Extracts from CI Khan’s address

Chief Inspector Umer Khan thanked the Jewish Representative Council for the opportunity to address the Annual General Meeting.

“I am proud to be a police officer working in Greater Manchester and proud to be a Muslim. We all need to respect each other’s religions.

I get very disheartened and sad to see what is happening around the world and I worry what is humanity coming to with all this destruction and loss of lives.

Sadly, what is happening in other parts of the world is now coming to impact on the streets of our local communities where we like to think there is supposed to be peace, harmony, respect and tolerance. Over the last few years I have seen an increase in tensions between different communities and there have been massive increases in hate crime and people are showing more and more hatred towards one another including an increase in antisemitism with Jewish communities being targeted just because they are Jewish. I have also seen an increase against Muslim communities and this is not acceptable. Regardless of whether you are a Muslim, Jew, Christian or a non-faith person, everybody should have the right to live their lives in peace and harmony according to their wishes.

So how do we tackle these challenges? How do we work together? Each and everyone of us have the responsibility to tackle these issues and challenges we are facing. Over the last year or so it has become very evident in Greater Manchester that the only way we can move forward is by our communities coming together and putting our pride aside and the process of change will slowly take place.

The initiative that we have in Greater Manchester is the “We Stand Together” campaign which is all about celebrating our difference, making a stance against hatred and towards building safer and stronger communities so that our families can realise their dreams.

Although some people might think that what we are doing is very minuscule and will not make a massive difference but we need to do the very best that we can. We will find that we have far more in common than we are different.”