As national policing lead for preventing extremism, I read with concern your article (More police forces ask who bought Charlie Hebdo, 11 February) suggesting that police had tried to monitor sales of the magazine. This was never our intention.
Following the attacks in Paris, there has been an increase in incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Officers have been actively monitoring possible sources of tension and investigating reports of hate crimes.
Forces were aware of the potential for heightened tension with the release of Charlie Hebdo and many neighbourhood police officers, who are well known in their communities, may have opted to visit sellers to establish any concerns and provide reassurance. It is through work such as this that we learn more about people’s worries and can help to solve problems.
Unfortunately, there will always be groups and individuals who try to exploit situations to spread hatred and division. There were people who posted copies of this magazine to mosques just to cause offence.
However, it is important that we do not erode the very freedoms that we are trying to protect. I understand why asking for the names of those who might have bought this magazine will appear overzealous and unnecessary. There was no national guidance to this effect and it is not to be supported unless there is clear evidence that a crime has been committed.
Chief Constable Peter Fahy
National policing lead for Prevent, Association of Chief Police Officers
• I have bought the Guardian almost every day for 50 years, but would leave you over your Charlie Hebdo badge offer (7 February) if I had anywhere else to go. The free speech I value is the freedom enjoyed by my Muslim neighbour and my atheist self to express our own beliefs, and our considered responses to each other’s beliefs, without being murdered, arrested or spat on. Publication of mocking or obscene images of others’ sacred objects appears to me to be a form of graphic spitting, less about free speech – there are other ways to advance a legitimate argument – than about exhibiting contempt, advertising one’s cleverness, and selling magazines. To be murdered for such behaviour is tragic and undeserved, but does not make one a martyr in a sacred cause. Je ne suis pas Charlie.
Ruth Brown
Plymouth
