LONDON, Aug 11: The arrest of 24 people in an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners could widen a gulf between authorities and British Muslims, who fear their community is coming ‘under siege’, leaders say.
The arrests once again threw a spotlight on Britain’s 1.7 million Muslims, 13 months after four young British Islamists killed themselves and 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on London’s transport system. Four others failed in an alleged attempt to carry out copycat attacks two weeks later.
“There is a siege mentality,” said Abu Mumin, manager of an east London youth organisation. “We have to continually justify things that come on the news. We just want to get on with our lives and live peacefully.”
Muhammad Abdul Bari, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, Britain’s largest Islamic organisation, said his community was under more pressure.
“There is always that danger with this sort of publicity. Also some will just try to demonise Muslims because of the extremism of a very few,” Mr Bari said on Friday.
“But we think we can overcome it.”
Some Muslims doubt the validity of the police operation, pointing to past high-profile anti-terrorism raids that turned out to be based on faulty intelligence.
In June, 250 police officials, some in special protective suits, took part in a raid on a house in the Forest Gate area of east London acting on a tip-off about a chemical bomb.
However, the two Muslim men they arrested, one of whom was shot and wounded during the raid, were freed and police admitted there was no bomb and the intelligence had been wrong.
In the most damaging incident, police shot dead an innocent Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, in July last year after mistaking him for a suicide bomber on an underground train.
‘GUILTY TILL PROVEN INNOCENT’: “In today’s Britain, Muslims are perceived to be guilty until proven innocent,” said Anjem Choudary, a former leader of the radical Al Muhajiroun group, which praised the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was another case of a high-profile operation whipping the general public into this frenzy with very scant evidence,” he said.
Mr Bari admitted this perception was a problem.
“There is a level of scepticism among certain groups, especially within the young people,” he said.
“But if ... it is seen young Muslims were really trying to do this damage to all of us, then the voice from our community, loud and clear, will be behind the police.”
However, community leaders have to contend with widespread mistrust of British and Western authorities. A poll of British Muslims published this week found 45 percent believed the Sept. 11 attacks were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel.
“The cynicism is there because of Forest Gate and what happened to Menezes,” said Fareena Alam, editor of the British Muslim monthly magazine Q-News.
Abul Khair, who runs an Islamic bookshop near the East London Mosque in the capital’s Whitechapel district, said: “The government says it’s Muslims, but it’s propaganda. Muslims can’t do such things. It’s not allowed.”
Many of those stopped on the streets around the mosque did not even want to discuss the latest security alert.
“There is a great deal of denial because they (Muslims) feel beleaguered. They feel it’s an effort to draw attention away from what’s happening with Israel,” Alam said.
Israel’s war in Lebanon and a perception among British Muslims that Prime Minister Tony Blair is favouring the Jewish state are seen as key factors in fuelling radicalism.
“Why is America sending weapons to Israel to kill kids in Lebanon and why are British airports used to transport them?” Mumin said, referring to reports US flights loaded with bombs for Israel had refuelled at Prestwick airport, Scotland.
Teenagers in the Whitechapel mosque said they feared the latest events could lead to ill-treatment of British Muslims.
“It’s going to raise tensions in areas where Muslims stand out,” said one young man with a wispy beard and a prayer cap who did not want to give his name.—Reuters
