UK Indymedia | Big Issue Magazine Seller Calls Police to Arrest Young Muslim Girl

Big Issue Magazine Seller Calls Police to Arrest Young Muslim Girl

A young Muslim girl was arrested by police outside Sainsburys in Ladbroke Grove at noon on 27 April after being accused of illegally selling the Big Issue magazine on private property and "stealing money" from another Big Issue seller.

The man who claimed to be the "official" Big Issue seller at Sainsburys told the police that the girl was not legally entitled to be selling the Big Issue near his pitch and that she was stealing money from him.
Passing customers who asked the police about the freedom of the press in Britain and the laws allowing people to sell newspapers on the streets were ordered to "move on".

The Big Issue seller told the police the Muslim girl was involved with a criminal gang illegally selling the magazine on the streets of London.
The girl was in tears and claimed to speak no English as the police tried to question her.
"You do speak English and if you don't answer my questions I will take you to the police station and question you there until you do answer my questions," one of the police officers told the girl.

"These people are doing this all over London," the officer said.
"This money that I have taken off her has been stolen from the official Big Issue seller. She will be in big trouble with her family because she will be going home without any money today."

Asked if this dispute was a civil matter rather than a criminal one the officer replied: "No, this girl is only a child and she is being forced to do this against her will and it is illegal for her to be selling the Big Issue here."
Then he dragged the crying girl into the police car (number plate BX 56WMY) without formally arresting her or reading her rights to her.

The "official" Big Issue seller (badge number 1045) then went back to his pitch outside the entrance to Sainsburys at Ladbroke Grove with a look of quiet satisfaction on his face at his new found power to get the police to remove his young Muslim rival on his unproven accusations.
Passersby who witnessed the confrontation at Sainburys Ladroke Grove said that it looked as if the police had stolen the girl's money and then assaulted her when they dragged her into the police car without the usual legal arrest procedure.

Local residents at Ladbroke Grove said they will tell all the customers at Sainsburys what occurred and attempt to have Big Issue seller number 1045 banned from ever selling the magazine in the area again.
"This sort of thing should not be happening in our country," one said.
BBC London said they would investigate a complaint that young Muslim teenagers were being hounded and arrested by the police on the orders of Big Issue sellers claiming that their earnings were being stolen from them by immigrants and refugees.

Additions

It is not right

27.04.2007 14:08

My report is an accurate account of what I personally witnessed only a few hours ago.
What I saw is not right and there is obviously something very wrong going on.
There appears to be a direct connection between what is happening on the streets of London and what is happening in the Middle East.
Women and children seem to be the main victims of this global war between religions which is terrorising everyone for the benefit of the big corporations.
The sooner we all do something positive to help sort it out the better.
Thank you.

Jubal Harshaw
mail e-mail: earthaidcampaign@yahoo.co.uk

Where is the evidence?

27.04.2007 14:36

This girl did not look like a thief to me.
She looked like a frightened young Muslim woman being abused by a lot of large unpleasant white men who treated her as if she had no rights at all and they could interrogate her and assault her without any fear of being challenged by anyone.
I was too cowardly to try to stop them myself and I left when the big issue seller started shouting at me and the police told me to go away.
If people like you are not prepared to stand up against injustice what hope has anyone got of fighting back against the governments and the corporations who are destroying the world?

Jubal Harshaw
mail e-mail: earthaidcampaign@yahoo.co.uk

It's all my fault

27.04.2007 15:21

She looked to me as if she was about 21 years old, but the police insisted she was a child who was being forced to sell the Big Issue and that her badge was a forgery.
The reason I referrred to her as a Muslim was because I had been hearing complaints for about a week that there was a Muslim woman selling the Big Issue without being legally entitled to do so, and because she appeared to be dressed like a Muslim.
My report was written very quickly and it seemed legitimate to present all the facts that I had at the time and to draw attention to what I considered to be deliberate racist abuse of a young woman.
I was shown no evidence that any crime had been committed by this young lady and I do not believe she deserved to be treated in this manner or that any of it was legal.
The police who were first at the scene ordered me to leave and I did so for a short time, but the police who made the arrest answered my questions and did not seem too bothered that I witnessed them taking the victim away without any of the usual legal formalities.
Unfortunately I did not film what I saw.
My own agenda is to lend support to the environmental movement in its struggle to stop global warming and save the human race from extinction.
In this particular case I blundered into something that was none of my business and next time I will look the other way and let the children get attacked by anyone who chooses to do so.
I am sorry I have caused you all so much grief with my biased report of a perfectly normal and legitimate assault by the police.
It is also my fault that nobody takes any notice of my warnings that the human race faces extinction this century as a result of rising temperatures and rising sea levels and that eveyone says I am mad for saying this.

Jubal Harshaw
mail e-mail: earthaidcampaign@yahoo.co.uk

Child Slavery in London Today?

27.04.2007 17:49

Thank you all for your response to my humble story about the way the police treated a young Muslim woman selling the Big Issue at Sainsburys in Ladbroke Grove today.
I accept that I was probably wrong to publish this story so quickly without making any further enquiries about the background to the situation, but I thought there was an urgency to reveal the fact that the police had suddenly dragged someone away for no appparent reason.
An apology from me to the Big Issue seller who called the police may well be in order, but I do feel that it may be a little too soon to accept the idea that any serious criminal offences have been committed by the young lady or her friends and family, but there may well be more to this than meets the eye.
On the surface a Big Issue seller displaying a badge appeared to me to be doing nothing illegal, and the way she was being treated was very familiar to me personally, having been many times attacked and dragged away screaming by the police for failing to obey them or treat them with respect.
I reacted immediately to what looked like a very nasty abuse of police powers, and initially all I was trying to do was to persuade the police that it was not illegal for a young person to sell newspapers in a public place in Britain.
The law says that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and all of these accusations being made here now are completely new to me and have not appeared anywhere else before as far as I am aware.
In this case there was no evidence shown to me by the Big Issue seller or by the police that the young lady was not old enough to sell the Big Issue or that she had not acquired them legitimately.
Certainly the few pounds that were taken off her by the police had not been stolen in the normal sense of the word since she had sold her magazines to get the money.
I will certainly apologise personally to the Big Issue seller for publishing this story about the consequences of his actions if and when I am convinced that his behaviour was legal and ethical and moral.
In my opinion young people and Muslim young people in particular should be treated with the same respect as everyone else, and the Human Rights Act and the Convention on the Rights of the Child should be observed at all times by everyone, and by the police in particular.
If there really are gangs of thieves in London stealing copies of the Big Issue to be sold on the streets by child slaves then we are looking at a major scandal that must be dealt with by a lot of media attention and the full weight of the law.
But if young Muslims are being singled out for harrassment and abuse just because other people and the police don't like the look of them and don't like what they do, then this is something that I think we should all be concerned about.
Surely we should all be encouraging them to take an active role in working for themselves and making a positive contribution to our society, and even selling the Big Issue if they want to?
Maybe Indymedia is not the right place to try to pursue these matters, but I have got into the habit of posting new stories here first because I believe that we are the right people to try to start new ideas and projects and campaigns to save future generations from their empty fate.
When I see the ever increasing abuse of Muslims on the streets of London by the police I connect it with what is happening in Iraq and Lebanon and the Palestinian occupied territories, and with the bogus American War on Terror, and I fear for the future of humanity.
Everyone says I am mad for saying that the human race is facing extinction soon from global warming or World War Three or both, and I am aware that I am possibly becoming more and more paranoid every day now.
I hope you will all forgive me for my hasty mistake in posting this unfortunate story today which appears to be obviously another of my delusional rambles of no importance or significance to anyone, and no doubt nothing but a nuisance to all concerned.
I have been working on a story about the way the banks and the big corporations and the telephone companies have all been working together to commit huge frauds and deceptions on the gullible public, but I wonder now if this is all just my imagination and I have succumbed to the fashionable trend of promoting conspiracy theories.
It is unlikely that I will publish it now that I have been so thoroughly reprimanded for my lack of professional journalistic ability.
In any event when I am completely convinced that the Big Issue seller was right to call the police on a young lady today for selling the Big Issue, and that I was wrong to try to interfere with the police in the execution of their duty and to publish the story here about what occurred, then I shall apologise sincerely to him personally.
If he has indeed uncovered and reported to the police an international network of crimes involving people smuggling and child slavery in Britain then he deserves to be honoured for his contribution to the cause of stamping out the most horrendous atrocity in modern times.
Thank you all for your interest.

Jubal Harshaw
mail e-mail: earthaidcampaign@yahoo.co.uk

Free the Child Slaves...

27.04.2007 20:47

My stories are not fake, they are just stories that nobody likes reading.
I write about how this is the hottest year in human history and the killer heatwave that is coming to Britain this summer, and about how children are being abused by governments and corporations fighting wars for oil and destroying the chances of survival for future generations.
I write about the 300 million child slaves in Third World countries who are locked up in prison factories making consumer goods for sale in Western department stores to pay off the fraudulent Third World debts.
This is the first time I have ever felt obliged to write about myself as a result of the stream of criticism from Indymedia readers.
I have spent most of my life squatting and have never been more than a few feet from the gutter where I used to live in my 40 foot coach that survived the Bean Field until someone set fire to it and burned all my video footage of the environmental protests and demos and all the rest of my possessions.
I don't know who I am more afraid of - the police or the anarchists who all see me as a legitimate target for their wrath.
The Big Issue seller at Sainsburys no longer says "Big Issue" to me when I walk past him, he just looks at me and I look at him, and I don't know what to say.
"Free the Child Slaves" maybe?
There was nothing spiteful about my intentions today, but maybe it was all just a big misunderstanding between people who may well have far more in common than they realised.
Who the real scum of the Earth really are is yet to be determined but it is to be hoped that we find out sooner rather than later.
Thank you once again and farewell, for this will be the last time you will ever hear from me.

Jubal Harshaw
mail e-mail: earthaidcampaign@yahoo.co.uk

Indymedia's murky depths

27.04.2007 20:55

"I don't know who I am more afraid of - the police or the anarchists who all see me as a legitimate target for their wrath."

Unforunately some ugly things live in the depths of the Indymedia comments section - I'd be surprised if those comments were by more than 3 people - and I'd be even more surprised if one of them was an anarchist.

Sadly - anonymous posting means that you can't take the comments very seriously.

karen elliott

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Big Issue Magazine Seller Calls Police to Arrest Young Muslim Girl

Additions

It is not right

Where is the evidence?

It's all my fault

Child Slavery in London Today?

Free the Child Slaves...

Indymedia's murky depths

Comments

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London Topics

London IMC

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