British Muslims ‘should be allowed to bypass police’ when reporting hate crime

 British Muslims should be given a new way of reporting hate crimes that bypasses the police, because the Government’s controversial Prevent anti-extremism strategy has ruined trust between the two parties, Andy Burnham has suggested.

 

 

British Muslims should be given a new way of reporting hate crimes that bypasses the police, because the Government’s controversial Prevent anti-extremism strategy has ruined trust between the two parties, Andy Burnham has suggested.

The shadow Home Secretary called for a “root and branch review” of Prevent and said the true scale of Islamophobic hate crimes was being hidden because Muslims were reticent to report such crimes to an institution involved in monitoring them.

Earlier this year the UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of assembly warned that Prevent could actually end up promoting extremism, describing it as a “Big Brother” approach.