The director of a Muslim organisation says that the police are "overcautious" when investigating Asian gangs suspected of prostituting young white girls, as they fear being labelled racist.
Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, told the BBC’s Panorama programme that these gangs “should be treated as criminals. They are not Asian criminals, they are not Muslim criminals, they are not white criminals. They are criminals and they should be treated as criminals.”
Shafiq went on to say that fear of a repeat of the race riots in places such as Bradford and Oldham have made officers “overtly sensitive,” resulting in the police differentiating between criminals depending on their race.
Shafiq believes that these gangs have begun prostituting girls to increase their income, following a fall in the cost of drugs in the past few years. He says he is “the only Muslim leader in the UK that speaks up against this sort of thing.”
A new set of government measures attempting to address this issue come into force next month. These include crime-fighting targets aimed specifically at this problem, and a warning video for use in schools.