Caller: 'If the Streatham attacker was white, people would have blamed mental illness'

4 February 2020, 11:57

Iain Dale and a caller disagreed over whether some mosques are doing enough to prevent terror attacks.

The caller, who has worked a lot with convicts to try and stop them from re-offending, spoke to Iain Dale about the Streatham attacker.

Omar said: "So if it was a white person that had done it, just hear me out and give me a chance, the first thing that people would have been saying is that he's got mental issues.

"So we want to understand, did he have mental issue? Because it's not a more normal person to carry out something like this."

He also asked why authorities didn't put "the right methods and mechanisms in place" when they knew Sudesh Amman's intentions to kill.

Iain Dale asked what mechanisms they could have put in place when there was already a surveillance operation.

Omar argued that there should have been professionals to intervene that could have reformed him.

He continued: "Without a doubt, somebody should have picked up on this."

Iain Dale disagreed and thinks that Amman was identified but "under the law, he had to be released".

The caller then said: "The mosques are doing as much as they can. But you have to remember that people who have this particular ideology, they don't go to mosques. They stay away from mosques.

"So the people in the mosques don't get to meet these particular people because I know there's a lot of work done in the mosque and a lot of people that are putting a lot of mechanisms to help people if."

Iain dale, once again, disagreed. He said it's not the case in all mosques. He argued that there's Saudi Arabian funding to some Salafist mosques - and branded that a "real worry".

They disagreed on this point.

The caller then argued: "We're not talking about funding to mosques. I almost got run over this morning, Iain, do you know why? Because I look like a Muslim. "

He said that when attacks like this happen, "particular people in the media" point that finger at Islam.

Iain agreed on that point and pointed out that he believes it "is completely wrong for people to brandish 3 million people in the same way as these terrorists".

Iain Dale continued: "The problem you have is that all the people who conduct these terror attacks, they say that they're doing it in the name of your religion.

"Now that that is not a problem for the state. That is a problem for adherence of your religion to counter."

Omar continued to push that it's about a broken prison system.

He concluded: "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys - and the system's doing that. They're trying to get handyman to cover all things."