Posted on 06/08/2006 10:38:16 AM PDT by NeoOldCon
London Muslims plan protest against police anti-terror raid
Press Trust of India
London, June 7, 2006
Anger at police treatment of British Muslims is growing in east London where people plan to hold a protest this weekend, with some even urging the community to stop cooperating with the authorities.
Members of the area's large South Asian population feel they are being unjustly targeted by the police in the fight against terrorism.
They cite a massive raid on a house in Forest Gate last Friday in which two British Muslim brothers were arrested, one of whom was shot.
Both men remain in custody but neither has been charged and investigators at the property on Lansdown Road have seemingly failed to find any evidence of a possible terrorist plot.
"People in the community are angry about the raid, they are angry about the shooting, they are angry about the lack of evidence and they are angry that the two men have been detained for so long without charge," John Rees, national secretary of the anti-Iraq war political party Respect said.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and 20-year-old Abul Koyair were due to learn on Wednesday whether the authorities planned to press charges, ask to hold them for longer or set them free.
Angry at the situation, scores of largely Muslim locals packed a community centre near the brothers' house on Tuesday evening to hear speeches criticising police and government tactics by Rees, Yvonne Ridley, a journalist and fellow Respect member, and Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.
Methinks patience with the followers of allah in England is growing thin..
Hopefully the police will video tape everything and Identify everyone attending the protest.
Tomorrow we will read about "Most Muslims reject terror", yea right, and pigs fly too.
Well, then, stop building chemical weapons in your basement. Its little things like that that make people suspicious.
Hopefully the police will round them all up and march them into the sea pointed towards Mecca.
- from a Mark Steyn column
That's great! I haven't read that one.
...and a few of them are even mildly annoyed about the presence of terrorists among them.
The silence is deafening..
Oh that's a definite.
The Sand Nazis are doing us a favour by exposing themselves.
Regards, Ivan
I thought they found chemical bomb making materials in there. Was that report incorrect?
Welcome to FR. What was your comment?
Ahhhh, the keyword these days is "South Asian"? Are we to believe that "South Asians" are going to protest because the authorities are leaning too hard on "South Asians"? Which "South Asians" are feeling the heat--the Malaysians? Perhaps the Thais? How about the Vietnamese? Indians? Hmmmmmmmm, I wonder which "South Asians" could be protesting...
Tick, tock..
NOVEMBER 30, 2003 : (CONFESSED ANTHRAX PLOTTER MOAZZIM BEGG TO BE RETURNED TO THE UK BY CHRISTMAS) The father of a Birmingham man being held under terrorism laws in Guantanamo Bay last night welcomed news that his son could be home by Christmas. Azmat Begg, the father of Moazzam Begg, who has been detained at the American military prison in Cuba since 2002, said his whole family was 'very happy' he could soon return to Britain as part of a deal being brokered between the US and Britain. The negotiations could secure the release of nine British prisoners including Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed from Tipton, Sandwell, being held at the detention centre -dubbed Camp X-ray -which was set up after the September 11 terror attacks.
It was claimed yesterday [November 20, 2003] that Begg, aged 36 and from Sparkhill, had confessed under duress to taking part in an al Qaida plot to attack the House of Commons with anthrax. His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said the statement was completely implausible and the alleged plot 'laughable'.
Mr Begg, a 65-year-old retired bank manager from Moseley, said: 'I think it's a good move, provided the deal is fair. 'A confession without a lawyer is of no value and it's not right. 'I hope they will have a very fair deal -it then depends on what they have agreed. We just don't know the terms of the deal but we are all very happy that he is coming back to Britain.'
Mr Stafford Smith, a British lawyer based in New Orleans, claimed Moazzam Begg admitted under intense pressure to being part of a plot to get an unmanned aircraft, fly it over London and drop anthrax bombs on the House of Commons. But he labelled the confession 'absurd' and said it was obtained following months of interrogation and segregation in Camp Delta. He said the deal to return the detainees to the UK would most likely consist of the 'British having to plead guilty on some nonsense charge and come back here to serve their sentence'. But he suggested that Rasul, aged 24, and Iqbal, aged 20, could be freed outright. 'It seems highly improbable that Iqbal and Rasul will be charged with anything,' he said. 'There simply is nothing there.' ------ "HEADLINE: CAMP X-RAY FATHER HAPPY AT RELEASE DEAL," by BYLINE: SOPHIE BLAKEMORE, Birmingham Post , Midland Independent Newspapers , 2003 , plc , December 1, 2003, Monday
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