Saturday 20 June 2015

I don't hear WHITE people apologising for the South Carolina killings: Labour MP slams Cameron over claim Muslims 'quietly condone' terror

. Labour's Yasmin Qureshi attacks David Cameron for extremism speech

. Prime Minister said too many UK Muslims 'quietly condone' terrorism

. But Mrs Qureshi said she was fed up with having to say sorry for terrorism
Bolton MP said white people not held responsible for race-hate killings

An Asian MP has slammed David Cameron for claiming Muslims 'quietly condone' terrorism – insisting the 'white population' is never asked to apologise for atrocities carried out by racists.

Labour's Yasmin Qureshi said she was fed up with having to say sorry for terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist fanatics.

The Bolton MP said white people were not asked to say sorry for the racist slaughter of nine black people in a church by a white man in South Carolina yesterday.

Mrs Quereshi's controversial intervention came after the Prime Minister used a speech in Slovakia to demand Muslim families speak out against the 'poisonous ideology' driving hundreds of young people to join ISIS.

He blamed support for the fanatical organisation on 'people who hold some of these views who don't go as far as advocating violence, but who do buy into some of these prejudices, giving the extreme Islamist narrative weight'.

But Mrs Qureshi accused the Prime Minister of confusing religious conservatism with the support for extremism.

She told Radio 4's The World at One: 'I speak to my constituents who are very religious and whenever an incident happens they are shaking their heads in disgust and they're actually saying 'Our religion is being maligned'.'

She said that Muslims were tired of constantly being called on to apologise for the actions of extremists.

'It feels absolutely awful. In Charleston you had a white man who went and killed nine black people in a church. I don't hear anybody saying that the whole of the white population has to apologise for the action of one white man.

'So why is everyone else [having to apologise].' She added: 'To make the comparison he has done the way he has done, it is not only unhelpful but actually wrong.'

But Mrs Qureshi's remarks were condemned by Conservative MPs tonight. Peter Bone told MailOnline: ‘The Prime Minister made a very brave and courageous speech. He took on an issue which other politicians have been too scared to touch.

‘It is hard to draw any comparison between the terrible shootings in America and Norway because there is absolutely no-one in Britain who is condoning them.

‘There are not people in this country quietly condoning what happened in America or Norway. Everyone condemns it.

‘The Prime Minister was saying, “come on, there is a bit of quiet condoning going on [about ISIS]” and that has to stop. It was a point that needed to be made.’

Mr Bone said the Prime Minister ‘should be applauded’, adding: ‘It is a shame that a Member of Parliament believes otherwise.’ 


The Prime Minister also won support from Muslim groups. Manzoor Moghal of the Muslim Forum who said the Islamic community in the UK had become 'somewhat warped in its practices' and needed to change.

'The Muslim community in Britain is somewhat backward in its thinking, it is refusing to move and become progressive, it is refusing to change its old habits from attire to dress code, it is refusing to come out of an isolation which is self-imposed within certain sects of Islam,' he told The World at One.


Former radical Muslim recruiter Abu Muntasir told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'There is grooming, no doubt - I know how we used to convince people by ignoring a lot of facts on the ground, ignoring reality and alternative views amongst Muslims and Muslim teaching.

'So the parents need to have more communication with their children, they need to have more of an overseeing aspect of how to be a good parent.'

Jonathan Russell from the counter-terrorism think tank, Quilliam Foundation, said: 'Muslims are not all Islamists and are not therefore part of the problem. However they can be part of the solution and, as Quilliam has been calling for, must take a role in a civil society response to extremism.'

Hannah Stuart, homeland security fellow at the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) think tank, said: 'The Prime Minister's speech should not just be seen as a challenge to British Muslim communities, but also as an invitation to work alongside the government, local authorities, education and other sectors to safeguard young people and counter extremism in all its forms


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