3 cleared of charges in 2005 London bombing

The Toronto Star
April 28, 2009

Three Brits were cleared today of all charges of helping to plot the London suicide bombings in 2005. These '7/7' bombings occurred on July 7, 2005 and killed 52 people. We now see them as the worst peacetime attack in the British capital. These were only the first trial in the bombings, as Mohammed Shakil, Sadeer Saleem and Waheed Ali were accused of "scouting" possible bombing targets in London along with two of the British Muslims who detonated the homemade devices on three underground trains and a bus. Prosecutors accused the men of knowing the bombers from the northern England town, and accused them of plotting the bombing along with the actual bombers. The three men accused here said that they had simply been visiting tourist attractions in the capital, however, and the three men were found innocent by the jury at London's Kingston Crown Court.

In my opinion, the accusation of these three men is a reflection of the world's fear and paranoia about terrorism since the bombings of 9/11 in New York. It is truly a sad reflection of the type of persecution Muslims have faced after the tragic bombings of 2001. I believe that this incident represents the danger of stereotyping any minority. By identifying each of us as representing the racial group to which we belong, we make our society very polarized and promote xenophobia. There are many who have successfully fought against racial profiling regardless of the reasons given to justify this. In a recent paper submitted to George Washington University Law School, Joseph D. Pollack stated, "Racial profiling violates fundamental rights, is ineffective, and is not justified even by the risk of terrorism. Official guidance to federal law enforcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ostensibly bans racial profiling in most circumstances, but still allows counter-terrorism racial profiling. European states have yet to adopt any protections against racial profiling, but the Council of Europe's European Commission on Race and Intolerance (ECRI) issued a policy recommendation to ban racial profiling across the board, including in the context of counter-terrorism". (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1390269) This succinct summary of the current state of racial profiling in America and Europe reminds us how difficult it is as a society to avoid such stereotyping and profiling. The events above, however, reinforce the need for us to maintain equality and unbiased law enforcement by continuing to fight racial profiling. These incidents will surely not stop, but hopefully society as a whole can learn from them and perceive the world with an open mind free of racial prejudice. As the world becomes interconnected and multicultural, as we have studied this year, it is vital that we embrace the cultural religious diversities and customs of our fellow man.