The mosque was justly criticized. The criticism does not mean that it will be violently attacked. Criticism does not always lead to violence. I’ve been criticized in the establishment media many times, and police have never reacted by increasing patrols around my office. Leftists and their Islamic allies, however, frequently claim that criticism has resulted in their getting death threats. The claim is intended to shut down that criticism. Is that what the mosque is doing here?
“Police increase patrols to protect Didsbury Mosque following Arena bomb inquiry criticism,” by John Scheerhout, Manchester Evening News, March 9, 2023:
Police have increased patrols around Didsbury Mosque amid fear of attacks after it was criticised in the third and final report of the public inquiry into the bombing at Manchester Arena.
Suicide bomber Salman Abedi and his jailed accomplice brother Hashem attended the south Manchester mosque, while their older brother Ismail, who has fled the country, volunteered in the mosque’s Arabic school. Their father Ramadan had performed the call to prayer while their mother Samia Tabbal taught there briefly. The family also attended other mosques.
The mosque was attacked by arsonists in 2021 and now, after it was criticised by the public inquiry into the bombing, it is understood police have stepped up patrols in the area. Mosque leaders say they fear attacks by ‘right-wing elements’.
Last week’s third and final report of the public inquiry into the 2017 bombing, which claimed 22 lives, concluded Didsbury Mosque was not an ‘active factor or cause’ in the radicalisation of suicide bomber Salman Abedi or brother Hashem.
But leaders of the Burton Road venue were guilty of ‘wilful blindness’ to highly-charged political debate at the mosque about the conflict raging in Libya before the atrocity, inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders concluded.
He criticised the ‘unreliable’ evidence of Fawzi Haffar, the chair of trustees at Didsbury Mosque, who he said ‘tended to downplay the strength of the links between the mosque and the Abedi family’.
By contrast Sir John praised the ‘generally truthful and reliable’ evidence of a liberal imam at the mosque, Mohammed El-Saeiti, who said in his evidence he was ostracised at the mosque after speaking out against radical Islam.
In his evidence, El-Saeiti said he received death threats on social media over one address he gave at the mosque following the Islamic State murder of Salford taxi driver Alan Henning – and there were concerns he would be attacked by the Abedi brothers Salman and Hashem.
The Charity Commission issued the mosque, also known as the Manchester Islamic Centre, with an action plan in 2018, which it said has now been completed. Since criticisms on the inquiry report, the commission said it had opened a new ‘regulatory compliance case’ at the mosque, the M.E.N. has learned.
Mr Haffar has not responded to an M.E.N. request for an interview. However, asked if the mosque was getting protection or whether he feared attacks on the mosque, Mr Haffar told 5Pillars YouTube channel: “Absolutely. As a matter-of-fact right wing elements have been saying many things on social media for the last few days. We have been approached by the police as well as the Manchester City Council. And I would like to praise the police and the Manchester City Council and our councillors and MPs for all the help and assistance they’ve been giving us.
“We had a meeting a few days ago and we had a security plan in place. We did all the risk assessment to make sure we don’t have any repeat of the arson attack we had in 2021.
“So we are of course worried. We are worried for the attendees. We are worried for the children who actually attend the Arabic koran school here. Of course we are worried. The parents are worried. But we will protect our institute and we will protect our place of worship until hopefully the security services will be able to stop these bad right-wing influences on our place of worship.”
He said he hoped the final report would bring ‘closure’ for the families but also for the mosque. He said the mosque had an ‘open door policy’ so people could listen for themselves to what is preached there. He denied Didsbury was a ‘radical’ mosque and said it was a centre for ‘mainsteam Islam’….
somehistory says
Now if they were there to arrest those going in and coming out…..as in walking in and out the doors…they might find that the barracks did link to the attacks of terror.
mozlums are taught to hate, to think about and plan their attacks so they can make it into that fake paradise where they expect to drink and rape all day and all night forever.
And the places they are taught are in their homes, in their schools and in their barracks.
And the people who teach them are their parents, their imams and others who preach that from the tops of their lungs across the minaret world. a.k.a. mozlums who believe the evil filth from their book and lust to see people die.
And many, many times, *attacks* against their own barracks come from their own members, but they can pretend it’s due to hatred of them and the fake phobia which they claim is rampant in the world.
James Templar says
There won’t be any ‘closure’ for the 22 innocents murdered by the Libyan Muslim terrorist. Or the 300 survivors who sustained terrible life changing injury’s.
tim gallagher says
I can imagine the rage that people related to the young victims of the Muslim terrorists at that concert would be feeling. Maybe someone will take some revenge on the mosque. I saw members of the families of the victims on TV here in Australia talking about the failure of MI5 to stop this Muslim scumbag who was the bomber and they were very angry about MI5’s failure. Probably the mosque should be closed down for having a relationship with the Muslim maggot who unleashed the bomb at the concert, but I suppose that there are too many Muslims in the area and they would go berserk as they always do in their usual violent way and complain about how they are the victims.
somehistory says
I, too, Tim, would feel rage if my child had been murdered by any member of satan’s congregation. so many of those scummy creatures get away with their murderous actions. Many more get away with rape.
I feel it necessary….and best….to rely on Divine Justice to make things right.
Hoi Polloi says
I’m with you two; this is infuriating. Sympathy to the victims’ families in whose eyes the UK government continues to spit.
tim gallagher says
No doubt, somehistory and Hoi Polloi, there would be a simmering anger in the community. I vaguely remember seeing the mother of one of the young girls who were killed in the concert bombing a couple of weeks ago on the TV news here in Australia and i think she did say that she could never forgive MI5 for not acting against the bomber, who they had had on a watch list for years. So I reckon that this mosque could be a target for quite a few members of the community. Then again, there is seldom any retaliation against Muslims in our western societies. It is always Muslim terrorists murdering innocent people. I guess it is the difference between barbarians, brought up in violent islam, and civilised people who have been taught to live in a peaceful way.
somehistory says
The Jews of ancient times, had the Law of the Avenger of Blood. Loved ones could be avenged, even upon those who murdered due to carelessness.
The guilty of deliberate murder faced something harsher.
Hoi Polloi says
TR just put up an old vid of himself going to this mosque years ago and telling them he had video of all their kill the infidel and beat your wife preachers, but says whenever he spread the word on this mosque, the government and press attacked him as racist.
Hoi Polloi says
Why not? Don’t those poor terrorists deserve love, too? Why should the UK government consider all the children these savages have destroyed when they’ve got to charge ahead with the Great Replacement before enough people notice? As long as enough people still scream about conspiracy theories they can make haste and make it happen.
tgusa says
Well of course. Speedy response from the police (at this point can we really call them police), this time. Gotta protect the ideology behind the sexual assault of thousands of young British girls. Yes they do. I have a few names for those police but I cannot share them here.
tgusa says
The sad truth is if these police were protecting an evil regime in the middle east that the USA invaded we would be shooting them or forcing their surrender. We would be kicking down doors or blowing them up to root them all out.
John Allan says
Good to know that there are bobbies, to spare.
Jayell1 says
So this mosque is being given extra protection because it’s being ‘criticised’, is it? Now, here’s a funny thing. For some reason, the local police in my neck of the woods (a ‘desirable’, still recognisably ‘English’ Edwardian upmarket area of east London but with a muslim-infested post-WW2 Newham council* estate tacked on the end of it) didn’t seem to want to bother themselves too much when a gang of islamic youths from the council estate decided to put a brick through a window of the parish church – I know, because I was in the church when it happened. It’s strange that, until that point, this church and remained totally undamaged since it was built in 1914 even though Hitler’s bombers had been regularly raining bombs on the anti-aircraft guns positioned on the huge open common land area just across the road – yet, all of a sudden, a few muslim thugs are given very pleasant modern social housing round the corner – and THIS happens!
I notice from the picture that the Didsbury mosque looks suspiciously like it is one of those that was converted from a redundant church. This reminds me of a story about the conversion of another church into a mosque in the Manchester area about 20 years ago where the church grounds included a graveyard. The muslims would have seen the gravestones and would have been told about the remains of former parishioners that remained buried in what was consecrated ground, yet reports told of excavators being sent and digging up bones willy-nilly, throwing them plus the gravestones into builders’ skips, Now I hear that the local Grade 2 listed Baptist church in my wonderful oasis of civilisation is being rebuilt courtesy of local funding with the stipulation that it should include a room reserved as an ‘Islamic Eeducation Center’ even though there are hardly in muslims amongst the 6,000+ local population! All we have to do now is wait for the total takeover of the site by this ‘cultural enrichment’.
*Now the Islamic Republic of Newham.
Hoi Polloi says
Wonder if the language includes a stipulation regarding a room reserved for a Christian Education Center, how many locals would have been allowed to disinter willy-nilly, or how many attacks on a mosque would have been ignored? Happy to hear you survived the attack.
The last few times I was in German airports I noticed how important and necessary prayer rooms have suddenly become. There was no such accommodation made when the traffic was primarily Christian.
Jayell1 says
What;s going to happen with this new ‘islamic education centre’ in the restored Baptist church is that it’s going transmute into a mosque as the limited number of muslims around here say they feel the need to use it as a place of worship – even though the greater number of Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Jewish people happily continue going to their establishments just out of the immediate area. Then more muslims will magically start arriving from the nearby islamic republics, clogging up the residential streets with their cars and spilling out onto the streets or the local common land or commandeering one of the local halls, after which someone in the islam-infested local council will grant planning permission and maybe even partial taxpayers’ funding for a full-size mosque – assuming they hadn’t already taken over the Baptist Church by that time. I give it maybe five years from now, by which time I’d have moved away from this until-now lovely neighbourhood.
By the way, the ‘prayer room’ epidemic is already underway in the UK, not only in airports but also in hospitals where traditional chapels have been replaced with these rooms which are often designed to look amazingly like mosques – even if muslims are only a small proportion of the clientele. and it’s the British taxpayer that pays for it all! I think I’ve already mentioned my unfortunate stopover in Doha airport, hub of Qatar Airways, where the terminal building was presumably built as a shining example of the islamic presence in world of international air travel – but where their attempt at ‘prayer room’ facilities only included male and female mosques on every corridor. There seems to be a pattern emerging here.
Hoi Polloi says
Doubtless you are right and it’s a taxpayer-funded magnet. I’ve been so tempted to go into these prayer rooms and make my presence known.
somehistory says
The rugs are probably hotbeds of filthy things full of disease, and you likely wouldn’t make it out alive if you didn’t get down and pound your head against that dirty carpet.
Daniel Shine says
Coming to America
Deodata says
In the UK, we have an organisation called Prevent, which just happens to be another totally incompetent body. All they seemed to be coming out with is the likes of the film Zulu could contribute to right wing extremism. Why is it anything run by the government does everything in its power to avoid the truth that the threat comes from Muslims. Just compare in the world the number of terrorist attacks by Muslim/ right wing extremists
Jayell1 says
‘Prevent’. ‘Prevent’ what, exactly? ‘Prevent’ the British public from getting to know too much about what’s going on re. what our ‘Friends of the Great Prophet’ are getting up to, or doing anything much about it? The ‘British ‘Government certainly ‘prevented’ too many people learning about the grooming gangs until they couldn’t stop the courts spilling the beans, then tried to ‘prevent’ a backlash with bogus media campaigns to bury the news until they pushed their luck too far with a character-assassination attempt on a certain well-known pop star that was just too transparently fake for words. But, no doubt, this is what happens when one undertakes to allow muslims in the UK to ‘practise their faith unhindered’.
OLD GUY says
ISLAMOPHOBIA, The police have to protect Muslims and their mosques from non-muslim people telling the truth about the violence and danger coming from the islamic mosque. As Islam rapes and murders its way across Europe you don’t dare burn a Quran or say anything negative against ISLAM.
Hate to say it but the police and governments are protecting the VIOLATORS.