Co-opting Murder To Serve Ideology
In December 2025, 18-year-old Henry Nowak, a white student, was fatally stabbed in Southampton by a man of Sikh background. Our thoughts and condolences continue to be with the Nowak family whose dignified response in the wake of this devastating loss has been exemplary.
The tragedy was further compounded by reports that police, armed with incomplete and incorrect information, arrested and restrained the victim, Henry, as he lay dying, sparking violent protests fuelled by far-right ideologues seeking to fracture otherwise cohesive communities by inflaming racial and religious tensions.
More recently in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a brutal knife attack by a man of Sudanese origin left Stephen Ogilvie, a white man, with life-changing injuries and sparked ethnic-minority pogroms that saw families burned out of their homes. It was a miracle that no one was killed. We are thinking of Mr Ogilvie and send him strength and courage for the days ahead.
It has been truly sickening to observe politicians, the media, so-called analysts, and agitators hellbent on racialising these crimes, where none existed, in order to engender some twisted legitimacy to these pogroms, and to serve their political ends. Hence we do not believe that these pogroms, considering the long history of the Irish people as victims of occupation and colonisation, developed organically. The Irish people’s decades-old staunch support for Palestine and their unflinching demands for Israeli accountability in Gaza – where other states have folded – manifestly bear this out.
While the United Kingdom is culturally diverse, no culture has a monopoly on virtue, and it must be acknowledged that saints and sinners are a feature of all human societies. However, the amplification, double standards and racially selective outrage at crimes committed by “non-white” individuals aims to strip criminality of personal responsibility in favour of bigoted assumptions about a moral racial hierarchy. A commitment to democracy means letting justice take its course, rather than taking the law into one’s own hands or condemning entire races or communities under standards that would not be applied consistently.
No society should be driven by hate and racism, and we call on every fair-minded citizen not only to reject such actions, but also to reject the hate-mongers and purveyors of such hatred.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white except by piety and good action. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you.
[Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him]