Press Release
New Security Packages in the European States
Announces their Transformation into Police States
(Translated)

All of the European states today are talking about security packages and putting in place new plans for combatting what they have called “terrorism”. As such, these states will see new security measures including the imposition of intensified monitoring over a large number of Muslims and institutions, the expansion of the jurisdiction and powers to eavesdrop (spy) and make arrests by the police department and intelligence. These measures, which have been called new, are not in reality new. That is because these states have already intensified the monitoring of Muslims and provided the police and intelligence with wide sweeping powers. However, what is new is the authoritarian, repressive and over controlling air that portrays the Muslims, as a whole, as enemies of the society that must be controlled and their harm prevented! The truth then is that the measures in themselves are not new but their repressive sharpness and harshness are new.

It appears that the European politicians have become overcome by arrogance and haughtiness, and conceit dominates them. They have raised the level of their policies in respect to dealing with the Muslims and their issues – local and international – to a holy rank that prevents any scrutiny, criticism, revision or change in respect to them. In their perspective: The truth and all the truth is on their side and the error, all of the error is on the side of the Muslims. Therefore, those politicians don’t give any regard to the past or the present, and they do not think about or ponder upon the effectiveness of their intensified security measures in spite of its complete failure. Since the events of September 11, 2001 Europeans have been deliberating security, increasing surveillance, widening police powers and repressing the Muslim community. How many Imams have been expelled, how many Masjids locked, how many schools closed, how many listening devices have been planted, how many Muslims, male and female, have been arrested, imprisoned and deported, and how many repressive laws have been made? So what then has the result of this policy been? The result has been failure by the admission of the politicians and the evidence is the ongoing events or incidents, and the talk about new security packages once again.

These new repressive security measures that the European states are resolved to take will never solve or treat the problem; they will never improve the relations between the Muslims and non-Muslims and they will never bring security. That is because repression generates pressure that in turn generates an explosion. Therefore, these measures are then no more than the announcement of the transformation of the European states into police states that forbid any opposition to the system within them, whether that opposition is political or intellectual, whilst the Muslim community is repressed within them under the pretext and argument of combatting terrorism.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in The Netherlands