UK COUNTER TERRORISM AIDS INFRINGE MUSLIMS CIVIL LIBERTIES

Report reveals that the civil liberties of British Muslims are being infringed by a government-backed programme.

• The concerns and fears expressed by these Muslims about the extent to which the Prevent programme might infringe Muslim civil liberties deserve to be taken seriously in Westminster.
• However, it was not an issue deemed worthy for discussion on Question Time. Instead those British Muslim viewers already fearful of being stigmatised as a suspect community will have noted with concern how British National Party (BNP),Nick Griffin was constantly attacked by his Westminster co-panelists as a racist while his attacks on Islam and Muslims went largely unchallenged.
• This is significant. Griffin has successfully lifted the BNP from the political gutter by singling out Muslims for attack.
• His first publication on the topic pre-dates 9/11 and throughout the last decade he has maintained a steadfast campaign against Muslim targets.
• While it is a tribute to the fairness of the overwhelming majority of British citizens that the BNP's electoral successes have been as small as they have so far, it is to the shame of many in Westminster that they have provided much of the fuel for Griffin's rise.
• This is the same fuel first used by Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and George Bush, the former US president, to propel the war on terror.
• At all points Griffin agrees with Blair that the suicide bomb attacks on 9/11 and 7/7, along with those attempts successfully thwarted by British security services and police, are motivated by an evil ideology inherent to what they both call radical Islam.

Source: Al Jazeera