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Will SOMEBODY lay off the police?
Muslim removed from guard duty - paper
Tuesday November 7, 08:42 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - A Muslim firearms officer is taking legal action against the police after he was removed from a squad that guards senior officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Independent newspaper said on Tuesday.
A police spokeswoman confirmed that the Metropolitan Police had been notified of an employment tribunal claim by a policeman "alleging discrimination on the grounds of race and religious belief". She declined to comment further.
The Independent said Amjad Farooq, 39, was told in 2003 he was a threat to national security because two of his five children had gone to a mosque associated with a suspected extremist group.
It said he was also told by colleagues that his presence on the protection squad might concern U.S. security officials if he was posted outside the U.S. embassy in London.
Farooq, who denied any extremist links or inappropriate behaviour, was transferred to a constabulary in west London.
His lawyer, Lawrence Davies, told the newspaper: "Muslims are labelled guilty by association. Doubt is insufficient to save them."
Wait. Let me get this straight.
A muslim man, who has almost certainly gone through intense screening by the police, is taken off guard duty for the Prime Minister? Merely because he's Muslim?
And. Erm. Merely because his kids go to a mosque linked to terrorism? And this bloke is equipped with a machine gun and has frequent contact with the head of our country's government?
I'm sure this chap has done nothing wrong - but I can completely understand why the police have done this. Imagine if somebody kidnapped his kid and told him that he had to empty a clip into Tony Blair or they'd behead the wee tyke?
Or, rather, imagine the headlines. "Muslim man whose kids attended extremist mosque assasinates prime minister with gun given to him by the police."
A bunch of smart arse journlists would be complaining about how a man with his background shouldn't have been put on guard duty. Just like, if Jean Charles de Menezes had been a suicide bomber and succeeded in blowing himself up, the journalists would be complaining that the police HADN'T shot him.
This is yet another situation in which the police can't win. They're given the responsibility of looking after us, but then vilified for doing the things they have to do in order to protect our safety.
Can't we just let the police do their job? Can't the tabloids just shut their whiny traps?
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