Wednesday 23 Mar 2016 - 16:49 Makkah mean time-14-6-1437
Image from internet.
Glasgow, (IINA) - Scotland's ethnic minorities are braced for a racist backlash after atrocities in Brussels.
Muslim and Jewish figures both expect more hate crime in coming weeks in a chill echo of the aftermath of the Paris killings of last year - which brought a spike in bigotry, The Herald Scotland Newspaper reported.
Police and prosecutors are already gearing up to meet the challenge with Chief Constable Phil Gormley saying his officers were immediately reaching out to minority communities.
They are acutely aware that one of the aims of ISIS is to provoke racism and unleash a spiral of hate causing atrocity causing hate.
Gormley said: "The events in Brussels demonstrates how important hate crime and our collective response to it is because these terrorists want to divide and conquer."
The chief constable, speaking co-incidentally at a Glasgow conference on hate crime, equated outreach to Muslim communities with efforts to review security at airports and other transport hubs.
More than 60 crimes motivated by Islamophobia were recorded in Scotland in week after the November 2015 assault on Paris with many more incidents thought not to be reported to the police. But the racist fall-out from international events rarely affects just one community.
Ephraim Borowski of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said: "There is backlash against Jews and Muslims whenever anything happens in the Middle East.
"Racists are, by and large, not the brightest, and won't distinguish between us."
Borowski stressed that Sikhs and other minorities were also collateral victims of such undiscerning bigotry.
He added that the effect of each spike in racism was cumulative on communities such as his own, with residual feelings of fear building up year after year.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned of a double burden for Muslims after Brussels.
She said Muslims felt "exactly the same revulsion as the rest of us" at violence but faced the additional strain of being unfairly blamed for it.
Also speaking at the hate crime conference, she added: "These events serve as a stark reminder of importance of why we are trying to tackle hate crime, to strengthen diversity and community cohesion.
"Our diversity is one of our strengths and we should recognize this."
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland said he would personally lead a team to ensure any reprisal attacks against certain communities are dealt with.
He said: "What they want is to polarize different communities and set them against each other," he said.
"After the Paris attacks we looked at whether or not there was any increase in hate crime and we found a spike in crimes against our Muslim communities and Jewish communities.
"It was small numbers but something that we were dedicated to take action against and thankfully after a few weeks it reduced.
"We will do the same given events in Brussels and will look at incidents of hate crime directed at all our communities in Scotland.
"I'll be chairing meetings to ensure that we monitor this on a daily basis over the next few weeks."
Allan Burnett, former Assistant Chief Constable and Scottish counter-terrorism coordinator, said police in Scotland now had a tragically well-rehearsed system for contacting minority communities after international atrocities or wars.
Burnett said: "Unfortunately - because they have had to use it so many times - police Scotland have a very tried and trust machine to allay people's fears and deal with any incidents that do occur. Immediately talking to the communities in as big a breadth and depth as they can do.
"They will also issue a no tolerance warning on any racist incidents. If they get any - and there will be an increase, they will deal with them very professionally.
Police and prosecutors brought together a wide variety of voices in Glasgow for a joint hate crime conference yesterday. Both bodies have focused strongly on hate crimes - not just racial or religious - in recent years.
SM/IINA
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