Five Muslim men were chased through Edinburgh with a machete on Friday night.
Two of them were 22 years old.
They were walking through their own city. Sighthill. Then the west. Then Leith Walk.
By the end of the night, five were injured and three were in hospital.
Tonight they are lying in those beds wondering if they will be well enough for work on Monday.
The man who did it was pinned to the ground by police, still screaming.
"I'm protecting the country from these Muslim bastards raping our young daughters."
Ask where a man learns to say that out loud.
He didn't invent it.
Three days earlier, Rupert Lowe published a crowdfunded report claiming 250,000 white girls had been raped by Muslim gangs.
The number was everywhere. GB News. X. The front pages.
Then a man took it into the street on the end of a blade.
He needed one breath to name who he hated.
Watch how long it took everyone else.
The BBC first wrote "Islamophobic attacks." Then changed it to "anti-Muslim." The right word, quietly swapped.
Sky News: "appearing to target Muslims."
LBC kept the word. The only outlet that did. The same station that dropped Sangita Myska in 2024 after she refused to soften.
Then the politicians.
Manchester synagogue, October. John Swinney, same day: "Antisemitism is an evil we must confront." He named the faith. He named the community. That was right.
Edinburgh, his own capital. Swinney: "deeply concerned" by "these incidents." Not Muslim. Not Islamophobia.
The Prime Minister, almost a day late: "appears to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred."
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, a Muslim woman, the minister whose department decides what this country calls terrorism. Golders Green: "a vile act of terrorism." Edinburgh: "appears."
Even her.
Still no COBRA. The threat level has not moved. And not one of them will name the attacker's faith.
When the man with the blade is one of us, his religion leads the headline before the ambulance arrives.
When he comes for us, he is a bare-chested man with a weapon.
We have watched this before.
Maysum Abdullah took a knife to the neck shielding his pupils. A hero in every paper. A Muslim in none of them.
Mohammed Algasim, a Saudi student, stabbed to death in the neck in Cambridge. His name barely printed.
And it is not slowing down. In a single week, three mosques were attacked and an imam's home was firebombed. Batley. Blackburn. Bolton. Barely a ripple.
A man knew exactly who he hated and said it in one sentence.
The press could not print it without editing it. The politicians could not say it without softening it. The state would not lift a finger to escalate it.
The whole country saw what it was. Almost no one in power would say the word.
Hands held over their mouths.
Tonight, five Muslim men are in an Edinburgh hospital.
They were victims.
They were Muslim.
They prayed, they fasted, they practised the religion of Islam.
And every word of that was stripped from the page.
If they won’t say it. We will.
ISLAMOPHOBIA.
Report: https://t.co/NTLpXVTNS2
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IG: @islamophobiauk
🚨 Andoni Iraola to sign a two year deal until June 2028 at Liverpool, already involved in transfer plans and strategy.
Iraola asked for a two year deal as he always did at Bournemouth. 🔴🫱🏻🫲🏼
I have witnessed this club go from doubters to believers, and from believers to champions. It took hard work and I always did everything I could to help the club get there. Nothing makes me prouder than that.
Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies. That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.
Winning some games here and there is not what Liverpool should be about. All teams win games.
Liverpool will always be a club that means a great deal to me and to my family. I want to see it succeed for long after I have moved on.
As I’ve always said, qualifying to next season’s Champions League is the bare minimum and I will do everything I can to make that happen.
@ashoswai No mention of Pahalgam being a false flag operation. And no credit to Pakistan for defending its border and territorial integrity.
Moral of the story - Make peace not war.
India is not the superpower in the region. China is 👍
Really thoughtful comments by @RoryStewartUK
The key for us is this and Rory says it as it is:
If people want the ‘remigration of Muslims’ who are citizens of the U.K. or European countries then you are racist and demonstrating fascistic tendencies.
@ashoswai If Taliban claims are true. Why are there secondary explosions in the video?
Please fact check before believing the fraudulent Taliban regime 🙏
On this day, in 2019, 51 Muslims were killed in terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Thinking today of the victims and their families. This is where Islamophobia leads.
A white supremacist thug has tried to murder a 20-year-old Muslim woman in London by running her down as she crossed a road on 8 March.
The horrifying incident was captured on a doorbell camera. However, the ‘mainstream’ media have completely ignored it.
https://t.co/sw4o0Et76T
This is Mubinul Hoque. He kept his Liverpool chippy open today to give away free food and drinks to the most vulnerable and people spending Christmas alone. This was for a second year running.
What an amazing man. ♥️
The fear is gone! Supporters of Israel's genocide are increasingly failing to intimidate people into silence.
Here's football legend Pep Guardiola calling on the people of Barcelona to flood the streets tomorrow at noon to demand an end to the genocide.
Expect a sea of people!