UK mosques gain access to £3.2m fund to protect against hate crime

Latest annual figures show more than 100,000 hate crime offences committed in England and Wales

The London Central Mosque pictured from the boating lake in London's Regent's Park.

British mosques and other faith groups will be able to apply for a share of £3.2 million (Dh14.8m) in government funding to protect venues against hate crimes.

The UK Home Office's Places of Worship protective security funding scheme opened for applications on Tuesday.

The move comes one day after religious venues were allowed to reopen as lockdown restrictions were eased.

The latest UK hate crime figures show there were more than 100,000 offences in the year to March 2019 in England and Wales.

The funding scheme will run until August and each religious organisation will be able to access up to £56,000 each for hate crime measures.

The scheme provides funding for protections such as CCTV, fencing, gates, alarms and lighting to places of worship and associated faith community centres that may be vulnerable to hate crime.

This year British mosques were the biggest beneficiaries of the scheme, which allocated £1.6m to 27 mosques, 13 churches, five gurdwaras and four Hindu temples.

It was the largest amount of funding in a single year since the scheme was set up in 2016.

In March the UK government also launched a new consultation for religious groups to discuss what more can be done to protect such groups from attacks.

"During this global pandemic, personal faith has been a source of comfort and strength for many,"  the Minister for Countering Extremism, Baroness Williams, said.

"I would urge all places of worship who feel they are vulnerable to hate crime to apply for the fund, and as a government we will do all we can to make your congregations feel safe and protected."

British Muslim groups have renewed calls for extra security following incidents of worshippers being targeted at mosques.

Last year a man wielding a hammer entered London's Central Mosque as worshippers were attending prayers in the final days of Ramadan.

In another incident two men forced their way into a mosque in Cardiff, Wales.

Last year the hate monitoring group Tell Mama recorded a 593 per cent rise in reports of Islamophobia in the UK in the week following the fatal shooting of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Since the scheme launched in 2016, more than £1.5m has been awarded to 63 churches, 49 mosques, 16 gurdwaras and five Hindu temples.