Blvd. mosque. "He prays five times a day. He's a very good guy." said fellow worshipper Dawood Mashriqi. "He's an early bird."

Investigators had the mosque cordoned off late Sunday afternoon even as worshippers made their way to prayer.

No arrests have been made.

New York Daily News, 18 November 2012

See also New York Magazine, 18 November 2012

And "CAIR asks FBI to probe apparent bias attack on NY Muslim", CAIR press release, 18 November 2012

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A jury has been shown a photograph of a man wielding a stick outside Kingston Mosque moments before an attack by masked and hooded men.

Henry Hunter, 19, denies violent disorder and racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage, after a group of men targeted the mosque in East Road.

At Kingston Crown Court, a jury of eight women and four men heard how Mr Hunter took part in a protest march through Kingston town centre on November 21, 2010.

Prosecutor Anthony Montgomery said that although the march passed without incident, several men who had been captured on CCTV during the protest later threw sticks, bottles and rashers of bacon at the mosque, and damaged a sign attached to the building.

Photographs allegedly showing Mr Hunter, of Kingston Crescent, in Ashford, among the group were shown to the jury. The album included a photo taken in East Road by David Morris, who was jailed in April for the attack.

It showed a man said to be Mr Hunter holding a stick, and standing next to Alfie Wallace, who is also serving a prison sentence. Describing the image of Mr Hunter and Wallace, Mr Montgomery said: "It shows Mr Alfie Wallace and it shows this defendant and he is carrying, importantly, a stick or a piece of wood."

Mr Montgomery told the jury: "A group acting as one unit began laying siege to the mosque, and all of it was completely disgraceful conduct. You will hear of beer that was thrown, bacon that was thrown, sticks that were thrown and a sign that was damaged. There was nobody who was taking a back seat. Those that were there and those with sticks were getting stuck in."

Kingston Guardian, 9 November 2012

See also "Hunt not over for Kingston mosque attackers", Kingston Guardian, 6 April 2012

And "Man handed himself in to police over Kingston mosque attack", Surrey Comet, 13 April 2012

During their assault on Kingston Mosque the attackers chanted "E, E, EDL". You can see Henry Hunter in this photo of the demonstration that preceded the attack, holding an EDL flag.

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Volen Siderov, leader of the fascist party Ataka, addresses supporters in PazardzhikHundreds of nationalists rallied in a southern Bulgarian town on Monday in support of the prosecution of 13 religious leaders accused of spreading radical Islam in a case causing communal strains in the Balkan country.

The trial, just months after a suicide bomber killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver at the Black Sea port of Burgas, has tested a delicate ethnic balance between the country's minority Muslims and its Orthodox Christian majority.

Prosecutors in the southern town of Pazardzhik have charged 12 Bulgarian citizens, most of them Muslim prayer leaders, and one woman for preaching radical Islam between 2008 and 2010. Three of them are also charged with inciting religious hatred.

Protesters, led by far-right parties Attack and VMRO, waved banners reading "Our religion is Bulgaria" and "Tough sentences for fanatics", and said the march aimed to counter gatherings of Muslims in front of the courthouse in support of the accused.

The suspects, who deny any wrongdoing, face up to five years in prison if convicted. They are accused of working with an unregistered branch of Al Waqf-Al Islami, an Islamic foundation set up in the Netherlands and funded mainly by "Salafi circles" from Saudi Arabia, the court said, referring to an ultra-conservative brand of Islam.

About 100 Muslims also rallied near the court under heavy police protection in support of the accused, saying the 13 had preached only traditional Islam. Bulgaria's Mufti Office has also declared its support for the accused.

The trial has the potential to threaten a culture of tolerance in Bulgaria, where Muslims make up about 12 percent of the 7.3 million population, analysts said.

Bulgaria is the only European Union (EU) country where Muslims are not recent immigrants but a centuries-old local community, mostly ethnic Turkish descendants of Ottoman rule that ended in 1878.

"Trials like this could dramatically raise tension in the places where Bulgarian Muslims live," said Antonina Zhelyazkova, head of the Sofia-based International Center for Minority Studies.

The trial has revived memories of the 1980s when hundreds of Muslims were forced to change their names to Bulgarian ones and over 300,000 left the country as a result of a campaign by late communist dictator Todor Zhivkov to revive mainstream Bulgarian culture.

Nationalist parties are also trying to use the trial to gain popularity before a general election next year, analysts said.

Reuters, 29 October 2012

See also "Divided Bulgarian xenophobes stage anti-Muslim protests", Novinite, 29 October 2012

Update:  See "Bulgarian Imams' trial resumes", Press TV, 29 October 2012

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A far-right party on the campaign trial in Germany's most populous state is threatening to put caricatures of Mohammed outside mosques in a string of cities.

The "Pro NRW" party in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia has already shown anti-Islamic caricatures in Essen and Gelsenkirchen, though the police prevented demonstrations taking place directly outside mosques.

Police have also banned "Pro NRW", which is campaigning on an Islamophobic platform, from using the Danish cartoons that caused massive protests in the Islamic world in 2005.

But "Pro NRW" intends to send activists to 25 mosques throughout the state in the run-up to the election on May 13, staging protests in Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Wuppertal and Solingen. A report in Die Welt newspaper on Sunday said the far-right party intended to post around 100 what it called "Islam-critical" drawings outside the mosques.

Interior Minister in state Ralf Jäger condemned the campaign and expressed support for planned counter-demonstrations. "Pro NRW is committing spiritual arson," he told the paper. "The party is consciously taking into account that Muslims will feel provoked and upset. The authorities will exhaust all legal avenues to prevent a xenophobic hate campaign."

The federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich is reportedly worried about violent confrontations with the Salafists, the fundamentalist Muslims who began distributing free copies of the Koran in Germany three weeks ago. A report in Der Spiegel magazine over the weekend said his ministry had been in contact with the North Rhine-Westphalia state government in recent weeks to find a way to de-escalate the situation. The election there is on May 13.

"Pro NRW" campaign manager Lars Seidensticker says he did not understand the outrage over the campaign, and says his party would bear no responsibility for any violence.

"If the situation is so tense that you can't do a campaign like this against Islamist influences any more, then the politicians are responsible for doing away with Germany," he said, alluding to the title of a 2010 book by banker Thilo Sarrazin ("Germany Does Away with Itself"), which criticized Islamic immigrants in Germany.

"Mosques are potential centres of a new civil war that we have to prevent," said Seidensticker. "That's why we have to pull out the Islamist evil by its roots."

"Pro NRW", which boasts 250 members, is also planning to award a cash prize for the "best" anti-Islamic caricature, named after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who was responsible for the 2005 images. Westergaard has distanced himself from the competition and is reportedly considering legal action against the party for using his name.

The Local, 30 April 2012

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EDL protestors outside Sajjad Karim's homeA politician's eight-year-old daughter was "petrified" when anti-Islamic protesters marched into the garden of their home with banners and banged on the window.

Lancashire MEP Sajjad Karim's home was targeted by the English Defence League (EDL) as part of a day of protests against "radical Islam" in the county on July 2 last year. Speaking from Brussels, Mr Karim, who was due to give evidence, said: "It is not the sort of thing any child should ever have to be prepared for."

Twelve admitted public order offences at Preston Crown Court and will be sentenced on May 25.

Bernard Holmes, 26, of Bolton Road; Leonard Hawley, 47, of Worcester Road; David Wilson, 47, of Devon Road, all Blackburn, and Jason Smith, 43, of Torquay Avenue, Burnley pleaded guilty to racially aggravated provocation of violence while David Garrett, 45, of Beckett Street, Darwen, admitted having an offensive weapon.

Leanne Thornton, 26, of Oak Avenue, Todmorden; Graham Smith, 48, of Draperfield, Chorley; Paul Blundell, 45, of Lee Street, Longridge, John English, 24, of Shorrock Lane, Blackburn; Martin Corner, 31, of Corporation Street, Chorley; Jordan Lonsdale, 20, of Ribble Lane, Clitheroe, and Paul Jackson, 41, of Spring Bank Terrace, Blackburn, pleaded not guilty to violent disorder but admitted using threatening behaviour.

Sajjad Karim added: "To be afraid to leave ones house as a mob fuelled by hate protests outside is as frightening as it gets. They showed no regard to the fact my wife and daughter were at home. It left me hoping and praying that our four walls would keep us safe and you can’t begin to imagine how my young daughter felt.

"There were many more innocent people caught up in their violence that day and I am thankful this eleventh hour change of plea means they won’t have to relive their ordeal in a courtroom. We have not and will not allow such mobs to use their threatening ways to hound people in our society."

Lancashire Evening Post, 26 April 2012

See also "Twelve people admit part in disorder after EDL protest in East Lancashire", Lancashire Telegraph, 26 April 2012

And "Men admit anti-Muslim protest", Chorley Guardian, 26 April 2012

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