Police said that the attack began at 21:58 BST on Saturday when a van drove on to London Bridge from the north side.
It mounted the pavement and hit several people, before crashing near the Barrowboy and Banker pub at the southern end of the bridge.
Three men got out, armed with knives, and ran the short distance to Borough Market where they stabbed several people.
[. . .]
Two of the attackers were named by police as Khuram Shazad Butt, a 27-year-old British citizen, born in Pakistan, and 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, who had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan – and also used the name Rachid Elkhdar.
Both attackers lived in Barking, east London. [BBC, 6/5/17]
Right-wing media responded by calling for the internment of Muslims
Fox contributor Nigel Farage: “If there is not action, then the calls for internment will grow.” On “Fox & Friends Sunday”, Fox contributor and former U.K. Independent Party leader Nigel Farage floated internment camps for Muslims, saying, that “unless we see the government getting tough, you will see public calls for those 3,000 [terror watch list suspects] to be arrested.” Farage added, “if there is not action, then the calls for internment will grow”:
ABBY HUNTSMAN (CO-HOST): Nigel, you have the pulse of the people. You were behind the Brexit movement before anyone really knew that that was actually going to happen. We’ve got these big elections in the U.K. this week. What is the mood? What is the sense where you are of the people in the U.K. about this threat of terror? [Do] they feel like where they are they have a handle on it?
NIGEL FARAGE: We are as a people very slow to anger. We are remarkably tolerant of things. But I do think, bear in mind this is now the third terrorist incident that has happened in my country in the spate of as many months. And the mood that I get now is we want some real action. We don’t just want speeches given outside number 10 Downing Street. We want genuine action. And if there is not action, then the calls for internment will grow. We have over 3,000 people on a sort of known terrorist list, and we’re watching and monitoring their activities, but a further 20,000 people who are persons of interest, mainly they’re linked in some way to extremist organizations. Unless we see the government getting tough, you will see public calls for those 3,000 to be arrested. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure that that is the right approach, because the big danger with that is we might alienate decent, fair-minded Muslims in Britain.
HEGSETH: Of course. Calls for internment —
FARAGE: But whatever happens, we do need action.
HEGSETH: — would be strong talk. [Media Matters, 6/4/17]
Conservative columnist Katie Hopkins: “We do need internment camps.” Daily Mail columnist and Fox News regular Katie Hopkins reiterated Farage’s remarks about internment earlier on “Fox & Friends Sunday” and went further, saying that the U.K. “need[s] start incarcerating, deporting, repeating until we clean this country up” and that “we do need internment camps.” From the June 4 edition of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends Sunday”:
CLAYTON MORRIS (CO-HOST): How do you think her speech resonated? Do you think it hit the mark, or did it miss?
KATIE HOPKINS: It missed the mark. I mean, we were relieved, I think, I was relieved that she didn’t come out and say the stuff that our London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been saying.
[. . .]
HOPKINS: At least Theresa May came out and said “enough is enough.” What she hasn’t done, what she didn’t do, is tell us what we need to hear. And that is that things are going to change completely. That tomorrow, 3,000 people on the watchlist are going to be rounded up. We need to hear that 650 jihadis that returned to the U.K. are going to be incarcerated and deported. And we need to hear that Saudi-backed mosques and extreme hate preachers and imams within those mosques are also going to be shut down and deported. That’s what regular British people want to hear, what I want to hear. And it is not enough to say we will win against terror, because if this is terror losing, then victory is meaningless because this is horrible.
[. . .]
MORRIS: Talk about the nuts and bolts of this. Nigel Farage on the show a short time ago bringing up the word “internment,” bringing up the specter here in the United States of internment camps — Japanese internment camps. You’re mentioning deportation and rounding up and mass incarceration. What would that look like? Do you think that Theresa May, do you think that the British government would actually do that?
HOPKINS: I don’t think they’ve got the stomach to do that. I don’t think they’ve got the political will to do that. I also see how they pander still relentlessly to these preachers who are on the wrong side of this argument. People who are against the prevent strategy for counterterrorism. People like Cage to speak out always in defense of Islam and how great it is. Islamic preachers who speak out about the fact that what we need to be worried about is Islamophobia. We’re not worried about that. We do need internment camps. Before, I would’ve bought the idea that, no, this gets more people radicalized. You know, that’s not the solution. But we’ve gone beyond the tipping point. I tell you this country cannot take another attack. [Media Matters, 6/4/17]
Radio host Michael Savage called to “intern all of them,” and suggested “World War II-style internment camps” to stop terrorism. Right-wing radio host and Trump ally Michael Savage echoed Nigel Farage’s call to establish internment camps, noting “I said the same thing a few weeks ago.” Savage also asked, “Why don’t you intern all of them before they run people over on a bridge” and “How do we know that the internment in World War II didn’t help us win the war?”:
Well, what is the answer? Well, one London politician, one politician from England said we have to put them in camps immediately, and of course CNN wouldn’t go for that. British politician says suspected terrorists should be put in camps. Now that will get all of the good liberals in New York very frightened. Nigel Farage, the former UK Independence Party leader, UKIP, said “Britain has been so weak on border control and clamping down on radicalization that World War II-style internment camps may be the answer.” I said the same thing a few weeks ago.
[. . .]
What needs to be done to stop Islamists who are on the watchlist in America right now. We were told there were over 1,000 active cases, that was a few months ago when the FBI was run by what’s his name again, I forgot. The guy who is no longer there, I forgot his name already, Mr. Comey, Mr. Comey. He said he had 1,000 active cases, or DHS did. What does that mean, 1,000 of them are on the list, or there’s more than 1,000? Why don’t you intern all of them before they run people over on a bridge, or stab people in the street? It was done during World War II.
[. . .]
How do we know that the internment in World War II didn’t help us win the war? [Media Matters, 6/5/17]
Breitbart London editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam: “This situation requires more. Detention. Internment. Deportations.”
Sunday World columnist: Internment camps are “the only way to stop these senseless attacks.” Sunday World columnist Vogue Williams wrote that “Internment camps are grim necessity” following the attacks:
In her column, she said: “Powers to ban British jihadis from returning to the UK have been used for the first time and I fully agree with that.”
“Anyone who leaves Britain and Ireland to fight alongside ISIS can stay out. I don’t care what age or what their circumstances are.”
She then outlined another approach that’s been suggested by Muslim former police chief Tarique Ghaffur. He proposed creating internment camps for radical extremists.
She said “This is something that should be decided by the people, but I certainly agree with it” reasoning that “the only way to stop these senseless attacks is to put any potential threats away.” [News Talk, 6/5/17]
Original Article
Source: salon.com
Author: Madeline Peltz, Media Matters
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