THE MASSIVE police “anti-terrorist” raid and the shooting of a young man in a Muslim neighbourhood of East London has ended with the release of the two young Muslim brothers without charge. Mercifully, the wounded “suspect” only suffered light injuries but that doesn’t excuse the cops or those who ordered 250 of them in on a dawn raid based on “reliable” information that turned out to be totally false. No bombs or chemical devices were found and the two men were unarmed.
We’re told of course that there is a “war against terror” and London, which was terror bombed last year, is undoubtedly still a target for the followers of Osama bin Laden. But that doesn’t excuse the racist hysteria whipped up by the bourgeois media against the Muslim community in Britain that began when Anglo-American imperialism invaded Iraq in 2003. It has created a climate of fear similar to that fired up by the ruling class against the Irish community in Britain during the IRA campaign to free the north of Ireland that led to the victimisation and wrongful imprisonment of Irish men and women during the 1970s and 80s and the brutal murder of Diarmuid O’Neill in 1996.
This is the second time the Metropolitan Police have shot an innocent man in the past 12 months in “anti-terror” operations. The first, the young Brazilian mistaken for a terrorist and pumped full of bullets, led to a police apology that will not bring a dead man back and the second must lead to an inquiry to prevent any more innocent blood being shed.
