Radical anti-Muslim activists foment Islamophobia instead of offering a solution to the problem that has been on the rise in the European Union, director of the Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) monitoring service told Sputnik on Saturday.

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MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana AlexandrovaThe campaigner spoke ahead of a march by the English Defence League (EDL), set to be held later on Saturday in London to protest against what the group refers to as the "threat that Islam poses."

"The reality is that groups like the English Defence League are part of the problem and not the solution. Many followers of this group have been imprisoned for their extremism and their hate crimes," Fiyaz Mughal said.

He added that the best way to tackle far-right groups is to shed light on their methods and ideology as many of their supporters have a history of violence and a criminal record.

Mughal also said that the rise of Islamophobia in the European Union has been caused by a "strategic shift" in the rhetoric of the nationalists, who claim that Islam threatens EU member states because of the acts perpetrated by terrorists groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIL).

"This rhetoric is crafted to play on the fears of extremism and terrorism and extreme far right groups believe that there is mileage in this stance in the sense that it widens the pool of people that they can influence," Mughal said.

Anti-Islamization sentiment has been on the rise in Europe in recent months following the numerous beheadings of foreign hostages by ISIL militants and several attacks in Europe, including the shooting at the Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, which left 12 dead in January.