UK Muslims Decry Damaging Raids
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
UK Muslims warn that the police anti-terror raids in
the Muslim-populated areas cause to tarnish the image of the minority.
(Reuters)
BIRMINGHAM - Fearing a backlash, many British Muslims have
warned that massive anti-terror police raids would tarnish the image of the
minority and fuel anti-Muslim sentiments.
"These high-profile raids damage the community, the area and
the relationship between the communities itself," Allah Dittah, the co-founder
of the Alum Rock Islamic Center, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Police arrested nine people in dawn raids in Muslim-populated
areas of the central English city of Birmingham on Wednesday, January 31.
The arrestees, said to be Britons of Pakistani origins, are
suspected of plotting to kidnap and behead a serving soldier, largely believed
to be a Muslim.
Many young Muslims accused police of "grandstanding" -
carrying out such high profile searches in full view of TV cameras.
"Every time they're coming into Muslim areas, blasting open
their doors," said 19-year-old Imran Khan.
"They wouldn't like it if they dragged their mum and dad out
of bed in the middle of the night. They're scum," he added angrily.
Police had come under harsh criticism over its anti-terror
swoops in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Some 1,047 people were arrested in high-profile raids between
September 2001 and June 30 last year under the Terrorism Act 2000, according to
Scotland Yard figures.
Only 158 - 10 percent of those arrested - have been charged
with terrorist-related offences.
Last year, two British Muslims were arrested on suspicion of
involvement in a terrorist plot after a dramatic anti-terror swoop on their
home in Forest Gate, east London, which saw the shooting of one of the pair in
his shoulder.
The brothers were later released without charges.
Flawed
Wasim Raja, 25, doubts the charges against those arrested in
Wednesday's massive raids.
"I've known him since I was little... He's not that type of
person," he said referring to one of the arrestees.
"If they've got a proper lead, then OK. But you've got to be
100 percent. Maybe it's wrong information," he told AFP.
The brother of Amjad, one of the arrested suspects, said his
kid brother was innocent.
"This poor kid doesn't even have a beard. I'm the religious
one. He's innocent. Any problems, he helps you," he told the Daily Mail.
"He works all hours in the grocery shop, up at 6am to go to
the market and still working at 8pm every day. How has he got time for
terrorism?
"Now the police have smashed their way into his home and the
shop, and it's terrible.
"My dad had a heart attack in the past few months and this
will do him no good. My mum's in the house crying."
The cousin of arrested suspect Azzar Iqbal was also angry.
"Since 9/11 over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested and 99 per
cent of them have been found innocent," Pervez Iqbal told the Daily Mail.
"I thought in this country you were innocent until proven
guilty."
He insisted Iqbal was "a very good person, a peace-loving
person, a family person", with no fundamentalist views.
"He will be released because I know he hasn't done anything."
Pervez said his arrested cousin, who once ran a snooker hall,
"goes to the mosque but that's hardly a crime."
"His wife is obviously shocked. She can't believe it. Their
three daughters couldn't go to school today because they took his car."
Talking to the BBC, Mohamed Barber said the same about his
cousin who was arrested in the raids.
"We can vouch for him he is innocent. He doesn't even have
time to go to Friday prayers - that's how busy he is."
Backlash
Muslims fear the anti-terror raids in the Muslim-populated
areas would tarnish the image of the entire minority and fuel backlash.
"We're going to get an even more vilified and disenfranchised
community," Tahir Abbas, the director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity
and Culture, told AFP.
He stressed that the result of the police raids would be
creating more tension in "mono-ethnic, Muslim" areas already suffering from
poor housing, health and education.
"We should follow the example of the Spanish authorities
after the Madrid train bombings. They didn't vilify or focus on Muslims. They
just quietly got on with it carefully.
"The Muslims were then not perceived as a problem per se," he
stressed.
Dittah, the co-founder of the Alum Rock Islamic Center,
agreed.
"People don't want terrorism. This is our home. Nobody wants
this country to be damaged... but we need a balance: no high-profile raids. It
creates fear, especially the lack of information."
An ICM/Guardian poll showed last year that 91 percent of
British Muslims are "loyal" to Britain and 80 percent still want to live in and
accept Western society.
Shabir Hussain -- the vice-chairman of the Alum Rock Islamic
Center, said there was a backlash immediately following the police raids.
"A car came by and someone inside shouted, 'you f.. black
bastards' while I was on the television," said Hussain who has done the round
of television news interviews all day on the raids.
"Even if this guy is not guilty tomorrow, people will not
want to visit our shops, they won't come to our area. This is damaging for
integration and damaging for the community."
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