MORE needs to be done to stem the rise of Islamophobia in the UK, according to politicians, community leaders and Lancashire’s crime tsar.

The message came at an Islamophobia conference held at Blackburn Library, where a minute’s silence was held for the victims of atrocities across the world and their families.

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The conference, organised by Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), comes as figures show religious hate crimes are on the rise in Lancashire.

There were also an estimated 5,723 anti-Muslim hate crimes nationally in the past 12 months. Among the guest speakers was Lancashire police and crime commissioner Clive Grunshaw, who conceded that Islamophobic attacks were under reported in the region and said the police needed to do more to gain the trust of Muslims.

Mr Grunshaw said: “I recognise this is a sensitive subject.

“It’s an area of genuine concern and we know there is real fear within the community about what reprisals there may be for what’s happened in Paris and elsewhere.

“We need to be very robust in how we respond to that. But we must stand together and not apart. We must not allow the racists and bigots to have their voices heard. We’re all part of the great county and community of Lancashire. We must not allow Islamophobia and any other forms of hate crime go unchallenged.”

Mr Grunshaw admitted more needed to be done to make the force more representative of the communities it serves.

But he said that in the only external recruitment drive in the past five years, 10 per cent of successful candidates came from a black minority ethnic background, which he said had to be “the starting point and not the ending point”.

Also speaking at the seminar was Sufyan Ismail, CEO of MEND, who said Muslims were being marginalised in British society and were going through what Afro-Caribbean people went through during the 1970s.

Mr Ismail said desecration of Muslim graves across the UK was now the norm and that Muslims were 154 times more likely to be stopped and questioned going through airport security than white people.

He also said 46 per cent of British Muslims live in the top 10 most deprived financial districts in the UK, are being overlooked for job interviews, and that Muslim women are taking the brunt of the Islamophobic abuse.

But he did concede that the Muslim community had to address the issues of drugs and repeat criminal offending.

Also on the panel was Cllr Suleman Khonat, who represents the Shear Brow ward on Blackburn with Darwen Council, and Josh Durham, of the newly founded Victims Voice, which helps victims through the process of reporting hate crime.

Mr Durham said: “Crime hurts. Hate crime devastates.”