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London Letter: A brief reply

11 April 2004, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Saif, On e-mail
11 April 2004, 18:00 PM
It is early, the trains delayed, yesterday's spilled Starbucks half cleaned from metro sets and charity seekers are seeking to ambush your guilt and disrupt the fragile comfort of another day in London. A mouse click releases The Daily Star's internet edition, Bricklane's morning mantra, and the hangover discovers today's edition contains an article from 'our' city, appropriately misspelled as 'London Letter' by Sagar Chaudhury (April 8). Misery is compounded, the following brief note pecked. In the said article, briefly speaking, Sagar points out that finally, the dangers of a terrorist attack on London have been proven to be imminent and round the corner, as his heading states out ' The threat is real'. And yet, the whole article is nothing but the regurgitation of the official government line, masticated by the media, thrown up by tabloids, and swallowed wholesale without a twinge of critique by Sagar. Yes, it is true 600 policemen have raided 11 locations in the UK and arrested a dozen men of Asian origins. The Met Police immediately trumpeted ' this could have been another terrorist attack nipped in the bud....'. But, it is the scale of the reporting, the massive numbers of officers and the fertiliser found that has blown this into 'evidence' which is yet to be produced.

Till now, the facts are: None of the men have been formally charged and continue to be detained with permission extended twice by a willing judge under new laws passed last month, where indefinite detention is allowed.

The bag of fertiliser at the centre of the plot was considered so secret that the photograph published was not of the actual bag, but of a 'similar looking' bag being held up by two policemen.

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There are already more then twenty individuals held for over a year in England, and none of their cases have been proven, neither have they been charged to date. There are weekly demonstrations outsides the prisons of Great (Little) Britain by small groups of well meant, liberal, generous Brits, for the freedom of the men being (ill)egally detained without formal charges--hardly an Asian face among those protestors.

Not a single terrorist plotter or plot has yet been unearthed which is based on solid evidence and gone to an English court, within the last three years, and yet Asian men are stopped and searched so often in some Boroughs, that one of them reported (one was within those arrested) that he was stopped six times in one day by police, and finally he is almost grateful that he is confined rather then the daily ritual of being asked by the average bobby 'do intend to bomb Britain today or tomorrow?'

Within two days, another plot was 'unearthed' to use chemical gas on the Tube. Unfortunately experts on BBC have said the gas was ineffective as a means of committing wholesale murder. The Met & Media band continue to parade that story but unfortunately Sagar has missed that one!

Let reporting be free, objective, original and in the spirit of your paper ' without fear or favour'!