Britain is now a more dangerous place because of America’s actions and its complicity in those wars. It is now beyond doubt that the Iraq war played a part in the bombing and failed bombing in London last month. Al-Qaeda has also warned of further attacks on London because of Blair’s foreign policy decisions<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->. How Blair and the Labour government respond to these attacks will have a bearing on our future. Whether we live at war or in peace.

But it is not just politicians who have a position of responsibility. It is the press too. Their actions can have serious impacts. Since the London attacks there have been calls on the press to show restraint, in either attacking suspects of the bombing or the wider Muslim population.

“Initial restraint in the media following the London bombings has given way to more frenzied coverage as the police investigation continues”, argues Mike Jempson, from Media Wise, a charity that monitors the behaviour of the British press. In the frenzied weeks since the bombing, certain safeguards of our society have been undermined.

One is the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. Headlines have appeared in British newspapers such as “Got the Bastards” and “Our brave police catch ALL the cowardly suicide bombers”. One paper even asked how did one of the men allegedly involved “become a cold-blooded bomber?” When the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was wrongly shot dead by British police in the belief he was a suicide bomber, some papers wrote “Bomber shot” and “One down, three to go”. It is unacceptable for the innocent to be murdered. It is equally unacceptable for the innocent to become guilty at the brush of a pen.

The pictures of the alleged bomb suspects have stared out at millions of readers. This worries Liberty, the human rights organisation, that has warned of a “a real danger that the constant association of these faces with commentary relating to criminal charges, or indeed the general terror threat, would help foster an assumption of guilt in the fairest juror<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->”. Others are concerned too: “We do not know that the police have got the right people until the evidence is put before the court”, argues the human rights lawyer Louise Christian<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->.

There are those in the right-wing press that have already convicted those they do not like. Melanie Phillips’ is a well-known columnist for the Daily Mail. Phillips condemned the “the shambles of our immigration and asylum system” for the July 7^th bombings.

Others have followed suit: The Daily Express ran a full-page headline on the 27 July, entitled “Bombers are all spongeing [sic] asylum-seekers -­ Britain gave them refuge and how all they want is to repay us with death”. Next to the headline was a picture of one of the faces of the alleged bombers with a ring around his face.

It is not surprising that this headline caused outrage. “We are dismayed at the shameful way that some sections of the press have used the background of the most recent suspects, who arrived in the UK as asylum seekers, to attack the very idea of asylum and to smear refugee communities,” responded the charity Refugee Action. They warned that “We must be careful not to fuel prejudice against this already vulnerable group”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->.

The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting also highlighted the “repeated failure to put the words ‘alleged’ or ‘suspected’ before each and every use of the words ‘bomber’ and ‘killer’”. The campaign concluded that “the Express, like nearly every other newspaper in Britain, is committing a gross inaccuracy by simply ignoring the plain fact that, under British law, suspects are innocent until proven guilty”.

António Guterres, the new head of the UNHCR has also condemned the attacks on asylum seekers. “Nothing can justify terrorism,” he says. “But we will only be able to defeat terror if we stick to our values, namely to democracy and the promotion of human rights. The institution of asylum is an essential part of democracy and of the protection of human rights. Refugees are not terrorists. Refugees are many times the first victims of terror”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->.

It is not just the right-wing press who have caused outrage. Gerald Howarth, a Defence spokesman for the Conservative Party, was condemned for calling on extremist Muslims to leave Britain. “There can be no compromise with these people,” he said. “If they don't like our way of life, there is a simple remedy - go to another country, get out<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><!--[endif]-->.”

It was the Conservatives who used asylum and immigration as a dangerous tactic in the run up to the General Election in May this year. They used these vulnerable groups of people to spread fear and loathing. Ten days before that election I wrote that “the end result of victimising immigrants, asylum-seekers and gypsies is that Britain will become a more introverted xenophobic nation, which treats foreigners with mistrust and disdain. The more we try and close our borders, the more we close our minds. What was once unacceptable will become acceptable. Racist language will flourish. So will racial hatred and violence. And if we use violence against them, expect them to use violence against us. And a spiral of hatred will begin”.

 The article pointed out that the more you demonise someone the more likely it will be that they are attacked. Since then, Kirtsen Hearn, Chair of the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board of the Metropolitan Police Authority, has admitted that: “When negative stories appear in the media, more [racist] attacks occur”.

The spiral of racist violence and hatred has now started. The Metropolitan Police has reported how “faith-hate” crimes had risen by some 600 per cent in the days after the suicide bombings. A survey by the Independent newspaper found that large Police forces such as those in West Yorkshire and the West Midlands, had also witnessed a “significant increase in race-hate crime.” 

“The biggest rises were in forces with urban areas with large ethnic minority populations” said the Independent. Experts told the newspaper that as many as one in six of those attacked were not Muslim but were simply of an Asian appearance<!--[endif]-->.

In Scotland, the level of racist attacks also rose. The Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland said 64 incidents – or some 15 per cent of those recorded - could be directly linked to the London attacks “because of what was said or written” at the time of the suicide bombings.

Those of us who work in journalism have to be responsible for our actions. The written word is one of the most powerful weapons we have against violence and against terrorism. Just as it can spread peace, it can also breed violence. If we demonise those we do not understand for crimes they did not commit, we will breed more hatred and violence against us. For in many ways, words are like war. We know war only breeds more violence, but we still go to war. We know that words can also spread hated and intolerance, if we abuse the power of the pen. We know these things, yet still we do them. It is as if we are blind to the consequences of our actions.<!--[endif]-->