Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
MR ABDURAHMAN
JAFAR
31 OCTOBER 2005
Q180 Chairman: You said there is
a distinction between those three?
Mr Jafar: In substance of course.
It depends on who is doing it, what the situation is and on what
basis they are doing it and what options are open to them. I am
not saying anything is right or wrong, but that is a problem.
There is no need to have a more precise measure when you can have
pre-existing measures which will get exactly the result you want
and need without having to enter this area of unclarity and potentially
damaging results.
Q181 Chairman: What the Home Secretary
is saying to us is that we now have this gap in the law where
somebody can go on national TV and say the 7 July bombers were
wonderful people, martyrs, people should go out and do exactly
the same thing, it was a great thing that they did, without specifically
focusing on a particular event or a specific occasion, which is
where the gap in the law is now. Are you saying that it should
be a crime or not?
Mr Jafar: I am saying that it
should be and that is what the conviction against Faisal was all
about.
Q182 Chairman: That was an offence
of soliciting murder, was it not?
Mr Jafar: It was, but I can see
no difference between acts of terrorism and soliciting murder.
Q183 Dr Harris: Can I pursue the
same line of questioning that Lord Lester pursuing. He asked you
what importance you placed on the need to have intention as a
requisite for successful conviction of whatever we agree is the
offence and that it should not be offence without intention because
these are kind of like speech crimes and can be misinterpreted.
Is the Muslim Council of Britain certain that it is being consistent
in that regard when it publicly advocates a non intentional offence
in regard to religious hatred also with a long prison sentence
like seven years, and is this making you reconsider your approach
to the Religious Hatred Bill?
Mr Jafar: We have never had a
completely difficulty line on either of these two provisions.
One we favour. We think that if you can have the equivalent in
race-hate speech then you can have the equivalent in religious-hate
speech. With regard to glorifying acts of terrorism which could
be supporting legitimate resistance movements, we think intention
is vitally important because the nature of the speech that could
fall foul of this law could be one in which an academic partakes,
could be one in which a politician rightly engages.
Q184 Dr Harris: Which law? Do you
mean the religious hatred law, because the same could apply to
that?
Mr Jafar: No. Not really. The
religious hatred law is quite specific and very narrow. It is
about the kind of speech that would make and incite hatred against
a particular religious community. That is different from, for
instance, glorifying one religion over another or a wider concept.
Q185 Chairman: Can I come back to
the point you made about the case of Faisal, which was soliciting
murder. As I recall the evidence in that case, Faisal had produced
series of audio-tapes in which he specifically incited people
to kill the Jews. The case I put to you was not that specific.
One of the concerns I think there has been is that people make
this general statements encouraging terrorism in general terms
without the specificity that you see in the Faisal case?
Mr Jafar: I thought the Faisal
case is being used as an example because it is not specific. Killing
not just Jews; it was Christians; it was a whole host of people
who are not Muslims. It was very unspecific, I thought. It was
not the crime of soliciting sitting murder against Jews; it was
the crime of soliciting murder per se. I see no difference,
in essence, between advocating plating a bomb in any particular
country or against any particular type of civilian population
as being different. That is quite specific.
Q186 Dr Harris: You did not answer,
I do not think, and forgive me if you did, Lord Lester's specific
question. Do you think that someone going on television and saying
that the 7/7 attacks were praiseworthy should be a criminal offence?
Mr Jafar: Yes. It should be a
criminal offence.
Q187 Dr Harris: But you do not think
that should apply necessarily to attacks on civilians in other
places. Leaving side attacks on military forces, would you say
it is extendable, that criminal offence of saying an attack on
civilians is praiseworthy, to all situations where civilians are
targeted specifically. It is a yes or no really.
Mr Jafar: No. An attack on a civilian
population does not fall within the ambit of legitimate resistance.
I do not understand the question. There is legitimate resistance
and there is illegitimate resistance.
Q188 Dr Harris: Yes, and I think
that is helpful, because that would mean that you would now answer
Lord Lester's question by saying that attacks in Jerusalem and
in Delhi are praiseworthy, not necessarily they should be emulated,
but even just that they are praiseworthy, should be criminalised
because they target civilians?
Mr Jafar: They incite murder,
yes. They incite murder. That is a crime in this country.
Q189 Chairman: Can I go back to my
original line of questioning after that interlude and put to you
some more general questions. How do you think relations between
the Muslim community and the police have developed since July?
Mr Jafar: I think historically
there have been problems with that relationship. There has been
a desensitised culture within the police of religious issues while
they acclimatise to racial issues. That cannot be said with regard
to religious issues. People suffer religious abuse, violence promoted
by anti-religious sentiments and these are not properly recorded
as religious hate crimes. There has been, unfortunately, a distrust
within the Muslim community of the police, and so since 7/7, immediately
after 7/7, I think there was a very sharp focusing of priorities
in the community and a very firm commitment to work with the police,
but I think a lot of that goodwill and commitments is being dissipated
and it is going back to business as usual, as figures showing
disproportionality in some instances of police brutality against
minority members in custody come to light.
Q190 Chairman: What about relations
generally between the Muslim community and the wider community.
How have they developed since July?
Mr Jafar: I think there was an
NOP survey a month after 9/11 and eight out of 10 British people
said that they do not view Muslims or Islam any less favourably
now. A BBC poll two months ago showed over 60 per cent of the
population in this country do not think racial profiling is a
good thing. I think there is a wealth of goodness in the people
of this country, of which I am proud to be a part, but I think
that there is a semi-permeable membrane wherein that good large
majority of this population can understand Muslims but Muslims
live within a very isolated community. Their experiences are very
different. Their experiences are one of social deprivation, of
unemployment, of living in poverty. I think over 60 per cent of
Pakistani and Bangladeshi families live below the poverty level
and they live in areas where they are subjected to racial discrimination
and not the niceties of life; and so I think the experiences of
Muslims in this country, unfortunately, is not a good one. I think
we need a lot of investments. I think the current issue and the
threat of terrorism needs to have a multi-faceted approach, and
I think if you confine it to one of law and order it will prove
to be counter-productive, as empirically that seems to also be
the case with the Irish problems, and Afro-Caribbean problems.
I think there needs to be a broader approach to the community
one which looks at the domestic issues of social deprivation as
well as even talking about the more uncomfortable issues of foreign
policy.
Q191 Chairman: The last question
in this section and following on from the criticism you made of
the way the law is going, what will the consequences for community
relations be between the Muslim community and the wider commune
if there were to be a repeat of the 7 July attacks?
Mr Jafar: I fear that there will
be more knee-jerk legislation.
Q192 Chairman: I am not talking about
legislation; I am talking about community relations. What do you
think the impact on community relations would be if there was
another attack?
Mr Jafar: There was a prediction
that there would be a very big back-lash after 7/7, and the police
acted commendably in relation to that and worked very closely
with the community to prevent that. I think that their work and
the messages they sent out immediately post 7/7 did a lot to commend
that, but I fear that another incident like that may be a tipping
point and may have stretched tensions too far. It is very worrying.
Everything that has happened up until now in terms of community
relations is fairly predictable, and if one follows that logic
through, it will only be a magnification of the already problematic
scenario.
Q193 Chairman: This is the dichotomy
between the Government trying to take action and the police trying
to take action to prevent an attack and the consequences for community
relations in that direction as opposed to the consequences for
community relations if they were unable to frustrate another attack?
Mr Jafar: I am sorry?
Q194 Chairman: It is a dichotomy
between the two, the balance, on the one hand, of the Government
and the police taking action through legislation and through the
things the police do, stop and search and all the rest of it,
to frustrate another attack and the impact on community relations
in that direction, as opposed to the impact on community relations
if they fail and there is another attack?
Mr Jafar: Yes, I do not think
terrorism is something that can only be defeated by law and order.
You have to approach the causes of terrorism. I think it is communities
that ultimately defeat terrorism. That is a very strong message
that was sent out by the police in the diversity section, and
I think that is a very logical and rational approach to it and
historically it has been the way terrorism really has been defeated,
by offering solutions, by working with that disenfranchised community
and empowering that disenfranchised community in order to be a
stakeholder in the system as opposed to a marginalised community.
Q195 Baroness Stern: I am afraid
I am going to move you back to the specifics of the law, if you
do not mind. In your briefing paper you are not very favourably
disposed towards the new offence of acts preparatory to terrorism,
which we have mentioned already. You say that the reason for it
is quite unclear and that sections 57 and 58 of the Terrorism
Act 2000 will already criminalise many such acts. Are you opposed
in principle, therefore, to the creation of the offence of acts
preparatory to terrorism in clause five of the Bill and do you
accept that there is a gap in the present law which makes it difficult
to prosecute where there is clear evidence of an intention to
commit a terrorist act but there is no evidence of the precise
details of any planned terrorist act?
Mr Jafar: Yes, in principle the
MCB accepts that.
Q196 Baroness Stern: There is a gap?
Mr Jafar: There is a gap and there
needs to be clarity in this law. One can envisage a situation
where a family taking a distant relative. They could fall foul
of this law, so there needs to be far greater clarity, but in
principle this document was made by a number of organisations,
of which the MCB was just one, and that specific part does not
reflect MCB's approach to the Bill.
Q197 Lord Judd: You have a view,
I imagine, on what is proposed or what is being examined as a
possibility of deportation with assurances. Could you tell us
what your views are on this?
Mr Jafar: There are some countries,
unfortunately, which systematically torture their population and
use torture and ill-treatment as a method of controlling their
population. I think deportation to specific countries like Libya,
like Syria and may be Sudan, countries where torture is systematic,
not just incidentally abused by members of the security services
but a systematic government policy, then I think assurances will
not alleviate . . . .
Q198 Lord Judd: You believe they
should be discounted altogether, those assurances?
Mr Jafar: It should be a case
by case basis. I think there is no reason why the EU cannot compile
a database of countries and their practices of torture and their
practices of deportation. We have access to this information already.
We know Sweden deported to Egypt and people were abused; we know
in England failed asylum seekers have been returned to various
countries and immediately detained and tortured. We have access
to this information.
Q199 Lord Judd: It has been said
by the Home Secretary and others that to discount the reliability,
for example, of the memorandum of understanding is neo-colonial
or patronising. How do you respond to that?
Mr Jafar: Most countries have
signed up to international law, have signed up to the universal
declaration of law. It is illegal to carry out torture, yet they
consistently and systematically discard these provisions. It is
not a matter of neo-colonialism, it is a matter of ingrained practice
by these countries to abuse their citizens and to use torture.
This is a simple factual precedent.
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