In New York, Police Commissioner William Bratton has taken an important and key step in rebuilding trust between the city’s Muslim community and One Police Plaza. He has decided to disband a specialised unit that spied on Muslims in schools, mosques and community centres, believing that these gathering places would be an important source of intelligence on terrorist plots.
For months on end, the New York Police Department unit spied, eavesdropped, monitored and photographed the comings and goings of thousands of ordinary Muslims — all in a bigoted and systemic belief that “these people” were actively scheming and plotting the next wave of terror attacks on the Big Apple.
The unit’s activities only came to light following a long investigation by Associated Press that brought their nefarious activities from the shadows of racial and religious profiling into the light of civil liberties and equal treatment before the law for all — regardless of colour, creed and class.
It should be noted that for all the hours spent by the officers in spying on Muslims, watching them as they gathered for community events, came together for prayer or simply brought children to be educated in Islam, not a single shred of usable evidence was ever gathered by the unit — and not a single prosecution was ever pursued by the intelligence filed to officers.
Why? Because Muslims are a peace-loving people. This was a unit forged on an ideal of persecution, not prosecution.
