BRITAIN once again stands frightened by the prospect of terrorist attacks. A group of misguided individuals commit themselves to mindless acts of carnage and violence. It is right that our government and people condemned such acts of outrage with utmost disgust.

Praise, therefore, is due to those who responded so well to the threats. Praise, indeed, to our security forces, political leadership and emergency response teams throughout the UK. I note particularly the statements by Alex Salmond and Jacqui Smith, both of which emphasised the need to remain united. Alex Salmond's reassurance to the Muslim community is particularly noted with a sigh of relief and gratefulness.

Having praised our security forces and our politicians, it is fair for us to pick on those who deliberately use events like this to further their own narrow interests. One such quarter is, of course, our media. As always, I note that the media once again failed to be responsible, and continued with their outrageously biased and inflammatory tone. At a time when we need conciliation, and calm and measured coverage of events, the media uses words which can only increase the heat, causing enormous distress to so many innocent people.

Listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning, I felt very concerned for all those doctors from Asian countries, particularly for those from Jordan and Egypt. In fact, the questions were so outrageous that anyone listening to them would assume that the presenter of the program was convinced that doctors of Arab origin, in particular from Egypt and Jordan, were guilty of crimes and posed a serious threat to our national security. I wondered where the fine principle of criminal justice which says "innocent until proven guilty" was?

I wondered too about Radio 4's objectivity, respect for due process of law, and impartiality. I wondered how they would have reported this incident if it had taken place in a developing (preferably) Muslim country, and some westerners were to be arrested and reported in the same manner in Iranian National Press? I hear some mutter "well we cannot be compared with Iran," and that is where the problem lies.

Terrorism is a threat to us all, it has the potential to destabilise the entire world. The terrorists seek to create confusion, chaos and suspicion between communities and citizens to destroy the normality of our daily lives. Through creating division and suspicion they seek to fracture our social fabric, which in turn will give rise to panic and anger. Anger and panic will lead to desperate acts, which in turn will lead to backlash and instability, thus

bringing an end to a harmonious way of life. This way the terrorists will eventually achieve their objective, which is to destroy our society in which people of all faiths, races and nationalities flourish side by side in mutual cooperation, respect and trust. The media, and for that matter all those who act irresponsibly, forget the fundamental values of our society, and let their prejudice, emotion and hatred lead their judgements, only to play into the hands of the terrorists in furthering their objectives.

All those people who have been arrested on suspicion of involvement with these notorious attacks should be treated fairly; justice must follow its own course and give them their due. Presumption of their guilt not only violates the basic principle of our justice system, it also seriously threatens the prospect of them being treated fairly. Furthermore, assuming that they are wicked, hinting that all the people of similar ethnic and religious origin are a threat to national security will only help to create mistrust, anger, and resentment, and provide reasons for many to be convinced that society and social institutions were biased against people of a specific religious affiliation. In addition, not letting justice take its own course indirectly implies that our justice system is incapable of coping with the new environment, which, of course, is not the case.

In conclusion, let me just add one more thing. The discussion of

increasing the power of the police, and giving them more time to detain without charge is unhelpful. I applaud Brown's reluctance to rush new legislation, and hope that commonsense will prevail. There is nothing to suggest that any of the terrorist attacks could have been prevented by longer detention without charge, nor does it follow commonsense. The culture of detention without charges fuels anger and resentment, it makes more innocent people victims of bias and abuse of power by our security forces. Extremely low rate of prosecution, and even less success in conviction, and the mistakes of Forest Gate, Charles De Menezes are enough to highlight the need for restraint in bringing about new draconian measures.

Many citizens of this country concur with me in finding a comparison between some of our harshest laws brought about in response to these terrorist threats with those that existed in places like apartheid South Africa. No one would agree that those laws were effective in keeping the "ANC terrorists" away from realising their dreams, it only helped those activists to strengthen their resolve. We need to be able to stand confident, and trust our people of all colours, nationalities and faiths. Let us not play into the hands of the terrorists, and let our precious freedom, forwhich so many of our previous generations fought and so many of our fellow humans continue to struggle in many parts of the world, prevail.

The author is a freelance writer, educator and broadcaster in the UK.