SEVILLE – Spanish mosques have come under a series of racist attacks, amid a spate of hate crimes targeting the Muslim community a few days after Barcelona’s attack.
In one attack, the Seville Mosque Foundation’s center was targeted with anti-Muslim racist graffiti including one which read: “Killers, you’re going to pay” and another that used a derogatory term for North Africans.
The graffiti, which also included threats to behead Muslims with a machete, was discovered on Saturday morning.
Another mosque in Granada was attacked with flares by a gang of around 12 people in what has also been described as a ‘racist’ attack.
A witness, who captured the attack in Granada on camera, said children and families were fleeing as orange smoke filled the area.
“I was about to enter the mosque when suddenly a big racket sounded and a lot of red and orange smoke covered the place,” a witness, who captured the attack in Granada on camera, told Daily Mail on Sunday, August 20.
“People started to hear xenophobic chants and these ‘beings’ appeared. Tourists in the mosque’s yard and entrance started running away.
“Kids, families. The people of faith there closed the doors from inside as this neos [Neo-Nazis] were doing their chants.
“They then tried to enter, or so it seemed. To insult or to attack I couldn’t tell. But these people are not nice at all.
“When the believers that were praying started to run away, the local police appeared and talked to the mosque’s iman and the community.
“Tourists then came back, but the mosque was closed then for security,” the witness, who asked not to be named, added.
The mosque spokesman, Jalid Nieto, accused the unidentified vandals of a ‘hate crime.’
“They are taking advantage of Thursday’s terror attack, which pains us and has left us devastated, to try to make ideological capital,” he said.
“People should understand that Muslims, just like any other person, can be victims of the injustice of the individuals behind Thursday’s attacks.
“No-one should take advantage of the horrible incidents in Catalonia, which we have publicly condemned, as humans, Spaniards, and Muslims, to oppress or threaten another group.”
Right-wing organization Hogar Social has been accused of carrying out the raid and were driven off by police.
The organization demanded the closure of the mosque over what the group claimed were its connections with Islamic radicalism.
Granada was the official headquarters of the Moors that ruled Spain for more than eight centuries until it became the last Muslim city to fall to the Christians in 1492.