From the Daily Mail:
Police are investigating reports a gang claiming to be Islamic vigilantes have been confronting members of the public and demanding they give up alcohol and women cover their flesh in their ‘Muslim area’.
Videos made by the “gang” were posted to YouTube under the name “Muslim Patrol”, and came to the attention of The Commentator yesterday. At that time, there were two videos available, although the Commentator says there were others which YouTube had removed. The “Muslim Patrol” channel is now gone completely, although one video is still available at the Mail.
As far as it’s possible to tell, the supposed group consists of a young black man wearing a hoodie to hide his face and a second person holding a camera; this second person’s hand comes into view at one point, and he appears to be white. The cameraman also seems to have facility in Arabic.
Of course, it’s possible there are other members of the “gang” off-camera, but shadows in the Mail video suggest not (the same for the second video, in which the two men document vandalised lingerie adverts at bus-stops, although they suggest some other Muslims have done it). The duo are shown intimidating and harassing couples and individuals out walking at night; one suspects that the “patrol” is careful not to target anyone who might give them trouble back. According to the Mail, the videos were
…shot on a mobile phone at night in what the Met say is Waltham Forest, London.
The second video briefly shows the Drum pub at Bakers Arms, but it’s encouraging that the Met has managed to work it out.
According to the Commentator:
The footage is likely to have come from East London, where ‘Shariah zones’ were set up last year.
…Those involved are thought to be a part of an extremist network in East London and not linked to the wider Muslim community in the local area.
The “Shariah zones” story relates to an incident in 2011, when associates of the sociopathic attention-seeker Anjem Choudary plastered stickers proclaiming the existence of such zones around parts of east London. Presumably his group is the “extremist network” to which the Commentator alludes. So are the “Muslim Patrol” associates, or just fans?
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Daft twits.
I saw some, not a lot, of support from strict Muslims for some past antics like the poppy burning demo from strict Muslims but this one seems to have no support at all anywhere. Good job.
Oh, kept getting visits to me blog from your site and couldn’t work it out. Then noticed the link on the right. So, hey, cheers!
Would have been better to only say ‘strict Muslims’ once.
If a group linked to Choudary were involved I would have expected more “branding” on the video.
According to some of the Salafi mob, they’ve already had a bit of a ding dong with the bods in the vid over this. And according to them it’s guys they know from the Call2Islam/Al Muhaj crowd.
Been some blinding responses to it, even though it is a ridiculous thing to sweat about.
Muslim response – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpDJTBBwrKM
Gee, I don’t know, it couldn’t possibly be a hoax to drum up fear and hatred of muslims.
Seems unlikely – but the question is whether it’s more significant than just two guys going around with a camera.
[…] harassing the citizens of Tower Hamlets over their alcohol drinking or way of dressing. As Richard Bartholomew has pointed out, the "patrol" appears to consist of just two individuals, one of whom is […]
[…] harassing the citizens of Tower Hamlets over their alcohol drinking or way of dressing. As Richard Bartholomew has pointed out, the “patrol” appears to consist of just two individuals, one of whom […]
[…] thuggish trio who were going around harassing people as a self-styled “Muslim patrol” more than a year ago tended to target individuals in back-streets or isolated areas, and it’s unlikely they would […]