LONDON,
March 3, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – British House
of Lords began Thursday, March 3, a debate on the controversial
Prevention of Terrorism Bill, as the outrage, especially among the
Muslim minority, intensified after the statements of the Home Office
Minister calling on the minority to be ready to bear the brunt of the
new laws.
Labour
MPs and Muslim groups fiercely attacked Hazel Blears, Home Office
Minister, for stating that the Muslim community should accept as a
“reality” that they are more likely to be stopped and searched.
The
controversial laws allow the government to place so-called control
orders on citizens it deems “terrorism suspects”, including
electronic tagging or even a form of indefinite house arrest without
trial.
Adamant
to pass the laws as they stand, Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected
Conservative proposals to put a time limit on the measures, which
sparked fears it would erode the country’s long-established human
rights by targeting people on “mere suspicions”.
“Hopping
Mad”
It
was the statements of Blears that renewed fears that Muslims and other
ethnic minorities would bear the brunt of the fiercely-contested
anti-terrorism measures.
Blears
said Muslims should accept that they will be targeted by police
because the new laws were geared to deal with “Islamic
extremists”.
“The
threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an
extreme form of Islam, or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she
was quoted by the Independent as telling MPs Tuesday, March 1,
during the all-party Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into
the impact of anti-terror powers on community relations.
“It
means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be
disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community.
“I
think that is the reality, and I think we should recognize that. If a
threat is from a particular place, then our action is going to be
targeted at that area.”
The
remarks draw outrage even from Labour MPs, who expressed fears the
remarks will further alienate Muslim voters who were already
threatening to desert Labour because of the war on Iraq.
Alice
Mahon, the retiring Labour MP for Halifax, a West Yorkshire seat with
a high Muslim population, wrote a protest letter to Blears, saying she
was “dismayed” by her comments to the Home Affairs Select
Committee.
“It
is wrong for the security service to single out any section of our
community disproportionately. Your remarks will anger and isolate the
Muslim community, who are already being unfairly blamed for the
actions of a few extremists,” she was quoted by the Independent
as saying.
But
the Prime Minister's official spokesman defended the minister, saying
Blears “understands there is a perception that stop-and-search
powers are aimed particularly at one community, but ... what is
happening is that those powers are aimed at those who are suspected of
carrying out or planning certain activity who happen to come from one
community. It is not police policy to aim these powers at a particular
community.”
Scaremongering
 |
|
“Blears was “scaremongering” to help get anti-terror laws,” said Bunglawala.
|
Islamic
groups, which have repeatedly claimed that the minority is being
victimized under anti-terror legislation, condemned Blears' remarks.
The
Islamic Human Rights Commission described her comment as
irresponsible.
Massoud
Shadjareh, who chairs the commission, was quoted by the Independent
Thursday, March 3, as saying Blears' comments would be “music to
the ears of racists”.
Shadjareh,
who sits on a Home Office advisory panel on stop and search, accused
the minister of “playing an Islamophobia card”.
Inayat
Bunglawala, the spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, was
quoted by the British daily as saying Blears was “scaremongering”
to help get anti-terror laws allowing control orders on terror
suspects on to the statue books.
“On
the one hand we are told that we have made great inroads to deal with
the specter of racist and Islamophobic targeting and yet we are now
told that perfectly innocent citizens can be stopped on the street,
searched and, in the context of the debate going on in Parliament,
locked up,” said Raj Joshi, vice-chairman of the Society of Black
Lawyers.
Ordinary
Muslims also expressed fears the new proposals pushed by Blair’s
government would increase their feeling of alienation.
“My
wife and I were driving through King’s Cross. Police were stopping
[non-white] people. I asked a policeman why. He said, ‘There are a
lot of people dealing drugs here’. I said, ‘What's that got to do
with me’? It was insulting.
“Just
because I'm a certain color ... the fact that he pinpoints me is
horrible. It's humiliating. You don't feel part of the country you
grew up in and love,” Abdurahman Jafar, 32, London barrister, told the
Independent.
The
proposed measures, if adopted, would replace an earlier law allowing
“foreign terror suspects” to be jailed without trial, which
Britain's highest court of appeal struck down late last year after
ruling it contravened human rights obligations.
Proposals
Rejected
Meanwhile,
the bitter political debate over the government's terrorism laws
intensified Wednesday when Blair spurned Conservative proposals to put
a time limit on the measures.
Blair
said the bill was vital to national security, implying the
Conservatives would be responsible if no terrorism law was on the
statute book by March 14, the date on which the current act expires,
according to the Guardian.
Blair's
large majority in parliament ensured the bill's approval by 309 votes
to 233, although some Labour members voted against it.
But
the House of Lords could throw out the legislation in the coming days,
as Labour lacks a majority there, Reuters reported.
The
Conservatives suggest that the new legislation should expire
automatically on November 30. A group of privy councilors would
prepare alternative laws in the interim.
But
Blair argued that the Tories' “sunset clause” was unnecessary
because the house arrest control order would be reviewed annually.
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