In a statement today Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said:

“It is important that anti-terrorism policing in London is intelligence-led and targets those engaged in terrorist activity. As Sir Ian Blair has repeatedly stressed community support is essential to isolate and bring to justice terrorists.

“Racial profiling as increasingly advocated in some sections of the media is a totally opposite strategy. It alienates entire communities by making them potential suspects. That would destroy the community confidence on which our defences against terrorism depend and fuel a sense of injustice amongst young people affected by it.

“It will also legitimise outbursts of racism which destroy good community relations. If the media and some politicians are allowed to put whole communities under suspicion, then incidents like the passengers who demanded that two entirely innocent Asian men be removed their plane, or the family who were apparently turned away from the London Eye because they spoke Arabic, will become common.

“If those kind of incidents are tolerated they will provoke precisely the breakdown in community relations which the terrorists and the extreme right want to see.”

GLA press release, 22 August 2006

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) issued a fresh warning about Islamophobic hysteria today after two men “of Middle-Eastern appearance” were forced off a British-bound flight.

Fearful passengers on board flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester demanded that staff remove them from the plane early on Wednesday. The pair were said to be guilty of “suspicious behaviour” – which amounted to being overheard speaking Arabic, wearing leather jackets on a hot day and checking their watches. Six other passengers refused to board the plane and others flounced off when they heard about it.

The two men were eventually kicked off the flight and questioned by police, before being released without charge.

IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh said that the incident was “exactly the type of thing we’ve been so concerned about.” He said:

“There is ever-increasing Islamophobia being implemented in the war on terror. It is counterproductive, not just because it’s going to alienate people who are perceived to be Muslim, but also because terrorists have shown that they will make themselves look completely different to how people perceive them to look. By profiling people on the basis of ethnicity or religion we are actually endangering our lives.”

A spokesman for Monarch Airlines said: “There were two passengers on the flight who came to the attention of the other people because they were apparently acting suspiciously.”

Morning Star, 21 August 2006

The rush to adopt ethnic or religious profiling in response to recent terror alerts may hamper more effective actions against terrorism, Labour MEP Claude Moraes argues.

Guardian Comment is Free, 16 August 2006

See also “Muslim and police groups reject profiling plans”, Financial Times, 16 August 2006

A leading British Muslim group last night warned the government to think “very carefully” following reports that the Department for Transport was in talks with the aviation industry to introduce a method of passenger profiling which could be used to single out Muslims for security checks.

The Muslim Council of Britain said the procedure, which includes “behavioural pattern recognition”, would inevitably lead to discrimination. Inayat Bunglawala, its spokesman, said the government risked alienating “the community whose help it needs in combating the terrorist threat”. He said: “Before some kind of religious profiling is introduced, a case has to be made; and we are certainly not convinced by the arguments for this kind of profiling. First of all, Muslims are not an ethnicity, as was shown by the arrests in last week’s raids; there are many white converts to Islam.”

Mr Bunglawala said that many Muslims already felt “unfairly targeted” because of their appearance, and that some form of profiling was already in effect. “This kind of thing must be intelligence-led, not appearance-led … I hope the government has thought very carefully about this.”

His remarks were echoed by one of Britain’s most senior Muslim police officers. Chief Superintendent Ali Desai of the Metropolitan police told BBC2’s Newsnight that profiling would create a new offence of “travelling whilst Asian”. He added: “That’s unpalatable to everyone … What we don’t want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists.”

Guardian, 15 August 2006

Leading UK Muslims have united to tell Tony Blair that his foreign policy in Iraq and on Israel offers “ammunition to extremists” and puts British lives “at increased risk”. An open letter signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the four peers, and 38 organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain, was greeted with dismay in Downing Street.

The letter says: “As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens. It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

“To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

“The debacle of Iraq and the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

“Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the prime minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion. Such a move would make us all safer.”

Guardian, 12 August 2006