Free Republic

A policeman has been suspended after he was filmed threatening to “make something up” so he could arrest a man for breaching coronavirus lockdown laws. Lancashire Police was forced to apologize for the unnamed officer’s behavior after footage of the incident in Accrington was shared online. Tonight they have confirmed he has been suspended from duty with immediate effect and the force has referred itself to the police watchdog over the clip. The video captured a young man being shouted at by a policeman in Accrington on Friday afternoon after he was pulled over for being out of his house....

Mohammad Liaqat, 34, verbally abused white teachers and assaulted a headmaster after two pupils were excluded for refusing to shaveA Muslim who assaulted a headmaster after launching racist rants in a row over beards has been jailed. Mohammad Liaqat, 34, verbally abused white teachers after two 14-year-old Muslim pupils were banned from school for refusing to shave on religious grounds. Even though he was not directly affected by the case, Liaqat launched a ‘racist tirade’ on staff at Mount Carmel RC High School in Accrington, Lancs, where one of his children is a pupil. He was ordered to stay away...

A mosque teacher assaulted four pupils, including one with learning difficulties, with a two-foot long pipe because they were misbehaving in class. A court heard the Accrington mosque had a written policy which urged staff to make sure the welfare of children was paramount and calling for them to be protected from abuse. Married father-of-eight Ibrahim Yusuf, 52, of Preston New Road, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to four charges of assault. He was bailed for the preparation of a pre-sentence report. Philippa White, prosecuting, said part of the incident at the Grimshaw Street mosque had been captured on CCTV, which showed...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...