Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-230)
14 DECEMBER 2004
MS SAMAR
MASHADI, MR
IMRAN KHAN,
MR RAMESH
KALLIDAI AND
MR VENILAL
VAGHELA
Q220 Mr Clappison: We will come on to
the whole area of freedom of speech in due course. Can I just
ask Ramesh on behalf of the Hindu Forum, we have heard the evidence
about the problems which the Muslim community have faced since
9/11. Have you any similar experiences yourself as a result of
that?
Mr Kallidai: Since 9/11.
Q221 Mr Clappison: Have there been rising
attacks on Muslims?
Mr Kallidai: Generally speaking,
we do feel that people are more aware of the threat of terror,
but specifically what has happened is people do not differentiate
between, say, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs on the road, and so any
sort of attack motivated against Muslims, although sometimes it
does affect Hindus in general, that has happened quite a bit.
Q222 Mrs Dean: The Government and the
police would say that they are making strong efforts to build
contacts with the minority communities. Could you give your view
on how that is working and whether that is true and, also on strengths
and weaknesses, what more should be done?
Mr Kallidai: Definitely. I agree
whole-heartedly with that. There has been a lot of activity in
contact with the faith communities as well. We have been involved
in many consultation exercises with the Government and we are
quite happy with the work the Home Office is doing with us. What
more could be done, I think, is for that to reach down
to the grass-roots and leaders, but the Government should start
encouraging more practical work at the inner grass-roots levels,
and that is not happening as much as it should. The Government
is talking to the leaders, but whether it is actually being translated
to the grass roots. One example would be in Bradford or Oldham,
one of those places, immediately after the riots, the councillors
organised for Muslim women to make chapattis for the white ladies,
and they in turn another week made pancakes for the others and
in so doing these communities contacted each other, for the first
time they were actually face to face, and they realised everyone
is normal. In Watford there is a Hindu temple. They participated
in a festival called the Radlett Festival. For the first time
a Hindu community came there and they provided a free sound system,
a free stage, free volunteers and free food for 5,000 people.
I asked one of the parish councillors—and he was very honest
with me—"What did you think of these people before
the festival?" He said, "I thought they were very strange
but harmless." I said, "What did you think of them after
the festival?" He said, "I thought they were just as
normal as the rest of us." The point being that the Government
should do more to encourage this sort of practical interaction.
Mr Khan: FAIR's position, and
certainly my personal position, is that post 9/11 the introduction
of legislation which in effect, whether it was intended to or
not, has targeted Muslim communities, has left a situation where
the Muslim community in particular is now particularly vulnerable.
Our position is this. The ineffectiveness of the legislation and
its impact, perceived or otherwise by the Muslim community, means
that it ought to be reconsidered and repealed. We think that is
the first position the Government should do. I do not want to
bore you with statistics in relation to numbers arrested and prosecuted
and so on. I am involved in a number of cases which I cannot talk
about because of sub judice, but the basic proposition
is that the legislation is not necessary. What has happened is
that those who wish to take advantage of this perceived threat
by Muslims; because at the moment Muslims either can be victims
of the terrorism, perpetrators of the terrorism, fundamentalists,
and even when Muslims speak out some people suggest, as the previous
speaker did, that we are not saying it sufficiently hard enough.
Muslims cannot win. The most symbolic thing that the Government
can do is to say this piece of legislation, having now seen it
in operation, is not working. It is creating problems for a particular
community. Let us take it away. As a lawyer I have obviously have
a particular view-point on this. The legislation on the statute
books are sufficient certainly in my view to cater for any particular
criminality related to terrorism. I think even some Government
spokespeople say that it is not lack of available offences that
results in not being able to combat terrorism, but a lack of the
use of evidence which is needed, for example, telephone interception,
et cetera. That is the problem. The law needs to look at
being able to use evidence or information and make it into admissible
evidence. That is the first point. The problem with the legislation
and its impact on the community is this. You have to have policing
by consent, and at this moment in time we have something called
intelligence-led policing, the intelligence about what is happening
if the Muslim community, not if but there are certainly minority
sections of the Muslim community that are involved or alleged
to be involved in certain acts which are criminal. For the Muslim
community to co-operate with the authorities they need to be confident
that they are not going to be targeted. We are running the story
again from the Irish communities, the Afro-Caribbean communities
and now the Muslim communities, and it is that lesson that we
appear not to be learning. The communities need to have confidence
in the authorities. If they do, then they will cooperate; they
will provide the information and then they will be able to deal
with terrorism. I think it goes back to what somebody else said:
we have got to look at the root causes and we have to say to the
Muslim communities, "You must have confidence in the system
that operates. It is not discriminatory, it is not targeting you",
whether it is perceived or not. I think that is the biggest and
most fundamental thing that the Government can do.
Q223 Mrs Dean: You said that enforcement
of anti-terrorism laws must be urgent reform. You sound as if
you want to do away with them rather than reform them?
Mr Khan: Yes, my personal view
is I do. I take that based upon a statistical analysis of the
effectiveness of the legislation. How many people have been arrested,
how many people prosecuted and for what offences? There is, if
you draw a balance sheet, a deficit in terms of it is effectiveness
in what might be termed as combating terrorism and its negative
impact on the Muslim community as a whole, and that net deficit
is what concerns us.
Ms Mashadi: Could I add one more
thing to that. The impact that it has had on the Muslim community
is very well cited, and a lot of people are fully aware of the
negative impact it has had, but, most importantly, which is why
we are here today, is to discuss and to try and realise the impact
it has had on different communities working together in terms
of community cohesion, not just in terms of the impact terrorism
has had on one community. The Irish community faced a negative
backlash when the terror laws of 2000 were legislated—to
try and fight terrorism from the IRA, but I think that more so
what we need to focus on is that the Muslim community are often
being targeted because of the way that the legislation is so draconian
in its measures and in terms of stop and search, internment, and
detention without trial. But I think most importantly is the negative
impact the legislation is making and will continue to make in
the way that different communities relate with each other, in
fostering a much more tolerant, conducive and more positive society
which is really what we are trying to achieve.
Q224 Mr Prosser: Mr Khan, I want to continue
a little on the theme of things which the Government and government
legislation can do to protect what we are talking about, what
we describe as the increasing levels of Islamophobia. In your
evidence and in Ms Mashadi's evidence you have both talked about
almost the dismantling of recent anti-terrorism and also the issue
of identity cards which might be coming in soon. Are there any
specific pieces of legislation that you want to see the Government
introduce rather than look back at altering or repealing existing
laws?
Mr Khan: It might be slightly
strange for a lawyer to be saying we do not need any more laws,
but that is precisely what I am saying. I have been practising
for some years, and the wealth of legislation that is available
to deal with attacks on mosques, temples and gurdwaras. It is
all there. There is a whole plethora of legislation. The problem
has been the enforcement of that legislation in a non-discriminatory
way, and when we talk about the police not taking action here,
or not taking appropriate action, why was that done? It is not
because of want of a particular piece of legislation, it is because
somebody decided that was not worth doing. I hate to use this
phrase in this context, but we have an institutional problem;
we have a situation where society does not look at particular
sections or certain communities in a particular way and does not
feel it ought to enforce it in a particular fashion. That is where
we have to look at it and to take action against those organs
of society that do not operate in a way which deals with communities
according to their needs. At this present moment in time the Hindu
community, the Muslim community have particular needs and the
Government have to address those. What we are saying here today
is that there needs to be dialogue between those communities at
and government and organs of government to say: what are those
special needs? We have seen attacks as a rise of Islamophobia.
One of the concerns is about whether the legislation is working.
No-one here is saying that there is not a need to deal with terrorism;
the fear is the introduction of legislation. The heightening of
that tension means that you are creating, or the state could be
said to be creating further and feeding those who might wish to
say that they are further alienated from society and they move
to a very extreme position. That is the fear that we have.
Q225 Mr Prosser: You say you do not want
to see any new law; we have got enough law in this area. What
about the proposals to bring in laws to deal with inciting racial
hatred?
Mr Khan: Religious hatred. Can
I diverge on this. I have a personal difference of opinion, I
believe, with FAIR as an organisation. I am not in favour of it.
I say that because of what was said earlier about where do you
draw the distinction between freedom of expression and a situation
where somebody is being abusive towards another religion? I think
there is still in existence sufficient legislation to deal with
the sort of abuse that we see on the streets, public order. You
can prosecute people. You can move from a situation where somebody
has the ability to argue, discuss, different aspects of religion.
If it goes beyond that to abuse, threats, anything which might
not be seen to be within the context of standard, proper discussion,
you could fall into public order offences or other types of offences.
I think there is that situation. My fear, to finish the point,
is that certainly if we accept the basic premise that there is
discriminatory enforcement of legislation, my fear yet again,
and I say this to the Muslim community and to other minority communities,
is that the police may have a tendency to use that legislation
precisely against the community it was intended to protect. I
say that specifically because racially aggravated offences in
the Metropolitan Police area have been disproportionately
used against minority communities. Twenty six per cent of those
arrested two years ago for racially aggravated offences in the
Metropolitan Police area were against minority communities. So
it is for those two reasons.
Q226 Mr Prosser: Ms Mashadi, is that
your view and is that the view of the Forum, or is Mr Khan just
giving his own personal view?
Ms Mashadi: I agree with quite
a significant amount of what Mr Khan has said. What I would add
is that in terms of having another legislation which would try
and give protection to different faith communities from being
targeted, I think that one has to be very careful, especially
with the definition of what incitement would encompass. What would
actually constitute incitement to religious hatred? The other
question that we have to ask is that though the race relations
laws were amended, why were they not extended to cover religion
as well? Whether this proposed legislation would be a good piece
of legislation, I would add there are aspects of it which would
be beneficial in affording protection to communities who have
been and continue to be vulnerable from hate crimes, such as the
Muslim community, and the Hindu and Sikh communities, but I think
equally in terms of the wording of what would actually constitute
incitement, one would have to be very careful with that, and as
an organisation we would say that is an area that could create
quite a few problems.
Q227 Mr Prosser: Mr Kallidai I think
you have already said you are in favour in principle of the new
legislation?
Mr Kallidai: Incitement to religious
hatred: I think the Hindu Forum's view was that if it helps in
the stopping of hatred and if it is well defined, we would support
it, but we would also like to make sure that freedom of speech
is not expressly affected by this legislation, and, since we do
not know what the Government is proposing, we cannot at this stage
expressly support it.
Q228 Mr Prosser: On that issue of preserving
and protecting freedom of speech and freedom of expression, do
you have any recommendations or thoughts on how we can best encourage
the media to run more stories which are positive about minorities?
Mr Kallidai: The media is a bit
tricky, because it is not necessary that legislation alone can
affect the media, I think, besides legislation, the media needs
to have its own statement of good practice.
Q229 Mr Prosser: I am not relating you
to legislation, but what measures would you take? What moves can
you make?
Mr Kallidai: Responsible reporting,
I would think, is a culture that the media needs to adopt. For
instance, if the police are making anti-terror arrests, then "Would
reporting widely on that be conducive to community relations or
not?" is something the media has to ask itself and then decide
to report or not. Simple things like that would be very helpful.
Also, we have documented evidence that the media has not been
very sympathetic in reporting antihindic incidents, attacks of
xenophobia in the community, and we have provided in our written
submission lists of attacks on the Hindu community which have
not been reported in the media—attacks on our temples never
get reported—and, quite rightly, attacks on, say, Jewish
cemeteries get very sympathetic reporting in the national media,
which we are very pleased about, but we also wish that they are
as sympathetic when Hindu temples get attacked. They are not.
Q230 Mr Prosser: I have been told that
if a paper like the Daily Mail or the Daily Express
runs a front page headline which is anti-Islamic or mentions asylum
seekers in derogatory terms, it can put 10 or 20,000 on the circulation
of that newspaper. How can you counter that to get your positive
story across?
Mr Khan: It is a mammoth task.
With the contacts that I have in the press I am fortunate that
I can get some stories in the press which have a positive view
about minority communities, but it is incredibly difficult, and
it is about circulation. I agree that it needs responsible reporting,
but what if you do not have that? What can you do? I get approached
by people saying they want to take action against such and such
a newspaper, but there is no funding for defamation, libel. Whole
communities can not be defamed; you have to have an individual.
The only thing you can do is go to the PCC; and I have tried that.
What I would suggest is a concrete proposal for the community
to take on board, which Ms Mashadi was going to elaborate on,
was to make an addition to the PCC code, which is specifically
aimed at preventing the kind of reporting that we have seen in
certain cases. I do not have a wording for that at this stage,
and perhaps what we can do is to go back and think about a working
to add to the PCC code. I do not know whether that is within the
remit of the Committee.
Chairman: We are hoping
to have a number of editors from the broadcast media give evidence
to us in the New Year, so any thoughts you would like to feed
us ahead of that or any criticism on this issue would be very
useful indeed. I am sorry the session was shortened and disrupted
by the vote. Can I thank all four witnesses very much. I know
the Hindu Forum had some particular issues you wished to raise.
I hope you feel you have been able to do so this afternoon for
the record and also for FAIR. Thank you very much indeed.
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