There have been reports today that a London based Muslim police officer has filed a complaint on race and religion grounds after he was removed from the Diplomatic Protection Group SO16, a close protection unit in charge of guarding dignitaries including Tony Blair.
According to the Police, the grounds for his removal from SO16 was because he children were closely associated with a mosque at which a cleric has links with terrorist organisation.
Perosnally I don't have a problem with this at all. It is not because of his religion or race that he has been removed from this particular duty assignment, its because he poses a potential operational security risk.
This doesn't mean he is guilty of anything, it just means that risk in such sensitive areas needs to be managed. Security clearence is based on security assessment and risk. We wouldn't have expected the Police to deploy someone who's immediate family had potetnial links to the IRA in the 1980s in such a way, and we shouldn't start doing it now in this specifc case.
Frankly, the officer should be aware of the nature of security and assessment, and accept his redeployment. This is not about his race, or his religion, its about the links through his family to a known security threat.
3 comments:
Exactly what I thought when I read about this. Couldn't agree more.
I have no doubt that this officer is probably a fine policeman and a good 'Brit'. After all, you'd have to be in order to think that Tony Blair was worth protecting. I imagine that the security risk here is that his children are a potential kidnap/ransom/blackmail target for any radicals who want to get an SO16 officer under their thumb. The right decision.
Let's play the victim again.
(We've been victims for 2500 years. We got over it eons ago).
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