Monday March 31 2008 
Number of Muslims ahead of Catholics, says Vatican
Tom Kington, Guardian
The number of Muslims has overtaken that of Roman Catholics for the first time, the Vatican said yesterday. Muslims account for 19.2% of the world's population, while Catholics make up 17.4%, according to the Vatican's new statistics yearbook, which is based on figures for 2006. The Vatican data showed that Christians as a whole, including Orthodox and Protestant groups as well as Catholics, made up 33% of the world's population. (See also The Mail; Mere Islam: We're Number 1)

Less Cookson, more Ali: Tyneside town finds hidden Muslim history
Mark Brown, The Guardian
If you were asked where Muhammad Ali got married; or where the first settled Muslim community in Britain had its roots; or where Iraqi bargemen were based while protecting Roman land in England, your answer would probably not be South Shields.
The Tyneside town has preferred to market itself as Catherine Cookson country, birthplace of Britain's most widely-read novelist. But South Shields has another, less well-known history and one which a documentary film maker believes could go some way to providing answers to the current debate about multiculturalism.

Watchdog's threat to 42-day terror law
Alan Travis, Guardian
The government's own human rights watchdog threatened last night to launch a legal challenge to Labour's plan to introduce a law that would let police detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says the key part of the counter-terrorism bill goes against human rights law and may breach the Race Relations Act. As the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, renewed her appeal to Labour backbenchers to support the measure - amid growing international criticism...

Millions are dying on the world's roads. It's time to act (Desmond Tutu, Independent)
Convicted Islamist terrorists exploiting growing prison gang culture (Richard Ford, The Times)
Internet book piracy will drive authors to stop writing (Ben Hoyle, The Times)
My quest to get de-baptised (Danny Carr, The Guardian )
Allam baptism makes more waves, prompts more questions (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
How Dutch Muslim leader reacted to Wilders anti-Koran film (Niclas Mika, FaithWorld)
Slack's Back (Five Chinese Crackers)

Sunday March 30 2008 
Shakespeare's church found in Shoreditch
Robin Stummer, Independent on Sunday
Shakespeare's "lost" local church in London may have been found – beneath some flower beds and cracked paving stones. New research has pinpointed the site of the old church of St Leonard, which was the centre of worship and burial for many of the leading actors and personalities of the Shakespearean stage, including the Bard himself. A study of archive material has revealed that much of the building may still exist, buried underground in an extraordinary time capsule.

Faithful 'crammed into churches'
BBC News Online
Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in London say restrictive planning regulations have left many worshippers crammed into small buildings. The denominations have seen rapid growth and an estimated 350 London churches want bigger premises. A report by CAG Consultants said that a "huge unmet need for expansion" has been held back by lack of cultural awareness among planning authorities. Churches want rules changed to let them move to areas earmarked for employment.

The real Fitna (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Rethinking Secularism: Why Shariah? (Tabsir)
World plea to Brown over detention bill (Jamie Doward, The Observer)
Muslims More Numerous Than Catholics: Vatican (Reuters UK)
Second Dutch Anti-Islam Film (Mohammad Sabry & Staff, IslamOnline)
Jihad for the soul (Theo Hobson, Guardian CiF)
Dutch film an extremist 'plot to widen Islam-West gulf' (Islamophobia Watch)

Saturday March 29 2008 
Muslims Rebut Wilders' Film
Sobhy Mujahid and Nasreddine Djebbi, IslamOnline
CAIRO/THE HAGUE - Muslim leaders in the West called for calm and reasonable reactions to the anti-Qur'an film. "We call on Muslims worldwide to react reasonably," Chakib Benmakhlouf, president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), told IOL. "The best way to respond (to the film) is through producing films and other materials to teach people about Islam and the Prophet." Dutch Muslim leaders also appealed for calm. "An attack on the Netherlands is an attack on us."

Get off my bus, I need to pray
Alex Peake and Andy Crick, The Sun
A MUSLIM bus driver told stunned passengers to get off so he could PRAY. The white Islamic convert rolled out his prayer mat in the aisle and knelt on the floor facing Mecca. Passengers watched in amazement as he held out his palms towards the sky, bowed his head and began to chant. One, who filmed the man on his mobile phone, said: “He was clearly praying and chanting in Arabic. “We thought it was a wind-up at first, like Jeremy Beadle.”  The 21-year-old plumber added: “He looked English..."

Security stepped up as German theatre breaks taboo by staging Satanic Verses
Kate Connolly, The Guardian
A German theatre is to stage the world premiere of the controversial Salman Rushdie novel The Satanic Verses, breaking a long taboo and prompting fears of a backlash by local Muslims. The Hans Otto theatre in Potsdam, south-west of Berlin, is due to begin an eight-week run of the stage adaptation of the 1988 novel on Sunday, aiming, said its director, to expose it to a new audience. Police authorities in the city said security at the theatre and in Potsdam would be increased for fear of attacks by Muslim fundamentalists.

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz says Church is wrong on hybrid embryo Bill (Mark Henderson, The Times)
Hindu monks sue RSPCA over slaughter of sacred cow Gangotri (Emily Dugan, The Independent)
Thieves strip lead from Norman church FOURTEEN times (Rebecca Camber, Mail)
Early release of terrorists prompts Straw to rethink prisons policy (Ben Russell, Independent)
Storm in a rucksack (Obsolete)
Coming soon…Fitna V Analysing political propaganda (CLOSER)

Friday March 28 2008 
Protesters aim to drown out Blair's speech on religion after 'illegal war'
Daily Mail
Anti-war protesters plan to create a "wall of sound" to disrupt Tony Blair's debut speech on religion, it emerged yesterday. The former prime minister, a recent convert to the Roman Catholic Church, is to speak on the subject of "faith and globalisation" at Westminster Cathedral next Thursday. Thousands of demonstrators who object to his role in taking Britain to war in Iraq are planning to disrupt the event by drowning out his words.

Marred by inhumanity (Obsolete)
Wilders releases anti-Islam film (Islamophobia Watch)
Religion and the rise of radicalism (Letters, Guardian)
Asian MPs warn all-black shortlists will lead to 'political apartheid' (James Chapman, Mail)
Luftwaffe pilot apologises to Bath for Second World War bombing (Simon de Bruxelles, Times)
Foot in the sink and cultural convention (Bradford Muslim)
17 reasons to wear a headscarf (Koonj The Crane)

Thursday March 27 2008
Black shortlists 'would create political apartheid'
Andrew Grice, Independent
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Perry Barr, said: "This smacks of a colonial attitude that divides our population into different blocks and allocates representatives accordingly." He said black-only lists would be "a form of political apartheid which will encourage division and segregation." Sadiq Khan, a Labour whip, warned that such lists could lead to the "ghettoising of politics." He said: "The ends are noble but the means of getting there are important..." However, some black MPs support all-minority lists.

Religion is now a potential ally of radical social change
Seumas Milne, Guardian
The two faces of modern religion were on stark display in Britain this week. In Canterbury, the much-abused anti-war archbishop, Rowan Williams, used his Easter sermon to launch a powerful attack on individualist consumerism and "the greed of societies that assume there will always be enough to meet their desires -enough oil, enough power, enough territory". Meanwhile in Edinburgh, the conservative Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of Scotland's Catholics, denounced the government for...

Why let the old cling to life, asks minister
Auslan Cramb, Telegraph
A prominent Church of Scotland minister was criticised yesterday for suggesting that too much money was spent in Britain helping old people to "cling to life". The Rev Maxwell Craig, a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland who led a televised vigil in the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre in 1996, claimed that spending public money on people over 75 often maintained a "half life". The minister, who is 76, added that most older people would probably prefer to die before reaching the age of 95.

Hate preacher's sick sermon on dodging justice (Tom Wells, The Sun)
More MPs join Labour revolt on terror Bill (Colin Brown, Guardian)
Further instructions on faith schools (Letters, Guardian)
Conscience should not make cowards of Catholic MPs (Letters, Guardian)
Who speaks for German Muslims (Loay Mudhoon, Alt.Muslim)
Family's hell at the hands of racist yobs (Islamophobia Watch)
Danish artist aimed turban bomb cartoon at “spiritual dynamite” (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Church in Wales facing schism over women bishops (Ruth Gledhill)
Fury over paper printing nonsense front page headlines (Five Chinese Crackers)
Treatment of asylum seekers coming to the UK falls “seriously below” the standards of a civilised society (Pixelisation)
Nuclear terror checks stepped up (BBC News Online)
Byron report: Mostly as expected, but China syndrome does creep in (Obsolete)
Burka blue… (F-Word)
Geert Wilders Fitna Farce (Ali Eteraz)

Wednesday March 26 2008 
Islam set to be top UK religion
Ross Kaniuk, Daily Star
MUSLIMS are becoming the UK’s biggest religious group. Figures show that Islam will have the most active followers if current trends continue. The number of Roman Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass will fall to 679,000 by 2020, while 683,000 Muslims will be praying in mosques on Fridays. The statistics from Christian Research also suggested that over the same period the total of practising Muslims would overtake Church of England members going to Sunday services.

Muslim leader accuses police of being 'over cautious' in stopping Asian gangs pimping white girls
Paul Revoir, Mail
A muslim leader has accused the police of failing to tackle Asian gangs suspected of prostituting young white girls. Officers are accused of being "over cautious" when investigating Muslim criminals because they fear being branded racist. Last night Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, said the police were differentiating between criminals on the basis of race. He claimed, driven by fear of race riots in places like Blackburn and Oldham, officers were "overtly sensitive" and not clamping down...
See also: Telegraph (L)

Brown gives MPs free vote on key clauses in embryos bill (Patrick Wintour, Nick Watt & James Randerson, The Guardian)
I never said Moses was stoned when he saw God (Benny Shanon, Guardian CiF)
More activity on the Christian- Muslim dialogue front (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Scholar denounces Muslim baptism (Islamophobia Watch)
Newspaper heat maps (Pixelisation)
The Iraq paper trail (Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF)
 

Tuesday March 25 2008 
Muslims 'to outnumber traditional churchgoers'
Jonathan Petre, Telegraph
The increasing influence of Islam on British culture is disclosed in research today that shows the number of Muslims worshipping at mosques in England and Wales will outstrip the numbers of Roman Catholics going to church in little more than a decade. Projections to be published next month estimate that ... the number of Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass will fall to 679,000 by 2020. By that time, statisticians predict, the number of Muslims praying in mosques on Fridays will have increased to 683,000.

Muslim clerics 'should teach in British schools'
Graeme Paton, Telegraph
Muslim clerics and other faith leaders should be sent into state schools to teach children about religion, according to a teachers' union. Pupils should also be given the time and facilities to pray during the school day, it said. The system drawn up by the National Union of Teachers would replace traditional religious assemblies - which must be broadly Christian - as part of a radical overhaul of faith-based education in England. In a new strategy document the union said that a more liberal approach to religious worship...
‘Muslim’ stories and readers comments (Critically Unstable Muslim)

Saudis stoking UK extremism, conference told
Owen Bowcott,  guardian.co.uk (L)
British Muslims today accused Saudi Arabia of exporting extremist interpretations of the Qur'an, during a conference designed to improve understanding between Islam and the west. The criticism came as the first international survey on the subject found that people in most countries believed relations between the two civilisations to be deteriorating. The Symposium on Muslim Communities in Europe, organised by the World Economic Forum...

Torygraph warns against Islamification of Britain (Islamophobia Watch)
Imams help kids mix in schools (The Sun)
Union calls for end to single-faith schools (The Guardian)
Fury over plan to let imams teach the Koran in state schools (Laura Clark. Mail - L)
Omar Bakri expresses dim view of Amir Khan (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Saudi King calls for interfaith dialogue (Ruth Gledhill)
Strong words, raw nerves in Catholic-Muslim relations (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Religious standards [Creationism debate] (Andrew Brown, Guardian CiF)
Muslim 'role model' Khan defended (PA)

Internet site banned over 'anti-Islam film'
Telegraph
An American internet provider has moved to ban a website on which a Dutch MP was planning to host an anti-Islam film portraying the Koran as a "fascist" book. Website host Network Solutions suspended www.fitna.com, the online venue that Geert Wilders, an anti-immigrant Dutch MP, has planned to show a short film condemning the tents of the Mulism faith. Mr Wilders had planned to broadcast a 10 minute movie comparing the Koran to Mein Kampf on the internet site following the refusal of broadcasters...

Pupils 'lured' into armed forces (Hannah Goff, BBC News Online)
Scientists say Catholic clergy inflaming embryo debate (Paul Lewis, The Lewis)
Religion doesn't rule in this clash of moral universes (Polly Toynbee The Guardian)
Purim and the Persian kings (letters, The Guardian)
Postfeminist passions (Angela McRobbie, Guardian CiF)
Qaradawi urges killing of Wafa Sultan (according to Robert Spencer) (Islamophobia Watch)
Union Jack boxing shorts 'a sin' (Duncan Hooper, Telegraph -L)

Monday March 24 2008 
We are made for more
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, The Guardian
Two months ago I was in Zimbabwe, to see for myself the desperate situation of so many people and to offer my support and solidarity. It was a deeply moving experience. Many of those living with HIV/Aids are now too malnourished to take the drugs they need, though they have them. I asked Sister Margaret McAllen, director of an Aids programme in Harare, what she could do. She replied: "How can we give hope to people in such a desperate situation? Through love. Change comes through love."

Two charged over cathedral protest
Daily Star
Two men have been charged with causing a disturbance in a church after they protested during the Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter Sunday sermon. Kyle Spotswood, 26, of Dagenham Road, Sheffield, and Sidney Cordle, 52, of Knowle Lane, Sheffield, were arrested after staging a protest at Canterbury Cathedral. The two men held placards bearing the words "Support the persecuted church" and "No to Sharia law" and in front of the pulpit at Canterbury Cathedral as Dr Rowan Williams began to speak...

An unlikely refuge
Seth Freedman, Guardian CiF
Yassin is a refugee whose tortured flight from Darfur finally brought him to Israel three years ago. He was one of the first Darfurians to make it into Israel across the border from Egypt, and has dedicated his life to helping hundreds of his fellow countrymen who have made the same perilous journey. Yassin, a genial 30-year-old former architect, is now director of Bnei Darfur [Sons of Darfur], an organisation which assists Sudanese refugees to integrate into Israeli society

Embryo Bill sparks Labour row with church (Andrew Porter, The Guardian)
The naive armchair warriors are fighting a delusional war (Alastair Crooke, The Guardian.)
Call for forced marriage debate (BBC Scotland News Online)
Gay bishop's mission to unite (Riazat Butt, The Guardian)
BNP is inciting religious hatred on Facebook (Islamophobia Watch)
A Christian blog for the season (Larry Arnold)

Sunday March 23 2008 
Brown stands firm as Cardinal urges free vote on 'monstrous' Bill to allow human-animal embryos
Brian Brady, Independent on Sunday
Gordon Brown last night faced a direct challenge from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales over his refusal to let Labour MPs vote with their conscience over laws on genetic research. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said Catholic MPs must be granted a free vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Former cabinet minister Stephen Byers also warned that the public would "look on in disbelief" if MPs could not follow their convictions.

Church attacks stance criticised
BBC News Online
A group that promotes church security says attacks on mosques and temples are taken more seriously than those which target churches and vicars. Nick Tolson, of Churchwatch, told BBC Radio 4 that the community feels police put more resources into investigating religious attacks on non-Christians. Mr Tolson said assumptions of a hate- crime are made when Muslim and Jewish religious sites are attacked. His comments come after a recent attack on an Anglican priest in east London.

More deaths in Leeds prison (Bradford Muslim)
Blair had a Jesus complex, says his former chief of staff (Jane Merrick, IoS)
Archbishop warns 'greedy' nations (BBC News Online)
Glasgow attack: Legend of terror hero 'Smeato' challenged (Rachel Shields, IoS)
Pope makes another positive contribution to Christian-Muslim relations (Islamophobia Watch)
Muslim Nightmares at Manchester Airport (IslamOnline)
Who are the "Scargills of Islam", then? (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Muscular Liberals and Celebrity Ex-Extremists (Pixelisation)

Saturday March 22 2008
Face to faith
Danny Rich, Guardian
In recent years, some have likened the Palestinians to Amalek and, as such, have justified any violence against this people. It is no coincidence that Baruch Goldstein, a fanatical Jewish settler in the West Bank, chose Purim day to carry out his 1994 massacre of Palestinian worshipers in Hebron. When equated, by those of a certain political viewpoint, to the contemporary Jewish experience, the Purim story becomes an incitement to violence and not simply a satire about a distant time and place.

Minister's threat as cardinal joins embryos row
Patrick Wintour and Severin Carrell, The Guardian
The government is facing a resignation from the cabinet if Gordon Brown refuses to allow Labour ministers to vote against contentious proposals to allow medical research on human-animal embryos. The Welsh secretary, Paul Murphy, is one of several Catholic senior government figures pressing the prime minister to allow all MPs a free vote on the human embryology and fertilisation bill later this spring. Des Browne, the defence secretary, and Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, have indicated privately...

Robbers use burkha to trick shop staff (Daily Telegraph)
Mourning Malcolm X again (Koonj the Crane)
Further bad news for Policy Exchange (Rolled-up Trousers)
Control Orders in tatters (Rolled-up Trousers)
IPS: "Iraq Invasion - 5 Years On" (Akram's Razor)
Probe after second burka robbery (BBC News Online)

Friday March 21 2008 
Community intervention to beat home-grown terrorism
Adam Fresco, Times
Eight areas of the country identified as potential breeding grounds for violent extremism are to start government-funded “intervention programmes” to prevent susceptible individuals being radicalised. The programmes represent a new approach to fighting Islamist terrorism, with police, social services, housing officers and teachers instructed on being alert to suspicious behaviour. Any concerns about people with whom they come into contact can then be reported to a police co-ordinator or community leader...

Two of Britain's most dangerous Islamic terrorists moved to new prison - because they complained fellow inmates were 'too white'
By Gwyneth Rees, Mail -  L
Dhiren Barot and Omar Khyam asked to be transferred from high-security Frankland prison near Durham.  Barot masterminded a radioactive bomb plot involving limousines packed with nails and explosives and Khyam plotted to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. They said they were at risk from other inmates - who are predominantly white - and claimed the environment was "dangerous" to ethnic minority prisoners. It is thought they had received death threats...

The dazzling walls of medieval England deserve a bold restorer
Simon Jenkins, The Guardian
England's Sistine Chapel lies lost in the western reaches of Gloucestershire. It is smaller, to put it mildly, and older by 350 years. But what it lacks in grandeur it adds in serenity. I would exchange five minutes in the chancel of Kempley church for an hour in Rome. And I would have it to myself. The church was built by the Normans, with roof timbers ring-dated to 1120, making it one of the earliest surviving roofs in Britain. The nave contains a job lot of admonitory paintings...

Good Friday gambling angers churches (Jonathan Petre, Telegraph)
Just like a submissive woman (Koonj the Crane)
We are not that (Tabsir)
Sleepy Cornish village kept awake by 700-strong party of Muslims (Islamophobia Watch)

Thursday March 20 2008 
Sleepy Cornish village kept awake by 700-strong party of Muslims broadcasting 5am call to prayer by loudspeaker
Luke Salked, Mail
It is just a few days until Easter, the most important date in the Christian calendar. But for 700 Muslims who have gathered in a rural caravan park, this week has a different religious significance. And to some of their neighbours, the thrice-daily calls to prayer are proving a strain on a harmonious relationship. The Iranian Muslims have converged on the Trevelgue Holiday Park in Porth, Cornwall, to celebrate yesterday's Persian New Year. Every day at sunrise, noon and sunset they broadcast their prayers, known as Adhan...

See also BBC News Online: Islamic festival 'welcome again'  and Millions marking spring festival, plus The Torygraph
Coda: Mail headline changes! See: Islamophobia Watch

Vicar sacked after complaints of 'unbecoming' behaviour
Sam Jones, Guardian
A vicar has been sacked by the Church of England following a series of allegations of "unbecoming" behaviour. The Rev Jeremy Clark, the former vicar of Ilfracombe St Philip and St James in north Devon, resigned after being asked to do so by the Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Michael Langrish. He had been on sick leave for a few months while the church investigated complaints about his behaviour. The bishop refused to reveal the nature of the allegations...

Russia's priests told to carry guns to foil armed icon-raiders
Luke Harding, The Guardian
It was the middle of the day, and in the village of Sidorovoskaya four visitors turned up unannounced at the church. Armed with automatic weapons, the men broke into the orthodox building and made off with the church's prized medieval icon. When the priest arrived at the scene the robbers stuck a gun in his chest. "Go home, leave peacefully and forget about us," they said, before escaping in a 4x4. The robbery last year was the latest in a series of attacks on churches inside Russia's Golden ring...

Iran's forgotten religions (David Shariatmadari, Guardian CiF)
Osama, Benedict and the Mohammad cartoons (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Arab states’ guidelines for sat TV coverage of religion (Jonathan Wright, FaithWorld)
Brown publishes first national security strategy (Nigel Morris, Independent)
New Bin Laden attack on EU over cartoons (Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian)
Can the Dalai Lama resign? (Andrew Brown, The Guardian)
July 7 attack inquests may be held in secret (Gary Cleland, Telegraph)
Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics (Magdi Abdlehadi, BBC News Online)

Wednesday March 19 2008 
The last charge
Patrick Barkham, The Guardian
The accountancy firm that looks after children's entertainers the Wiggles is not an obvious place to search for the Holy Grail, but that's where the trail led last night. It started with a simple quest - what on earth is a large advertisment headlined "The Ancient & Noble Order of The Knights Templar" doing in the Daily Telegraph? - and it led your intrepid investigator to the wilds of west London and then all the way back to the 12th century. It was around 1118 when the order of the Knights Templar was founded...

Sharia phone marriage of autistic man 'invalid'
Bonnie Malkin and agencies, Telegraph - L
Three senior appeal judges have refused to recognise a Muslim marriage that took place "over the telephone", even though the union is valid according to sharia law. They said the union, between a 26-year-old autistic British man, identified only as IC, and a woman in Bangladesh was "potentially highly injurious". The pair have never met and are unlikely ever to meet. IC's parents, originating from Bangladesh but resident in England for many years, arranged for him to be married by telephone link to a bride chosen by them...

Jihad or alcohol?
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
Tellingly, in its report of the attack on the priest, the Sunday Telegraph had made no mention whatsoever of the alcohol-fuelled nature of the assault despite a clear statement from the canon's wife making this plain. Of course, it just so happens that the Sunday Telegraph was also the paper which originally printed Michael Nazir-Ali's "no-go areas" article. And writing on her Spectator blog, in an entry called Jihad in East Londonistan, Melanie Phillips was in no doubt that: "The jihadi nature of the attack..."

Migrants say discrimination undermines their sense of belonging in Britain (Islamophobia Watch)
The price of freedom (Koonj the Crane)
Bernard Lewis falls out of favour with the American Right-Wing (Pixelisation)
A man can rent someone “better” than you (F-Word)
Drumroll grows louder before Wilders’ Koran film (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Pope breaks “silence” on Tibet with carefully worded appeal (Philip Pullella, FaithWorld)
Terrorism: 200 groups to contend with (Telegraph - L)
Judges reject Islamic 'phone marriage' with woman in Bangladesh (Times Online - L)

Tuesday March 18 2008 
Vatican in Saudi talks on building churches· Pope's spokesman hopeful of 'historic' agreement
John Hooper, Guardian
The Vatican has been holding secret talks with the Saudi Arabian authorities on building churches in Muhammad's homeland, according to one of Pope Benedict's most senior Middle East representatives. Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hashem said: "Discussions are under way to allow the construction of churches in the kingdom. We cannot forecast the outcome." But, speaking to the news agency Agence France-Presse, the Lebanese prelate, the Pope's envoy in the Gulf...

Minister in soldier inquests plea
BBC News Online
Defence Secretary Des Browne has asked that strongly-worded criticisms of the Ministry of Defence be outlawed from inquests on soldiers. The plea came in a test case relating to Scottish soldier Pte Jason Smith, 32, who died of heatstroke in Iraq. A first inquest said his death was due to a "serious failure" in not noting the difficulty he had with the climate. Mr Browne's legal representative said the phrase "serious failure" could be seen as deciding civil liability.

Italians ask how long Pope can remain silent on Tibet
Philip Pullella, FaithWorld
Pope Benedict is just about the only world leader not to have said anything about the events in Tibet. This hasn’t gone unnoticed in Italy, where some commentators have been urging him to speak out — and others have been defending him for not doing so. A story in the March 18 edition of Corriere della Sera quoted Antonio Socci, a Catholic writer and intellectual, as calling the Pope’s silence “the latest error by the Secretariat of State headed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone“.

Sun and Mail withdraw unfounded allegations by Policy Exchange (Islamophobia Watch)
Plans for Muslim centre withdrawn (Islamophobia Watch)
The BNP stands up for women’s rights! (Or why they’re not only racist, xenophobic ballbags, but sexist as well). (L.W., F Word)
The reckless hedonism that shames Britons abroad (Philip Hensher, Independent)
Mosque fiend caged (Mike Sullivan, The Sun)
Inquiry ordered into faith schools admissions (Ekklesia)
Ramadan wants Muslims to ignore far-right Dutch film on Koran (Mark Trevelyan, Faith World)
The power of HTML: The Synoptic Gospels Primer (Akram's Razor)
The Anthropology of Islam (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)
MMR vaccine 'does not cause autism' (Telegraph)

Monday March 17 2008 
Muslims denounce attack on priest
BBC News Online
Muslim leaders have condemned an attack on an Anglican clergyman calling the assault "cowardly and despicable". Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was beaten by youths described as Asian in the grounds of St George-in-the-East... Mr Ainsworth suffered cuts, bruises and two black eyes when he asked three youths to lower their voices. Abdul Qayum, imam of the East London Mosque, also said: "Our congregation is united in condemnation." The imam described the attack as "cowardly and despicable".

Hero of Glasgow terror attack 'did not land a blow'
Ben Quinn, Independent
John Smeaton, one of the "have-a-go-heroes" who helped police subdue two would-be suicide bombers at Glasgow airport last year, rejected claims yesterday that he had exaggerated his role in the incident. "When it came to tackling the bombers, he didn't land a blow," claimed Alex McIlveen, whose own exploits at the airport were immortalised in one newspaper headline: "I kicked burning terrorist so hard in balls that I tore tendon in my foot."

Facebook gets entangled in Middle East conflict
Joseph Nasr, Yahoo News/Reuters
Complaints by Jewish settlers angry at Facebook for listing them as residents of "Palestine" prompted the popular social networking Web site to allow users to switch themselves back to Israel. Palestinian users have set up their own Facebook group whose members threatened to cancel their accounts if Palestine was removed from the site. Called "If Palestine is removed from Facebook, I am closing my account," the group has over 4,700 members.

Wilders' anti-Islam akin to anti-semitism (islamophobia Watch)
Not talking to al-Qaeda 'silly' (BBC News Online)
Rule of terror: Dalai Lama accuses China as dozens are reported dead (Jonathan Watts & Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian)

Sunday March 16 2008 
Vicar attacked for 'being a Christian' after hate campaign by yobs who claimed his church 'should be a mosque'
Amanda Perthen and Rhodri Phillips, Mail
A vicar was in hospital last night after being attacked in his churchyard by two youths in what is being treated as a 'faith hate' crime. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head as one of the attackers screamed "f***ing priest". He was left lying on the ground with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes. The attack took place in the early evening after Canon Ainsworth politely asked three Asian youths who had gathered in the churchyard to quieten down.

Are Muslim enclaves no-go areas, forcing other people out, asks historian John Cornwell
Sunday Times
As one spends time within Britain’s Muslim communities, the easy generalisations evaporate. While most inter-faith activists – Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists – tend to reject the “no-go” allegation, the principal complaints come not from victims of spasmodic incidents, but from ordinary non-Muslim residents who feel “like foreigners in our own country.” One elderly woman, born and bred in Bow, tells me: “You go into a shop and ask, ‘Got any Colman’s?’, say, and they haven’t got a clue.

No Room at the Mosque (Tabsir/NY Times)
Lazy reporting on abortion (Sunday Times)

Saturday March 15 2008 
Senior Muslim officer is promoted
BBC News Online
One of the country's most senior Muslim police officers has been promoted by the Metropolitan Police. Ali Dizaei is now a Commander and can now join the Association of Chief Police Officers, having previously been a Chief Superintendent. He was at the centre of a four-year £4m investigation over allegations of perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office. He was cleared of the charges by the Old Bailey in 2003. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair apologised for the £4m probe...
(See: 'Regret' over top officer's book - 28 02 07)

Face to faith
Mordechai Beck, The Guardian
A furore has recently broken out in Orthodox Jewry with the appearance of Jewish women in garb that resembles the Muslim burka. In the Jewish Chronicle, Miriam Shaviv fumed at this totally un-Jewish behaviour, quoting one senior rabbi describing its perpetrators as suffering from a "serious mental disturbance". Though these women have appeared mainly in Israel, similar stringent measures of covering Superdox (ie Orthodox-plus) women from head to toe have also been reported in the US and the UK...

Priest hurt in faith-hate attack
BBC News Online
A priest has been attacked in the grounds of his church, in what police described as a "faith-hate" crime. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was injured by two Asian youths at the church, in Tower Hamlets, east London. Canon Ainsworth said a third youth watched as he suffered cuts, bruises and black eyes in the assault at the church of St George-in-the-East. The youths also jeered at the priest for being a churchman in the attack on Wednesday night, the Met Police said.

March 13 and 14 2008 
The invisibles (Forced Marriages)
Emine Saner, Guardian G2
The All Women's Centre in Luton is a small brick building set back from the main road. They like it like this, say the women who work there, because it's hidden away. Although they offer advice on everything from welfare and childcare to exercise classes and language lessons, almost all the women who use the centre have been affected by forced marriage. There is a poster about forced marriage on the wall, and security locks on the door. They hear all sorts of stories here...

The convert and the control order
Dominic Casciani,  BBC News
A man who last year sparked a national manhunt has spoken exclusively to the BBC, saying he is not the man the security services say he is. On a summer's day in 2006, Cerie Bullivant was laying a patio with friends. Plain-clothed police officers approached, asked him to confirm his name and handed him documents. They had served a counter-terrorism control order. The Home Secretary had concluded the British convert to Islam was an extremist who may head to Iraq.

Jack Straw apologises after 200 Muslim prisoners are given ham sandwiches during Ramadan
Daily Mail
Muslim prisoners who were offered ham sandwiches during the holy month of Ramadan have received a letter of apology from the Government. Officials said sorry to the 200 Muslim inmates of HMP Leeds believed to have been offered the meat, which is forbidden by Islam. Jack Straw said in a letter that a "regrettable administrative error" led to the blunder and apologised for any offence caused to the Muslim community. The Justice Secretary has ordered staff at the category B facility to be more diligent...

White Lies
Ruqayyah Collector, Guardian CiF
The BBC should not allow the promotion of racist propaganda as fact; where the BNP does so, racist attacks increase and the BNP makes gains at the ballot box. Its vote has grown from 3,000 votes to just under 300,000 in the last decade. Last Orders promoted many racist myths unchallenged. The BNP was the party favoured by most of those who mentioned voting in the programme, unchallenged by the narrator, ...has a history of leading members with convictions for inciting racial hatred and violence.

Religious state schools accused of fuelling social segregation
Polly Curtis and Debbie Andalo, The Guardian
Covert selection by religious state schools has fuelled social segregation in education, some of the most respected academic authorities on schools admissions have told MPs. Class and ethnic divides between faith schools and other state schools have grown since 1990 and are worst in areas where faith schools apply "potentially selective" admissions criteria, research shows. The evidence backs up fears expressed in the wake of the government's own research this week which showed widespread flouting...

Council ordered to stop prayers at meetings - to avoid human rights court case
Daniel Martin, Mail
Since the reign of Elizabeth I, meetings of the town council have started with a prayer. But the tradition that has endured though civil war, the industrial revolution and two world wars may yet succumb to the march of political correctness. Town councillors in Bideford, North Devon, have been told that their prayers could fall foul of the Race Relations Act. They have also been warned that they might attract an action under the Human Rights Act. Many councillors are outraged by the advice...

Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church (Joanna Sugden, Times -L)
Saddam Hussein had no direct ties to al-Qaida, says Pentagon study (Elana Schor, The Guardian)
Professor wins prize for maths link to God (Ruth Gledhill, Times)
Stop prayers or face being sued, council told (Telegraph)
Gay Iranian teenager has deportation reprieve (Fran Yeoman, Times)
Opening the Quran (Daniel Varisco, Tabsir)
No great courage (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Selective defence of human rights (Pixelisation)
Dubai to build museum dedicated to the Prophet (Pixelisation)
MoD parachutes propaganda into classrooms attempting to rewrite the Iraq debacle (Pixelisation)

Wednesday March 12 2008 
Senior Asian journalist at BBC denounces corporation's 'patronising' White series
Daily Mail
Sarah Mukherjee: "I grew up on an overwhelmingly white Essex council estate. "Funnily enough, people there had the same concerns as those in Notting Hill - a good education for their kids, a good standard of living, enough left over for a nice holiday. "Yet listening to the patronising conversations in some newsrooms, you'd think white working-class Britain is one step away from anarchy, drinking themselves senseless and pausing only to draw benefits and beat up a few black and Asian people."

Hair prayer ad judged 'offensive'
BBC News Online
A TV advert for hair stylers featuring eroticised female imagery and an extract from the Lord's Prayer has been deemed offensive to Christians. The Advertising Standards Authority said the ad for ghd IV hair styling equipment could cause "serious offence" and must not be screened again. The advert juxtaposed the words 'thy will be done' alongside erotic images of women accompanied by predatory text. The Archdeacon of Liverpool was among 23 people who complained about the ad.

Anything for an unquiet life
Kira Cochrane, The Guardian
Amnesty International's choice of targets in the past few years has inevitably led to claims that the organisation is prejudiced against the US. Irene Khan insists, however, that the group is neither anti- nor pro-American, and that it addresses human rights abuses by the US "in the same way that we condemn what happens in Sudan or Iran or Saudi Arabia". What has happened, she says, is that the so-called war on terror has brought "a real backlash on human rights, setting back progress for decades..."

Hundreds of custody 'near deaths' (BBC News Online)
Man jailed over al-Qaeda manual (BBC News Online)
Extremist Israeli politician banned from Britain (Carolynne Wheeler, Telegraph)
'It's time to take a stand against Islam and Sharia' (Islamophobia Watch)
Deoband’s Anti-Terrorism Convention: Some Reflections (Yoginder Sikand, Tabsir)
School admits £50 'admission fee'  (BBC News Online)

Tuesday March 11 2008 
Bishop's death threats over mosque plan
Telegraph
The Bishop of Oxford has been sent death threats after backing plans for a Muslim call to prayer in the city. Having in principle backed plans for mosque leaders to make the loudspeaker call, the Rt Rev John Pritchard said the "dark underbelly of British society" made a number of threats against his life. He said: "I received extraordinary mail. One said, 'resign' six times in a large font. One called for me to be beheaded and another said: 'I wish I lived closer so I could spit on you.' The dark underbelly of British society was coming out."

Action on Forced Marriages Urged
Daily Star
Forced marriages are not a culturally sensitive issue but an abhorrent act, a Tory Muslim peer has said. Baroness Warsi, shadow minister for community cohesion and social action, has called for such marriages to be treated as crimes to send a clear signal that they are intolerable.  She said the same arguments had been previously used to tackle domestic violence. Speaking on GMTV programme, she said that society had realised that domestic violence was not a taboo subject and that what was needed now...

Michael Burleigh: The reluctant guru
John Crace, Guardian Education
Burleigh treats terrorists as individuals, balancing their motivation against their actions. And what he finds drives them is, at best, a perverted sense of altruism and, at the most basic level, an intoxication with excitement and mayhem. "It's no coincidence," he observes drily, "that most terrorists are males aged between 18 and 30." ... "We can't expect our promotion of democracy in the Middle East to be taken seriously so long as we turn a blind eye to the authoritarian Saudi government..."

Mosque roof collapses on man (BBC London News Video)
Letters: Racism in Britain: Government must challenge resurgent racism (Independent)
“Caliphate” is the new “jihad” (Omer Mozaffar, Alt.Muslim)
“Islam is the problem” says your future mayor (MPACUK)
Homophobic abuse endemic in schools, says teacher survey (Polly Curtis, Guardian)
Bishop abused and threatened over support for Muslim call to prayer (Islamophobia Watch)
Catholic pressure on fertility bill (Clare Murphy, BBC News Online)

Monday March 10 2008 
Powell's Rivers of Blood are back again
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent
Yet today the air smells of the bad breath of xenophobia and racist bile, on buses, Tubes, radio programmes and the internet, of course ... A Jewish friend prompted this column. She said to me: "I condemn Israeli politics and some things British Jews are up to. But when anti-Semitism seeps through the land, unseen, unacknowledged, I must stand up for my people. You must too. It is your duty. Powell's ghost is awake, Racism is everywhere. I can feel it. Can't you?"
(Note: the BBC season of programmes referred to in YAB's comment was backed by that grovelling little coconut, Sarfraz Manzoor)

Protests at Jewish charity event
BBC News Online
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators beat drums and sounded horns outside a Jewish fund-raising event in Glasgow attended by Hollywood star Goldie Hawn. The actress addressed about 500 guests at the KKL Scotland dinner, held at the Hilton Hotel in William Street, as about 150 people protested outside. The 61-year-old star was drafted in to speak at the £125-per-head event after actor Michael Douglas pulled out. There was a heavy police presence at the venue but no arrests.

Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?
Richard Owen, The Times
Drug pushers, the obscenely rich, environmental polluters and “manipulative” genetic scientists beware – you may be in danger of losing your mortal soul unless you repent. After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones... The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “securalised world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

Danish Cartoons: One Afghan's Peaceful Protest (Anand Gopal, Christian Science Monitor)
Unite Against Fascism – media alert (Islamophobia Watch)
'Islam is the enemy of Christianity and seeks its complete destruction' – BNP  (Islamophobia Watch)
More merde from MacShane  (Islamophobia Watch)
Rachel Whitear's parents condemn BNP (Islamophobia Watch)
Man admits owning al-Qa'eda training manual (Tom Chivers and agencies, Telegraph -L)

Sunday March 09 2008 
Church of England writes its marriage guide
Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph
There was a time when the vicar's role in a marriage stopped at the church gate after the confetti was thrown. Now, however, clergy are to offer advice on everything from financial planning to who should do the ironing. They will even venture into the bedroom. Worried by the high numbers of divorces, the Church of England has produced its guide to the perfect marriage, called Growing Together, to help couples prepare properly for the rigours of modern marriage. In 120 pages...

MI5 targets four Met police officers 'working as Al Qaeda Spies'
Mail [L]
Four police officers in Britain's top force are reportedly under close secret service surveillance after being identified as Al Qaeda spies, it emerged today. MI5 are said to have homed in on the the "sleeper" agents passing secrets from Scotland Yard to the terror group only in recent weeks. The suspected spies are believed to have used methods similar to those employed by the IRA in the 1970s as they infiltrated the police and the Army in Northern Ireland.

The big issue: education Catholic schools do not promote elitism (Letters, Observer)
Under Fire (Seth Freedman, Guardian CiF)
Taking racism seriously… (The F Word)

Saturday March 08 2008 
Peace broker, bank adviser and lecturer, now Blair plans to teach religion at Yale
Ewen MacAskill & Patrick Wintour, Guardian
Not content with trying to bring peace to the Middle East - as well as advising an insurance company on the risks of climate change, a bank on crisis management and Rwanda on good governance - Tony Blair is to add another job to his portfolio: teaching God and politics at one of America's most prestigious universities. Yale, the Ivy League alma mater of his good friend George Bush, confirmed yesterday that the former prime minister is to join the schools of management and divinity at the campus in New Haven...

How the Eton-educated wartime Aga Khan offered '30,000 armed Arabs' to help Hitler - but still evaded treason trial (Daily Mail)
Background on Israeli shooting victims (Rolled-up Trousers)
3,000 women a year forced into marriage in UK, study finds (Jo Revill and Anushka Asthana, Guardian)
Number crunching at the "anti-Israel" Guardian (Jews Sans Frontieres)

Friday March 07 2008 
Spain drops extradition attempt against Guantánamo torture pair
Paul Hamilos & Vikram Dodd, The Guardian
Spain yesterday dropped its attempt to extradite two British residents who had been freed from Guantánamo Bay, after accepting that torture they suffered during five years of American custody had left them too weak to stand trial. Jamil el-Banna, 45, and Omar Deghayes, 38, who were accused of being members of an al-Qaida cell in Madrid, were detained on their return to Britain in December on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

In praise of ... confession (Guardian Leader)
No gay person should be sent back to Iran (Simon Hughes, Independent)
Has political participation failed Muslims? (Rolled-up Trousers)
Saladin: Fanatics Training Camp Is Not A School! (MPACUK)
BNP leader blames Muslims for Britain's drug problems (Islamophobia Watch)
Oil, the bane of Muslim women (Akram's Razor)
Yobs and military uniforms (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Abdulsatar on Danish cartoons (Akram's Razor)

Thursday March 06 2008 
Muslim leaders to meet the Pope in Rome
Riazat Butt & Tom Kington, The Guardian
Religious leaders and scholars from the Islamic world will meet the Pope for an unprecedented audience in November it was announced yesterday after a historic summit between Vatican prelates and their Muslim counterparts. For two days senior Catholics and Muslims prepared for the autumn encounter. Participants confirmed that 24 representatives from each faith would take part in the inaugural seminar of a permanent Catholic-Muslim Forum.  The forum will meet every two years.

Priests to learn how to be less aggressive
Malcolm Moore, Telegraph
The Vatican has launched a new course to teach priests how to be less aggressive and more understanding in the confessional booth. Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the bishop in charge of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the three courts in the Roman Curia, said the act of confession is undergoing a "grave crisis". Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, he said that 30 per cent of worshippers "do not believe a priest is necessary to hear confessions".

Once a terrorist, always a terrorist?
Joshua Rozenberg. Telegraph
Britain and its EU allies deserve praise for backing a third round of UN sanctions this week against Iran's nuclear ambitions. All the more strange, therefore, that our Government seems willing to appease the Iranian regime by trying to maintain a Europe-wide ban on Iran's main opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran. The Home Office insists that the PMOI is a terrorist organisation - even though it never targeted civilians or operated outside Iran, it renounced violence in 2001 and fully disarmed...

Bishop faces inquiry over friendship with vicar (Richard Savill & Gordon Rayner, Telegraph)
'Drowning in a sea of migrants' (Islamophobia Watch)
Police probe into BNP heroin leaflet (Islamophobia Watch)
Situation in Gaza worse than at any point in last 40 years (Rolled-up Trousers)
Rehabilitating Enoch Powell (IRR)

Wednesday March 05 2008 
Brought to restorative justice
Robert Bullard, The Guardian
Soon after Mohamed el Sharkawy, an imam, was appointed chaplain of the Mount prison in Hertfordshire, inmates from several different religions started to approach him. "They felt the prison's justice awareness course imposed Christianity upon them," he says. "I told them it wasn't true. But I believe we need to work together if we are to strengthen our society. So I started to develop a course to help them, using the story of Joseph, because it was mentioned in the Torah, the Bible and the Qur'an."

Legal Opinion: Why governments can't carry on turning a blind eye to torture
Robert Verkaik, Independent
Buried deep beneath the welter of publicity covering Prince Harry's secret deployment to Afghanistan was the release of another piece of news concerning the Allies' so-called "war on terror". A judgment published last week by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a devastating blow to Britain's attempt to water down the prohibition on the use of torture by sending terror suspects to states which routinely abuse prisoners. The judges described as "misconceived" the British argument that there could be a justification for balancing the risk of torture against the threat posed to national security.

Queen’s medal for airport terror hero John Smeaton (Home Staff, The Times)
Dozens of missing schoolchildren feared forced into arranged marriages (Chris Brooke, Daily Mail)
Durham to launch centre for Catholic studies (Liz Ford, The Guardian)
To blame the victims for this killing spree defies both morality and sense (Seumas Milne, The Guardian)

Tuesday March 04 2008 
Parents take Britain's biggest Jewish school to high court
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
The admissions policy of Britain's largest Jewish school will be challenged in the high court today by parents whose child was refused a place because they are not considered to be Jewish. The parents, who have not been named, are using legal aid to fight the refusal by JFS, formerly known as the Jewish Free School, because the office of the chief rabbi, the school's religious authority, did not recognise the mother's conversion to Judaism. Jewish custom dictates that the faith line passes through the mother.

'Muslim fanatics benefiting from public grants'
Andrew Porter, Telegraph [L]
Muslim extremists should be banned from handing out literature and prevented from sitting on public bodies, David Cameron has said. The Conservative leader has also accused ministers and councils of allowing fanatics to benefit from public grants to Muslim bodies. "The Government has allowed hundreds of thousands of pounds to local authorities to improve community cohesion, but there are worrying signs that ministers have taken their eye off the ball," he said.

'No sorrow' felt on troop deaths
BBC News Online [L]
A Muslim activist has told a court he does not feel sorry for American and British troops when they die. Abu Izzadeen denies, along with seven others, charges of inciting and fundraising for terrorism. "If somebody is defending his wife and his house and kills them (troops), I don't feel sorry," he told Kingston Crown Court. Mr Izzadeen hit the headlines in 2006 after heckling then Home Secretary John Reid at a meeting in east London.

The first time I was called a self-hating Jew (Mike Marqusee, The Guardian)
Archbishops question timing of plans to abolish blasphemy laws (Alan Travis, The Guardian)
US bombs Islamist town in Somalia (BBC News Online)
'Halt handouts to Muslim fanatics' says Cameron (Islamophobia Watch)
'We don't need this Olympics mosque' (Islamophobia Watch)

Monday March 03 2008 
Officials warn of terrorist links to prison gangs
Alan Travis, The Guardian
The growing number of terrorist prisoners are forging connections with the existing gangs inside Britain's high security jails to the alarm of senior Prison Service managers, according to internal Ministry of Justice documents. They say there is "an urgent requirement" to understand the impact of the number of terrorist prisoners in high security prisons: "As it stands, there is no intervention available to us to counter terrorist behaviour or to counter the threat of radicalisation..."

Too much Purley and not enough Peckham
Joseph Harker
Just as Americans discuss the significance of potentially having their first black president, for the British press the appointment of the first black editor, if it ever happens, will also be hugely symbolic. But how likely is it? And how soon? Late last year Kamal Ahmed, the Observer's executive editor, left the paper to become communications director for the new Equality and Human Rights Commission. With him went probably the best chance we'll have in a long time to see a black national newspaper editor.

Dutch government could ban anti-Islam film
Mark Tran, Guardian (L)
The Dutch government was today examining the legality of banning a film attacking Islam amid fears that it would fan sentiment against the Netherlands in Muslim countries. The Telegraaf newspaper reported that the coalition government was divided on the film, with the Christian Democrats leaning towards a ban but Labour favouring freedom of expression and calling on Muslim countries to prevent violence against the Netherlands. The 15-minute film, called Fitna - an Arabic term...

Letters: Israel and Gaza (The Independent)
The Crisis of Perception (The Cutting Edge)
Hooters comes to Sheffield (The F Word)
'Don't build this mosque' (Islamophobia Watch)
Obama says Islam smear offensive to Muslims (Islamophobia Watch)
Gone by the Bard (Seth Freedman, Guardian CiF)
Praying in fear (Koonj the Crane)
Ed Husain justifies UK visa denial to Qaradawi (Islamophobia Watch)

Sunday March 02 2008 
Religious schools 'show bias for rich'
Anushka Asthana, The Observer
Damning new evidence that faith schools are siphoning off middle-class pupils can be revealed today, as research shows they are failing to take children from the poorest backgrounds nationwide. Even when they are situated in deprived inner-city areas, religious schools have fewer poor children than local authority secondary schools. New figures show that religious schools, in England, admit 10 per cent fewer poor pupils than is representative of the local area. Local authority schools, meanwhile, take in 30 per cent more...

'Harry's War': The ugly truth
Leo Docherty, Independent on Sunday
[T]he media, dazzled by the heroic ideal that Prince Harry so perfectly embodies, perpetuate the myth that this is a just war fit for heroes. The frenzy of coverage in Friday's papers ... was facile; "Watch Prince Harry fighting in Helmand," proffered one broadsheet website. This is war reduced to entertainment, willingly ignorant of the truth that young men like Harry, both British and Afghan, are dying violent pointless deaths in Helmand province. Outrage is the only response to this, not entertainment.

The Knights Templar and the Rowan Williams crisis (Rolled-Up Trousers)
Shylock boycott sends school down league (Sunday Telegraph)
Play it again, Rock Against Racism (Jonathan Owen, Independent on Sunday)
Israeli minister warns of Palestinian 'holocaust'  (Rolled-Up Trousers)
Reclaim The Night North (The F Word)

Saturday March 01 2008 
Target Harry - British Fanatics Threaten Him
Cyril Dixon and John Chapman, Daily Express
Sneering Muslim fanatics labelled Prince Harry a target for assassins last night after his heroics against the Taliban. Harry’s perilous Army mission in Afghanistan was dismissed by British extremists as a mere publicity stunt. But they also claimed that by participating in an “illegal war”, the brave young Prince had made himself fair game for a terrorist attack. Anjem Choudary, former leader of British-based radicals Al Muhajiroun, said: “He will be seen as part of the enemy and so he is a target..."

Backlash against Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow who praised Drudge website for blowing Harry's cover (Paul Revoir, Daily Mail)

Ex-Islamists start moderate thinkthank
Owen Bowcott & Riazat Butt, The Guardian
The Quilliam Foundation believes Muslims should shake off the "cultural baggage of the Indian subcontinent" and the "political burdens of the Arab world". Its director is Maajid Nawaz, 30, who was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International after being jailed in Egypt for membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Since returning to London he has written pamphlets criticising the party. His deputy is Ed Husain, 32, the author of The Islamist, which details his youth in east London...
(Note: Ed Husain et al are just as thick as ever - see Yahya Birt on their brainless choice of Quilliam as their icon)

The Pope rules out feminist theology
Malcolm Moore, Telegraph
The Vatican has cracked down on feminist interpretations of the liturgy, ruling that God must always be recognised as Our Father. In a move designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases, the Holy See said that anyone baptised using alternative terms, such as "Creator", "Redeemer" and "Sanctifier" would have to be re-baptised using the traditional ceremony. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said yesterday: "These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words Father and Son, which are held to be chauvinistic."

Judgment day for BBC's premiere of the Passion (Riazat Butt, The Guardian)
School falls down league tables after pupils boycott 'anti-Semitic' Shakespeare (Sarah Harris, Daily Mail)
Ministers will 'brainwash' 11-year-olds to think that sex outside marriage is fine (Sarah Harris, Daily Mail)
It's no slur to be called a Muslim (Naomi Klein, Guardian)
'Talented' Asperger's man escapes jail for exam fraud (Amy Caulfield, The Independent)
Tariq Ramadan – 'dangerous radical' (Islamophobia Watch)
Fuck you, PETA (The F Word)
'Target Harry – British fanatics threaten him' (Islamophobia Watch)
 

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