The new interim leader of a far-right nationalist party in the U.K. stands by his use of hateful rhetoric to describe Islam and British Muslims. Independence Party on Saturday, reiterated his belief that Islam is a “death cult” in an interview with Sky News. “It glorifies death,” Batten said in the Sky News interview about the religion followed by 1.8 billion people in the world. Anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents in the U.K. spiked drastically last year, following terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. In addition, hate crimes targeting U.K. mosques ― including acts of vandalism and bomb threats ― more than doubled between 2016 and 2017.

Source: Huffington Post February 19, 2018 21:33 UTC