LONDON, 19 June 2006 — Several hundred protesters took to the streets of an east London neighborhood yesterday to demand an apology for an anti-terrorist raid that turned up nothing.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, who are brothers, spent several days in custody following the June 2 raid in Forest Gate — during which Kahar was shot — only to be released without charge.
Abul Koyair wore a Brazilian football T-shirt in sympathy with Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man mistakenly shot by police at Stockwell Tube in July 2005.
“We clearly, clearly want an unqualified apology” from Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Metropolitan Police, said Muddassar Ahmad, spokesman for the protest organizers.
“If you’re going to apologize, apologize properly,” he said, “don’t apologize for ‘hurt’,” as the police did in a statement Tuesday after the brothers went public with an emotional account of the raid.
The raid, less than a year after July 7 suicide bombings in London in which 56 died, saw police officers tear through the house in what turned out to be a fruitless search for clues of a homemade chemical weapon.
Many of those protesting yesterday carried banners which said “Police brutality never makes us feel safer.” Others chanted: “We will not live in fear.”
Their route was to take them past the local police station.
