Brussels, February 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The sizable Muslim community in Europe has been largely “victimized” by a plethora of laws enacted after the 9/11 attacks, legislations that, for the most part, run in the face of established human rights, a member of the European parliament has said.

“In the post-9/11 situation, the everyday lives of Muslims in Europe are becoming very difficult,” Sajjad Karim, a 35-year-old Briton who hails from Pakistani origins, told the Iranian news agency, IRNA, in a recent interview in Brussels.

He regretted that European governments have “enacted laws which are contrary and go against internationally recognized values of human rights”.

“But we are being unfairly targeted, people who are conceived to be Muslims,” said Karim, who was elected for the first time to the pan-European parliament last year on the Liberal Democrat Party ticket for North West of England.

The party has 88 deputies in the 732-seat legislature, forming the third-largest group.

A survey revealed on Sunday, December 19, that a slim majority of Europeans believe the Muslim communities in Europe are seen in a bad light.

Conducted by German research institute GfK Worldwide and The Wall Street Journal, the poll involved interviews with 1,000 people in 19 European countries in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid bombings.

Karim, who was named one of the “High Flyers” of British politics by The Times newspaper in its “Who`s Who” 2005, cited the difficulties facing British Muslims as a case in point.

“We are striving to be good citizens, but our government is imposing laws which victimize us,” he lamented.

“Today in the UK, a person can be taken off the street, taken into detention, not charged, not informed as to why he has been detained. Nobody needs to be informed about the whereabouts of the individual. They have no right to legal representation.”

On Thursday, December 16, the House of Lords ruled as illegal the detention of foreign “terror suspects” without trial, asserting such a measure was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

London argues that detention without trial is the only way to deal with foreign suspects who refuse to leave voluntarily but cannot be deported because they face death or mistreatment in their home countries.