UK, French, German & Belgian police have worrying extremism levels

By Al Mayadeen Net
Source: Agencies
11 Jul 2022 12:21
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Growing far-right attitudes and behaviors in western Europe should be a wake-up to call to a fascist endpoint.

European police violence

According to a report by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), police forces in the UK and across Europe are suffering from an expanding "culture of extremism," as more officers from the establishments share racist and far-right content onto their pages.

The problem, according to the institute, is that UK policing has a growing extremist problem. For instance, in France, 81% of gendarmes said they would vote for a far-right politician like Marine Le Pen.

Former French, German, Belgian, and Hungarian high-ranking police officers have also become extreme-right mayoral and parliamentary candidates.

British police officers' behaviors have raised concerns that they are "institutionally racist." One group of officers were sharing images on WhatsApp of two murdered black sisters, while another group of officers at the central London station were joking about rape, killing black children and beating their wives.

Last month, the Metropolitan police was placed on special measures after scandals that included Sarah Everard, who was murdered by a Met officer, in addition to strip-searching innocent black children, and the stop-and-searching of British Olympic sprinter Bianca Williams.

Liz Fekete, director of IRR, said: “Our conclusion that the dehumanizing mindset and overall sense of impunity and entitlement displayed in police WhatsApp groups is a symptom, not a cause, of authoritarian trends in policing, will no doubt make for uncomfortable reading.”

Fekete added: “Racism has become entrenched in policing as the rank and file are resituating themselves as society’s victims and organizing on an ever more extremist agenda.”

Many avatars and hashtags on Twitter are seen to have the "thin blue line" across the British flag and they are seen on police officers' uniforms in Manchester - the line is associated with the US' "blue lives matter" movement, or White nationalism.

Furthermore, the report warns of a link between racist attitudes and operational practice, in relation to predictive policing and racial profiling. For instance, last December, concerns were raised about Operation Pima conducted by the Met, where the intelligence reports showed that 61% of the individuals mentioned to be the "most prolific or violent offenders" were black.

Amnesty International's Ilyas Nagdee said the research was of importance and could be used to look into “alternative approaches to public safety.”

Systemic violence on Europe's borders

Last month, what seemed like an "unfortunate event" on the Morocco-Melilla border was, thanks to videos circulated by the media, a massacre that brutally killed 37 mostly-African refugees coming from Chad, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan. Over 150 were injured in the violence, which included charges and beatings by security forces coming from both the Spanish and the Moroccan sides.

The scene at the border is hardly representative of Spain's and Europe's "democratic" values. After refugees, fleeing wars that have no end in Africa, climbed fences that erect 6 to 10 meters high, they were beaten up violently by Spanish police, that worked in close coordination with the Moroccan authorities, calling them in illegally.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez articulated his full support for the border guards' actions, demonizing the refugees as attackers against the "territorial integirty" of Spain.

Europe’s imperialist viewpoint of the world comes as no surprise – the increasing militarization and systemic brutality of the continent’s armies are resurrecting grounds for fascist violence on its borders as well as its neo-colonies.

More alive than ever today, European fascism (even through the self-proclaimed leftist presidents) is waging a war on the east, their armies in the process of deploying the most brutal forms of repression against those standing in their way of imperial conquest.

Europe has been taking on an anti-refugee concept – rigid and violence. Last winter, Poland left refugees to freeze to death in the forests on its border. In 2019, Italy’s Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, called on the EU to suspend all naval rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, which left thousands of people to drown. “Progressive” Finland, with its application to join NATO, declared its intention to begin constructing barriers along its border with Russia to guard against any refugees being used as “hybrid warfare” by Russia.