Blindfolded Muslim LAD Stands In Manchester Offering Hugs To Passers By

A week ago, Manchester was rocked by a horrendous act of terrorism at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena, leaving 22 dead.

In the following days the city mourned the loss of those innocent people, some of which were young children, and showed their solidarity, having silences, paying tribute and performing emotional renditions of Oasis' classic 'Don't Look Back in Anger'.

On Saturday night Manchester band the Courteeners played at Old Trafford, covering the song, provoking a really emotional crowd reaction.

Muslims have since marched through Manchester to lay flowers and honour the memories of those who died in the terrorist attack.

The North Manchester Jamia Mosque organised the walk to give show solidarity with the city and to give members of the Muslim community a chance to pay their respects to the victims, the Manchester Evening News reports.

In total, around 500 Muslims, including hundreds of children, took part in the walk from the mosque in Cheetham Hill to the Manchester Arena.

Credit: Ruptly

Now, video blogger Baktash Noori has been standing on MCR's Market Street blindfolded with a sign that reads: "I'm Muslim and I trust you. Do you trust me enough for a hug?"

MEN reports that Noori's intentions were to see if people could see the solidarity that Muslims have with the city following the incident, focusing on trust and building bridges.

The response was good, and pretty emotional, as a lot of people hug him and show that terror hasn't won on this occasion.

Credit: The Life of Bako

"The first 30 seconds were nerve racking... but once I got that first hug with a lovely comment from that gentleman in my video, it made me feel a whole lot better," he told MEN. "With every hug, the comments I received were amazing, some were getting all teary and it's not hard to tell by a persons hug and tone of voice how much better their and my day became because of this.

"I did not expect so many people to come and hug me, let alone give me such positive comments, but it was the best thing I've ever done."

"Being a Muslim living in Manchester, there is always going to be a couple of people that simply struggle to grasp and understand 'religion'.

"Muslims typically get represented by some as terrorists. Now usually when I see comments like this on social media when a tragic event happens I try and ignore it regardless of how much it gets to me, but after the incident that occurred in Manchester recently, it affected me a lot, so much hate crime and hate comments being shown all across the web and news it just hurts to see it all."

Major respect to him for this.

Topics: Manchester, muslim

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.