![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
This article examines some of the detrimental consequences of post-9/11 counterterrorism and security policies on Muslim minority groups in the United Kingdom. Drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study conducted in the north-west of England involving young British Pakistanis, it is argued that both political discourses and specific security policies have unjustly targeted Muslims and fuelled a wider public climate of suspicion and hostility. Three focal issues raised by participants in the study are prioritised. First, we discuss the process of collective attribution through which Muslims are generically treated as a suspect community. Second, a series of experiential ‘safety gaps’ – resulting in part from the pre-emptive turn in counterterrorism regulation – are considered. Third, critical ‘speech gaps’, which have important ramifications for future policy-making, are elucidated.
Notes
1. I am grateful for the support and advice of Fatima Khan and Sandra Walklate who worked on the project as Research Assistant and co-Director, respectively.
2. Dominant ideologies around who or what is dangerous inform both policing strategy and law-making, which in turn shapes broader perceptions of risk and understandings of security. Although the study was designed to investigate the three principal areas described, as the testimonies relayed in the article show, lines of separation cannot and should not be readily marked out.
3. A primary stage of open coding used to identify key processes and issues was followed by the second stage of selective coding to house phenomena in groups of indicative properties. The third stage of thematic coding analysed associations between properties to identify core categories before a fourth stage of axial coding established interrelationships between indicative properties and core categories.
4. It is important to acknowledge the ethnic diversity of Muslim minority groups in the United Kingdom. Differences in attitudes and values are marked both within and outside Pakistani communities. Although country of familial origin was mentioned by participants, strong affiliations were expressed with Muslims as a collective group as opposed to identity bonds being defined in terms of nation or caste.
5. In the last decade 52 people have died in Britain as a result of terrorism, all victims of the 7/7 attacks. As Thiel (Citation2009, p. 8) points out, in 2005 the 7/7 London bombings took 52 lives while in the same year 3201 deaths were recorded in road traffic accidents.
6. Four of the five men that undertook the 7/7 attacks were British Pakistanis, with Jamal Lindsay being born Jamaican and naturalised British.
7. The period of pre-charge detention was extended from seven days to 28 days in 2000 with the government initially campaigning for 90 days.
8. Sections 44–46 of the Terrorism Act 2000 permit police officers to stop pedestrians and/or vehicles for the purposes of searching for items that could be used in connection with terrorism, regardless of whether or not the officer has a reason to suspect that such items are present.
9. A steep rise in the use of Section 44 after the 7/7 attacks in London proved to be a source of consternation amongst Black and Asian communities. In 2007/2008, there was a 215% rise in the number of stop-and-searches under Section 44 from 2006/2007. This increase included a 322% increase in stop-and-searches of Black people and 277% of Asian people (Liberty Citation2010, p. 53).
10. Notwithstanding incidents that go unreported, figures released by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Citation2012) show that 48,127 hate crimes were recorded by police in 2010 where the victim perceived the criminal offence to be motivated by hostility to race, religious belief, sexuality and/or disability.
11. Indeed, this was the very rationale provided by Mohammed Siddique Khan in his infamous Martyrdom video.
12. To cite one case in point, the January 2009 London demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza by the Israeli State were policed in a militaristic fashion, with a largely peaceful crowd being denied freedom of movement and ‘kettled’ for hours in an underpass. Many people attending the march were searched under counterterrorism legislation and only released after providing their names and addresses (see Gilmore Citation2010).
13. The present Home Secretary Theresa May has acknowledged that: ‘we must correct the imbalance that has developed between the State's security powers and civil liberties, restoring those liberties wherever possible and focusing those powers where necessary’ (Review of Counter-Terrorism and Security Powers Citation2011, p. 1). Thus far, the Conservative–Liberal Government has endorsed a return to 14 days as the maximum period that a terrorist suspect can be detained before charge and a scaling back of stop-and-search powers permitted under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
