Sir – Imam Monawar Hussain (Report, May 16) is quite right to state that all ethnicities are capable of committing crimes of comparable depravity to those committed by the Muslim men convicted as part of the child sex gang in Oxford.
However, there is conspicuous silence regarding the well-voiced attitudes towards western girls which automatically link race with this particular crime. We frequently hear that western girls’ mode of dress is considered immodest by young Muslim men, and an invitation to treat women like sexual commodities.
It is precisely at times such as these that the leaders of the Islamic community in the UK should grab the opportunity to condemn those Islamic attitudes which might incite such abhorrent crimes and which are totally incompatible with the civilised western society they have chosen to make home.
They miss these opportunities over and over again and we shall no doubt again be deafened by the crashing silence surrounding the killing in Woolwich. Emma Berrecloth-Bale, Kirtlington
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