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Hate Crimes Soar in Britain as Police Defend "Shoot to Kill" Policy
A wave of anti-Muslim, Arab and South Asian hate crimes are sweeping Britain in the wake of the July 7th Subway and Bus bombings. Race and religion-based attacks are up 500% and communities of color are concerned that law enforcement authorities are also racially profiling targets in their anti-terrorism campaign. We go to London to speak with the Islamic Society of Britain.
In London, civil rights groups are condemning racial profiling and anti-Muslim hate crimes following the July 7 subway and bus bombings.
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old Brazilian man shot and killed Friday by London police investigating the bombings, may sue over his death. Menezes was on his way to his job as an electrician on Friday morning when plain-clothes police officers in an anti-terrorism unit chased him into a subway station and shot him five times at point blank range.
Immediately after the shooting, police announced Menezes had ties to the July 7 subway and bus bombings. But a day later they admitted they were wrong and Menezes had no connection to the bombings. Police chief Sir Ian Blair apologized to Menezes's family, but stood behind the new "shoot-to-kill" policy.
Menezes's Cousin Maria do Socorro told BBC Radio "You would think the British police would be prepared, but they are panicking and seeing everyone as a suspect. If you are going to have a war on terror, you have got to use brains to fight it not just brute force."
Menezes had been living in London for more than three years and was sending money home to pay for his father's cancer treatments.
Meanwhile in England, hate crimes targeting Muslims, Arabs and South Asians have risen by 500 (five hundred) percent since the July 7 bombings. The Guardian of London reports that more than 1,000 (one thousand) race and faith-based attacks have been reported to police across the country since the bombings, though community leaders believe the actual number of incidents is at least four times higher.
* Ajmal Masroor, Spokesperson for Islamic Society of Britain.
LISTEN ONLINE
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/25/1340209
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old Brazilian man shot and killed Friday by London police investigating the bombings, may sue over his death. Menezes was on his way to his job as an electrician on Friday morning when plain-clothes police officers in an anti-terrorism unit chased him into a subway station and shot him five times at point blank range.
Immediately after the shooting, police announced Menezes had ties to the July 7 subway and bus bombings. But a day later they admitted they were wrong and Menezes had no connection to the bombings. Police chief Sir Ian Blair apologized to Menezes's family, but stood behind the new "shoot-to-kill" policy.
Menezes's Cousin Maria do Socorro told BBC Radio "You would think the British police would be prepared, but they are panicking and seeing everyone as a suspect. If you are going to have a war on terror, you have got to use brains to fight it not just brute force."
Menezes had been living in London for more than three years and was sending money home to pay for his father's cancer treatments.
Meanwhile in England, hate crimes targeting Muslims, Arabs and South Asians have risen by 500 (five hundred) percent since the July 7 bombings. The Guardian of London reports that more than 1,000 (one thousand) race and faith-based attacks have been reported to police across the country since the bombings, though community leaders believe the actual number of incidents is at least four times higher.
* Ajmal Masroor, Spokesperson for Islamic Society of Britain.
LISTEN ONLINE
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/25/1340209
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The head of London's police force said Sunday he regrets the killing of a Brazilian man by officers who mistook him for a bombing suspect.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair called the shooting a "tragedy" and expressed his "deep regrets" to the man's family.
But he also defended the use of deadly force when lives are at risk.
The commissioner told Sky News TV that the only way to deal with someone who appears to be about to set off a suicide bomb is to "shoot to the head."
http://www.wesh.com/news/4762513/detail.html
Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian young man, was walking in one of London's underground stations when a group of people in civilian outfits started shouting at people. He ran in horror like many others did. The British death squad in civilian camouflage followed him to the train, pushed him to the ground among the screaming and shouting, pinned him down, and shot him five times in the face.
If the death squad was following a suicide bomber, he or she will self-detonate themselves right after the first shouting by the death squad, a suicide bomber won’t wait to be publicly executed. Hunting for suicide bombers is such a dumb strategy!
Special Forces hiding in civilian clothes shouldn’t be hunting for “suspicious” people in public places! It’s so sad to see one of the biggest democracies in the world shaken because of some minor attacks. It’s sad to see how all the shining values and principles concerning “freedom” and “the value of human life” can fall over a night.
If the British government and people are searching for efficient ways to stop attacks against their country, they should start with their foreign policy not their security technicalities.
Alexander Cockburn has an interesting Tip of the week:
Don't run in London if you're brown or black.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn07232005.html
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
"Don't run in London if you're brown or black."
These are unusual times...NOBODY should run from a cop when he says "STOP"
What is prefereble, is: Don't ride a bus, subway or airplane, if you are a moslem. That would make THE REST of us feel better.
These are unusual times...NOBODY should run from a cop when he says "STOP"
What is prefereble, is: Don't ride a bus, subway or airplane, if you are a moslem. That would make THE REST of us feel better.
World Shadow Government is stepping out of the Shadows. No more Night and Fog. Gestapo Tactics now being done in Broad Daylight by the Bush Iran-Contra Junta.
The gunning down of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on a London subway carriage has tragically exposed the shoot-to-kill policy secretly adopted by Britain’s police.
Without even a debate in parliament, the British state has taken upon itself the power to execute anyone as it sees fit. The first time such powers were exercised, an entirely innocent man was shot eight times at extremely close range, seven times in the head.
It has now emerged that this policy has been developed over the past two years under the code-name “Operation Kratos,” after the Greek god of strength. Under its remit, a senior police officer is on standby 24 hours a day at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), with the authority to deploy special armed squads to follow and, if deemed necessary, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers.
Previous guidelines covering police use of firearms had stipulated that, with few exceptions, the objective was to stop and disable a suspect by aiming at the chest. Under Operation Kratos, however, police are now authorised to use lethal force by aiming their shots at the head.
Former MPS head Lord Stevens revealed last week that the shoot-to-kill policy was developed when he led Scotland Yard, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York.
Circulated secretly for the first time in 2003, the material was shared with anti-terrorist officers, protection and surveillance units, and a small group of senior commanders, but was not disseminated to the wider police force.
According to the Financial Times, an internal e-mail was sent to specialised police units, including armed officers, reminding them of the secret instructions for dealing with suspected suicide bombers.
The newspaper quotes a police source saying, “The e-mail reminded armed officers they could shoot to the head if the criteria for suspecting a suicide bomber was fulfilled. It [the action] had to be based on intelligence.”
The policy was also kept secret from the Muslim Advisory Group (MAG), a Whitehall committee of key Muslim community leaders with which the police and politicians had been meeting to “build up trust and co-operation” after the September 11 attacks.
As media reports emerged of a visit to Israel in 2002 by MPS officers, the MAG had sought assurances from David Veness, then head of anti-terrorist operations, that the same shoot-to-kill tactics would not be deployed in the UK.
Massoud Shadareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said, “No one told us the police had been given effective carte-blanche to shoot dead on suspicion.”
Asked at last week’s press conference whether he had approved the new guidelines, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was unsure if it “ever came across my desk.” Describing it as a “sensible policy” necessary to “protect the public” (something it so clearly failed to do in the case of de Menezes), Blair said he “could not remember” if he had discussed it. But if police had talked to him about it, “I would have agreed with what they said.”
The prime minister told the July 26 press conference that granting the police the power to use lethal force was “more a sort of common sense response to the situation rather than some great change of policy.”
Unlike many countries, Britain’s police officers have not been routinely armed. Indeed, the image the state usually likes to project is one of “community policing,” the friendly neighbourhood bobby who is more like a concerned parent than someone authorised to “terminate with extreme prejudice.”
The introduction of a shoot-to-kill policy, far from representing “common sense,” is a further erosion of basic democratic rights that effectively dispenses with long-established legal norms. Just 40 years after Britain abolished the death penalty, an armed police officer is now empowered to be judge, jury and executioner.
The events surrounding the de Menezes shooting and the London bombings are being used as the pretext to implement further long-planned attacks on civil liberties.
The political establishment has closed ranks, and the government is seeking support for a new anti-terror bill that will be rushed through parliament following the summer recess. Blair said he was pleased with the “cross-party consensus” following his July 26 meeting with opposition party leaders Michael Howard (Conservative Party) and Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrats). “I think when the main political parties present a united front then it sends an important signal to the terrorists of our strength and our determination and our unity to defeat them,” Blair told the press.
The prime minister confirmed that the government was drawing up a bill creating several new offences: acts preparatory to terrorism, indirect incitement to commit a terrorist offence, receiving or giving training in the use of hazardous substances or other methods and techniques for terrorist purposes in the UK and abroad.
Blair also expressed sympathy for the lengthening of time a terrorist suspect could be held without charge from 14 days to three months, as has been requested by the police.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/civi-j30.shtml
Without even a debate in parliament, the British state has taken upon itself the power to execute anyone as it sees fit. The first time such powers were exercised, an entirely innocent man was shot eight times at extremely close range, seven times in the head.
It has now emerged that this policy has been developed over the past two years under the code-name “Operation Kratos,” after the Greek god of strength. Under its remit, a senior police officer is on standby 24 hours a day at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), with the authority to deploy special armed squads to follow and, if deemed necessary, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers.
Previous guidelines covering police use of firearms had stipulated that, with few exceptions, the objective was to stop and disable a suspect by aiming at the chest. Under Operation Kratos, however, police are now authorised to use lethal force by aiming their shots at the head.
Former MPS head Lord Stevens revealed last week that the shoot-to-kill policy was developed when he led Scotland Yard, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York.
Circulated secretly for the first time in 2003, the material was shared with anti-terrorist officers, protection and surveillance units, and a small group of senior commanders, but was not disseminated to the wider police force.
According to the Financial Times, an internal e-mail was sent to specialised police units, including armed officers, reminding them of the secret instructions for dealing with suspected suicide bombers.
The newspaper quotes a police source saying, “The e-mail reminded armed officers they could shoot to the head if the criteria for suspecting a suicide bomber was fulfilled. It [the action] had to be based on intelligence.”
The policy was also kept secret from the Muslim Advisory Group (MAG), a Whitehall committee of key Muslim community leaders with which the police and politicians had been meeting to “build up trust and co-operation” after the September 11 attacks.
As media reports emerged of a visit to Israel in 2002 by MPS officers, the MAG had sought assurances from David Veness, then head of anti-terrorist operations, that the same shoot-to-kill tactics would not be deployed in the UK.
Massoud Shadareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said, “No one told us the police had been given effective carte-blanche to shoot dead on suspicion.”
Asked at last week’s press conference whether he had approved the new guidelines, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was unsure if it “ever came across my desk.” Describing it as a “sensible policy” necessary to “protect the public” (something it so clearly failed to do in the case of de Menezes), Blair said he “could not remember” if he had discussed it. But if police had talked to him about it, “I would have agreed with what they said.”
The prime minister told the July 26 press conference that granting the police the power to use lethal force was “more a sort of common sense response to the situation rather than some great change of policy.”
Unlike many countries, Britain’s police officers have not been routinely armed. Indeed, the image the state usually likes to project is one of “community policing,” the friendly neighbourhood bobby who is more like a concerned parent than someone authorised to “terminate with extreme prejudice.”
The introduction of a shoot-to-kill policy, far from representing “common sense,” is a further erosion of basic democratic rights that effectively dispenses with long-established legal norms. Just 40 years after Britain abolished the death penalty, an armed police officer is now empowered to be judge, jury and executioner.
The events surrounding the de Menezes shooting and the London bombings are being used as the pretext to implement further long-planned attacks on civil liberties.
The political establishment has closed ranks, and the government is seeking support for a new anti-terror bill that will be rushed through parliament following the summer recess. Blair said he was pleased with the “cross-party consensus” following his July 26 meeting with opposition party leaders Michael Howard (Conservative Party) and Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrats). “I think when the main political parties present a united front then it sends an important signal to the terrorists of our strength and our determination and our unity to defeat them,” Blair told the press.
The prime minister confirmed that the government was drawing up a bill creating several new offences: acts preparatory to terrorism, indirect incitement to commit a terrorist offence, receiving or giving training in the use of hazardous substances or other methods and techniques for terrorist purposes in the UK and abroad.
Blair also expressed sympathy for the lengthening of time a terrorist suspect could be held without charge from 14 days to three months, as has been requested by the police.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/civi-j30.shtml
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