TOWER HAMLETS Council has put quite a lot of effort into promoting the events being held by various organisations around the Borough to mark Hate Crime Awareness Week.

However, hate speech appears to have crept onto its Facebook page and stayed there – despite the Council’s slogan that Tower Hamlets is “no place for hate”. This is offensive and distressing to many groups of people and to most general observers. It reinforces stereotypes and hate figures. How can the Council transmit this propaganda – or at least, at the very least, not put a disclaimer on it?

On 7th October, the Council posted a picture of a woman who is wearing a hijab and cradling a pregnancy bump: in other words, a pregnant Muslim. It accompanied this text:
“Are you pregnant or have a child under the age of four?
“If so, you may be entitled to get help to buy healthy food and milk under the Healthy Start scheme.
“Find out if you're eligible and apply today: https://orlo.uk/0W9Zf”

Although the Council is publicising the “Healthy Start” scheme, it is not a scheme run by the Council. It is a national NHS Scheme designed to improve the health of babies and young children.

The post attracted four comments. We have considered whether to reprint them and risk causing offence and distress, but we believe that it is in the public interest for readers to see exactly what was said.

 
Hate speech on the Council Facebook page

Two of them are just stupid knee-jerk comments.

●“Mohasin Ali”: “Nonsense, its a froud until you click and findout you must have Universal Credit to be eligible lool”
Mohasin Ali has a facebook page set up in January 2023, but with no activity on it. You would have thought that someone who is keen to comment on a Council Facebook post would have had something to say for himself over the last three and a half years, but apparently not. The Council post makes it clear readers should “find out if you’re eligible”, so Mr Ali is not revealing any secrets.

●“David Collins”: “Or don’t breed if you cant afford to feed”
He has been going long enough to amass 83 friends. He seems to have a fondness for female singers of the 1970s and has yet to meet an apostrophe. He does not understand the ethos of public health: keeping the population healthy saves money. Nor does he understand that in society, none of us is self-sufficient. The baby he doesn’t want to nourish may grow up to be a nurse who looks after him, a lift engineer or someone who cures cancer. Sharing (a bit) the cost of healthy babies secures us all the help we’ll need in the future.

The two other comments are just sick.

●“Angela Mara”: “what a question, or course she is pregnant. I can’t wait to take care of her family”.
This is just a nasty racist stereotype, but it has generated 13 “replies” which range from the stupid to the intensely provocative.

●“Gabby Martinel”: “She probably has 8 her husband has 22 between 3 wives it’s normal and ok”
There is one “reply”, from “Gareth Johnson” who says “all living in tower hamlets.. in separate houses.”
“Gabby” is from London, has only 9 friends on his own Facebook page, and is a proud Islamaphobe. Gabby’s original post is promoting racial stereotypes – the ones used by the far right to stir up racial hatred.

The real question is why Tower Hamlets Council allows this kind of comment on its Facebook page. We cannot imagine that Mayor Lutfur Rahman finds such comments acceptable. We cannot imagine that Deputy Mayor Cllr Maium Talukdar finds such comments acceptable. Actually, we cannot imagine that a single elected councillor of any party in Tower Hamlets finds such comments acceptable.

It is not the job of elected politicians to police the Council’s Facebook page: there must be Council officers who are responsible for the Facebook page. Is the problem that none of them read the comments? Or do they read them and leave the hate speech there under some misguided belief that it is free speech?

The Council is – rightly – proud of the degree of community harmony in Tower Hamlets. That harmony is put in jeopardy by hate comments like this which bolster support for the misogynist, homophobic, racist and islamophobic troublemakers in our community. If the Council truly believes that Tower Hamlets is “no place for hate”, there is no place for this hate speech on its Facebook page – and it should get rid of these comments.

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