Jo Cox planned to unveil report on anti-Muslim attacks in UK

Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was killed last week, was preparing a parliamentary report on anti-Muslim attacks against women, according to a report by the British newspaper The Times.

Cox was working on the report with Tell Mama, a charity that documents the rise of Islamophobia in the UK.

Tell Mama director Fiyaz Mughal told The Times that their report detailed escalating anti-Muslim instances in the UK in the past year.

“In the last 18 months South Yorkshire is one of the leading areas in the country [for Islamophobic incidents],” Mughal said.

She had planned to reveal this report to parliament later in June, Mughal added. The study says roughly 80 percent more attacks were carried out against Muslims in Britain in 2015 than the previous year.

“She met us to talk about how people could report attacks, particularly women in her constituency,” said Mughal.

“We were hoping she would highlight the impact on Muslim women, particularly given the targeting [that exists],” Mughal said. “The majority [of incidents] at street level were [on] women and she was going to raise that.”

In the report, Tell Mama documented 1,100 Islamophobic attacks in 2015. Mughal emphasised that many attacks against Muslims are often unreported.

Cox recorded a video with Tell Mama and said she had “exciting” discussions with the staff, reported The Times. In the video Cox said “many of our young women don’t feel safe when they’re out on the street”.