British Muslims ‘should be allowed to bypass police’ when reporting hate crime, Andy Burnham says

Sep 27, 2016 by Jill

by Jon Stone, Independent:

British Muslims should be given a new way of reporting hate crimes that bypasses the police, because the Government’s controversial Prevent anti-extremism strategy has ruined trust between the two parties, Andy Burnham has suggested.

The shadow Home Secretary called for a “root and branch review” of Prevent and said the true scale of Islamophobic hate crimes was being hidden because Muslims were reticent to report such crimes to an institution involved in monitoring them.

Mr Burnham, who is Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester, compared Prevent to the French ban on the burkini swimming costume and said it “singles out one community for different treatment”. He said such an approach risked legitimising or inspiring Islamophobic hate crime.

Earlier this year the UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of assembly warned that Prevent could actually end up promoting extremism, describing it as a “Big Brother” approach.

The strategy is aimed at preventing people from becoming “radicalised” and turning to terrorism. Provisions include giving public bodies, including teachers, a statutory duty to report so-called signs of extremism. These may however include innocuous and entirely legal activities such as people becoming more religious or expressing anti-establishment views. Teaching unions have voted to boycott elements of the programme.

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