Repression against British Muslims
Adam Riaz Khan | 08.03.2004 21:10 | Anti-racism | Migration | London
The Death of Human Rights
It seems as though human rights are slowly becoming a thing of the past as governments such as that of the United States and Britain continue to implement strict repressive laws in the name of “fighting terrorism”. It is obvious now that many victims of post 9/11anti-terrorist legislation are those from ethnic minority communities and especially those in the Muslim community.
It seems as though human rights are slowly becoming a thing of the past as governments such as that of the United States and Britain continue to implement strict repressive laws in the name of “fighting terrorism”. It is obvious now that many victims of post 9/11anti-terrorist legislation are those from ethnic minority communities and especially those in the Muslim community.
The Death of Human Rights
It seems as though human rights are slowly becoming a thing of the past as governments such as that of the United States and Britain continue to implement strict repressive laws in the name of “fighting terrorism”. It is obvious now that many victims of post 9/11anti-terrorist legislation are those from ethnic minority communities and especially those in the Muslim community. Central the “war on terror” and Bush and Blair’s imperialist project is the need to have an internal enemy. Muslims are now the new bogeymen, the new communists; creating division and someone to scapegoat, someone to blame for the both national and international ills.
I was one such unfortunate victim recently when I was passing through the United States from Mexico on a transit flight back to London on February 9th. I was supposed to get my connecting flight in Atlanta airport back to London, and I was looking forward to seeing my family and friends after over a month of travelling. However when I arrived in the airport I was detained by police and subjected to a 7 hour interrogation. They gave no reason for detaining me but said that I needed a visa which was a lie as I have a British passport and a visa only applies to someone who is staying in the US for more then 3 months, it was merely an excuse to detain me. My interrogator was an inspector Jordon, he had what I would call a Superman/Captain America mentality, telling me how he didn’t like people threatening his country. He and his colleagues denied me a phone call more the once, which caused much stress to my parents who were waiting at the airport and were worried when I did not arrive on my flight.
I was asked many offensive and disturbing questions such as whether I had any connections to Al Qaeda and whether I had been to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia. They were unconvinced when I replied no, and they also believed that I was born in Pakistan and that my British passport was fake even though I was born in the UK and have lived here all my life. They asked about my political convictions, whether I believed in having an Islamic state in America and they even had the audacity to ask if Bin Laden was my uncle. I was treated like a criminal and they made the judgement immediately that I was a terrorist simply because of my ethnic origin, my Muslim background and the fact that I had a Quran in my bag. I was kept confined in a room the whole time and one officer even suggested that I was dangerous and a threat to him, he asked for backup when he was searching me as he claimed that, “I might know Karate”. How an unarmed 5ft 8 individual such as myself was a threat to a group of very large, very armed cops is a revelation to me, he had clearly been watching too many Matrix movies. This blatant racist profiling ended with me being deported back to the UK and as a result I have been subsequently banned from US for 6 years and for no reason whatsoever. In fact the authorities in Atlanta airport gave me no explanation for there actions. They found no proof what so ever to support their ridiculous assumptions of me being a terrorist.
However such illegal practices in both the US and the UK are commonplace, and in effect this means that the American authorities simply want to restrict ethnic minorities from outside the US travelling into their country. When I returned home I learnt that 2 Asian friends of mine on a separate trip to the US were stripped searched. A Muslim friend of my father also was interrogated recently even though he has a house in the US and has been travelling back and forth for the past 10 years. Nevertheless these are the mild manifestations of state repression against Muslim and ethnic minority communities. Under current prevention terrorism laws, the British authorities can hold suspects for up to 9 hours without charge. In fact since September 11th 544 Muslims in Britain have been arrested of which 98 have been charged and even less convicted. Many have been held at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s own Guantanamo Bay. The result of this unnecessary erosion of human liberties is the harassment of hundreds of innocent people often involving racial and physical abuse from police officers causing much trauma, loss of jobs and no compensation or apologies from the authorities or the Home Secretary. One such victim was a Muslim from South London, in December 2003 he was arrested, handcuffed, beaten to his knees and punched repeatedly by the anti-terrorist police officers which was followed by mocking remarks of one officer, “where is your God now?” He was released without charge after 7 days but his beatings were so bad that he had passed blood in his urine and had blood in his ear canals; altogether he received 50 injuries. There have been many other cases of gross abuses of the human rights of British Muslims. It is clear now that under the anti-terrorist act 2000 the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is completely ignored.
However it is important that people do not suffer in silence, anyone affected should write to their MP, the Foreign Office (if it concerns the authorities in the US) and the Home Office and get the press interested. Furthermore they should contact the stop police terror campaign, which has been documenting such cases of police harassment. For further details and information log onto www.stoppoliceterror.com or contact the Islamic Human Rights Commission 02089044222
info@ihrc.org and Arani and Co. Solicitors 02088935000 arani@btinternet.com who are involved in the campaign against human rights abuses under anti-terrorist legislation.
Adam Riaz Khan
It seems as though human rights are slowly becoming a thing of the past as governments such as that of the United States and Britain continue to implement strict repressive laws in the name of “fighting terrorism”. It is obvious now that many victims of post 9/11anti-terrorist legislation are those from ethnic minority communities and especially those in the Muslim community. Central the “war on terror” and Bush and Blair’s imperialist project is the need to have an internal enemy. Muslims are now the new bogeymen, the new communists; creating division and someone to scapegoat, someone to blame for the both national and international ills.
I was one such unfortunate victim recently when I was passing through the United States from Mexico on a transit flight back to London on February 9th. I was supposed to get my connecting flight in Atlanta airport back to London, and I was looking forward to seeing my family and friends after over a month of travelling. However when I arrived in the airport I was detained by police and subjected to a 7 hour interrogation. They gave no reason for detaining me but said that I needed a visa which was a lie as I have a British passport and a visa only applies to someone who is staying in the US for more then 3 months, it was merely an excuse to detain me. My interrogator was an inspector Jordon, he had what I would call a Superman/Captain America mentality, telling me how he didn’t like people threatening his country. He and his colleagues denied me a phone call more the once, which caused much stress to my parents who were waiting at the airport and were worried when I did not arrive on my flight.
I was asked many offensive and disturbing questions such as whether I had any connections to Al Qaeda and whether I had been to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia. They were unconvinced when I replied no, and they also believed that I was born in Pakistan and that my British passport was fake even though I was born in the UK and have lived here all my life. They asked about my political convictions, whether I believed in having an Islamic state in America and they even had the audacity to ask if Bin Laden was my uncle. I was treated like a criminal and they made the judgement immediately that I was a terrorist simply because of my ethnic origin, my Muslim background and the fact that I had a Quran in my bag. I was kept confined in a room the whole time and one officer even suggested that I was dangerous and a threat to him, he asked for backup when he was searching me as he claimed that, “I might know Karate”. How an unarmed 5ft 8 individual such as myself was a threat to a group of very large, very armed cops is a revelation to me, he had clearly been watching too many Matrix movies. This blatant racist profiling ended with me being deported back to the UK and as a result I have been subsequently banned from US for 6 years and for no reason whatsoever. In fact the authorities in Atlanta airport gave me no explanation for there actions. They found no proof what so ever to support their ridiculous assumptions of me being a terrorist.
However such illegal practices in both the US and the UK are commonplace, and in effect this means that the American authorities simply want to restrict ethnic minorities from outside the US travelling into their country. When I returned home I learnt that 2 Asian friends of mine on a separate trip to the US were stripped searched. A Muslim friend of my father also was interrogated recently even though he has a house in the US and has been travelling back and forth for the past 10 years. Nevertheless these are the mild manifestations of state repression against Muslim and ethnic minority communities. Under current prevention terrorism laws, the British authorities can hold suspects for up to 9 hours without charge. In fact since September 11th 544 Muslims in Britain have been arrested of which 98 have been charged and even less convicted. Many have been held at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s own Guantanamo Bay. The result of this unnecessary erosion of human liberties is the harassment of hundreds of innocent people often involving racial and physical abuse from police officers causing much trauma, loss of jobs and no compensation or apologies from the authorities or the Home Secretary. One such victim was a Muslim from South London, in December 2003 he was arrested, handcuffed, beaten to his knees and punched repeatedly by the anti-terrorist police officers which was followed by mocking remarks of one officer, “where is your God now?” He was released without charge after 7 days but his beatings were so bad that he had passed blood in his urine and had blood in his ear canals; altogether he received 50 injuries. There have been many other cases of gross abuses of the human rights of British Muslims. It is clear now that under the anti-terrorist act 2000 the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is completely ignored.
However it is important that people do not suffer in silence, anyone affected should write to their MP, the Foreign Office (if it concerns the authorities in the US) and the Home Office and get the press interested. Furthermore they should contact the stop police terror campaign, which has been documenting such cases of police harassment. For further details and information log onto www.stoppoliceterror.com or contact the Islamic Human Rights Commission 02089044222
info@ihrc.org and Arani and Co. Solicitors 02088935000 arani@btinternet.com who are involved in the campaign against human rights abuses under anti-terrorist legislation. Adam Riaz Khan
Adam Riaz Khan
e-mail:
zapatasguns@hotmail.com
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
The wahhabi cancer the Muslim community is up against
08.03.2004 22:10
The following stories (from the BBC) detail how: both were well off and well educated - not 'poor, rootless outsiders'; they teamed up with the ISM; the bombers were brainwashed and recruited by Al-Muhajiroun; and how they smuggled the explosives hidden in a defaced Koran.
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Hamas Lured British Muslims to their Deaths
Palestinian militant group Hamas has released a video showing two Britons it says it used for a suicide bombing a year ago.
Londoner Asif Hanif, 21, killed three people and injured 55 by blowing himself up in Tel Aviv, last April.
Omar Khan Sharif, 27, of Derby, is thought to have fled after explosives strapped to his body failed.
The Israeli government said the Britons were part of a "terrorists' war" being waged by Hamas on Israel.
Hamas released the video on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the killing of leader Ibrahim al-Maqadma.
One of the Islamist organisation's military leaders and founders, al-Maqadma died in an Israeli helicopter missile attack on a car in Gaza city.
Hanif blew himself up in a beachfront pub called Mike's Place, and Sharif's body was later found washed up on an Israeli beach.
It is the first time a suicide bomber has recorded a video, explaining his motivation in detail. Usually, bombers read a few verses from the Koran.
In the video, released on Monday, the pair are shown brandishing assault rifles and calling on God to punish Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.
In a statement released with the video, Hamas's military wing said the bombing had been a message to Israel that the group "has many options to fight against you as long as you are occupying our land and committing massacres against our people".
And it called al-Maqadma an international figure whose death merited an international response.
Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin told BBC News Hamas was now an international organisation "sending its tentacles into Israel" to wage war.
Hanif and Sharif were part of this war's "terrorist expeditionary forces", he added.
"In the face of this unmitigated terror campaign, we have every right to exercise our right of self-defence and to carry the war to the doorsteps of these terrorists," Mr Gissin told BBC News.
The bombing murdered a waitress and two musicians.
In the video, Sharif delivers a tirade in English against Israel.
He says: "Muslims are being killed everyday. It is an honour to kill one of those people [Jews]."
Hanif, from Hounslow, west London, calls on Muslims everywhere to be "people of action".
Hanif delivers a traditional speech of Koranic verses, and the men pray in a Gaza flat.
Shuli Davidovich, spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in London, said the men had used their British passports to kill Israelis.
And she added the recruitment of foreigners showed the "need for an international campaign against terrorism".
The video's release comes a day after Israeli troops killed 14 Palestinians in a raid of a Gaza Strip refugee camp.
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Bomb Britons Linked Up With ISM
Two Britons accused of a Tel Aviv suicide bombing were allegedly seen visiting a Gaza apartment belonging to a pro-Palestinian group five days before the attack.
Raphael Cohen, an activist for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which carries out what it call 'non-violent direct action' against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, said he spoke to the pair on 25 April for about 15 minutes.
He said they told him they were not attached to any particular organisation.
Last week's blast at a bar called Mike's Place claimed the lives of three people and injured 55.
The Israeli security services said the attack was carried out by Asif Muhammad Hanif, 21, from Hounslow, west London, and Omar Khan Sharif, 27, from Derby.
Mr Hanif died in the explosion, while Mr Sharif is being hunted by Israeli police, who say he fled the seafront bar after the bomb he was carrying failed to go off.
The attack is thought to be the first by foreign sympathisers since the start of the current uprising in 2000.
Israeli police had said they thought the two men arrived from Gaza a short time before the attack.
Mr Cohen confirmed he met the men, who were given a cup of tea at the ISM office.
The army's chief of staff has said the movement will be expelled for getting in the way of his soldiers.
In the UK, anti-terrorist police are continuing to question six people in connection with the attack in Tel Aviv.
The British investigation involves MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch, local police forces and international agencies.
Chancellor Gordon Brown has ordered the freezing of all UK accounts owned by Mr Sharif and Mr Hanif.
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Bomb Britons Hid Explosives in Koran
Two Britons allegedly involved in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing smuggled explosives in a Koran, the Israeli authorities have said.
The blast at a waterfront bar claimed the lives of three people and injured 55.
The Israeli security services say the attack was carried out by Asif Muhammad Hanif, 21, from London, and Omar Khan Sharif, 27, from Derby.
Mr Hanif died in the explosion at Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv, while Mr Sharif is being hunted by Israeli police, who say he fled the bar after the bomb he was carrying failed to go off.
"Our investigation has determined that the two terrorists hid a small amount of high-powered explosive in a copy of the Koran to get it across the border," a unnamed source told Reuters news agency.
The attack is thought to be the first by foreign sympathisers since the start of the current uprising in 2000.
Israeli police think the two men arrived from Gaza a short time before the attack.
They have speculated that the sophisticated device may have come from outside Israel and the Occupied Territories, perhaps even being smuggled from Britain.
Anti-terrorist police in the UK are continuing to question six people in connection with the attack.
The three men and three women are being held at the high-security Paddington Green police station in central London, on suspicion of helping to plan terrorist attacks.
The arrest of a man in London, in the early hours of Saturday morning, came after five people were arrested overnight in the East Midlands.
Forensic scientists are searching their homes and examining computer and phone records.
Police have not confirmed their addresses, or say whether any are related to either Mr Hanif or Mr Sharif.
The British investigation involves MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch, local police forces and international agencies.
It has also been reported officers are investigating an Islamic extremist group operating in Normanton, Derby.
Pictures of Mr Sharif have been widely printed by the Israeli media.
There has been speculation that Israel's "most wanted man" is either in a safe house or has entered Palestinian territory.
On Friday Chancellor Gordon Brown ordered the freezing of all UK accounts owned by Mr Sharif and Mr Hanif, from Hounslow in west London.
And the BBC learned that the two men had been taught by a "spiritual leader" from north London.
Sheikh Omar Bakri, of the fringe Muslim group al Muhajiroun, said the two men had come to him for instruction.
mediawatcher
repression against british muslims
09.03.2004 06:28
if i really cared, and thought really hard, it is probable that that amongst my friends alone; over 100 have been detained under the recently legislated anti-terrorist laws.
not one to my knowledge is a muslim (nor christian nor jew); most i presume to be agnostic, pagan or atheist. though all have a common identity, as activists; be they pro-peace, anti-war, against globalised capitalism, for social justice, whatever.
during the course of the last year, on two occasions i have been stopped; by police officers detailed to SO13. the SO denotes special operations, 13 that of the anti-terrorist division.
SO13 is a metropolitan police based unit, that stands apart from that of the special branch. the special branch was established in the early 1970's to deal specifically with the "fenian" threat; and has since evolved to embrace both "irish" terrorism and that of foreign terrorist organisations.
SO13 on the other hand deals specifically with domestic terrorism, subversive elements; our very own homegrown threats to the state (which includes those who oppose the UKs democratic institutions; and is therefore inclusive of those who advocate not participating in political elections).
whilst non of my mates have been incarcarated with no hope of a trial, let alone a date for release; it doesn't hide the fact that it is not only muslims who suffer increased oppresion.
no body in particular