‘Disabled Iranian killed over UK police racism, negligence’

A London-based social analyst says the disabled Iranian national Bijan Ebrahimi, who was killed in Bristol in 2013, basically fell prey to the UK police racism and negligence.

Adam Hurst has told Press TV’s UK Desk that “the British police, because they are inherently racist and they base the victims on stereotypes, they regard people as not being honest about the claims made against them. So, despite the overwhelming evidence, claims and complaints by Mr. Ebrahimi, the police did nothing purely because they were racist and that means that because of Mr. Ebrahimi’s race they disregarded his claims as being dishonest.”

His comments come as at least 16 British police officers have been charged with offences linked to the violent murder of Ebrahimi who was beaten up and burned in a neighbor in the Brislington area by at least a couple of key suspects.

Now Hurst, who demanded not to have his photo on the interview over security reasons, believes that police “practice this technique of racial profiling… in order to make sure that police resources are not wasted. Obviously the government has made cuts to police and healthcare, so police are under pressure to make sure they don’t waste their time on what they believe are false claims.”

This is while three police officers and a community support officer from Avon and Somerset police face a criminal trial next year for misconduct in public office over Ebrahimi’s killing.

Twelve others face disciplinary hearings in what is thought to be the largest number of police officers and staff facing sanction from a single incident investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Social analyst Hurst says: “Mr. Ebrahimi, he was not just an immigrant, he was also Iranian, maybe they believed he was most likely Muslim. There was a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment in the police and also in the society in general. So, the fact that it was negligent was actually a secondary issue; the primary issue was that they were racist. They secondary issue is we have reports that one police officer had a pot of noodles; he did not want to his noodles to cool down; that’s why he wasn’t answering Mr. Ebrahimi’s calls. It wasn’t because he believed that Mr. Ebrahimi was lying, he went to the point where he did not want to his launch to get cold.

Ebrahimi had repeatedly complained of bullying at his Bristol home, but was arrested after he was wrongly accused of being a paedophile after he started filming neighbours’ anti-social behaviour to bolster his case for a move.