Leicester City, in England’s East Midlands, has seen a spate of targeted attacks on the Hindu minority in the area. The outbreak of Islamist violence against Hindus began shortly after the India-Pakistan match in the Asia Cup on August 28. So far, around 50 people have been arrested in connection with an attack by Islamic fundamentalists on a gathering of Hindus in the city.
On Friday, September 16, hundreds of Hindus took to the streets of Leicester to protest against the earlier violence by Muslims against Hindus in the area. During the protest by Hindus, the Muslim mob started indiscriminately attacking Hindus with stones and glass bottles. The protest by Hindus was disrupted by Islamists as they hurled glass bottles at the protestors. A Saffron flag was also desecrated by a mob of Islamists in front of the police.
Even The Indian High Commission in London on Monday, September 19, in a strongly worded note condemned the violence perpetrated against the Indian community in the UK. In its statement, HCI London also pointed out the vandalisation of premises and symbols of the Hindu religion. The HCI has strongly taken up the matter with the UK authorities and sought immediate action against those involved in the attacks.
During these violent attacks by Islamists, a London-based journalist Wasiq Wasiq (Twitter handle @WasiqUK) was doing an excellent job of documenting the violence by the Islamists, and the provocative speeches being made by Islamists in Leicester. Wasiq shared several videos of these provocative speeches directed against Hindus in the area.
Not only were Wasiq’s videos viral on the internet, but they also did a good job of exposing who is fanning the flames of hatred in Leicester. In fact, his posts were also noted by the local police as they looked to clamp down on the surge of hate crimes in the area against Hindus.
We’re aware of this video, it has been passed to officers to investigate in relation to hate crime offences.
— West Midlands Police (@WMPolice) September 22, 2022
We never accept or tolerate social media attacks on anyone simply for being who they are.
Hate crimes will be looked into and we will pursue the offenders with vigour.
However, looks like Wasiq may have shared one too many such videos for the liking of Twitter authorities. On Thursday, Wasiq shared another video of hate speech directed against Hindus where one man was saying that the unity of Islam will break vegetarian Hindus into pieces.
While the tweet was only exposing the hate-filled rhetoric being used on the ground to fan the flames of violence against Hindus, Twitter chose to remove the video for violating its “community guidelines”. The tweet now stands deleted as per Twitter’s “rules”. As is the case in most such incidents when Twitter removes a tweet, it is likely that Wasiq’s account is now locked for a day as well. We could not get independent confirmation whether the same is the case with Wasiq’s account as well.
However, Twitter’s removal of the video exposing the hate speeches directed toward Hindus on the ground tells us that Twitter is not committed to letting the facts of the Leicester violence come to light. When even local police is taking the help of these videos to track down those responsible for violence on the ground, the decision to remove such a tweet is quite puzzling.
