A former counterterrorism police sergeant and practising Muslim has accused the Metropolitan police of ignoring extremist views amongst its Muslim officers for fear of being labelled “Islamophobic”.
Javaria Saeed, who worked in Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism division, complained to her bosses after she witnessed a fellow Muslim officer in the unit saying that female genital mutilation (FGM) was a “clean and honourable practice” and “shouldn’t be criminalised”, reports The Sunday Times.
The Muslim officer also reportedly said that female Muslim victims of domestic violence should not report the crime to the police, but resolve their cases in a sharia court, except in “serious violent cases”.
However, after raising both comments with her managers, Ms. Saeed said that they failed to take action against the officer because they were afraid of being accused of racism.
She was then advised by her superiors that she should not take her complaints to the professional standards unit because it would “hinder” her own “career progression and tarnish [her] reputation”.
This attack against political correctness in the police forces has come after West Midlands Police, one of the UK’s largest forces, said last week that it would consider letting its female Muslim officers wear burkas “to reflect the community [they] serve”.
Ms. Saeed was subject to extremist abuse whilst serving as a police sergeant, who was told by some fellow Muslims that she was a “bad Muslim” for not wearing a hijab and was told she was “better off at home looking after [her] husband”.
The career officer, who speaks four languages and had worked in prison intelligence, said she resigned in March after becoming disheartened by “political correctness”, which she said allowed an “us and them” culture to thrive among some Muslim officers who considered themselves above the law.
The 35-year-old said she joined the police following the 2005 London bombings in order to help bridge the division between the authorities and the Muslim community.
“I was warned by family and friends against joining because they thought I’d be racially discriminated against by white officers. But I resigned because of the sickening views and behaviour of some Muslim officers.”
Ms. Saeed told The Sunday Times that the Met applied a different standard when dealing with complaints against Muslim officers from those it applied to non-Muslims.
“Racism in the Met is not from white officers in my case, but from Muslim officers who the service refused to properly investigate because they were afraid of being called Islamophobic and racist,” said Ms. Saeed.
“My experiences were that it was Muslim officers being racist towards my individual views; also in private, holding racist views against white officers, and sexist views against females,” she said.
“If such views were held and expressed by white officers, they would be fired.”
A Scotland Yard spokesman said the police officer who made the comments regarding FGM and domestic abuse victims was given “management action” — a procedure prescribed for minor offences, which may result in the officer having to undergo something as trivial as a training course.
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