With no honest debate the media and politicians further damage the Rochdale rapists’ victims
THE eight Pakistani men and one Afghani who played parts in the raping children in Oldham and Rochdale have been jailed for a total of 77 years at Liverpool Crown Court. Sentences ranged from four to 19 years.
Judge Gerald Clifton told the paedophiles:
“All of you treated (the girls) as though they were worthless and beyond respect. One of the factors leading to that was the fact that they were not part of your community or religion.”
Well, was it?
“Some of you, when arrested, said it was triggered by race.”
Was it?
“That is nonsense. What triggered this prosecution was your lust and greed… In some cases those girls were raped callously, viciously and violently.”
The Guardian writes:
Far-right groups may try to exploit anger over Asian men who groom girls for sex but it shouldn’t mean we ignore the issue
That line tops Michael White’s article, in which he notes:
Children’s homes from which so many of the predators’ victims were plucked are all too often neglected corners of our society too. The police ignored initial complaints from troubled teenagers. So shame on us all.
What did we do wrong? Nothing. These men can’t be representative of all Pakistanis, but we all are intrinsically tied to the care homes, police and CPS which ignored at least one child’s testimony. We are all to blame? No. We’re not.
Alias Yousaf is the lawyer for Adil Khan. He went down for eight years. Yousaf says:
“It is of great concern that the chairman of the British National Party appeared to have been aware of the verdicts before they were even communicated to the court.”
Readers may be unaware that the BNP are a political party. Their leader, Nick GRiffin, tweeted with uncanny accuracy before the verdicts were all known: “Seven of the Muslim paedophile rapists found guilty in Liverpool.”
Yousaf adds:
“We are left with no option but to conclude that the confidentiality of the jury’s deliberations must have been breached and we submit the proper inference should be drawn that there must have been improper communication from within the jury room to Nick Griffin and perhaps others.”
Labour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz, says:
“I do not believe it’s a race issue.”
The Ramadhan Foundation and its spokesman Mohammed Shafiq says:
“…there should be no silence in addressing the issue of race as this is central to the actions of these criminals. They think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought…In the early days the Asian community thought the exploitation was all made up, just BNP propaganda. Then they realised that it was actually going on and they found it abhorrent. But they’ve still tended to ignore it in the hope that it would go away. I hope now that they’re beginning to realise that they have to engage and there has to be more education about the whole issue. I think the case at Liverpool could be a catalyst.”
Steve Heywood, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police – they failed to investigate one victim’s plea for help – said:
“It is not a racial issue. This is about adults preying on vulnerable young children. It just happens that in this particular area and time the demographics were that these were Asian men.”
The conversation is all so stilted. We cannot have an open debate because, according to the aforementioned Michael White, it will feed the fascists’ agenda and turn the white working class mad with rage. If it’s not Asian paedophiles we need to worry about it’s far-Right goons. The media seems keen to present a picture of Asian rapists in rings all over the country and on the other side draws racists who hope the Asian sex case stories will let them smash heads.
The BBC reports:
The Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz has said that the problem of men grooming young girls and boys for sex is not a problem confined to the Pakistani community. Speaking to the Today programme, she said that it was a crime that was “happening across every single ethnic and religious group so there are victims and perpetrators across all ethnic and religious groups”.
Good-oh, then. It’s not them. It’s all of us all the time. Don’t you feel better now? Brendan O’Neill writes:
For a variety of reasons – mainly because the attitudes and behaviour of white working-class women are so profoundly at odds with the outlook of conservative Muslim communities – there is a tendency among many Muslims to look upon such women as inferior, as “sluts”. What’s more, in our era of multiculturalism, ethnic minorities are implicitly encouraged to distance themselves from their “host community” and even to view the host community’s culture as inferior to their own, as more shallow, hedonistic and consumer-orientated than their own authentic cultural lives… In Rochdale, certain individuals took that sense of cultural superiority in a terribly abusive direction.
You need a lot of silence to allow so many men – many of them married with families – to commit so much crime. You need wives and girlfriends not to ask questions – and not expect answers. Is that a cultural thing? One thing is certain, an open and honest debate is needed if anything positive is to come of this…
Posted: 9th, May 2012 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
