UK police have launched a hate crime investigation after a group dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits posed a threat outside an Islamic center in Newtownards, Northern Ireland.
“We are treating this as a hate crime,” Northern Ireland Police Inspector Richard Murray from the Police Service of Northern Ireland said in a statement on Tuesday.
A picture published on social media showed the group of nine people dressed in Klan outfits, who were also carrying crucifixes and had fists risen, in Newtownards’ Greenwell Street close to the Bangladesh Islamic Centre on Saturday night.
British media reported that earlier there had been graffiti written on the wall of the centre and a pig’s head was left on the centre’s doorstep.
The group then went to a pub where they posed for pictures with Sharon Mellor, who was there.
Mellor is a far-right extremist linked to Tony Martin, leader of the UK-based fascist political party National Front, the Belfast…