Blears under fire over Muslim stop and search comments
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears is facing criticism today from Muslim groups after she told MPs that Muslims were likely to be “disproportionately” stopped and searched by police under anti-terror laws.
Appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee, Ms Blears said it was inevitable that Muslims would be “targeted” as police dealt with the threat of Islamic “extremists”.
“The threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she said.
“It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community.
“That is the reality and we should recognise that. If a threat is from a particular place then our action is going to be targeted at that area.”
Muslim groups reacted angrily, saying her comments were “outrageous” and “irresponsible”. The Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman, Massoud Shadjareh told the BBC that Ms Blears was “playing an Islamophobia card” and “demonising and alienating our community.”
Ironically, her comments came in an evidence session that had otherwise been dominated by her desire to show the Home Office is concerned about community cohesion.
Elsewhere in her evidence Ms Blears rejected suggestions that community relations and Islamaphobia had worsened since 9/11, but she said such issues were difficult to measure.
She did however point to the language used by the media regarding issues of terrorism, and suggested that journalists needed to be more careful in distinguishing between Islam and international terrorism.
Ms Blears also said that the Home Office was working on community programmes to encourage inclusion and prevent terrorism being passed down to the next generation.
