13th October 2015
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) welcomes today’s announcement that government will require all police forces in England and Wales to record anti-Muslim hate crimes and treat them as seriously as hate crimes against other minority groups. This is an initiative that has been called for by the MCB and other Muslim organisations across the country for many years.
Dr Shuja Shafi, the Secretary General of the MCB, said: “This is an important step to ensure that the growth in Islamophobia can be more accurately and credibly recorded, which we welcome wholeheartedly. We hope this is only the first step in treating Islamophobia seriously and ensuring all faiths are treated equally under the law.”
For any strategy to tackle Islamophobia, it is important that the category and type of hate crime is also recorded, as well as the ethnicity of the perpetrator. Furthermore, there should be steps taken to allow for an appropriate third party recording of hate crime, given the expected under-reporting due to the lack of trust in the police within some communities.
Critical to any activity affecting British Muslims as a faith community is their involvement across the board. As such, the Muslim Council of Britain further supports the principle of the government reaching out to British Muslims through creation of the Community Engagement Forum, but its success depends on how representative the forum is.
Dr. Shuja Shafi added: “We hope that any such forum is transparent and includes representation from across the diversity of Muslim opinion – including those who hold positions independent of government policy. We expect that recommendations from such a forum on all related issues will be seriously considered and look forward to hearing more about the forum, its participants and its terms of reference.”
This initiative comes following last week’s proposal to target supplementary schools with teaching of greater than eight hours of week, primarily affecting Muslim supplementary schools, to which the MCB has responded previously.
[ends]