Tell MAMA says in the week after the PM made his comments, women who wore the burka were targeted (Picture: Getty)

There was a 375% increase in anti-Muslim incidents in the week after the prime minister made comments about Muslim women who wear the burka, according to an anti-racism organisation.

Tell MAMA, which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in the UK, says that following Boris Johnson’s comparison of women in burkas to letterboxes and bank robbers, there was a ‘significant spike’ in Islamophobic incidents.

The prime minister had made the comments in a Telegraph column.

In the week following his comments, 38 incidents were reported to police and Tell MAMA.


Of those incidents, 22 were targeted at ‘visibly Muslim women who wore the face veil’, according to the organisation.



A statement from the organisation said: ‘Between August 5 and August 29, 42% of the street-based incidents reported to Tell MAMA directly referenced Boris Johnson and/or the language used in his column.’

The PM had compared Muslim women who wear the burka, to bank robbers and letterboxes (Picture: AFP)

In his Telegraph article in August 2018, Mr Johnson said full-face veils should not be banned, but it was ‘absolutely ridiculous’ women chose to ‘go around looking like letterboxes’.

He also went on to compare them to ‘bank robbers’.

Mr Johnson defended his choice of words, insisting that the backlash against them was nothing more than ‘confected indignation’ at his ‘strong views’ on Brexit.

In its publication of statistics on Islamophobic incidents for 2018, Tell MAMA said there was also a ‘significant spike’ in activity after the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters were sent to Muslim households, organisations and places of work.

The letters, which incited violence against Muslims and rewarded perpetrators with ‘points’, led to reports of 37 public incidents which directly referenced them.

The statement added that after the letters were sent, there was a period of ‘heightened tensions, fears, and anxieties around the proposed day’.

Anti-racism charity Tell MAMA said 22 incidents were targeted at ‘visibly Muslim women who wore the face veil’ in the week after Boris Johnson’s comments (Picture: Getty Images)

Tell MAMA said that it recorded 2,963 anti-Muslim hate incidents in 2018, which includes reports made to both the organisation and the police.

The organisation said that there had been an 11% reduction in reports of anti-Muslim incidents carried out in public from 2017.

It was suggested that this was because ‘there were four major terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom in 2017, which led to sharp spikes of reported anti-Muslim hate incidents to Tell MAMA’, according to the organisation.

Last year, the majority of victims of Islamophobia were female (57%) and the majority of perpetrators were male (73%), their statement added.

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