Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
16 NOVEMBER 2004
MR HENRY
GRUNWALD QC, MR
MICHAEL WHINE,
MR SADIQ
KHAN, MR
KHALID SOFI
AND MR
JAGDEESH SINGH
Q140 Mr Taylor: Mr Khan, the last thing
I want to do is to give you the impression that I am trying to
put words into your mouth. If you think I put an unreasonable
proposition to you, you must correct it, please.
Mr Khan: You have read verbatim,
I am afraid. It is the chicken and egg. If there is under-reporting
or a low level of complaints, does that equate to customer satisfaction
or does that equate to people not being aware that a complaints
system exists or not having confidence in it? Frankly, we are
not in a position to say which of those things it is. I do know
from recent experience and work with the IPPC that they are working
terribly hard. They had a meeting with Muslim and community groups
to try and raise awareness of the IPPC. They went independent
in April of this year and they are making efforts, so I think,
I am afraid, I want to amend our written submission by saying—
Q141 Mr Taylor: —Please do.
Mr Khan: —we do a disservice
to the IPPC by saying you can equate lack of confidence in the
IPPC with the low level of complaints. That is unfair.
Chairman: Thank you very much for that.
It is a rare thing for a witness to do.
Q142 Mr Taylor: I think that was very
fair. My next question perhaps is more appropriate to Mr Singh.
You say that terrorist profiling has led to Sikhs being subject
to more scrutiny. Do you think that Sikhs are disproportionately
subject to stop and search? If so, what effect is it having? In
other words, are your community getting more stop and search than
would be numerically appropriate perhaps?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: Certainly immediately
following 9/11 there has been a consistent pattern of what we
would call "irregular" stops and searches at airports
of Sikh passengers fitting an appearance like me. We would often
be taken to one side, taken through a series of questions for
10 minutes, asked what we are wearing, what we are carrying, where
we are going, and so forth. It would be done in quite a visible
manner such that we would be made to feel irregular, we would
be made to feel that we were being picked out. That kind of experience
continued for at least 12 to 18 months following 9/11 and was
a matter of great concern. This pattern of stop and search at
airports was reported widely at Heathrow Airport and also at other
British airports but primarily at Heathrow Airport. Be that because
Sikhs travel perhaps mostly through Heathrow Airport but it was
a matter of concern.
Q143 Mr Taylor: What about Birmingham
Airport, Mr Singh?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: The odd incident
occurred there but they seemed to be obscured by the large quantity
of incidents at Heathrow Airport. Heathrow Airport by far was
the most prominent venue for this. There was much concern on that.
That kind of stop and search at airports seems to have subsided
now almost to a point where it is virtually non-existent. Stray
instances, as we would call them, do occur off and on but they
seem to have petered out now.
Mr Khan: Could I just jump in
on the Chairman's question. Schedule 7 of the Anti-Terrorism (Crime
and Security) Act allowed the authorities power to stop people
at airports and ports. One of the complaints we have had—and
we have been to a port visit—is forget religious monitoring,
there is no ethnic monitoring of the stops done at airports. They
can detain you for up to seven hours without access to a solicitor.
You cannot delay the interview by saying that you are waiting
for a solicitor. There is no monitoring done either in ethnic
terms or in religious terms, so to answer your question, we do
not know how bad a problem it is because no records are kept.
Q144 Mr Taylor: I think that was the
point you were developing earlier.
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: Could I add
one brief comment.
Q145 Chairman: Very briefly, if you would.
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: Prior to the
current 9/11 situation and the terrorist legislation, there was
a long period prior to this where Sikhs were subjected to regular
stops and searches at airports, specifically Sikh activists in
this country. I know that from personal experience. We would be
stopped, our baggage would be checked, our documents would be
photocopied. Even one instance when I was off to the United Nations
in Geneva once, my passport was checked and my dossier was photocopied.
I wanted to highlight that; that that was a period of time where
stops and searches at airports were being carried out quite regularly
on Sikh activists.
Q146 Chairman: That was a period of time,
was it not, when there certainly were very strong allegations
that there was active Sikh terrorism around the world associated
with political movements in the Punjab, the blowing up of an Air
India aircraft, and so on. Can I put to you a question that in
a previous session was put to Muslim witnesses. If there is a
type of terrorism which appears to be associated with a particular
cultural or ethnic or religious group is it unreasonable for the
authorities to pay particular attention to members of that group?
Most recently that question has come up in the context of Muslims
in Britain. The period you were discussing was a time when there
was said to be active Sikh terrorism. Was it unreasonable for
the authorities to pick out Sikh activists?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: It is not unreasonable
for any government or any authority to carry out proportionate
monitoring, checks, balances, investigations on any type of population,
be it Sikh or otherwise. Whether there are allegations proven
or otherwise, it is fair to investigate and monitor. However,
where Sikh activists are going about lawful behaviour, for example
as I was in this particular instance at Gatwick Airport going
to Geneva to the UN Human Rights Committee. I had no linkage to
any particular group of any contention, to have irregularly stopped
me and questioned me and photocopied my documents—
Chairman: I am going to stop you in mid-sentence
but I think you have made your point well. We are going to have
to adjourn for 12 minutes for a division.
The Committee adjourned from 3.46 pm to
3.57 pm for a division in the House.
Chairman: We will resume the session.
Mr Taylor?
Q147 Mr Taylor: I did have one other
question, thank you Chairman, before the adjournment, which was
designed perhaps for Mr Grunwald or Mr Whine. Gentlemen, you suggest,
as I understand it, that the police should be given powers "to
question suspects and seize papers, camera film, et cetera,
where there are reasonable grounds to believe that surveillance
is being carried out preparatory to a terrorist attack".
My question is why do you think that such a broad extension is
justified when existing anti-terrorism powers have already been
widely criticised for being too broad and open to misuse?
Mr Whine: This comment evolves
out of discussions that we have been holding with the police.
If you look at recent acts of terrorism, particularly highlighted
by the attacks on American embassies in East Africa, you will
remember that these were preceded by fairly lengthy periods of
surveillance by the terrorists or the people working for and with
the terrorists. That, in fact, is part of the modus operandi
of modern terrorism. You cannot attack a target unless you know
your way about that target, you know your way inside, exits and
entrances, and times of use, and so on, so an attack on a target
has to be preceded by surveillance. We have received reports from
Jewish communities in this country and from Jewish communities
abroad that over recent years (preceding 9/11 but certainly an
increase since 9/11) they are the subject of surveillance. It
is often very difficult to trace that back to who is doing the
surveillance but there is very clearly a picture emerging that
Jewish communities around the world and in this country are the
object of scrutiny by people who intend them harm. As a consequence
of that, the Metropolitan Police Service have set up something
called Operation Lightning which is a national operation which
we and indeed others feed into which reports these sorts of instances—occupants
within a car were seen filming a building, or somebody tried to
get access a building who really had no right to gain entrance,
or strange questions were being asked—which somebody needed
to put all this together. A specific power which would enable
the police to stop somebody who may have been caught in committing
such acts and to say to them, "May I see what is in your
bag? May I take the film from your camera?" is an additional
power that the police feel that they would make good use of in
these circumstances.
Q148 Mr Taylor: Is it within your knowledge
that the police have actually promoted the desire to have such
a power?
Mr Whine: They have said so to
us. Whether they have done so directly to Parliament yet or whether
they have spoken to people framing future legislation or not,
I do not know.
Mr Taylor: Thank you very much.
Q149 Chairman: Having heard what we have
heard this afternoon from other witnesses do you share their concern
that a further extension of powers might trigger further concern?
Mr Whine: I can see that could
be the case.
Q150 Mr Singh: It is quite clear, having
listened very carefully, that there are similar concerns but also
different concerns that each community has and I am fairly impressed
in terms of the contacts at national level or regional level between
leaders of communities. That is fine and I think it is good and
it is proper and it should happen, but what are relations like
between communities at grass-roots community level? Are your conversations
or your meetings having an impact at that level or is it just
having an impact at the "worthies" level, if I can put
it that way.
Mr Whine: It is the point I briefly
referred to before. We are very keen to foster good contact between
ourselves and other communities. I cited a couple of examples
on the ground of bottom-up initiatives between the Jewish and
Muslim communities. I think those are clearly more effective than
the top-down initiatives. Just to give you some more examples.
We were discussing last year with the Turkish Muslim community—it
is a large community and people do not look at it as a discrete
community but it is—school exchange trips with kids from
Turkish Muslim communities going to visit Jewish schools and vice
versa. There was a series of synagogue and mosque visits planned.
That has not happened yet but it has already been happening between
some Jewish day schools and some of the Muslim community schools.
There are exchanges between the religious seminaries, not as many
as one would like but nevertheless they are beginnings. If you
can get in at this ground level and foster these sorts of contacts
you are going to have a much longer term beneficial effect than
the imposed top-down contact which is the sort that takes place
between ourselves and the MCB, for example. Having said that,
we have relations with other communities. Interest is not just
with the Muslim community. In our written evidence we refer to
a couple of initiatives. There is a long-standing one between
the Hindu and Jewish communities through the Indian-Jewish Association.
There have been umpteen contacts in recent years with the Ismaili
Community. We at the Community Security Trust have been assisting
National Church Watch which is a Church of England security organisation
established to protect churches which have been subject to theft
and attacks on clergymen and so on. So we have a real long-term
commitment to developing not just the top-down but also the bottom-up
contacts.
Q151 Mr Singh: That makes sense. Going
on to Mr Singh and Mr Khan, having lived in this country all my
life and faced racism and dealt with racism certainly from white
racists and Fascist organisations, what I notice today is that
people are prepared to articulate things that they were never
prepared in many ways, apart from that route, to articulate before.
Not just one group white against Asian or whatever but between
communities at grass-roots level, saying things about communities
which I have never heard in my life but I am now hearing as common
place. What do we do about that?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: Sorry, articulate
what?
Q152 Mr Singh: What I am trying to say
is that in my lifetime for the first time I am hearing articulated
venom and hatred between communities—intra-community hatred—which
I did not hear before. What can we do about that?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: What do we
do about that? What can we do about that? Very quickly, I believe
that communities have moved on from what they were 40 years ago.
Certainly the Asian population which arrived in its different
blocks in the 1960s and 1970s arrived initially as ordinary migrants.
They have now moved on, they have settled, they have bought houses,
their children have settled, new generations have emerged, communities
have become more conscious of themselves, and therefore their
aspirations and their perceived needs have diversified. In that
process of, if you like, separation and diversification, different
concerns, aspirations and perceptions have come into play. If
we take the case study of Sikhs and Muslims, for example, a great
deal can be said. Let's pick a few quick issues. There have been
in places like Slough where the Sikh Community Action Network
is from, years of tension between young people, young Sikh gangs,
Muslim gangs, based on issues which remain very unclear to this
day. Are they religious issues? Are they ethnic issues? Are they
plain and simple anti-social behaviour? Nonetheless, gangs have
emerged and identified themselves around community groups and
used their community emblems and their community identities as
a basis to attack each other. As an organisation ourselves we
have constantly tried to foster the view that both as a local
society (ie Slough or indeed any such town) and as a national
society (ie Britain, England, Scotland, Wales) whilst we bring
with us different traditions and different histories if we are
going to call this country our home, as I hope we would, then
we have got to equally recognise with that that we need to live
with each other as co-citizens and that means having social relations
with each other and cultural relations with each other, as well
as political and economic relations with each other. What we cannot
do and cannot afford to do and must not be doing is separating
ourselves out even as we live side-by-side. For example I live
in a house. I have a white neighbour this side and a white neighbour
that side and I have a series of Muslim neighbours further down.
To what extent do I interact and engage with my neighbours to
my side? Do I talk to them? Do I have any social ties with them?
Do I exchange anything with them? I feel that is a telling example
about what level of social cohesion we have in our society at
the moment. We have communities living side-by-side—
Q153 Chairman: Mr Singh, I am going to
have to ask you to give us shorter replies.
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: We have communities
living side-by-side in large numbers but they are living ignorantly
of each other. There is no active engagement and I believe there
need to be initiatives both from within the community and from
external government influence to encourage interaction.
Mr Khan: What I would say is that
the ability for different races and religions at the grass-roots
level to integrate is limited by a number of social factors. For
example, if you are a North African Muslim asylum seeker living
on a council estate in an inner city, the likelihood of you meeting—this
is a sweeping generalisation but it is to illustrate a point—somebody
who is from the Jewish faith is less than it would be if you lived
in another part of the country. So the ability to integrate with
different races is limited by what you see on TV to a large extent,
by the media, so the perception you have, wrongly, of the Jewish
faith is by what you see in the media as opposed to human contact
that you have with one another. So there is an issue, with the
best will in the world, where many people at grass-roots level
simply do not meet a person of the Jewish faith or whatever. There
is an issue there and that is just the reality of where we are
today. If you look at all the league tables, whether it is poor
housing, health needs, social deprivation, unfortunately, Muslims
are there and are the most socially deprived, so there is an issue
about the ability that they have to meet other faiths and so they
rely a lot upon the experiences they have with the media in their
perception of the Jewish faith and others. There is a point about
this issue of ethnic minority upon ethnic minority hate crime.
It is a serious issue but there are good examples. For example,
the police worked on Operation Trident on black crime where leadership
was provided by the police and by the Government to empower black
communities to understand that this is an issue that affects them.
There may well be an argument for some sort of leadership provided
to ethnic minorities. It is not just the Fascists and right-wing
white groups that are propagating hate crime. It may be one or
two minorities as well so there may be an issue around that.
Q154 Mr Singh: In terms of the context
of this inquiry—terrorism and race issues—do you think
local councils could do more to reassure communities and bring
them together?
Mr Khan: Do not forget there is
now a positive duty on local councils provided by the Race Relations
Amendment Act to promote good race relations. It does not extend
to religion and there is an issue there. Although the lacuna will
be closed to some extent by the extension of goods and services
to religion in the Queen's Speech, it will not extend to a positive
duty to promote good religious and race relations so, yes, of
course local councils can and very often they do do quite a lot
of good things with race equality schemes and impact assessments
before they pass legislation. We must not forget that there is
a hierarchy of rights at the moment with regard to race and case
law definition of race and religion.
Mr Grunwald: If I could just say
to you that we must not lose sight of the fact that there are
140 local inter-faith groups up and down the country which ought
to be encouraged both nationally and by local authorities to increase
their activities and to try to remove the ignorance which is at
the root of the comments which you now say you are hearing in
a way that you have never have before. That certainly is something
that should be encouraged. Having stressed the importance of grass
roots activity there is also a responsibility on the leadership
of all the minority communities themselves not only to promote
good relations but not to use language which might inflame members
of their own groups and cause tension to increase which gives
rise to just the sort of comments that you have been referring
to. There is a responsibility on us as the leaders of those groups
to prevent that happening.
Q155 Mr Singh: Mr Singh, you mentioned
inter-racial violence against Sikhs. Is your local authority,
Slough, doing anything to help?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: There is no
recognisable initiative from Slough Borough Council on the subject.
This is where we have a very commendable and a very, even if I
do say so myself, impressive example of the Sikh Community Action
Network empowering its community to get up and do something. There
has not been any official input or resourcing for reporting or
information dissemination or anything like that. That is an example
of a community deciding let's get ourselves up and dust ourselves
down and let's do it if nobody else is going to do it. Certainly
we agree there needs to be responsibility from within the communities
as well. We cannot expect government—local government, central
government—to spoon feed us. What we can reasonably expect
is for them to provide proportionate resourcing and empowerment—political,
financial and otherwise—so that we can do this, I think
local authorities can play a major role. If I can give you two
quick examples. The Macpherson Report made great mention about
schools and their major role in reducing racism and developing
a culture of equality, diversity and so forth. In Slough we see
little evidence of that. We do not see any significant local authority
input into that and we do not see any significant input by schools
into that subject either. We have also recommended to Slough,
as we would to other towns and cities across Britain, to explore
twinning their towns with places from other parts of the world
as against the standard European towns, say, in France or Germany.
Let's explore twinning our towns and making a formal friendship
with Lahore or Amritsar or places like that. Let's expand and
let's extend beyond the routine. Those kinds of simple yet powerful
initiatives would help to give the communities in those local
towns a sense of inclusion and involvement, a sense of belonging,
a sense of stakeholding, of yes our town is our town, our town
is twinned with our home town back home and we have a sense of
pride in that. Those kinds of simple, powerful initiatives need
to be done.
Q156 Mr Singh: Mr Khan, in terms of initiatives,
the Home Office is making a great deal of the Met's Police Muslim
Contact Unit. What is your view about the Muslim Contact Unit?
Mr Sofi: It is a good initiative
and it is welcome but we still need to assess its progress. There
are issues about accountability, who will represent the community,
and what background they have. So we need to really assess it
further before we commit and say that it is the best model, but
it is a good beginning. It is meeting up and concerns are raised.
Its constitution has not been fully finalised. The terms of reference
are still in discussion as is who sits on the Muslim Safety Forum.
There are a lot of other issues that have not been fully resolved
so we cannot really say with certainty that is the best model
and that it will resolve the problems. We need to wait and see
and then assess and see where we go from that.
Q157 Mr Singh: We have heard criticism
of the counter-terrorism legislation. Given that the Government
is not going to repeal the legislation, and I do not think any
government will whether it is in power or not, what more can the
Government do to reassure communities, in this context where scapegoating
is taking place and stop and search is being used, and to build
closer community relations?
Mr Khan: There are some sunset
clauses and some of us live in optimism and faith. The most important
thing is for there to be a sense of accountability in the legislation
that there is and that those who use the legislation are held
to account if there are errors made. It is giving the community
confidence that they are being properly protected. As I said at
the outset, we all recognise that there is a positive duty on
our Government to protect us, and that is right, and they are
trying to discharge that responsibility as they deem best. There
is also an obligation on government to not infringe our civil
liberties and to provide us with the rights to go about our lawful
business and not to have our privacy infringed, et cetera. It
is a balancing exercise we have to consider. What concerns us
is ensuring that when the Government uses these powers they are
held to account properly. For example, the intelligence is properly
analysed to see success rates. For example, where there is evidence
that officers have overused their powers that they are disciplined
properly and are held to account. For example, where you know
that there is some intelligence which is poor that those methods
of intelligence gathering are ceased and stopped and not used
any more. For example, that the best practice from some police
forces are utilised in other forces. You asked a question about
community dialogue. As I said at the outset, there are some really
good things that have come out of the horrific incidents and the
counter-terrorism measures. There is a really productive dialogue
now beginning and a maturity in the community. As Jagdeesh said
about empowering the community, we have seen over the last few
years the community growing up and becoming more mature. I have
given to the Clerk the rights and responsibilities card. We have
seen leaders from various communities saying to their communities
you have both rights and responsibilities. I think there is a
lot more to be done but I still say that it is for the Government
to justify that this infringement of liberties is proportionate
and that the derogation of Article 5 of the European Convention
is justified, and I do not think they have done that at the moment.
Q158 Mr Singh: Mr Singh?
Mr Jagdeesh Singh: I would pretty
much endorse what Sadiq has said. There is little more I can add.
The need for transparency, the need to apply it fairly and proportionately,
and to be open and receptive to criticism and to have the courage
to acknowledge where things go wrong. That would encourage confidence
in the whole process.
Q159 Mr Singh: Mr Grunwald or Mr Whine?
Mr Grunwald: The worst possible
damage to communal relations would be caused by a successful terrorist
attack on a community in this country, on a target in this country,
so as long as the Government is acting proportionately—and
as a community we have not experienced the problems that others
have experienced—then it is meeting the need, as the Chairman
has said, which exists at the moment, and therefore what is being
done is reasonable.
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