Outrageous

From today's Daily Telegraph, this:

Civil servants feared inquiry into 7/7 bombings would focus negatively on Muslims

Senior civil servants warned ministers that if they ordered a public inquiry into the July 7 suicide bombings it could "focus negatively" on Britain's Muslim community, it can be revealed.

It seems that the 'narrow' approach of simply creating a 'narrative' of the attacks, rather than a full enquiry into the events, was recommended by senior civil servants who wanted to avoid negative publicity for the Muslim community.

The warning was delivered in a briefing paper to Charles Clarke, the then-home secretary, as he considered whether or not to launch an inquiry into the 2005 bombings, in which 52 innocent people were killed.

In the paper, Sir John Gieve, the Home Office permanent secretary, said that upsetting Muslims would be a "potential cost" of ministers agreeing to demands for a full inquiry.

Let's get this straight. Muslims carried out the 7/7 attacks. The attacks were carried out in the name of Islam. But we won't enquire into that in case people get the idea that Islam and terrorist attacks are connected in some way, and this causes people to think negatively about the Muslim commnity.

Let's see. If the attacks had been carried out by Christian fundamentalists against the 'secular West', or by Zionist fanatics against the 'anti-semitic British', or by any other group who considered they had a big enough grudge against our society to justify killing 52 innocent people, do you think there would have been a full enquiry? Of course there would. But when it's the Muslims, we pussy-foot around for fear of offending anyone.

Get this. The events of 7/7 were murder - mass murder. If you plan and execute an operation that kills 52 people who are merely going about their daily business, you should expect full and rigorous investigation, criminal sanctions and severe and lengthy punishment. I don't care who you are or what particular god you acted in the name of. And if you are a 'mainstream' member of the same faith in whose name these atrocities were carried out, and who rejects the actions of the tiny few who did them, then let's hear your condemnation loud and clear, and let's see you co-operate fully with the law in rooting out this violent minority from within your community and preventing anything like this happening again. Otherwise, the rest of us might just feel, in a small and private corner of our minds, that you don't disapprove all that much.

I'm not anti-Muslim. Far from it. I respect the right of anyone to believe what they choose, as long as that belief does not involve violence against non-believers. I want to see a society where we can all live side-by-side in peace and harmony, fully respecting each others' differences while rejoicing in our own identities. But actions like these by civil servants make it look as if we are treating Muslims as a hornets' nest that must not be disturbed or provoked, as if Muslims are in some way so special that they are above the laws that the rest of us have to obey. And, in the long run, that will do more harm to relations between Muslims and the rest of us than a rigorous and fair enquiry ever could. This kind of decision is the best recruiting sergeant the BNP could wish for.

As JuliaM puts it: "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."

Jacqui Putnam, a survivor of the Edgware Road Tube bombing, said: "This is outrageous. It is such patronising twaddle. If anyone else in the Muslim community, or anywhere else, were to commit a murder would the Home Office say this is a reason not to investigate?"