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Isolate extremists

24/10/2006
Letter published in The Daily Telegraph

Sir – The warning by Trevor Phillips over potential race riots in Britain involving Muslims and other communities comes at an appropriate juncture during the long awaited debate on multi-culturalism (report, October 23). It needs to be taken seriously by all communities.

However, painting all Muslims with the same brush as the fundamentalist elements such as Abu Izzadeen, Shabeena Begum and Aishah Azmi is counterproductive.

The vast majority of British Muslims are law-abiding, well integrated individuals who have struck a balance between retaining cultural customs, adhering to their faith and adjusting to the social norms of a largely liberal and secular Western democracy.

These Muslims are as exasperated as anyone else by the actions of a highly vocal minority of such fanatics.

Only isolating the extremists from the rest would help improve race relations for the future and would help defeat the very objective of fundamentalist and criminal elements, who wish to turn every moderate British Muslim into one of their own.

Dr Shaaz Mahboob, Hillingdon, Middlesex