No Jokes, Please, We’re Multiculturalhttp://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2867From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Wed, 2008-01-16 09:58
A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 15 January 2008
A police officer has been forced into resigning after he gave a Muslim colleague a pack of bacon and a bottle of wine as a joke present during a Christmas Day party. [...] Even though the Muslim officer did not complain and thought the present funny, senior officers in the Bedfordshire force were not amused. [...]
Bedfordshire Police said: “Although this matter was intended as a joke between officers, Bedfordshire Police takes seriously its obligations as an organisation which not only serves, but employs, a diverse range of staff from the county's wide mix of backgrounds. Behaviour of this nature is not tolerated by Bedfordshire Police and after the incident was brought to the attention of senior managers, the officer concerned chose to resign with immediate effect. His decision is welcomed by the force.”
A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 2008
A former presenter of [the BBC television series] One Man and His Dog has won £2,000 in compensation after being wrongly arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred.
Robin Page was arrested after making an allegedly racist remark at a country fair in 2002. [...] His opening remark was: “If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.” No one present expressed any concerns at the time but a letter of complaint was later received by police, and another person wrote to say he disagreed with the remarks made.
He was arrested the next month, and a further five months later was contacted at his farm in Cambridgeshire and asked by two officers from Gloucestershire to attend an interview at a police station. At the station he declined to answer questions without a lawyer and was arrested. He was put in a cell and told that he would have to stay overnight if he wished to wait for his solicitor, but after 40 minutes agreed to be interviewed without legal representation.
Mr Page said: “I was told I had committed a ‘hate crime’, interviewed under caution and given police bail.” [...] Mr Page was also astonished to discover that his name was put on a “Homo-phobic Incidents Register”.
He also took exception to an internal email from the arresting officer – after requesting a change of bail renewal date to allow him to go on a journalistic trip to Kenya, the sergeant wrote: “Let’s hope he gets eaten by a crocodile.”
Topic: No Jokes, Please, We’re Multicultural (Read 1947 times)