More than half of UK Muslims have no sympathy for Paris attack motives: poll

Almost half of the 1,000 Muslims polled said they thought prejudice against Islam made it difficult to be a Muslim in Britain, which they felt was becoming less tolerant to Islam.

LONDON // More than 60 per cent of British Muslims have no sympathy for the motives behind the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo while the vast majority think attacks on those who publish images of the Prophet Mohammed are wrong, a poll has found.

Gunmen killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, including the magazine’s editor and several of its prominent cartoonists, in revenge for its publication of satirical images of the Prophet Mohammed.

In a poll of 1,000 Muslims, commissioned by the BBC and published on Wednesday, 27 per cent of respondents said they agreed with the statement: “I have some sympathy for the motives behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris”. Sixty-two per cent said they had no sympathy.

Seventy-eight per cent felt it was “deeply offensive” personally when images of Prophet Mohammed were published and 11 per cent felt sympathetic towards people who want to fight against Western interests.

However, 68 per cent said acts of violence against those who printed images of the Prophet were never justified, and 85 per cent said organisations which published such images did not deserve to be attacked.

Britain has approximately 2.8 million Muslims, who make up just under 5 per cent of the population.

Senior politicians have regularly called on the Muslim community to do more to counter violent extremism after incidents such as the 2005 London bombings and the murder of a soldier in the capital in 2013, both of which were carried out by young British Muslims.

Many Muslims say they feel they are unfairly targeted as a result and blamed for the actions of a small minority.

The BBC survey found that 95 per cent of respondents said they felt a loyalty to Britain and 93 per cent said they should always obey British laws.

Almost half said they thought prejudice against Islam made it difficult to be a Muslim in Britain, which they felt was becoming less tolerant of Muslims.

Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative politician who as former minister of state for faith and communities was the first Muslim to serve as a cabinet minister in Britain, told BBC Radio more data such as this should be collected.

“One of the problems we have had in relation to good policy-making around our minority communities is that it has become headline driven ... and sensationalist and is therefore not dealing with the long-term problem in a calm way,” she said.

* Reuters