"We've got to understand what motivates young Muslims," Stevens

CAIRO, May 24 (IslamOnline.net) – Understanding Muslims, gaining their trust, after being stereotyped as terrorists, is the mission of a new special team set up by Scotland Yard to liaise with the Muslim community, according to a British daily Monday, May 24.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Metropolitan police commissioner (Met), Sir John Stevens revealed that the new team would attempt to find out what motivates some young (British) Muslims to get in touch with fanatics.

"We have a very good relationship with the Muslim community in London , which we have particularly worked at since September 11 [2001], but we have got to work a lot harder with Muslim youth," Stevens told the paper.

"We've got to use our Muslim officers and listen to particular institutions, schools, universities. We've got to understand what motivates young Muslims and why some become fanatical enough to contemplate getting involved in terrorism, even suicide bombings," he added.

Within the same context, a small working group would be set up in the next few weeks to examine how existing links with local communities could best be used to proceed with the project, a Met spokeswoman told the daily.

The paper added that the Met has recently withdrawn an anti-terrorism advertisement which stirred complaints and angered British Muslim groups who said that the poster looked like a Muslim woman with most of her face covered.

"The ad had already been used for a year and a half but if some Muslims were taking exception to it, then we had to withdraw it, as it is counter-productive to what we need - cooperation from all communities," Stevens told the paper.

Racist Police

"Stop and Search rates have become one of the most visible indicators of racially biased policing practice in London," Sacranie

On the other hand, a recent survey, was issued last week by the Metropolitan Police Authority MPA, found that the number of Asians stopped and searched by police jumped 41% between 2000/01 and 2001/02, and searches of black people rose 30%, compared to 8% for whites in the same period, the Guardian said.

However, Cecile Wright, the chairwoman of the authority, called Saturday to prosecute police officers who abuse stop-and-search to harass members of ethnic minorities, the Guardian reported.

"There is no evidence that stop-and-search catches criminals at a better rate than other methods. We had to question whether the use of stop and search is really cost-effective or efficient," Wright said.

The Muslim Council of Britain MCB said that the rise for Asians represented a form of targeting Muslims after September 11, 2001 .

"Stop and Search rates have become one of the most visible indicators of racially biased policing practice in London ," said Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, in a statement published on the MCB's website Friday.

"These figures are quite devastating and confirm what we have been hearing anecdotally from the experiences of a worryingly large and ever-increasing number of young Muslim men. As the MPA report acknowledges," added the statement.