Anti-terror laws disproportionately effecting Muslims, UK warned
Regional-UK, Local, 11/13/2006

A leading British charity today criticized Prime Minister Tony Blair's government over its counter-terrorism strategy, warning that the measures were having a disproportionate effect on the country's 1.8 million Muslim community.

"The actions of ministers, particularly Home Secretary John Reid, could have a `boomerang effect' by alienating the Muslim communities whose trust and cooperation are vital," the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust said.

It also accused the government of playing to a "tabloid agenda," saying that its "anti-terrorism campaign was often driven by party political and electoral motives that are 'submerging' its own 'sensible' counter-terrorism strategy." Sensible plans to combat terror are now being "submerged by the government's `electoral motives,'" the charity said in a new report that accused ministers of "exploiting the politics of fear." "The actions of ministers, particularly Home Secretary John Reid, could have a `boomerang effect' by alienating the Muslim communities whose trust and cooperation are vital," it warned.

British Muslims have criticized a series of recent comments made by ministers for provoking new waves of Islamophobic attacks in the UK.

These have included calls by Reid for Muslim parents to spy on their children as potential terrorist suspects and House of Commons leader Jack Straw saying that Muslim women should remove any face veils they wear.

The study also strongly urged the government to abandon talk of a "war on terror," saying that such terminology is "misleading and disproportionate." "It allows terrorists to assume the dignity of being 'soldiers' or 'combatants' instead of the mere criminals that they are," it said.

The Trust also called on the government to meet its pledge to consolidate all of Britain's anti-terror laws in a single terrorism bill when it sets out its legislative program at the opening of the new parliamentary year on Wednesday.

Previous Stories:
  UK Muslim officer removed from diplomatic protection unit   (11/7/2006)
  Blair to retain powers to go to war   (11/7/2006)
  Nearly 400 charged with terrorism in UK   (10/31/2006)
  Britain is top Al-Qaida target, says report   (10/19/2006)
  UK refuses to accept return of Guantanamo prisoners: report   (10/3/2006)
  Yusuf Islam presented with honorary doctorate   (11/4/2005)

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