The Rules of the Game. Terrorism, Community and Human Rights
“The Rules of the Game. Terrorism, Community and Human Rights” is a new report by Democratic Audit, a research organisation attached to the Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex, for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. It is co-authored by Tufyal Choudhury, author of the EUMAP report Muslims in the UK: Policies for Engaged Citizens.
This report is largely focused on the response to what is now known as ‘home-grown’ terrorism…
It is our view that the government’s counter terrorism laws and the thrust of policy and rhetoric are actually doing more harm than good. The vast majority of people, non-Muslim and Muslim alike, want the police and security forces to apprehend the terrorists. However, mounting heavy police raids in pursuit of the ‘violent extremists bent on destruction’, hectoring Muslim parents to spy on their children, raising a ‘healthy debate’ about women who wear the veil, may play well with the Sun’s readers and the electorate at large, but it is all likely to drive a wedge between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities and to make it harder to win over the minority of those who feel sympathy with terrorists in Muslim communities. This model of counter terrorism is as dangerous as terrorism itself.