11 September 2016

‘Met ignored extremism among my fellow Muslim officers’

A former counterterrorism sergeant has attacked the Metropolitan police for failing to tackle extremist views among some of its Muslim officers for fear of being labelled “Islamophobic”.

Javaria Saeed, a practising Muslim who worked in Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism division, complained to her bosses after she witnessed a fellow Muslim officer saying female genital mutilation (FGM) — illegal in the UK since 1985 — was a “clean and honourable practice ” and “shouldn’t be criminalised”.

The same officer, a Muslim constable in the SO15 counterterrorism unit, also said female Muslim victims of domestic violence should not appeal to the police for help, but resolve their cases in a sharia court, except in “serious violent cases”, according to Saeed. However, although she raised both comments with her managers, she said they failed to take action against the officer because they were afraid of being accused of racism. [The Times (£)] Read more