Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Call to Muslims over police help


I was reading this story today and thought that as a "young" British Muslim this sort of thing would have been targeted more at people similar to me then those older than I.


To an extent I agree with Yvonne Ridley that the police were being heavy-handed in this case however the investigation with regard to the raid is sill ongoing and we still don’t know what the police may find or learn so it could be a little premature to comment on it.


However Yvonne Ridley urging the Muslims in east London to stop co-operating with police is totally ridiculous and more damaging to the Muslim community and to the police. I usually would not ask the mosques to get involved in politics and comment of the behaviour and actions of politicians but I really do hope that on Friday Muslim leaders in East London will use the opportunity to communicate directly with large sections of the Muslim community to ask them to ignore Ms Ridley's remarks and I hope that they will encourage all members of the community to contact the police with regard to information they may have on any case police are currently investigating terrorism related or not.


I believe that if Muslims were to follow Ms Ridley's call at a meeting on Tuesday that Muslims should "boycott the police and refuse to co-operate with them in any way, shape or form." would not only harm the Muslim community in their relationship with the police but also their standing in the opinion of others in their communities.


I congratulate Respect Councillor Hanif Abdulmuhit in not supporting Ms Ridley's stance and I hope that the Respect party will ask to apologise to the police for and inconvenience her remarks may cause them in relation to the raids in London last week and any other investigations they are currently carrying out.


I support Commander Steve Allen's opinion that "What is more likely to develop increasing trust, what's more likely to deliver effective police and community responses to situations like this? Is this when we talk to each other, when we spend time trying to understand each other's perspective or is it when we call for complete disengagement?

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