FinishMySong Blog

It beggars belief how stupid some people can be. For example, in a leaked memo, Greater Manchester Police asked detectives not to make planned arrests against Muslim people at prayer times during Ramadan. Apparently, the need to be 'sensitive' to other people's belief systems now extends to allowing known criminals freedom to worship at times when they ought to be being arrested and removed from our communities for the safety and security of the rest of us.

Not surprisingly, this faux-pas has not gone down well with most rational people, whatever their religious background - muslim people clearly feel as strongly as anyone else about the need to deal with criminals in an appropriate manner and would be much happier if they did not have to worry that wrong-doers in their own communities were intentionally left to their own devices during the Ramadan period - unarrested thanks to a decision made by GMP that seems to have confused the concepts of respect for others with plain negligence! In fact, Mohammed Shariq of the Ramadan Foundation, an Islamic youth organisation, has gone as far as to say "It's stupid, lunacy, that police could even consider not arresting Muslims during Ramadan."

I wonder when the idiots who run the police force are going to realise that racial equality is about treating people with the same level of decency whatever their race happens to be. This is not about positive discrimination and letting people off if they are a different colour or if there is a perceived need to be sensitive to their religion. There is no place for the race card in law enforcement (or any other system) and to implement a rule such as not arresting someone who is of a certain religious orientation does inter-community relations no good whatsoever. Such an idea puts us all at greater risk, patronises those who want to see justice done when the law is broken, and fans the flames of race hate.

Nice one Greater Manchester Police: you couldn't have thought up a more ineffective policy.