"British Muslims See Hate Crimes Increase"

The Metropolitan Police said it had received 269 reports of religious hate crimes — including verbal and physical attacks and criminal damage to property such as mosques — since July 7. That compared with 40 similar crimes in the same three-and-a-half-week period last year.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur said the rise in attacks against Muslims "can lead to these communities completely retreating and not engaging at a time when we want their engagement and support."

Physical attacks and criminal damage to property are not bad and legally wrong, but immoral as well. Verbal "hate crimes" are things I generally don't think the law should be involved in, as mean and immoral as they are. People of all types, races, sizes, etc., are called or call others names all the time.

Whatever happened to walking away from someone who is verbally "attacking" you? Whatever happened to turning the other cheek? If someone is saying things you know to be untrue, don't listen. I do not think it is right to prosecute someone for simply calling someone a name. If that were the case, I guess we should arrest every five year old who calls another kid a "poopy-head." And every time some sports fan calls a ref a "jerk" we should immediately charge him with a hate crime. Maybe I should be charged with a hate crime because I hate John Kerry and Mohammed Atta and call them names?

And if we are going to charge someone who says something derogatory about a Muslim with a hate crime, then how about charging these terrorists with hate crimes? They commit these terrorist attacks because they hate us. They hate our freedom. They hate what we stand for. They hate what we do. They hate the fact that we are free and they have chosen to live in the 15th century.

British Muslims need to combat this by really standing up against the terrorists. Make some big gestures. Make a big effort. There will always be some horrid people out there, ready to vandalize, but the majority of people will feel better if those Muslims who don't agree with the terrorism say so. If British Muslims are silent on the issue, then what must we infer?