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Under a cloud: everywhere in the Western world Muslims are under suspicion because of the terrorist attacks carried out against Western targets in the name of Islam.

Article Excerpt
Police and security people are edgy. In May 2006, 250 law enforcement officials swooped on a house in London, England. They had a tip that two brothers, both Muslims, were making a "chemical device." One of the brothers took a bullet in the chest during the raid, but a week later both were released without charge. The police said "Sorry. It was a mistake."

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair then pointed out, "If the police and the security agencies had failed to act on the intelligence they received, then people would quite rightly have been critical."

A few days later, 17 Muslims were rounded up in and around Toronto on suspicion of being involved in an alleged terror plot. Since those Toronto arrests, many of the people in custody have been tried and found guilty--by the media.

The young men have been routinely referred to as "homegrown terrorists," though no evidence against them has so far (late summer 2006) been tested in court. Relatives have been interviewed by the media and their comments sifted for "evidence" the accused are Muslim extremists.

Christie Blatchford wrote in The Globe and Mail that, "The accused men are mostly young and mostly bearded in the Taliban fashion. They have first names like Mohamed, middle names like Mohamed, and last names like Mohamed."

This drew angry complaints about racial stereotyping.

Then, up popped Mubin Shaikh. A devout Muslim, he went public with the news that he was paid by police to infiltrate the group of young men who were later arrested. The media gobbled Mubin Shaikh up. Front page treatment, an "exclusive" interview on CBC's The Fifth Estate. The story he told was that the Toronto 17 were up to something bad....

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