Jonathan Freedland (We must confront the right’s hate preachers, 16 March) is right to castigate Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini and Donald Trump for their anti-Islamic rhetoric. But we must not omit the part played by British politicians in deliberately adopting language that promotes hatred of religious and racial groups. Boris Johnson’s “letterboxes”, David Cameron’s “swarm” of migrants, Theresa May’s “Go home” posters, Sajid Javid’s “asylum shoppers” all help to inspire the warped narrative of exclusion that the Christchurch murderer made explicit in his manifesto.
John Hambley
Snape, Suffolk
• Jonathan Freedland does not go far enough in arguing that political leaders such as Orbán and Trump have contributed to Islamaphobia. When has any political leader in this country, Europe or the US ever made an embracing and inclusive statement of nationhood like Jacinda Ardern’s when she said of all those killed in Christchurch – many of them probably immigrants and refugees – that, “They are us.”
Rod Edmond
Deal, Kent
• I cannot fathom how Fraser Anning could think of blaming Muslims for the terrible atrocity (Senator’s ‘racist’ tweet, 16 March). However, I know that he does not represent mainstream Australians, who have been inundating mosques around the country with flowers, cards and messages of support. This is the Australia I know and love.
Khizar Rana
Walkerville, South Australia
• The mosque attacks in New Zealand may seem odd or unusual to a western public that has come to expect – and to fear – that the prime targets of terrorism are westerners (because “they hate our freedom, our values, our way of life”). However, the vast majority of civilian casualties of terrorist and other attacks (air strikes, shootings, executions, bombings) are Muslims. In Iraq already over 600 Muslims have lost their lives since the start of the year, over 200,000 since March 2003, when Iraq was invaded by us. It is Muslims who die in the terror wars we have been fighting since 2001.
Dr Lily Hamourtziadou
Lecturer in security at Birmingham City University and principal researcher for Iraq Body Count
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