Muslims can expect the police to target them, minister says 

By Richard Ford and Stewart Tendler

The Times, 2 March 2005

BRITAIN’S Counter-Terrorism Minister warned the Muslim community last night that it must face the reality of being targeted by the police because of the threat from an extreme form of Islam.

Hazel Blears provoked anger from Muslim leaders and the National Black Police Association (NPBA) for her “intemperate” comments. They said her statements could only exacerbate feelings among law-abiding Muslims that they were being unfairly targeted by police and intelligence services.

Ms Blears’s comments appear to conflict with the commitment by the police not to target suspects because of their race, a key recommendation of the 1999 inquiry by Sir William Macpherson into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager.

She said yesterday that Britain’s 1.5 million Muslims should accept as a reality that people of Islamic appearance are more likely to be stopped and searched.

“At the moment the threat is more likely to come from those associated with a most extreme form of Islam or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she told MPs.

“It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community. There is no getting away from the fact.”

Ms Blears made her comments when she gave evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into terrorism and the effects that counter-terrorism measures have on community relations.

She said later that because the current threat came from people masquerading as Islamists, police would have that in mind when using stop-and-search powers. “That is the reality. I do not think it should go unsaid.”

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