Wrong way to tackle extremism

THE launch of the Neighbourhood Policing strategy outlined by West Yorkshire's Police Chief Sir Norman Bettison is likely to bring a chill into the hearts of Muslims in the region who are already under an unprecedented spotlight for the actions of a misguided minority.

The murder of innocents is a heinous crime in any context, but the battle for hearts and minds of young people can't be won using current strategies. To conflate neighbourhood policing alongside responses to the global spectre of international terrorism is akin to cracking a nut with a sledgehammer and unlikely to develop the relationships of trust the police are seeking to develop with Muslims.

It wasn't very long ago that the Association of Chief Police Officers, on behalf of whom Sir Norman Bettison is leading in relation to preventing extremism, was charged with implementing the Stephen Lawrence inquiry report recommendations.

Nine years on, the recommendations which sought to address failures at the heart of policing – the development of victim-led services, a comprehensive network of third party reporting centres, an acceptance of the definition of institution racism – appear to have been sidelined.

Instead Muslims in the region have seen their rights so fundamentally altered that they are in a state of perennial suspicion.

The establishment of a unit with 400 counter-terrorist officers at a secret location in Leeds, the investment of unprecedented monies to finance the war on terror, the co-option of public services as partners in the effort and the public encouraged to become terror sleuths are creating palpable anger among the majority of decent, hard-working Muslims in Yorkshire.

In this search for causes of terror what is being lost in the discourse is the failure of British foreign policy, our collective failure to engage young people in inclusive ways and the effects of poverty, deprivation and poor education.

The contract between citizens and public services must be based on a mutual relationship of rights and responsibilities and that cuts both ways.

Ratna Lachman, Director, JUST West Yorkshire

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