Sir Norman Bettison (pictured), the Association of Chief Police Officers' representative for policy on tackling violent extremism, told Peter Taylor, in his programme ‘Generation Jihad’ that the Muslim community ‘could do more’ to help police forces tackle the threats posed by violent extremism and radicalization.

Sir Norman said in the programme, broadcast on BBC 2 last night:

"I'm looking for the community to work much more closely with the police in identifying young people that they have concerns about in terms of the people that they're mixing with, the sort of websites that they're going on to and the material that they're reading."

"Now, that information can only come from the community itself."

"I think we have to be alert and conscious of the risk that's ever-present and prepared to interdict and prepared to share information.

"So the community as a whole could do more and the Muslim community is a part of that."

The need for communities to work together and the integral part of the Muslim community in our counter-terrorism strategy is a matter that has been long understood since the publication of the report by Demos ‘Bringing it Home', which champions the community-led approach to preventing terrorism.

The community-led approach is also underlined in the critique of the government’s Prevent strategy by the New Local Government Association, ‘Stronger Together’.

Sir Norman’s comments on the need for Muslim communities around the country to work ‘much more closely with the police in identifying young people that they have concerns about in terms of the people that they're mixing with, the sort of websites that they're going on to and the material that they're reading’ will surely invite questions from the Muslim communities themselves given the recent story of a West Midlands police force monitoring Muslim toddlers in nurseries, as well as the story in the Evening Standard last week reporting that school teachers in Waltham Forest were being trained to spot terrorism recruits among schoolchildren aged 11.

The matter is not aided by the grave mistakes and miscarriages of justice we’ve witnessed in recent months. The deportation of the Pakistani students who were falsely accused of concocting the ‘Easter bomb’ plot and today, news that Mohammed Atif Siddique has been released on appeal after an appeal judge ruled that he had suffered a “miscarriage of justice”.

While the community-led approach properly acknowledges the significant contributions Muslims can and do make to preventing terrorism, these recent disclosures, and the palpable concerns they raise among Muslims, is food for thought for police forces that look to Muslims to ‘do more’.
 

Comments

Add New Search

HotterThanAPileOfCurry  - What A Joke!     |2010-02-09 15:03:27 I don’t recall the Irish being continually asked to do more to help against Republican terrorist groups. Is he also going to tell the British population that they must do more to identify neo-Nazi terrorists? What about the israeli passport holders living in the UK who continuously undertake terrorist activities in the occupied lands of Palestine? http://hotterthanapileofcurry.wordpress.com/

Muslim  - Wasters shifting the blame   |2010-02-12 17:42:13 So are the full-time "professionals" we pay our taxes to do the job for us admitting that they cannot do the job of protecting us, the innocent public then? If not, then, they should be removed thereby stopping an unnecessary drain on us, the taxpayers' money. Furthermore, if the SS can't spot & catch the violent nut-jobs, pray tell how us amateurs can possibly do that without years of training & hi-tech James Bond spy equipment? If this is the state that we are in, then, we are in deep doo-doo. It seems that to me that this is an unfair & confusing Judeo-Christian tradition practised by a minority. From certain Jewish traditions, we have the idea of scape-goating a whole communities' sins on an innocent sacrificial goat. From certain Christian traditions, we have the idea of Vicarious Liability where collective guilt is transferred onto an innocent party. In the Islamic tradition, we are for personal responsibility & justice seen to be done.

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."