STOCKTON-ON-TEES – Hundreds of local people showed up at Thornaby Mosque in Stockton-on-Tees, North East England, on Saturday, June 10, to show support to the local Muslim community after it was vandalized earlier this month.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much interest there has been in Thornaby community, the wider community, about us as Muslims and what we stand for,” worshipper Noweed Ahmad told BBC.

Ahmad added he was “amazed” by the turnout on Saturday.

“There’s a lot of good people here in Thornaby.”

After London Bridge attack, the words ‘Muslim Cowards’ were scrawled onto the side of the Mosque by unknown vandals.

Zaheer Iqbal, a member of the Muslim community posted an invitation on his Facebook page after the graffiti was discovered, asking people, including the attacker, to come to the mosque open house and discover the true Islam.

“This is an invite to the person if you are seeing this post to come and visit me and the Muslim Community. Come and learn about Islam from a Muslim not the media,” Iqbal wrote.

Resident Tracy Fascia said she did not want her “children growing up thinking that they can’t pass a Muslim on the street”.

“I’ve always thought of us as a tight community and for somebody to actually think that that was acceptable and for children to walk past to go to school and see that type of thing is just wrong,” she said.

One of the open day’s organizers, Zak Mahmoud, said it offered residents a “safe space to ask any questions they have, however controversial they think they are, however British they want to be and keep it to themselves and not offend anyone”.

One of the visitors, 72-year-old Suzanne Fletcher told Gazette Live: “I wanted to take the opportunity to find out a little more about the Muslim faith.

“I thought it was really important to show solidarity because of the way they’ve been demonized in the press.”