LONDON, April 6: British Muslims feel victimized by the “war on terrorism” and community relations have worsened since the Sept 11 2001 attacks on the United States, lawmakers said in a report on Wednesday.
The report comes a day after Prime Minister Tony Blair called an election in which the parties will fight hard for Muslim votes.
“Muslims in Britain are more likely than other groups to feel they are suffering as a result of the response to international terrorism,” said a report by parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee.
Many of Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims say they feel stigmatised by anti-terrorism laws and complain of a rise in the number of police security checks carried out on them as Britons fear an attack by radical Islamists.
The committee concluded that community relations in Britain had deteriorated since 2001, largely a result of measures introduced to combat the threat of global terrorism.
It called for Muslims to be more involved in policy making.
“The government needs to bring together its support for community cohesion with its anti-terrorist strategy and needs to ensure the Muslim community are fully involved in developing the next steps in tackling terrorism,” said chairman John Denham.
In a move likely to provoke anger among Muslims, the government said on Tuesday it would ditch plans to outlaw incitement to hatred on religious grounds, having run out of parliamentary time before the May 5 election.
The laws would have extended laws that protect people on the basis of colour, race, gender or ethnic origin.
Britain is not alone in facing rising tensions with Muslims.
The murder of a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islam sparked sectarian attacks and soul-searching in the Netherlands about how to improve the integration of its almost one million Muslims.
With an election just a month away, politicians are seeking to woo Muslims, many of whom have tended to vote for Blair’s Labour Party.
But his decision to wage war in Iraq has alienated many.
A junior Home Office minister also caused a storm last month by saying Muslims had to accept they would be stopped and searched by the police more often because the terrorist threat came from people hiding behind Islam.
“We do not believe the Asian community is being unreasonably targeted by stops and searches but accept that Muslims perceive they are being stigmatised by the legislation,” said the report.—Reuters
