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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Luke Traynor

Liverpool FC star Mohamed Salah target of shocking Islamophobic abuse on Twitter

Mohamed Salah has been targeted with a catalogue of vile Islamophobic abuse by so-called fans who support Liverpool's rivals on Twitter.

  The Egypt striker netted the crucial winner for the Reds which helped his side beat Southampton 3-1 on Friday evening.

It was Salah's 50th strike for Liverpool in the Premier League, becoming the quickest Anfield player to reach that landmark, taking the record previously held by Fernando Torres.

But his feat was condemned by some internet trolls who directed bile and hatred towards the 26-year-old Egyptian.

One Twitter user, in reference to the Islamic belief you should not eat pork, raged: "Force feed the c*** bacon."

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Another troll had doctored a photo of Salah with a suicide vest hung on his chest and several tweets made reference to terror group ISIS.

Mohamed Salah and Jordan Henderson of Liverpool during a training session at Melwood Training Ground (Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Steven Trigger Leigh blasted: "F*** you Sky Sports, you Salah P*** loving t***s."

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Today, Merseyside Police said they had not yet been made aware of any complaints about the Salah-targeted messages.

The abuse of Liverpool's No.11 comes as Twitter was urged to take action after racially abusive tweets targeting Premier League footballers were found on the site up to five years after being posted.

Raheem Sterling (L) vies with Virgil van Dijk during the UEFA Champions League second leg quarter-final football match between Manchester City and Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium (ANTHONY DEVLIN/AFP/Getty Images)

It included those directed at Salah, others targeted Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling.

One post, dated from September 2014, described Arsenal striker Welbeck as a "f****** cotton picking n*****", while another aimed at Manchester City's Sterling during Euro 2016 described him as "just a typical c**n all pace no brain".

Similar racists posts were also found which targeted Chelsea's Michy Batschuayi, Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Tottenham's Moussa Sissoko.

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Twitter deleted the tweets after they were brought to its attention.

The posts were discovered a day after the Government issued a white paper on online harms, which proposes new measures to regulate internet companies who do not adequately protect their users.

At the launch, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: "We cannot allow the leaders of some of the tech companies to simply look the other way and deny their share of responsibility even as content on their platforms incites criminality, abuse and even murder."

Home Secretary Sajid Javid wants laws to be toughened up towards those who tweet bile and hate on social media (Niall Carson/PA Wire)

Asked about the posts and those responsible for them, Twitter said: "We don't comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.

"At Twitter, our primary objective is to serve and improve the health of the public conversation.

"This means surfacing more quality, credible content, building new policies and safety tools, and tackling issues such as abuse which detract from the health of the public conversation.

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"This is paying dividends and we've seen a marked reduction in abuse reports. We will continue our singular focus on protecting the customers we serve."

Anti-racism campaigners Kick It Out said the technologies Twitter has in place to tackle the issues are "evidently" not working.

"Twitter says abuse and harassment has 'no place' on its site, but it is obvious that there really is a place for it there and in our view the problem is getting worse," a spokesperson said.

"Footballers, like anyone in society, are entitled to go about their work without being abused, intimidated or trolled."

Social media consultant Matt Navarra, when shown the historic tweets, said: "It's even more alarming to see more recent Islamophobic abusive tweets against Mo Salah not being detected or removed already."

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