Activists against “Islamophobia” met to show solidarity with refugees at Vineyard Highway Church.

Stand Up To Racism teamed up with Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) at the event in Romford Road, Stratford, to call on the public to welcome refugess to the UK.

Vaseem Ahmed, 47, spoke on behalf of MEND at the event and said it was important not to give in to anti-Muslim hatred created by the media.

“The British media is most right wing in Europe,” he said. “People are being constantly pumped with a narrative that gives confidence to Britain First.

“The overall concept of our events was to say refugees are welcome here and to give a fresh perspective on the current narrative and way they’re being treated.”

The meeting, which was held on Tuesday last week, also promoted a national demonstration being held on Saturday which will march from Portland Place to Trafalgar Square in central London.

Socialist activist Ken Olende, 52, also spoke at the Stratford meeting and said hostility toward Muslim refugees was similar to that experience by the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.

“It’s well worth looking at the things that were said about the Jews when they were fleeing,” he said. “They were presented as totally alien and I think it’s remarkable to how similar that is to what’s being said about Muslims now.

“The Jews weren’t seen as people like us who share our values, that’s something that happened after the Second World War.

“But today’s refugees are also fleeing terrible wars and we need to try and make the world a place in which we’re not backing the people who start them.”

And he added Britain should be taking more refugees fleeing countries such as Syria.

“Britain should be taking the same sort of numbers of refugees as Germany,” he said. “It’s taking far fewer than other major European countries.

“We should have a response similar to the one we had at the end of the Second World War and take refugees without seeing them as a problem.”