Bishop Hill No-go areas for non-Muslims, and West Midlands police.
Jun 1, 2008 Islam I had an interesting debate with Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy the other day over whether the Bishop of Rochester is a bigot or not.
Sunny took the position that, because Bishop Nazir-Ali had condemned the creation of no-go areas for non-Muslims, but had failed to identify one, he (the Bishop) was a bigot. I found this a bit of a stretch, and pointed Sunny to a report by a former race relations adviser in Bradford which seemed to be saying that such areas did in fact exist.
By strange coincidence today's Telegraph carries a report about two Christian preachers being threatened by police under hate crimes legislation for proselytising in a Muslim area.
The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned.
Now obviously, this is police doing the enforcing, but, if true, it represents further support for the Bishop's claims.
The outraged among us will notice that this is a further faux pas by West Midlands police, the same force who reported Channel Four to the regulators for making a programme about Islamic extremism. This force looks like it is out of control.
Update:
It may well have been the same officer, Anil Patani, deputy chief constable (security and cohesion), who was responsible for both of these crimes against civil liberties.
Update:
Anil Patani seems to have a colourful past, having sued the police twice - once for overlooking him for promotion and once for promoting him too quickly! Methinks it will be overfast promotion again, the next time round. (See the comments at this link)
Reader Comments (7)
No it doesn't. What this means is that if, in an area, the police were obviously harassing people of ethnic minorities, you would accept that area is a white no-go area?
What kind of idiotic logic is that. No one is to blame for police incompetence other than the police themselves.
And incidentally, that Anil guy - he's Hindu, not Muslim.
What I think you are trying to say is that it wouldn't be definitive evidence, and if so, then I agree. It does seem to add to the picture though, I would say.
They don't have to harass ethnic minorities in an area to exclude them - simply because they might be racist. For example, they might spend more time harassing black youths in Brixton because they want to, rather than more white dominated council estates. That isn't harassment to exclude, simply harassment for racist purposes.
So my point is, just harassing two christian evangelicals, not because they're white but because they're evangelising (and even then, I'm not inclined to take that story at face value) doesn't mean whites are being excluded from an area deliberately.
You actually have no evidence to prove anything. Just saying it seems to add to the picture is pissing in the wind in the hope of making a point... to reinforce another point that is equally invalid.
Your second point, that the evidence as presented doesn't mean that a no-go area is being created, is right, and I say as much in my previous comment - it is not definitive but adds to the picture that Bishop N-A is trying to create.
I think it is fair to say that we don't have definitive evidence overall, but there does appear to be some evidence.
People get harassed all the time by the police. There was a guy in Oxford sreet who used to constantly go on about Jesus before the police told him to stop using the megaphone. Does that mean central London is a Muslim no-go area? Gimme a break, please.
If someone is told to switch off a microphone, then that is surely an allowable police action under noise pollution laws - we might wonder if the law was applied equally to ethnic minorities, but an offence has clearly been committed, so in the absence of evidence to the contrary there is no reason to assume that it isn't. In the case of the evangelicals, if the facts are as presented in the newspaper report, then no offence was committed, so there is clearly a problem - they were told to leave the area by police. If so, this is prime facie evidence that a no-go area exists.
Are you arguing that this didn't happen? I recognise that this is a possibility, but again, in the absence of other evidence, don't we have to take their word for it?
Item 2: "You actually have no evidence to prove anything."
Sunny has no evidence at all to dispute the reported evangelising, yet decides to trust his instinct, then immediately accuses our Bishop of having no hard evidence.
Mr Kettle meet Mr Pot.