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December 1, 2005
UK: Police Say Mosque Closures Are Unwise
In reports today from the Telegraph and the BBC, it is announced by the Association of Chief Police Officers that the government's proposed laws, to temporarily close down mosques where radical Islam was being preached, would drive extremism underground.
Assistant Chief Constable Ron Beckley said on BBC's Radio 4: "Being radical, being extreme in itself is not an offence", and he decribed the measure as a "blunt tool" in the job of tacking extremism.
"We would want to find out what was happening," he said. "We would use different techniques to do that, policing techniques that are pretty tried and tested, because what we want to do is identify those who might be perpetrating terrorism and prevent them. We would not just want to close the place."
He also advised aginst banning the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. "They proclaim themselves to be against violence," he said. "What we need to do is test that but not just automatically ban them because there are some radicals within their organisation," he said. "There are individuals who we might be wanting to take action against or to look at very closely. Extremism and radicalism, where it is not an offence - we don't want to drive that underground."
We reported earlier that the Association of Chief Police Officers has already privately criticised the laws when they went from the House of Commons to be discussed at the House of Lords on November 21. The clauses to which they object are these:
Now, it appears, they wish to be more open and expansive in their criticisms. The Telegraph states that less than a month ago, the government was criticised for using senior police officers to lobby MPs before they voted in the Commons on the new anti-terror laws.
A consultation period, which was suggested by the PM, Tony Blair, in August, passed its deadline three weeks ago.
Beckley said that the proposal on mosque closures could be seen "as an attack on religion."
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 1, 2005 10:59 AM
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