Police in London are investigating a sign telling pet owners to stay out of an east London park because "Muslims do not like dogs," the London Evening Standard reports.
The warning, in Bartlett Park, Poplar, said, "Do not walk your dog here! Muslims do not like dogs. This is an Islamic area now."
The sign was branded "unacceptable" and "provocative" by Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick who called in police after being alerted to the sign by a concerned dog walker.
"The question is whether it was put up to be provocative or by religious zealots to be racist," the Poplar and Limehouse MP told the Standard.
"It's another facet of intolerance, or, because there's no guarantee it was done by Islamists, it could be those in society who are trying to polarize and divide us," added Fitzpatrick.
"Whichever side it was ought not to be able to get away with it and whoever's responsible ought to pack it in," he told the Standard.
Police have removed the signs and stepped up the presence of officers in the area after being alerted to them by Fitzpatrick, the newspaper reported.
Tower Hamlets Borough Commander Dave Stringer said, "Bartlett Park does not have any history of community tension; however we are investigating the posting of these signs and conducting additional patrols to ensure that community reassurance and confidence are maintained in the area. At this time we retain an open mind concerning the motive behind the putting up of these signs."
He added, "We will continue to work with our borough partners to ensure that Tower Hamlets remains a safe and secure place to live work and raise families."
A Tower Hamlets council spokesman said the poster was "alarming and divisive".
“We have been alerted to a fly-poster stuck on a sign post near Bartlett Park, E14. We have removed it and are liaising with the police to investigate this alarming and divisive poster.”
In recent years, Muslims have become dominant in several neighborhoods in London, to the chagrin of the native locals, and there have been reports that fundamentalists have been trying to enforce Sharia law in the neighborhoods.
Hate preacher Anjem Choudary is reportedly behind the “Sharia neighborhoods”, and has said he plans to flood specific Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the UK and “put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term.”
Choudary is the founder of two Muslim groups in Britain that were banned by the British government after being declared terrorist organizations. He has threatened British Jews who support Israel, stating that it is an “Islamic obligation upon Muslims everywhere to support the Jihad against those who fight Muslims anywhere in the world or who occupy Muslim land.”
Muslim antagonism towards dogs is well-known. In 2012, police in Toronto, Canada, arrested a Jew after he shoved back a Muslim who had punched him for not moving his “unclean” dog further away from Muslim women during an anti-Israel rally.
Several months ago, a blind man in Saskatoon, Canada, reported that Muslim taxi drivers were refusing to give rides to blind people with seeing-eye dogs.
The drivers have been citing religious grounds, saying dogs are considered "unclean" animals in Islam.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)