Mosque arson cost Peacehaven Muslim community its ‘safe haven’, says manager
Police are appealing for information about the attack on a mosque in East Sussex, which saw the entrance set alight after arsonists failed to get in
An arson attack on a mosque in Peacehaven on Saturday followed a months-long campaign of intimidation and has left the local Muslim community feeling terrified, a manager at the centre said on Monday.
The entrance of Peacehaven Mosque and a taxi belonging to the mosque’s chair were set alight by two people on Saturday evening, about an hour after isha prayers.
The chair and a friend were inside at the time chatting and drinking tea when they heard someone aggressively trying to push open the locked front door three times, said the manager — who asked us to withhold his name for fear of reprisals. Shortly after, they heard a loud explosion. They managed to escape to safety before the fire took hold.
Footage of the incident, captured on the mosque’s doorbell camera and released by volunteers, shows two masked men pouring gasoline across the entrance. Another clip shows the taxi ablaze.
The manager has been volunteering at the mosque since it opened in 2021. They said local Muslim families had seen an increase in Islamophobic abuse in the last six months, including verbal abuse hurled at hijab-wearing mothers as they dropped off their children at the mosque, racist bullying of brown and Black children at nearby schools, and an incident last summer in which the mosque was egged.
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“The last two months have been particularly bad,” the volunteer said. “People have been very aggressive towards the mosque and mosque attendees, both in person and on social media. But this particular incident, we have never experienced anything of this level.”
Mothin Ali, co-deputy leader of the Green party, left the party’s conference early on Saturday to visit the mosque after learning about the attack.
He told Hyphen the government should have taken the incident more seriously. “This is a small, isolated community,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons they were targeted. The chairman was inside the mosque when it was set on fire. By the grace of God he got out, but there could have been a real possibility of people being inside.”
He added that authorities should also be considering whether the attack, currently being classed as a hate crime, was an act of terrorism.
“After the Manchester attack,” said Ali, prime minister Keir Starmer “cancelled his meetings in Europe and flew back, which was the right thing to do. It would be good to show some of that same concern.” A man named as Jihad al-Shamie drove a car into the gate of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester, on Thursday, before stabbing worshippers. Two people, alongside al-Shamie, were killed, one having been shot by police.
Ali said that, during his visit, some non-Muslim neighbours told him they believed “Operation Raise the Colours” — a campaign for people to display Union Jack and St George’s flags publicly — had “created the climate” for the attack.
Similarly, the Peacehaven mosque manager pointed out that streets near the mosque were lined with flags.
“People have been riled up to think in a certain way and anti-Islamic sentiment is spreading,” he said. “We personally don’t have anything wrong with the flag of the country as long as it’s done with the right intention. But these have been put up with an intent to divide.”
Laurence O’Connor, a Labour councillor in the neighbouring ward of East Saltdean and Telscombe Cliffs, said he had seen an increase in community tensions following Raise the Colours. “That has only helped to create division in our community,” he said. He added that he had also noticed an “increasing tolerance of flag-raising” and “feelings of sympathy towards the right”.
But O’Connor said the attack was “not representative” of the wider local community, which he described as “caring and quite tolerant of diversity within our community”. “There are always extremes and people who feel they can get away with this kind of thing, so we need to make sure we crack down on it.”
On average, Peacehaven mosque sees around 30 worshippers a day, plus 20 to 30 children who attend an evening madrassa. “This is the only mosque in the area,” said the manager. “It’s a very relaxed environment with no strictness. All the imams here are young, so they understand children need a place to breathe. Plus it’s an area where children are facing racism in schools, so this is their safe haven. They come in the evenings, they play, they jump around.
“But now people are feeling nervous, scared, paranoid, terrified. We can’t run the evening madrassa. The kids are being deprived of their safe place.”
The incident has left the mosque chair traumatised and facing a loss of earnings because of the destruction of his taxi. The mosque has set up a fundraiser and is asking for donations to help carry out repairs on the building.
