'People comment 'deport' on our hiking photos'

A mountain guide said he has considered hiring security for community walks because of "off the scale" racist abuse.

Sameed Asghar, 38, from Birmingham, guides charity and community groups on hikes, aiming particularly to support ethnic minorities from inner city areas.

However he said he had experienced a huge amount of racist backlash on social media.

"The most common word is 'deport' with an aeroplane emoji, or 'They're not British' even though many of us are British born and bred," he said.

Some comments were directly threatening, he said, with one warning: "We're gunna get you on your next hike".

Another user invited Mr Asghar to meet in Cardiff. When he declined, they said: "We were just going to jump you anyway."

Mr Asghar said he was inspired to start the walks after growing up in "one of the roughest areas" of Birmingham.

"When I was 18, I had never left Birmingham and I didn't even know what a National Park was."

He fell in love with the outdoors after hiking in Eryri (Snowdonia), Wales, while training for an Everest Base Camp challenge in 2005.

After quitting his banking job in 2018, he took the mountain leader assessment with the goal of helping people from urban areas experience nature.

"At the time less than 1% of black, Asian and minority ethnic people had visited a National Park," he said.

He said high proportions of minority groups lived in densely populated urban areas, and therefore did not visit the countryside.

"People from these communities often aren't practiced at navigation or may be put off by the long distances to get there."

In 2022, Haroon Mota from Coventry, the founder of a Muslim hikers' group, said the group had received an "overwhelming amount" of racist abuse online, after appearing on Countryfile.

They had previously received online abuse after pictures of a hike were posted online.

Mr Asghar said while the comments he'd received had made him question whether he should hire security to protect his groups, they haven't deterred him from organising the walks.

"Even though there's hate, there's a lot of support too," he said, adding that the people he meets in the countryside were always friendly.

"There's no better feeling than seeing people conquer their first peak and how beneficial that is for their physical and mental well-being.

"That always outweighs the negatives."

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