I accidentally ended an important client call with “love you” yesterday😫I heard him laugh as I hung up and immediately wished the ground would swallow me. Today he emailed me this😭😭👇🏻
Two Muslim men pulled an elderly couple and their grandson from a burning house in Leeds last Friday.
You probably didn’t hear about it.
Mohsin Qayyum. 22.
Mohammed Yusuf Iqbal. 20.
Both from Bradford.
They drove past the garden. They saw the fire. They ran straight in.
Sheila Robinson, the grandmother who was trapped inside, posted on social media:
"My family and I will be forever grateful to these young men."
Her granddaughter Kayla wrote:
"Drove past the garden, seen it, and ran straight in and made sure everyone was okay without a second thought."
Everyone got out. The house can be replaced. The family is alive.
Every outlet that covered it called them heroes.
They deserved every word.
But not one headline told you they were Muslim men.
We have seen this before.
Two weeks ago, a teacher was stabbed in the neck protecting his pupils from a knife in his Manchester classroom.
Maysum Abdullah. 27. Science teacher.
LBC named him a hero. So did the Independent, the Manchester Evening News, the Mirror, the Sun.
He ran towards the blade.
A hero in every paper. A Muslim man in none of them.
This is the pattern.
When a Muslim name appears in a crime, the faith leads the headline.
When a Muslim name appears in a rescue, it vanishes from the page.
Now look at who that erasure clears the path for.
Bradford, the same district these men come from, is now led by Reform as its largest party.
One of their candidates, Daniel Devaney, topped the poll in his ward after writing on Facebook that Muslims were "pure scum" and that he wanted to "blast [them] off the face of the earth."
He was not deselected. He was not suspended. He was elected.
They are loud about our religion when they want to call it a threat.
They are silent when that same religion sends two young men running into a fire.
The book they want to criticise is the same book that commands us to save a life.
"Whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved all of mankind."
— Qur'an 5:32
Qayyum and Iqbal lived that verse on a Friday in Leeds.
Abdullah lived it in a Manchester classroom.
And the headlines recorded the act, but erased the faith that drove it.
When we are the suspect, our religion is the whole story.
When we are the rescuer, it is not worth a line.
Their names are Maysum Abdullah, Mohsin Qayyum, and Mohammed Yusuf Iqbal.
Muslim men.
Say both.
Sources first comment.
Report: https://t.co/D9amGp2yxO
Keep us alive: https://t.co/Z8H0Flg44Y
Substack: https://t.co/9x6sqmwMge
IG: @islamophobiauk
🚨 NEW: The police officers who handcuffed Henry Nowak took 8 minutes to realise he had been stabbed
MALE POLICE OFFICER: I’m not sure he’s breathing.
FEMALE POLICE OFFICER: (Checks for pulse in neck)
MALE OFFICER: He's not breathing.
FEMALE OFFICER: Right let's get the handcuffs off.
MALE OFFICER: Let them know he's not breathing.
FEMALE OFFICER: Yeah. (Talks on police radio). From 4-8 we don’t think he’s breathing. Could we get another unit here please? Got no pulse.
MALE POLICE OFFICER: (Unlocks handcuffs). Medic or anything. ARV.
FEMALE OFFICER: (Talks on police radio). ARV towards [us] if we’ve got them with a defib.
MALE OFFICER: (Removes handcuffs)
MALE OFFICER: He’s not unconscious mate, he’s not breathing. (Continues chest compressions). Come on mate. That’s it, that’s it. Keep breathing. Come on. (Pauses briefly). No.
FEMALE OFFICER: No? Keep going.
MALE OFFICER: Come on mate. Stay with us.
FEMALE OFFICER: Yeah, that's it mate, come on.
MALE OFFICER: That’s it. Come on, take a breath. (Continues chest compressions). That’s it bro, I got you. Come on.
FEMALE OFFICER: (Talks on radio). Go ahead? Thank you. Do you wanna swap?
MALE OFFICER: No, I’m alright.
FEMALE OFFICER: Sure?
MALE OFFICER: Come on mate. Come on. That’s it. That’s it.
FEMALE OFFICER: Have you, can you put a torch … I just wanna make sure that he hasn’t been stabbed. Are you alright to hold it? Thank you.
FEMALE OFFICER 2: (Walks into view). Do you want me to do it? Here you are.
FEMALE OFFICER: Cheers mate. (Passes torch to female police officer). Right, they’re gonna want him down to skin level for defib.
FEMALE OFFICER 2: I’ve got some … oh SCAS are here.
FEMALE OFFICER: Have you got scissors? Grab some scissors.
MALE OFFICER: (Continues chest compressions). Come on mate. (Whispers). He’s fucking gone. He’s got blood coming out his nose. (Talks quietly). He’s fucking gone.
FEMALE OFFICER: Right, if you stretch that clothing for me. Stretch it out. Perfect. (Unseen gesture/cutting of clothing). There's a lot of blood.
MALE OFFICER: Has he been stabbed there?
FEMALE OFFICER: Yeah, he's got a stab... there's a mark there.
MALE OFFICER: That makes it worse. He's got a stab... I'm pushing on a fucking stab wound. (Sound of clothing being ripped)
FEMALE OFFICER: That's okay. It's fine. It's not... it's not coming out. It's fine. Keep going. Keep going. It's not bleeding out.
MALE OFFICER: (Continues chest compressions)
At this point, a paramedic arrives and takes over. The transcript ends at 23:46. Nowak was pronounced dead at the scene at 00:37
I yelled at a delivery driver for being 40 minutes late. I had people coming over in 20 minutes and the food was already cold by the time he got there.
He apologized quietly, handed me the bag, and walked back to his car without saying another word.
I felt justified the entire night. Right up until the next morning…..
This is so heartbreaking; He's just a kid. The pain in his voice is evident.
This is institutional racism in action.
Daryl McLune, 16 at the time, was arrested in Wandsworth in July 2021 on suspicion of attempted murder after his mum, Annette McLune, jumped from the roof of their flat in a suicide attempt.
He'd been at his grandma's and cycled home to find his mum critically injured. He was then handcuffed in the street and held for nearly 24 hours, despite not being involved.
Police later found a suicide note and razor blades showing it was self-harm, and he was released without charge. The experience left him with PTSD and affected his schooling.
He later sued the Met Police, and a jury found he was racially discriminated against and treated less fairly than a non-Black boy would have been, awarding him £130,000.
His barrister said it wasn't careful policing, it was a child in crisis being wrongly treated as a suspect, and that discrimination can be unconscious.