RAMADAN: high-profile academic says 'only the most passionate' are heard


Muslim lawyers have a pivotal role to play in protecting legal rights for all citizens and fighting extremism, leading Muslim academic and theologian Professor Tariq Ramadan told members of the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) last weekend.



Addressing the AML annual awards dinner in Chancery Lane, he urged attendees to speak out more often and offer 'rational voices' to the debate about the erosion of legal rights - such as plans to increase the period terror suspects can be held without charge from 28 to 56 days or even longer - in the face of the terror threat in the UK.



'Justice is justice for all. This discourse is needed in this society... Who can help us more than the lawyers? We want you to talk more. Sometimes only the most passionate voices are heard... and we need to listen to rational voices. You are the people who can do this job,' Professor Ramadan said.



He added that UK Muslims could not solely blame the media or the government for their 'negative image'. 'At one point, we have to come back to ourselves and ask what we can do... you need to say "I am with my community when it is right and I will be with you when you are wrong, by stopping you",' he said.



However, he cautioned that while Muslims should not be 'blindly loyal' to fellow Muslims, they should be 'critically loyal' to the government and 'must be able to say when it is wrong'.



l Law Society President Andrew Holroyd presented the following awards at the dinner: Khurshid Drabu, senior immigration judge at the Asylum & Immigration Tribunal and legal adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain (lifetime achievement); Imran Khan, Imran Khan & Partners (human rights lawyer); Saira Kabir Sheikh, planning barrister at Francis Taylor Chambers (young lawyer); and Shami Chakrabarti, barrister and director of civil liberties group Liberty (female lawyer).



Anita Rice