YESTERDAY’s press conference heard how a 250 strong police raid, in the early hours of the morning, in Forest Gate led to a completely innocent family being terrorised, assaulted, handcuffed and beaten, with one family member shot in the chest, and luckily avoiding a fatal wound.
This was the armed police raid that Prime Minister Blair gave his support to ‘101 per cent’, before and after it took place.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister went further. He said that he supported the police acting with ‘complete inhibition’ when presented with information on terrorism that they consider demands action.
He added: ‘I want them to act without any inhibition at all.’ He continued, referring specifically to the Forest Gate raid, ‘If our police did not act on such information, then we would have the right to complain.’
Far from apologising for the police action, Blair gave it 101 per cent support, and encouraged the police to do the same again and again.
What the police did was to break into two homes, and shoot and assault the inhabitants without declaring who they were, so that the inhabitants thought they were under assault by armed robbers and that they were all about to be killed.
The action was definitely ‘completely uninhibited’, and completely illegal, meriting criminal charges for breaking and entering, attempted murder, assault, actual bodily harm, abduction and kidnapping.
This is the action that the Prime Minister is glorifying. Having authorised similar measures in Iraq he thinks that the same thing can be done with impunity here.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar yesterday described the moment when he was shot. He came around a corner in the stairs and ‘We both had eye contact, he shot me straight away.’ It was the standard shot in the chest of the trained killer. Mohammed Abdul Kahar is lucky to be alive.
He added: ‘I just saw an orange spark and a big bang. I flew into the wall, slipped down. There was blood coming down my chest. I knew I was shot.’
Only when he was dragged from the house onto the street where an officer applied pressure to his chest wound did he realise that the police were involved.
His brother Abul Koyair said ‘All of a sudden my brother went down the second set of stairs and I heard a loud bang, and it was a big flash and then after that everything was so quiet.’
What should be done about this atrocity.
Abul Koyair added: ‘We feel that whoever is responsible should be put to justice. Sir Ian Blair, whoever gave the order for this to happen.’
Mohammed Abdul Kahar said: ‘I am not interested in money at all. I want everyone to be brought before the courts for the way I was shot. I want everyone that was involved, whoever gave the order for the raid to happen, for the shot to go off, everyone involved to apologise.’
He added that he was completely against terrorism – Islamic or otherwise – and said: ‘The only crime I have committed is being Asian and having a long beard.’ Koyair said he applied to become a community police officer shortly before the shooting. ‘They gave me a confirmation letter, which I received from them.’ So much for police-MI5 intelligence.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar is convinced that the police will repeat this operation time and time again. He said that this is going to go on and on and on. He is right. This is why the issue must be dealt with.
It is government policy to pre-emptively strike communities that it has identified as being most affected by the atrocities that US and UK troops are carrying out in Iraq, so as to create a climate of fear.
There is only one solution. This is that the working class must bring down the Blair government, and bring in a workers’ government to put an end to British imperialism by withdrawing all troops from Iraq, the Middle East and the Gulf, and by carrying out socialist policies in Britain.
