One Society Many Cultures (OSMC) condemns the horrific twin attacks in Norway yesterday, which saw a bombing in Oslo and shootings at the Labour Party youth camp in Utoeya which have claimed the lives of at least 91 people. Our thoughts and condolences are with the families, friends and loved ones of those who have been affected by this attack.

Reports indicate that Anders Behring Breivik, charged in connection to these attacks, has made anti-Muslim comments on internet postings, and that he was seeking to set up a Norwegian version of the English Defence League (EDL). Initial media reports wrongly suggested that the attack could have originated from Al Qaida or Islamic terrorists, due to Norway’s role in NATO, Afghanistan and Libya.

Sabby Dhalu, Secretary of One Society Many Cultures said:

“We send our condolences, thoughts and sympathy to the families of all those who have been affected, to the relatives and friends of the victims of this heinous crime, and to the people of Norway. We join the international community in calling for justice for these victims and their families. We are outraged by these despicable terrorist attacks and welcome the condemnation of these attacks by the Prime Minister, the Queen and other prominent figures in Britain and around the world.

“We are concerned at the initial response from media reports which sought, without any evidence, to suggest that the perpetrators were of Islamic origin. The media must act responsibly at this sensitive time; in other instances, scapegoating of the Muslim community led to reprisal attacks against innocent Muslims and others. The recent events which have put a spotlight on the practices of the media must now extend to change the culture which sees a knee-jerk reaction to stereotype Muslims.

“In stark contrast, the media reports now suggest that Anders Behring Breivik has anti-Muslim sentiments, sympathy with the far right, and particularly the English Defence League (EDL).

“The anti-racist movement in Britain has consistently warned of the links of far right groups such as the EDL and the British National Party’s acts of terrorism and violence, and the climate of Islamophobia which has emboldened them. However, the EDL have been allowed regular protests around the country, many of which have ended in violence, mostly directed at Muslim communities and Mosques.

“We call on the government to integrate far right and fascist terror into Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. The Home Secretary’s recent Prevent review report has been heavily criticised for its potential to stigmatise the Muslim community; it also made no mention of the EDL, BNP or the nail bombing of London in 1999 by BNP sympathiser David Copeland. This approach needs urgent rethinking in order to prevent further terrorist violence from the far right.”

OSMC shares concerns of a wide variety of sources about the flawed and potentially counterproductive approach of the government’s new Prevent strategy.

An important part of anti-terrorism policy must be celebrating our multicultural society, the enormous contribution of Britain’s 2.5 million Muslims to business, enterprise, trade unions, political parties, arts, music culture and challenging racism, Islamophobia & discrimination.

There are a number of issues that negatively impact on Muslim communities, do little or nothing to combat terrorism, and unless addressed could exacerbate the problem.

The report does not recognize the bias in the Media coverage of Muslim communities.  Arrests and home raids of terror suspects are often given headline top story coverage, but the subsequent release without charge of the vast majority of these people is not given any where near the same level of coverage, if any. This creates a negative impression of Muslims. Over three-quarters of those arrested are released without charge compared to 13 per cent convicted.

In this context it is not surprising that a YouGov poll in July 2010 showed 50% of respondents associated Islam with terrorism. This is even more absurd than it would be to associate all white people with the racism of the English Defence League (EDL) and British National Party (BNP), given the repeated polls which have shown the extremely tiny proportion of Britain’s Muslim communities have any kind of sympathy with Islamist terrorism.

The report does not lay out a government strategy to address the bias within the criminal justice system.  Since 2001 there have been over half a million stops and searches under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, with only 283 arrests and 0 convictions as a result of this. A very high proportion of these stops are of people who are or who might be Muslim

For the majority of Muslims jobs, unemployment, housing, social problems such as drugs and racism are problems they come across more frequently than terrorism, but the government’s focus for engagement with Muslims is on extremism. There is no mechanism for Muslims as British citizens to communicate these other problems to the government and have these addressed.

Muslim students go to university for the same reasons as their non-Muslim counterparts: to get educated in order to get a better job and be able to afford a more comfortable life. The government’s approach – criticised by Universities UK, NUS and FOSIS – gives the impression that universities and Muslim students are a problem, when in fact engaging with these institutions and students is part of the solution.

For over 2 years the English Defence League (EDL) has held demonstrations directed at the Muslim community, many of which have led to violent attacks on Mosques, other places of worship, and on Muslim, black and Asian communities. The EDL incites religious and racial hatred and violence, including through encouraging chants such as “Burn down Mosques” and “Allah is a paedophile” on its marches. Yet there is no strategy equivalent to Prevent proposed by the government for dealing with the EDL. This understandably leads the Muslim community to believe it is being singled out and stereotyped, when it knows it is being targeted with violence.

This approach is deeply counter-productive, even for the anti-terrorism objective of Prevent. Studies show that Al Qaeda and similar organisations operating in Western Europe use discrimination and marginalisation of Muslims as part of their narrative for recruiting people to violence. The new Prevent strategy will simply deepen the tendencies for Muslim communities feeling stigmatised and targeted and achieve nothing in combating terrorism.

Where governments have taken action to unite communities and show leadership in preventing the targeting of all Muslims for the actions of a handful of individuals, this has helped community cohesion. For example the “One Leicester”, “7million Londoners 1 London” and the “One Scotland Many Cultures” campaigns, helped to build relations and trust between the government, police and Muslim communities. We therefore call upon the Prime Minister and government to adopt a similar national policy and reverse its policy of undermining multiculturalism.