Mohammed Shafiq,
Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation comments:
“I wish to pay
tribute to the bravery of the young girls that have given evidence
in this trial, without their contribution justice would not have
been possible. Today’s guilty verdicts are to be welcomed and I
hope the message goes out that if you engage in these crimes, you
will be caught and brought to justice.
These criminals
have brought shame on themselves, their families and our community.
We reject their actions without reservation and send our thoughts to
the victims and reject any attempt by the far right to tarnish the
whole Pakistani community. Their actions have no place in a decent
society and today we can say justice has been done.
There is a
significant problem for the British Pakistani community, there is an
over representation amongst recent convictions in the crime of on
street grooming, 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; it is this sort of behaviour that is
bringing shame on our community. I urge the Police and the Councils
not to be frightened to address this issue, there is a strong lesson
that you cannot ignore race or be over sensitive.
I have been
overwhelmed by the support the Ramadhan Foundation has been given by
young people for our campaign on child grooming but concerned that
community elders are once again burying their heads in the sand,
this concerns us all and we must speak out. The community elders
need to learn from the reaction of young people and reject any
attempt to silence the reaction from our community. We have over
the past twelve months seen tremendous progress, more Imams have
spoken out in Friday sermons, workshops and activities for young
people have happened in the community and there is a strong
commitment to see this work through.
We encourage
local authorities and schools to learn from Rochdale where over 9000
teenagers have attended a workshop on child grooming. The Ramadhan
Foundation is ready to stand with anyone who wishes to protect these
young teenagers. The Police will need to reflect on their failures
in this case and we look forward to the IPCC report.
Finally the far
right and fascist movements are not welcome to Rochdale, we reject
their division and hatred and it has no place in a tolerant and
diverse society. We will learn lessons from this case but not allow
outsiders to divide us.
END
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Notes for
editors
The Ramadhan
Foundation is a leading Muslim organisation in the UK that is
working for peaceful co-existence and dialogue for all communities.
The Ramadhan
Foundation has been campaigning against child grooming since 2006
with various community events and media contributions. Mohammed
Shafiq has written on grooming for The Times, Manchester Evening
News, The Sun, Daily Mail and appeared on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Al
Jazeera, Fox News, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Channel 5 News, Ummah
Channel and BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight, BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio
Lancashire, BBC Radio Manchester, BBC world Service and Geo News.
Greater
Manchester Police are conducting an Independent Police Complaints
Commission (IPCC) supervised report into the initial inquiry into
the Rochdale case.
Based in Greater
Manchester and working to also establish the platform for human
unity amongst our communities in the UK
Mohammad Shafiq
is the Chief Executive of the Foundation, aged 33 and actively
campaigning to provide a more positive image of Islam.
