The home secretary is at the centre of the worst race row to engulf the police service for almost a decade as chief constables stand accused of blocking an inquiry into discrimination against Muslim officers. Jacqui Smith will be asked to intervene tomorrow after the damning revelation that at least 20 police forces refused to co-operate with the first audit into the treatment of Muslim and black officers. Information from those forces that did take part suggested there was routine racial discrimination against them.

Accusations that police forces refused to co-operate with the audit, which was conducted jointly by the National Association of Muslim Police and the think-tank Demos, is bound to cause consternation in government. Initially, only 11 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales replied to the questionnaire on the promotional prospects, rank and number of Muslim and black officers employed. As a result of this ‘poor rate of return’, the deadline was extended by another month. Even then barely half – only 23 – co-operated. The association condemned a seeming ‘widespread squeamishness’ on issues of race among a number of forces.

A letter sent to Smith and all chief constables in England and Wales by the association asks: ‘Why were some forces unable or unwilling to co-operate, while others completed in full and on time? Why did some forces refuse to complete on grounds of the pretext of the Data Protection Act, while others said they did not have the time to take part?’

Senior Muslim officers warned forces last night that they would lodge Freedom of Information requests if they continued to refuse to take part.

The letter says: ‘If the police are serious about ensuring that Muslim officers are able to rise through the ranks at the same speed as their fellow white officers, and ensuring that Muslims are deployed to counter-terrorism duties at a time of heightened national security, we must have reliable data to track progress and measure success.’ It adds that the ‘paucity’ of information ‘means that each individual case of discrimination, or alleged discrimination, can only be assumed to be symptomatic of the conditions facing Muslim officers across the UK’.

Observer, 29 June 2008

Hassan Butt, ‘al-Qa’ida activist or charlatan’?

By Inayat Bunglawala

The Muslim News, 27 June 2008

We were told by the would-be book publishers that this was a story “that must be told”. Hassan Butt, a Wolverhampton University drop-out and one time ranting al-Muhajiroun activist was – with the help of an ambitious freelancer called Shiv Malik – going to reveal all about his al-Qa’ida associations and how he had finally come to his senses in a forthcoming book called Leaving-Al-Qaeda by Hassan-Butt and Shiv Malik.

The American network CBS had, back in March 2007, broadcast a lengthy interview with Hassan Butt on its flagship 60 Minutes programme in which viewers were told that Butt was revealing “what it was like to be inside that [al-Qa’ida] network for ten years” and told of his meeting with the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings, Mohammed Siddique Khan, but this book promised to be the most detailed account yet by a self-proclaimed al-Qa’ida insider.

In a couple of sceptical Guardian Comment is Free blogs [see here and here – ed.] I noted how at the end of 2001, after Butt first gained notoriety in the UK media with his calls from Pakistan on British Muslims to travel to Afghanistan and fight on behalf of the Taliban, he returned back to the UK and tried – unsuccessfully – to sell his story to the Daily Mirror for a cool £100,000. So, was this guy a real al-Qa’ida activist or merely an opportunist looking to make a quick buck? And if he really was an al-Qa’ida activist then why hadn’t he been prosecuted when other British Muslims have found themselves convicted on far more questionable grounds for having downloaded “al-Qa’ida manuals” which are easily available on the internet?

Later, following the 7/7 bombings, Butt renounced his former extremism and became a vocal critic of al-Qa’ida. Whereas in the past he had criticised mainstream Islamic organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain for being “sell-outs” he turned 180 degrees and declared that he now believed that they were in fact “extremists”. Unsurprisingly, he quickly gained the admiration and support of several prominent pro-Iraq war commentators with his curt dismissal of those who argued that Western warmongering and ongoing backing for Middle Eastern despots had a significant impact on the emerging terror threat.

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