Friday, November 10, 2006

Reactions to the Terror Statistics

Here is a round-up of the reactions to the shocking figures supplied by MI5 last night.

The Conservatives called on the government to do more to tackle extremism. They called for a unified border police, allowing the use of phone-tap evidence in courts and said that we need "to be firm on Muslim radicals and Imams who preach hatred to the West".

The Lib Dems, called on the government to capitulate, and change both foreign and domestic policy to suit the radicals. Nick Clegg said, "The effect of our foreign and domestic policies on opinion in our Muslim communities, especially young men, now requires constant vigilance. New security measures alone will not win the battle of hearts and minds if they unwittingly push more and more people into an extremist direction."

The Muslim Council of Britain told the BBC that the problem of radicalisation wasn't a problem for one community but was a wider societal problem. Something which is demonstrably not true.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission, came out all lies blazing. They said that they were "absolutely astonished" by the news and declared the figures to be an "exaggeration". Of course, the IHRC are better placed to know the truth than the head of the body actually gathering the data. But they went further, stating that of the 1,000 people arrested since 9/11 only "Twenty-seven were found guilty – and only ten were Muslim. That is ten too many, but nevertheless, let us keep this in perspective".

This is simply not true. last month John Reid released figures stating that 214 people had been convicted of terrorism since 9/11. Unless of course the IHRC also knows those figures better than the Home Secretary.