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'Don't pin blame on Pakistan'
18/07/2005 08:52 - (SA)
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| Men arrive for Friday prayers at the Kashmir Muslims Welfare Association in the Beeston area of Leeds. Despite their sometime outward Western appearance, the second and third generation Muslim Asian community of the working-class neighbourhood where at least two of the suspected London suicide bombers came from, has barely integrated into British society. (Matthew Fearn, AP) |
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London - Britain should not blame foreign countries including Pakistan for the July 7 attacks but should look into its own failure to integrate Muslims, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram said on Sunday.
"It is important not to pin blame on somebody else when the problem lies internally," Akram told BBC Radio 4's World this Weekend programme.
"I think you have to look at British society, what you are doing to the Muslim community and why is it that the Muslim community is not integrating into British society."
There were extremist preachers "spouting hatred for everyone" in Britain as well as Pakistan, the ambassador said.
"I accept that Pakistan has to do a lot and we are doing it," he said.
Radical
"You have to acknowledge what we are doing. It is not sufficient for you to just point out that so and so is a radical in Pakistan.
"You have them too and we have to address the problems, the underlying causes. That is the point," Akram said.
"That is the problem with your society and the inability to integrate the Muslim community into your society.
"I think you have to look at that and that is where the problem lies as far as this incident is concerned and I would suggest it would be a great mistake to point fingers at Pakistan or anybody else outside your country."
Ethnic
Three of the suspected July 7 bombers were ethnic Pakistani Britons who recently visited Pakistan. At least one of them, Shehzad Tanweer, appears to have spent time at a madrassa (Koranic school) in the eastern city of Lahore.
British foreign secretary Jack Straw on Friday expressed concern at what went on in some madrassas in Pakistan.
"We are concerned about what goes on in some, though not all, of the madrassas in Pakistan," Straw told reporters in London, adding that the concern was shared by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Six arrested on Sunday night
Meanwhile, police said on Sunday night that six people were arrested in Leeds under Britain's anti-terrorism act.
A police spokesperson didn't say who the men were, but said the arrests were not related to the July 7 London terrorist bombings.
- AFP
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