London needs 2,000 more Muslim police -- Commissioner
London needs another 2,000 Muslim police officers, Britain's most senior police officer said Thursday. London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair also defended the rise in stop and search of Muslim suspects and said they would continue. In an interview with the "Muslim News" newspaper, Sir Ian said "What I really need is more Muslim police officers. "We've got 200 to 300 members in the Muslim Police Association. I want as many as I can get. "If something like one-in-nine Londoners is a Muslim than I want one-in-nine police officers to be a Muslim. Which means we are currently 2,000 short." Figures released last February showed that the number of searches under the UK Terrorism Act 2000 rose 36 percent to 29,400 in 2003/04. Of these, 12.5 percent involved Asians, even though they make up just 4.7 percent of the population in England and Wales. Sir Ian said "The percentages are actually involving numbers less than 10 people a day out of a Muslim population of 700,000 and a million in London. He said "The intelligence reports that I see and my colleagues and security services see tell us that there is a credible threat." Earlier this year his predecessor Sir John Stevens claimed there are possibly more than 200 al Qaida-trained terrorists walking the streets of Britain. Sir Ian said "the jury is out" on whether his officers would start to record the religion of stop and search suspects. "It's an ongoing debate. I'm not persuaded, this seems a very intrusive question to me".
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