LONDON, 12 August 2006 — Following the arrests of 24 Muslim men across London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, community leaders have come out sharply against the police action demanding that the police show solid evidence to back the arrests.
Terror raids were carried out early on Thursday morning in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to blow up airplanes leaving various British airports.
Dr. Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque, told Arab News that he had no confidence in the police raids, “especially with the track record of the police.” He added that the “arrests could be part of a political agenda; by targeting Muslims and using the perception of terrorism, the government is trying to usurp all our civil liberties.” Dr. Naseem was informed by the police about the arrests early on Thursday morning. “I went to find out myself what was happening. The police arrested two young men from the Alamrock and Washwad Heath area in Birmingham. This is known as a working class area where mainly Pakistani families from Kashmir live.”
He stressed that the police had arrested the men in Birmingham with no clear evidence. He said he was amazed because “these same two young men had been previously arrested twice before and released without charge.” According to Dr. Naseem, the community in Birmingham was in a state of shock because the men who had been arrested came from ordinary Pakistani backgrounds and that their families were religious law-abiding people. Dr. Naseem stated, “None of the people in the area, Muslims and non-Muslims, believe the police story about a terror plot, as their previous bungled raid in Forest Gate has proved.”
Police carried out two raids in High Wycombe in the Micklefield Road area. Nasser Amin, a postgraduate student who witnessed the raids, said he saw armed police break into two houses on Micklefield Road.
“If the police are trying to prevent any terrorist attacks, then it is a good action to take. However they must have made a mistake. The family they raided is a Pashtun family from Rawalpindi. They have been living in this house for over thirty years; they have four boys and two girls. They are all devout Muslims and quite affluent; they own a luxury car business,” he said.
Amin expressed reservations about the raid and believes the reason this family was targeted was because they had built a small mosque at the back of the house, and according to him, the non-Muslim neighbors were unhappy with worshippers frequenting the house. “They had constantly complained to the council about the small mosque, maybe even to the police.” According to Amin, the fact that members of the family were practicing Muslims where the men had long beards and the women wore hijab “hasn’t helped them in the eyes of the police.”
The two houses raided in High Wycombe belonged to the same family and stood opposite to each other. One of the houses was where the father lived and the other was a huge bungalow owned by one of the sons.
Woodlands near Walton Drive, High Wycombe, was also searched by anti-terror police. Officers believe that evidence has been hidden there, but nothing has been found as of yet. Labour Party candidate for Aylesbury Mohammad Khaliel, who is also a community leader in the High Wycombe area for over 20 years, expressed shock at the arrests. Khaliel said that the young men arrested in his area do not fit the profile of a “jihadists”. He said, “They come from an affluent business family selling luxury cars. At present the story is unraveling but we fear that this is just another Forest Gate, where the police are just creating a fear environment in the community, alienating Muslims further.”
Khaliel added, “After the Forest Gate raid, the police had said they will consult community leaders before they make any more spectacular raids but they didn’t consult anyone; they broke their word and just went ahead.”
Sir Iqbal Sacraine, former head of the Muslim Council of Britain, also supports local community demands for more evidence. “If the raid took place to prevent terrorist acts then we applaud the police, but the police must not act on the basis of suspicion only. If we don’t have facts we are in danger of speculation, which in turn can lead to tarnishing the whole community with the same brush,” he said.
Sir Iqbal added, “We then play into the hands of the neocons, Islamaphobes and Zionists who want any chance to denigrate the Muslim community and call them terrorists. Therefore we need the police to work sensibly and to produce hard evidence to support these raids”
