Muslims blast British anti-terror strategy

LONDON (AFP) - Muslim police in Britain have attacked the government’s anti-terrorism strategy for triggering an upsurge in Islamophobia and deepening divisions in communities.
The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) warned that the Prevent programme, which aims to combat violent extremism, was “stigmatising” Muslims by focusing on “so-called Islamist extremism.”
The group said the real threat came from the growing far-right movement.
“The hatred towards Muslims has grown to a level that defies all logic and is an affront to British values,” said the association in a written submission to a parliamentary commission examining the anti-terror initiative.
“The climate is such that Muslims are subject to daily abuse in a manner that would be ridiculed by Britain, were this to occur anywhere else.”
There may be a “connection in the rise of Islamophobia and our Prevent programme as it feeds on the stereotypes that the media and some rightwing parties promote,” the group said.
These stereotypes were that “all Muslims are evil and non-trustworthy”, added the officers. Community cohesion may have suffered as a result of the strategy, said the association, which has more than 2,000 members and was founded in July 2007.
They also highlighted the growth of rightwing movements as a threat that needed greater attention.
“The impact and growth of the far-right and its ability to carry out terror acts cannot and should not be underestimated,” said the association.
Meanwhile, British former foreign secretary said on Thursday that Britain wanted to avoid the 2003 war in Iraq, adding that backing the conflict was “the most difficult decision I have ever faced in my life.” Jack Straw, the first serving Cabinet minister to give evidence to a public inquiry into the US-led conflict, insisted however that ministers made the “best judgements” possible in the run-up to the invasion.
Straw, who is currently justice secretary in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, gave evidence a week before former premier Tony Blair makes his long-awaited appearance on January 29.
Blair will be grilled on the reasons for the conflict, amid doubts about the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) used to justify the invasion and Blair’s professed desire to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
In his evidence, Straw insisted that so-called regime change was not Britain’s aim and said he made clear at the time that any use of force to depose Saddam under this objective would have been “improper” and “unlawful”.