Police do it again!
Posted Under: Education,Islamophobia,Minorities,Police,Racism/Fascism,Terrorism,Uncategorized
Merseyside Police have ruined the academic career of a young muslim student.
This has totally changed what I have learned about this country and my time here,” he said. “They are clearly identifying Muslim students. It’s a big insult … The first thing I will do is leave this country as soon as possible. The police officer said your country [Pakistan] is not secure but I still prefer to live there. I love my country.”
Irrelevant of what you think of the police, the war on terror, or Islam this is clearly an impressively cack-handed action by Merseyside Police. They storm onto University campus, terrify students, and arrest and innocent man at gunpoint. I refuse to believe they could not have handled this differently.
This all happened in a part of the city I spend a lot of time in, and in fact I think I was about 100 yards away when it happened. The wider impact it will have on the student body and population shouldn’t be overestimated. Yesterday I sat in that exact spot waiting to meet someone, and overheard several conversations. The one that chilled me to the bone was a student commenting: “As far as I’m concerned he’s a terrorist until proven otherwise.”
Combine this with the events of last week, and faith in the police ought to be dropping like a stone.
Reader Comments
The one that chilled me to the bone was a student commenting: “As far as I’m concerned he’s a terrorist until proven otherwise.”
That is the scary part – the terrifying part. That is the attitude to crushes my hope for society.
But the Police? Are they really the enemy that we make them out to be? Yes, sometimes they get it wrong, but Police attitudes and practices have been transformed so dramatically in the last 10 years that they are now unrecognisable from what they were.
We all know that this country faces serious security threats and that we have to find a way to meet those threats. Doing so without compromising our rights, victimising our minorities or putting fear into the heart of our society is just about the biggest challenge facing this or any Government. And yes, changing our foreign policy is part of that solution. So is an end to the racism in society. So is an end to our obssession with ‘terrorism’ as a label rather than with bombs as threats to people’s safety. But the Police are also part of the solution.
We will not find the solution – the state of affairs that lets all of us be safe and feel safe at the same time – without a Police force that is principled and effective. We need to trust the Police and they need to reward us for it. We have to find our way to the point when we have faith that if the Police arrested somebody, it was because their arrest was necessary, appropriate and justified.
Sometimes – at least occasionally – the Police will have to do things that are not pleasant to behold. I’m not talking about beatings or racism – I’m talking about coming onto a University campus with a gun. That is regrettable. But presuming that the presence of the Police is the herald of injustice? That is fatal.
In response to Chris’ comment…I think the following link speaks for itself
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=18961173001
Can you really trust the police? I certainly can’t, not after this and my on first hand experience of their transparent refusal to allow this country to act as a democracy. There is no progression towards finding a solution in partnership with the police when the solutions are very clearly opposed.
I’m astonished that anyone, with the amount of coverage this particular story has received in the last 2 weeks, could have the audacity to preach to others that the police are in any way the solution to a society that in your words ‘lets all of us be safe and feel safe at the same time – without a Police force that is principled and effective’.
Kate: The police force is only as anti- or pro- democracy as the elected government allows at that time. Of course, idealistically a true democracy could coexist with the police forces but that’s very unlikely ever to happen.
I believe that the police, and in that respect, public authority figures and bodies, are the solution to a society that needs to let us all be safe and feel safe. I suspect the large amount of the general public would prefer to see the police acting on intelligence in the pursuit of complete public safety. At what point does a member of the country (a foreigner, immigrant, citizen or any other) become a terrorist? Only at the point of a terrorist act being undertaken, and at that point the public are quick to jump in and blaim the police forces for not doing enough.
True, the police do make mistakes, the Stockwell shooting being a prime example, but mistakes are only made on incorrect intelligence. At the time, acting on the best intelligence they had, the police force had to act. If it means that an innocent Pakistani student is arrested then it is a mistake. If it means that major terrorist activity has been averted then it is by no means a mistake.
I question, for all the idealistic principles behind both sides of this argument, whether or not one would receive the same democratic freedom as you suggest whilst studying in Pakistan…?
I’m firmly with Phil and Chris on this. The police are only as bad or good as the government whose policies they implement. Let’s not also forget that the police are often strikingly blind until they actually make an arrest — the whole point of detention is to pursue an investigation further, with the suscpect (and note, in a democracy, we DO have a distinction between a suspect and a criminal) in police custody. He is released if there is no further evidence against him.
I think it’s overly cynical to have a blanket “I don’t trust the police”. This isn’t some third world dictatorship. Do I think the police could be more efficient and effective? Yes, but that’s a matter for the government to take a look at. It’s almost trite to say the police don’t do an easy job. But more to the point, people often don’t realise how the ‘blind’ the police are when carryng out investigations up to the point of arrest. If we want the police to get it dead right every time, then we will have to decide if we want to give them access to more intelligence, which means gving up great swathes of our privacy. It’s a balancing act.
Less frothily generalised idealism, and more acknowledgement of the difficulties they face, would probably start to reveal better solutions for the blunt alternatives the police sometimes face. A ‘principled’ police force is a somewhat meaningless expresion. A legally accountable and consistent one is probably better than a ‘principled’. Thankfully, I think our police are both accountable, and consistent, and are among the most effective in the world even by first world standards. But by no means are they perfect. No siree.
Would everyone please cut out the tedious liberal hand-wringing? Where exactly in my post is the ‘frothily generalised idealism’? I’m not after a principled police force, that is clearly a nonsense. I’m pointing out that the one we’ve got is rotten.
Phil: “The police force is only as anti- or pro- democracy as the elected government allows at that time.” This is straightforwardly and demonstrably not true. The police exist independent of government, as an organ of the state, with their own autonomous leadership and culture.
I’m also unaware that it’s a ‘democratic ideal’ to not want armed men storming into a library…
Oh, and what the fuck does the attitude of the police in Pakistan have to do with anything?
Dan, my comments were addressed to Kate. But come to think of it, your comments are a bit too generalised to be a meaningful critique.
Dan,
I think Phil is right: the police are only as anti or pro-democratic as the elected government allows. If, the job of the police is to maintain law and order, those laws they maintain are created by the legislature. Police powers are also given and regulated by the government, so I’m not sure if we can really think of the police force as being autonomous in anything other than an organisational, and operational sense.
PS: Phil’s mention of Pakistan is of course specious as an argument. But it does remind us that our police force is hardly the anti-democratic leviathan people sometimes make out.