The Independent on Sunday makes its contribution to the ongoing campaign to associate Hizb ut-Tahrir with the London bombings. The “authorities” quoted in the article are Zeyno Baran and Ariel Cohen, two hardline right-wingers in the US who are associated with such objective sources of information as National Review Online and The Counterterrorism Blog.
And in an interview with the Sunday Times General Musharraf repeats his call for a ban on the organisation.
“In the ten years I have lived in London, I often wondered when it would happen. I don’t mean when British-born suicide bombers would blow themselves up, killing dozens of their fellow citizens – I would never have thought that possible – but rather, when British multiculturalism would finally show its inherent weaknesses.
“France and Britain have always had opposite views and policies about foreigners and their integration into society. British people often fail to understand the underlying principles of the French approach, prefering to brand it as intolerance, or even blatant racism – as, for example in the recent headscarf ban.”
Agnes Poirier of the French “leftist” newspaper Libération – who goes on to argue that “The message to Muslims has been, in effect, that it is all right for them to be a separate country-within-a-country” – joins the right-wing campaign to blame the London bombings on multiculturalism.
Evening Standard, 29 July 2005
A Melbourne university student says the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has questioned him because he borrowed library books about terrorism and suicide bombings. The Muslim convert, known as Abraham, says he was targeted by investigators while borrowing the books for PhD research at Monash University into the role of Islam in martyrdom.
Abraham says the AFP drew an unfair link between his Muslim name and his topic of study. “Obviously, they’ve had access to my library records,” he said. “I don’t know if the phone has been bugged. I don’t know if they are watching my movements. They are drawing a linkage between a person with a non-English speaking name and saying ‘okay, well this is suspicious activity’.”
Abraham says there are dozens of students studying similar subjects but he is the only one who has been interviewed, despite espousing a moderate approach to Islam.
See also ‘Aussie Muslim leaders hit back at Howard’, Islam Online, 25 July 2005
“Protecting Britain from Islamic terror isn’t rocket science”, the BNP announces, “but it will take the courage to throw political correctness where it belongs – in the litter-bin of history. And the day when that happens is getting closer. In the days since the start of the terror campaign, BNP activists all over Britain have been working harder than ever to spread the message that the Muslim terror threat has its roots in bad political decisions made by successive Labour and Tory governments. Now is the time to make people understand that the only chance they have of a return to safety and security is to get rid of the politicians who have brought us ‘diversity’ and death.”
Proposals include ethnic profiling of suspects, an instant halt to immigration from Muslim countries, banning the veil (“What is the point of having CCTV cameras if terrorists can disguise themselves as the wives of Muslim fundamentalists and prowl our streets undetected behind veils and hoods?”), deporting illegal migrants, and sacking all Muslims “studying chemistry, biology and computer communications in our universities, or working in jobs giving them access to installations such as water treatment plants”.
The Muslim community here already felt the glare of suspicion in the wake of the deadly bombings that have terrorized London. Then came an admission by police Saturday that they had gunned down an innocent Brazilian on Friday who they thought was a would-be bomber. That, some in the community said, put London’s Muslims in a double bind: afraid of the militants, and afraid of the police.
“All of us must help police identify these suspect bombers and bring them to justice – yet yesterday’s events make it harder for us,” said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the mainstream Muslim Council of Britain. “If people believe that the individuals they are informing on may be shot dead before it’s even verified they’re a threat, they’re going to be reluctant to tell the police.”
It must never happen again
By Liz Davies
Morning Star, 25 July 2005
London is a frightening place to live right now. We Londoners are being shown a small glimpse of what it must be like to live in Baghdad. We are in danger – from terrorist bombs and trigger-happy police.
On Friday, the police acted as judge, jury and executioner. Jean Charles de Menezes is a victim of the war on terror in London, just as those who died on 7 July are victims. He was killed for three simple reasons: he wasn’t white, he was wearing a bulky coat and he ran away from the police. Who knows why he ran, but for no reason that could justify summary execution.
The rush by leading London and national politicians, and by most sections of the media, to support the police action was breath taking. In a democratic society, the first response when a member of the public is killed by the police should be to suspend the officers involved and to announce an independent inquiry.
There are circumstances, obviously, when an inquiry might conclude that the only thing that the police could have done, to protect the public or themselves, was to kill. But the gravity of that conclusion is such that it should only be reached after independent scrutiny of all the circumstances, not as a knee-jerk reaction on the day. Instead, politician after politician queued up to explain that shoot-to-kill is now necessary.
Now that we know that Menezes had nothing to do with terrorism, and there is to be an inquiry, Sir Ian Blair expresses his regret at the tragedy but adds, almost casually, that it might happen again. The inquiry must examine not only the actions of the police at the scene, but the instructions from the top and the whole “shoot-to-kill” policy. It must never happen again.
Where have we seen the state operate “shoot-to-kill” before? Apartheid South Africa, present-day Palestine, Los Angeles, and, of course, Northern Ireland.
“It is apparent to anyone who had the misfortune of viewing Peter Taylor’s BBC2 documentary, ‘The New Al-Qaeda; Jihad.com’ (broadcast on Monday 25th July 2005, 9pm) that the programme had only one agenda, and was extremely biased. It exploited the minds of an already vulnerable British public in the aftermath of the tragic 7/7 bombings. The whole aim of the programme was to put ahead one view and one opinion in order to prejudice the public with regards to Babar Ahmad.”
A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday’s London attacks was a Brazilian electrician unconnected to the incidents. The man, who died at Stockwell Tube on Friday, has been named by police as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27.
Dr Azzam Tamimi from the Muslim Association of Britain told BBC News the police should review their procedures. “Frankly it doesn’t matter whether he is a Muslim or not, he is a human being. It is human lives that are being targeted whether by terrorists or whether in this case unfortunately, by people who are supposed to be chasing or catching the terrorists.”
See also BBC News, 23 July 2005
Police announced Saturday that the man officers shot dead on a London subway car Friday morning was “not connected” with the bombing incidents of the day before.
“For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets,” the police said. “The man emerged from a block of flats in the Stockwell area that were under police surveillance as part of the investigation into the incidents on Thursday 21st July,” the statement said. “He was then followed by surveillance officers to the underground station. His clothing and behavior added to their suspicions.”
But Muslim representatives expressed concern that the shooting marked a change of policy in the use of lethal force. “We understand there might have been reasons to do this, but we need to know in what context this man was shot and if it’s true he was shot five times,” said Muhammad Abdul Bari, deputy secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, a coalition of prominent mainstream organizations. “Normally in this country this doesn’t happen.”
Muslims from South Asia have been especially anxious since three of the four men who allegedly carried out the deadly bombings of July 7 were identified as British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent. Officials from the council said Muslims had been calling in all day asking for details of the shooting and worrying that they could be singled out by police.
The Muslim Council of Britain demanded an explanation yesterday, after the police shooting of an Asian man at Stockwell Tube station in south London. The Council expressed concerns that there is a “shoot to kill” policy in operation, after the man was shot five times as he fled from the police. MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala warned that Muslims he had spoken to are now “jumpy and nervous.”
“It’s vital that the police give a statement about what occurred and explain why the man was shot dead,” he said. “There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead but they need to make those reasons clear.
“We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot to kill policy,” noted Mr Bunglawala.