British police release footage of Islamophobic attack

LONDON

Police in London investigating a religiously aggravated hate crime on Monday released footage of a man throwing a bag of rotten pork at a mosque.

The CCTV image shows a bearded man approach the entrance to Finsbury Park mosque in north London on May 26 before throwing the bag on the mosque steps.

“We take hate crime extremely seriously as we know how destructive these offences can be, both to individuals and to communities,” Det. Insp. Ralph Coates of Islington Community Safety Unit said in a statement.

According to the London-based monitoring group Tell MAMA's annual report released last week there was a 200 percent rise in hate crimes against Muslims last year compared to the previous 12 months.