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British’s Home Affairs Select Committee report early April on ‘Terrorism and Community Relations’ is deeply disappointing the Muslim community of the country by its repeated concern about British Muslims being involved in “extremism” and “terrorism”. Many of the Committee’s findings such as Islamophobia being a societal problem rather than a Muslim problem; that the Muslim community must be involved in the review and drafting of existing and new anti-terrorism legislation; that the media are behaving irresponsibly; and that more detailed statistics are needed on how anti-terrorism powers were being implemented, have been previously highlighted by Islamic group in recent reports. Although the Report explicitly stated that Muslims are no more likely to turn to violence than followers of any other religion, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is extremely disappointed by the Report’s repeated concern about British Muslims being involved in “extremism” and “terrorism”. The Report calls on Muslims to condemn anti-Semitism with no corresponding call on any other specific community to condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other hate crime. IHRC is also deeply disappointed with the finding that the Asian community was not being “unreasonably targeted” by stop and search. Recent Home Office statistics reveal a disproportionate level of stop and search of the Asian community. The finding condones and endorses such targeting of a specific community. IHRC is most frustrated by the Committee’s finding that the targeting of the Muslim community by the terrorism laws is an incorrect Muslim perception. IHRC strongly believes that such a contention cannot be made without clear statistical evidence. This can only be obtained by recording the religion of victims of stops and searches, a recommendation rejected by the Committee. IHRC’s own case files and statistics indicate that it is not just a perception but a clear policy of Muslim profiling. |
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