adam wrote:
The article expresses the view that many in the Muslim community feel that anybody brought to trial wouldn't receive a fair trial. The question arises whether this is systematic of a failure of the British system to assimilate the community or perhaps in view of what happened to the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, who were falsely convicted under not entirely dissimilar circumstances, a not unreasonable point of view. Or even perhaps both positions are in fact accurate.

I'm posting this back out to my MemeStream because I think its an incredibly good point that is easily forgotten.

There has been a lot of discussion in the past few years about due process for people suspected of terrorism. The point of view that some people seem to have is that nearly everyone accused of being a terrorist likely is a terrorist. You tend to give the police and the military the benefit of the doubt. They have no interest in sweeping up innocent people. The attitude is that due process helps the terrorists avoid punishment for their crimes.

The string of false convictions referenced above didn't occur in a third world country a long time ago. They occured in England in the 1970s. An innocent individual was gunned down in the street by police in England on Friday. The fact is that you are going to have innocent people get swept up in your anti-terror actions. It is unavoidable, because people whose job is prosecution tend to make presumptions of guilt that are not supported by the evidence, or perhaps even reasonable (like assuming that its unusual to see someone wearing a coat when its 62 degrees fahrenheit.) When your job is to see guilt you are going to see it even when its not there.

If you do not have a process for determining whether or not people ought to have been swept up, or if your process is seriously flawed as it was in England in the 70s, you will punish innocent people. If this is a systemic problem, you create a situation where no one trusts your judgement anymore, even if you improve your process. This tends to live with you for a long time.

Muslims who might have information which is useful to the authorities are unlikely to provide it if they are unsure of its meaning and they don't want to see innocent people get nailed by a system that cannot distinguish them.

To put it another way, people in the hood don't talk to the cops, and occaisonally they become so alienated that you get riots.

Alienating communities of people frustrates your ability to prosecute when you need it the most. One person cannot hide in a community unless the community wants to hide him. You want these people to trust you. If they don't trust you, they won't help you, and you won't get the intelligence you need.

RE: Telegraph | News | One in four Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists