أسكتلندا: المسلمون يطالبون بعدم استهداف المساجد وروادها

خبر من مصادر إنجليزية.

طالب رموز العمل الإسلامي - من كبار روَّاد ومسؤولي المسجد والمركز الثقافي في مدينة "أبردين" الأسكتلندية - وزير العدالة "كيني ماكسكيل" بضرورة طَمْأَنة المسلمين، والتأكيد على عدم استهدافهم ولا استهداف مؤسَّساتهم، خاصةً مع ارتفاع حِدة عمليات الإيقاف والتفتيش والاحتجاز التي تشنها الشرطة في المناطق الشمالية والشمالية الشرقية.

وقد أكد المتحدث باسم مجلس الأُمناء أن المجتمع الإسلامي لا يرغب في الشعور بالعزلة أو الاستهداف، بل يريد أن يكون عنصرًا من العناصر المجتمعية التي تتوفر لها الحماية أُسوة بباقي مكونات المجتمع دون تمييزٍ؛ المصدر: شبكة الألوكة.

يرجى الإشارة إلى المصدر عند نقل الخبر – شبكة الألوكة.

الخبر من مصدره الأصلي:

‘Police must not target Aberdeen muslims’ – mosque leaders say

Police must ensure the Muslim community in Aberdeen does not feel targeted by officers using increased counter-terrorism powers, leaders at the city mosque have said.

The plea comes after senior officers warned they would be stepping up stop and searches and detentions at airports in the north and north east, in light of the growing threat from IS (Islamic State) militants and a terror attack on UK soil.

Elders and trustees of Aberdeen Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre have now held talks with Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill over the issue.

Leaders have also visited the city’s airport to see for themselves the use of Schedule 7 powers, which allow passengers to be stopped and quizzed without any reasonable suspicion they have been involved in terrorist activity.

The heightened security has been introduced as inquiries continue into former Aberdeen University student Abdul Raqib Amin, who is now in Syria and has appeared in a recruitment video for IS.

The 25-year-old attended the mosque as a child before he and his family moved to Leicester.

A spokesman for the board of trustees at the building in The Spital told the Press and Journal the Muslim community did not want to be isolated or targeted by anti-terror powers.

He said: “We do support the security measures as they are there to protect the whole community. They are for the protection of everyone, the whole community – and that includes Muslims.

“At the same time, as a Muslim community we don’t want to be isolated and we don’t want to feel targeted.”

The spokesman said professionals working in the city who had attended the mosque had been stopped “many, many” times and questioned by police at the airport about their movements.

However, it is thought that the full use of Schedule 7 – where property can be seized and DNA taken – has been limited to a couple of cases.

He added: “What we strongly emphasised during the meeting is that Aberdeen is an oil and gas city with two large universities and a huge hospital.

“The city basically evolves around these three institutions and professionals travel all the time and what we see is that people – Muslims – are stopped again and again.

“People are coming into the country, they are coming from abroad and they are stopped and questioned for 10, 15, 20 minutes. It does irritate people and makes them uncomfortable. People start to think ‘why us’?”

The mosque spokesman said he understood that police were faced with a difficult job in balancing the need to question passengers with the sensitivities of the Muslim community.

“We do not want to have special treatment,” he added.