THE BRITISH INQUISITION

It is ironic, that someone who has been a key promoter of the British Inquisition now finds himself a victim of it.

Sir Ian Blair, known as ‘Britain’s most politically correct policeman’, and has recently courted controversy at an employment tribunal about his intervention [when he was deputy commissioner] relating to allegations of racism against 3 detectives.

This matter was highlighted in the English Rights Campaign entry dated the 30 June.

The Met has also been prepared to fund the visit to London by Yusuf As-Qaradawi, and Islamic extremist who is banned from both the USA and Egypt for supporting suicide bombers.

The Met has also hosted gay police conferences etc.

Meanwhile, the Met is discriminating against English applicants in its drive to achieve a target of 25% non-white officers by 2009 - this requires over 80% of new recruits to be non-white over the next 4 years.

Sir Ian has phased out the term ‘visible ethnic minority’ and replaced it with ‘minority groups’, and has further altered the Met’s logo so as not to supposedly discriminate against short -sighted people.

This nonsense has been implemented at a time when we are supposed to be conducting a war on terror. Sir Ian Blair should quite rightly be held to account over this, especially as he was so nonchalant about the threat of terrorism that he commented that the Met’s anti-terrorism operation as ‘the envy of the Western world’ only 30 minutes before the first suicide bomb detonated.

The fact is that the police response to the bombings has been competent and impressive, apart from the shooting of Jean Menezes [a Brazilian illegal immigrant]. This shooting was deliberate and the 7 shots to the head were intended to kill.

Appalling as this shooting was, no one can doubt that it was a terrible mistake. One can only have the utmost sympathy for his family [not that that is much condolence].

However, the police seem to have botched the publicity of this killing and untruthful statements have been made. There have been allegations of Jean Menezes vaulting the ticket barrier, which would be understandable if he was trying to avoid being uncovered as an illegal immigrant, and those allegations have now been exposed as false.

There have been allegations of a cover up. Sir Ian Blair, it now emerges, made a request to keep out the Independent Police Complaints Commission [IPCC]. That request was turned down.

A group calling itself Justice4Jean has emerged and has called for Sir Ian Blair’s resignation. It has been critical of the police for: [1] the Shoot to Kill policy; [2] the incompetence which led to the shooting of Jean Menezes; [3] the alleged cover-up.

If we are to expect the police to fight the war on terror, then they must be able to count on our support. Sir Ian Blair should not resign for the shooting of Jean Menezes. There is nothing wrong with him making a request relating to the involvement of the IPCC. Of course he should be free to make such a request!

The Justice4Jean campaign is not an innocent creation either. It 3 main members are Yasmin Khan, Asad Rehman and Alistair Alexander. Yasmin Khan is a campaigner for Corporate Pirates, an anti-Iraq war pressure group, and is a longstanding anti-Iraq war protestor. In an article entitled ‘SpOILs of War: The neo-liberal carve up of Iraq’ in May this year, Yasmin Khan wrote:

‘The people of Iraq are paying the blood price for a global economic system fuelled by plundering the world’s resources from the poor and handing them over to the multinationals. The challenge for activists in the G8 countries must be to find ways in which we can be most effective in our solidarity with those in the South who face the brunt of capitalism’s destructive nature.

As the US Empire fights to expand its neo-liberal hegemony across the world, activists have to think tactically about where and how they can be most effective to challenge this. Iraq is where the US and UK’s neo-liberal policies are the most exposed and the most opposed and therefore, it is on the issue of Iraq that campaign against the further expansion of such polices and their devastating impact can be most effective.

The G8 summit in Gleneagles in July brings together Bush and Blair to plot further expansion of their market driven agenda under the guise of third world development. This provides a unique opportunity for the anti-capitalist, anti-war and green movements to come together and expose the reality of the violence of these development programmes as seen through the illegal expansion of neo-liberalism policies in Iraq. It also allows us to highlight the real reason why we went to war - to expand the US’s free market policies.’

Asad Rehman and Alistair Alexander are involved in the ‘Stop the War Coalition’. Alexander is the press officer for that organisation, and Rehman was a founder member of it.

Rehman is currently a paid political adviser to George Galloway, the Respect MP, and campaigned for Amnesty International for 10 years. He has described his involvement with Respect and Justice4Jean as being ‘completely separate existences’. He is active in the International Social Forum process, which claims to bring together diverse social movements globally to challenge issues on race and diversity, Islam and human rights, global justice, racism and police brutality, globalisation and war. He is also Chairman of Newham Monitoring Project, supposedly the UK’s oldest community based anti-racist organisation.

The ideology of Respect is basically a hybrid between communism and militant Islam. In an interview last year, Asad Rehman made the following comments:

‘One of my main political interests is the whole discourse of human rights and progressive thought within Islamic politics: where is the politicisation of the Muslim community going? And can a new concept of political movement be constructed to integrate this community at the front line of struggles alongside the traditional progressive left?’

And:

‘Perhaps the most inspiring dynamic within the anti-war campaign has been the high level of Muslim involvement – not only on the streets, but within the leadership and organisation of the anti-war movement. This was a unique development.

Around 86 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi voters have traditionally voted Labour. The party has progressively sold these communities down the river; not only on Iraq and Palestine, but also on domestic issues through the new asylum and immigration laws, anti-terrorist legislation and the UK’s derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights. The present demonisation of Muslims, and more generally the black community, is unparalleled historically. All this explains why opinion polls suggest that more than 50 per cent of Muslim voters will no longer vote Labour.

What is certain is that, with the daily killings and tortures of Iraqis and Palestinians, the creation of ethnic and economic apartheid in Palestine, the increasingly racist direction of UK asylum, immigration and anti-terrorist legislation, these issues need to be represented in mainstream British politics.’

And:

‘My political background is Marxist, but I’m also a Muslim. In the past on the left you would have had to stay quiet if you believed in God. Now you’ve got people who are saying, ‘I’m for the Muslim community and I also believe in the left.’

The Justice4Jean campaign is exploiting the shooting of Jean Menezes to pursue their own agenda. This is a political organisation and should be treated as such.