July 06, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 2, 1429

LONDON, July 5: Britain’s first Muslim minister Shahid Malik, who is of Pakistani origin, has kicked up a media uproar here, saying that many Muslims in the UK feel targeted like ‘the Jews of Europe’.

Mr Malik who heads the Department for International Development (DFID) has said that it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority.

Hastening to add that he was not equating the situation with the Holocaust, he, however, warned that many British Muslims now felt like “aliens in their own country”.

He said he himself had been the target of a string of racist incidents, including the firebombing of his family car and an attempt to run him down at a petrol station.

“Somehow there’s a message out there that it’s OK to target people as long as it’s Muslims. And you don’t have to worry about the facts, and people will turn a blind eye.”

Mr Malik expressed these views in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme which was widely reported in the British media on Saturday.

The interview is to be broadcast on Monday to coincide with the third anniversary of the London bombings of July 7.

A poll to accompany the documentary highlights the growing polarisation of opinion among Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims, who say they have suffered a marked increase in hostility since the London bombings.