A UK police force has used the “Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Day” to issue threats against Twitter users for “Islamaphobic” [sic] abuse.
The news comes as Breitbart London can reveal the Surrey Police have conducted no arrests for the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the last 12 months, and no FGM-related arrests have led to convictions.
On Monday the police issued a tweet stating: “Tomorrow is International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM. FGM is hugely under-reported and children are often fearful to report a crime committed by their family or community. Find your voice, let girls be girls and help fight against FGM #EndFGM“.
On Tuesday they followed up with: “We’re saddened that a few people have taken this post as an opportunity to respond by posting Islamaphobic [sic] abuse. Please be aware that such responses are being reported to Twitter and will be passed onto our intelligence teams.”
When asked what International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM entailed, Surrey Police told Breitbart London: “It is an international day of awareness. Therefore we have undertaken communications and activities to promote awareness, information, updates and training to both our staff and officers, and the communities within Surrey.”
They also admitted to taking no actual action (i.e. arrests) on the day.
When asked why they were threatening Twitter users, the force detailed: “We have and will report those whose tweets either contravenes Twitter’s policies – for example those regarding hateful imagery (Defining hateful imagery as “logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin) and/or meets the CPS definition as a hate crime.”
When asked what constituted the “intelligence teams” they cited in their tweets, they told Breitbart London: “Our Intelligence Department handles and processes all intelligence provided to us by the public, officers, partner agencies and other organisations. It is utilised to aid investigations and policing responses to crime in the county.”
The additional work for Surrey Police officers in helping to enforce Twitter’s policies comes at a time when police forces around the nation are complaining about budget cuts.
In 2015, Mike Dodds, chairman of the Surrey Police Federation, told local papers: “As the chief constable has been saying publicly, the force will need to decide what we will stop doing [due to budget cuts].
“The government is taking a massive gamble that you can take another large chunk of money out of policing and not suffer any detriment… I fear for the future of policing and I am nervous about the level of service we can provide to the people of Surrey.”
There is a new report of FGM every 109 minutes in England alone, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control recently revealed that up to 500,000 girls have suffered or could be at risk of genital mutilation in the United States.
Oliver Lane contributed to this report
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