Friday, June 09, 2006

A Piece Of News That Can Only Be Bad

In London, two brothers arrested in last week's terror raid have been released from custody. The police had a warrant to hold them until Saturday, but having no basis to that point for further charges they had to release the pair. One of them, in fact, had been shot during the raid that resulted in his arrest. There is considerable crowing among muslims in Britain.

Police targeted the house after receiving "specific intelligence" - believed to relate to the existence of a chemical-based explosive device. But nothing of this nature was found.

[...]

Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "This is another indictment of police and intelligence service anti-terrorist policy.

"This policy is criminalising and victimising a community that is running out of patience. The only criteria for suspicion it appears is the suspicion that you might be or are a Muslim."

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "We understand that because of the nature of this kind of intelligence work the police will inevitably make mistakes but it's also important that if mistakes are made that they are duly acknowledged.

"In releasing these brothers it's clear that they were entirely innocent of any of the serious allegations that were put against them last week. We hope that now they have been freed we can go back to building up trust in the local community."

Jamal El-Shayyal, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, added: "This has further dented people's trust and will increase people's fear.

In every one of these statements is the sort of narcissistic victimhood that suggests these spokesmen have no concern for resisting those responsible for the 7/7 bombings. They appear to expect that the default position of British security services should be submission to their declarations of honesty. This is the same group of people who rioted over a bunch of cartoons. I have to suspect their protestations on behalf of these young men is disingenuous, and the police have simply failed to develop their evidence correctly, as opposed their being no evidence against the pair at all. After all, via little green footballs, we know that the brother of one of those arrested participated in a uniquely passionate way in a protest against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.

I say this is bad news all around because there is no good that can come of it. The police, having evidence of a plot, have either failed to capture the correct suspects or have failed to develop sufficient evidence against the right suspects.

The muslim spokesmen, regardless of the truth, now have a focal point for their protestations of innocence. They will not hesitate to use this again and again whenever a muslim is suspected of a terror plot. More importantly, they will refresh our memories of this event every time a terror plot is investigated. This will hamstring western intelligence greatly, especially those services that are already tying themselves up in knots to appear politically correct. Recall that the Candians were quite proud at their press conference announcing last weeks arrests they did not mention the religious background of the conspirators.

And finally, the circumstances of the young men's release are not encouraging for those of us who expect muslims to behave responsibly towards security services. Muslims wasted no time in protesting the arrest of these young men; they offered no benefit of doubt to the investigators who developed the warrants that led to the arrests last weekend. Just yesterday, muslims nearly rioted in defense of the young men, but not just because they thought the pair innocent. They nearly rioted because British police had the gall to assert authority over muslims:
In a sometimes tense stand-off, about 100 protestors were heavily outnumbered by police as fundamentalists waved placards and called for the implementation of Sharia Law in Britain.

[...]

In a chilling aside, a statement put out by al-Ghurabaa, followers of Alh us-Sunnah Wal Jamaa, said that the killing of Muslims was the price Britons have to pay because of the "‘real terrorists in our midst"’.

In an apparent non-sequitur, the statement added: "After all, imagine what would happen if a nuclear device were to be unleashed onto the streets of Britain or if our water supply were suddenly poisoned killing millions of us."

It is not encouraging that in the face of such total rejection of western values, British police will have a precedent to fear aggressively reacting against plots against the people they are charged with protecting.

We should also not forget the character of the islamic parties that are so loudly decrying the actions of the British police. We know that at least one of them, the Muslim Association of Britain, cannot be said to be trustworthy with regard lives of those that oppose them. It is to such groups that the British police will now defer, even more than they have perhaps already.

As I said, bad news all around.

UPDATE: Western Resistance has more on the protest that occurred prior to the brother's release. Specifically, they have more on the character of the organizations that led the protests.

Technorati tags: | | | | |

No comments: