Abu Dharr May 2008

Abu Dharr (Daily Terror) May 2008
Saturday May 31 2008 ‘This is not the way I should have been treated in a country I love’ Polly Curtis and Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian For more than a decade, Nottingham university felt like the safest place in the world for Hicham Yezza as an undergraduate, doctoral student, campus activist and, most recently, employee. But two weeks ago his world caved in when he was arrested under the Terrorism Act. The 30-year-old Algerian was detained by police for possessing a copy of the al-Qaida training manual that he had been given to print by a friend researching the terrorist group’s techniques for his MA. Now Muslim Clerics to Teach Our Children Daily Express Moves to allow Muslim clerics into classrooms to address pupils were condemned yesterday. The latest scheme put forward by Schools Secretary Ed Balls was greeted with derision. Critics branded the proposals by the under-fire minister unworkable and unnecessary. The package of measures, to be published next week, will set out a proposal to invite British-born imams into schools to speak about growing violent extremism among young people. A principle under threat Leader, The Guardian Reporters who investigate this shadowland are therefore to be encouraged. Shiv Malik is one such journalist, researching Muslim extremism in this country even before the attacks of July 2005. Yet his work and that of other journalists, media outlets and publishers risks becoming a lot more difficult. For the past few months Mr Malik has been trying to fend off an order from Greater Manchester police to surrender his notes and tapes of interviews with the terrorism suspect Hassan Butt. Face to faith (The Rev Dr Joanna Collicutt, The Guardian) Islam, not gays, will split the Church (MPACUK) Friday May 30 2008 Tony Blair's Faith Foundation to sell religion as force for good Tom Baldwin, Times Tony Blair launches his Faith Foundation in New York today, saying that he wants to spend most of his remaining years ensuring that religion is seen as a force for good in the world. The new organisation, for which he is seeking hundreds of millions of pounds of charitable funding, will focus on developing better understanding between faiths as well as fostering concrete action on fighting poverty and disease. “In the end, this will be what I dedicate a very large part of my life to,” he told The Times yesterday. Nazir-Ali is a prophet and prophets are rejected by their own, as Jesus was. He is a serious man for serious times Riazat Butt, The Guardian Michael Nazir-Ali, the 106th Bishop of Rochester, is accustomed to the limelight and has been making headlines since 1994, when he became the first ethnic minority holder of the post in the historic Kent city. His impact on the Church of England, an institution famed for fudges and niceties, has been equally bold, with Nazir-Ali proving he is cut from a different cloth. Recent comments about the need to convert Britain's Muslims and how radical Islam is filling the "moral vacuum"... [Bishop's move: Guardian Leader] Bishop says collapse of Christianity is wrecking British society - and Islam is filling the void Sean Poulter and Niall Firth The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday. It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum. In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking. [The Bishop of Hate: MPACUK; If a Christian knocks at your door: Between the Lines; Bishop of Rochester 'doing the BNP's work': Islamophobia Watch] Scare tactics Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF Journalists from several newspapers rang yesterday seeking a reaction to the latest remarks from Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester. You will recall that Nazir-Ali hit the headlines at the beginning of this year when he claimed that British Muslims were setting up "no-go areas" across the UK. What had he actually said this time, I asked wearily. "Christianity is central to British identity but its marginalization has created a moral vacuum which radical Islam threatens to fill," I was told. BNP hijack murder trial to recruit new members saying 'anyone who gets angry - get involved with the BNP' Christian Gysin, Mail The BNP is attempting to recruit new members by highlighting the case of a 'white martyr' killed by a Muslim elder during a neighbourhood dispute. Father-of-six Habib Khan, 50, was cleared of murder after Stafford Crown Court heard he had suffered years of abuse. The jury instead convicted him of 52-year-old Keith Brown's manslaughter - and warned he faces a prison when he returns to Stafford Crown Court for sentencing. Institutionalised Child Abuse In the Name of The Endless War for Civilization, Freedom and All That (The Cutting Edge) Asian women 'denied free votes' (BBC News Online) Muslim TV crew stopped under terror law (Islamophobia Watch) French Muslims’ marriage annulled over virginity lie (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld) War in Iraq: US marine reassigned for distributing coins bearing Bible verses (McClatchy newspapers guardian.co.uk) Making “Medieval” Islam Meaningful (Daniel Varisco, Tabsir) Dunkin' Donuts buckles to zionist hate campaign (Jews sans frontieres) Muslim scholar responds to “Sharia smear” against Obama (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld) Warning after Australian town blocks Islamic school proposal (Barbara McMahon, The Guardian) Tutu calls for end to blockade of Gaza (Rory McCarthy, Guardian) Sex warning: 'Women have to be more careful than men' (Robert Tait , guardian.co.uk) No action over racist attack on Stephen Lawrence centre (Times) Nadwi on Maududi: a traditionalist maulvi’s critique of Islamism (Tabsir) The Donut & the Scarf! (Between the Lines) Haycast 06: Sunny side of Hay (Francesca Panetta , guardian.co.uk) The sun of my sons (Amina Wadud) Wednesday May 28 2008 As family mourns, three more arrested over park killing Martin Wainwright, Guardian The family of murdered teenager Amar Aslam spoke yesterday of the popular and friendly boy whom they called "Moon" because he lit up their life. As police arrested three more British Asian youths in connection with the suspected gang killing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Amar's elder sister, Samreen, said: "Nothing can replace him. We still believe that he will come through the door." The Labour MP for Dewsbury, Shahid Malik, called for "a change in society"... Telegraph hosts anti-immigrant blog by BNP Rachel Williams, Guardian Richard Barnbrook, the British National party's London Assembly member, has used a blog on the Daily Telegraph's website to blame immigrants and their sons for knife and gun crime among young people in the capital after a spate of murders. Under the headline "Blame the immigrants", the posting on My Telegraph, a platform which allows readers to publish their own articles, Barnbrook claims the perpetrators are protected by a government eager to secure the "Ethnic Block-Vote"... Tutu enters Gaza to start investigation into deaths Rory McCarthy, Guardian Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop, met the former Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza at the start of a much-delayed UN investigation into the shelling by the Israeli military of a Palestinian house which killed 18 members of a single family in Beit Hanoun. Tutu was sent by the UN human rights council to lead the inquiry only days after the incident in November 2006. However, the Israeli government did not give him a visa... Against forced marriages (Between the Lines) Public reading of ‘radical material’ that led to terror arrests (Trinketization) Fascists expose 'Islam's 1,300 year war on Western Civilisation' (Islamophobia Watch) Zionists against Islamism (Islamophobia Watch) 'Radical Islam is filling void left by collapse of Christianity in UK' (Islamophobia Watch) Fly the flag in opposition to mosque, urges UKIP councillor (Islamophobia Watch) Islamic Clothing Update (Mere Islam) Ramadan's festival (Sarfraz Manzoor) Marranci on the Anthropology of Islam (Tabsir) Blame the Immigrants (5 Chinese Crackers) Scientology protest: Liberty challenges police over summons (Anil Dawar, guardian.co.uk) France arrests 8 over mosque attack (Press TV) Tuesday May 27 2008 Amar Aslam, 17, beaten to death in weekend of violence Steve Bird, Times An Asian teenager was beaten to death in a park in West Yorkshire after pitched battles between rival gangs of youths. The severely battered body of Amar Aslam, 17, was found in a walled wildlife garden in Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury, at 7.30pm on Sunday. His death was feared to have been the culmination of a series of fights between youths in the park over the weekend. It remains unclear whether the boy was in a gang and killed by a rival... Muslim TV channel to stage interfaith game show Riazat Butt, The Guardian Britain's first interfaith game show is to be launched, pitting Jews against Muslims, Sikhs against Christians and Hindus against Buddhists, with contestants competing for cash prizes. Faith Off, the working title of a series on the Islam Channel, will attempt to promote good relations and mutual respect between Britain's religious communities. Two teams of four will go head to head in each episode, answering quick-fire and general knowledge questions in the eight-part series... Missing mum in Muslim gear Anthony France, The Sun A WOMAN who has gone missing with her five children has been spotted – wearing Muslim clothing. Natalie Bracht, 34, was caught on CCTV in a robe and headscarf. The images were filmed at London’s King’s Cross railway station on May 17. Earlier that day, she had sported a red jacket and blue trousers as she left her home in Sunderland with her daughters aged five to 13. Police were concerned for Natalie’s emotional well-being and believe she may be being sheltered by someone. Bombing suspect leaves hospital (Chris Court, PA/Independent) Finger-jabbing? Us? (Indigo Jo Blogs) The War of the Walkers (Koonj the Crane) Misreading the Arab Media (Tabsir) Ed Husain accuses Muslim critics of 'intimidation' (Islamophobia Watch) Minority Report: Ahmadis celebrate 100 years but who are they and what do they believe? (Jerome Taylor, Indyblogs) Al-Malika ('Ilm al-insaan) Monday May 26 2008 Church of England row over Muslim conversion George Pitcher, Telegraph The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims. However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. Britain's only Asian bishop, he was tipped (by himself) to become Archbishop of Canterbury before Dr Rowan Williams's appointment in 2002. Muslim gangs 'taking control of British top security prison' (Duncan Gardham, Telegraph) Norway: Discriminating crossword puzzles (Islam in Europe) Billions wasted on UN climate programme (John Vidal, Guardian) Comparative Islamic Studies (Tabsir) Islam In The UK: Mullahs Under Your Beds (Anorak) Agnostic about atheism (Tracy Quan, Guardian CiF) Immigrants who struggle to speak English will lose benefits under Tory plans (Rosa Prince, Telegraph) The holy post: coming to a church near you (Giles Fraser, Guardian) Sunday May 25 2008 Muslim gangs 'are taking control of prison' Jamie Doward, The Observer Prison officers at one of Britain's maximum security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a confidential report obtained by The Observer. An internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a 'serious incident is imminent' as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners. The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, says there is an 'ongoing theme of fear and instability' among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim. [Jail staff 'fear Muslim inmates': BBC News Online] Sorry Mum John Coles, The Sun Online THE brainwashed Muslim convert arrested over the botched Exeter bombing has said sorry to his mother for the distress he caused her. Nicky Reilly’s extraordinary apology was revealed yesterday as a neighbour told how he had seemed obsessed with a video showing Briton Ken Bigley, 62, being beheaded in Iraq in 2004. Reilly, 22, spoke by phone to mum Kim Reilly, 40, from the hospital where he was recovering from injuries suffered in the blast. SunniPath's 5-year Anniversary Program (Mere Islam) Nazir-Ali backs initiative to convert Muslims to Christianity (Islamophobia Watch) 'Britain's phoney war on terror' (Islamophobia Watch) Couldn't Sky Arts find a Muslim? (Islamophobia Watch) Corporate rats jump ship, but why are unions still funding New Labour? (Rebellion Sucks) Saturday May 24 2008 Face of British 'Suicide' Bomber Gary Nicks, The Star THIS is face of oddball loner Nicky Reilly, injured by three horrific bombs after he was brainwashed into a suicide mission by evil Muslim fanatics he met in his local chip shop. MUSLIM convert Reilly had three “fireball” devices powerful enough to trigger a massive explosion in the Exeter café bombing. Police believe the 22-year-old was hellbent on turning the packed Giraffe eaterie into a raging inferno and causing a terrible death toll. [Brainwashed at the chip shop: The Sun] Comment: violent Islam appeals to social misfits Andrew Norfolk, Times It is the exclusive club that will accept almost anyone as a member. To become a Western foot soldier of jihadist Islam, and in some cases its sacrificial, exploding lamb, requires no one to pass a test of intellect or psychological stability. Numerous examples of would-be martyrs have illustrated that violent Islamism is a death cult that holds a particularly seductive appeal to the social misfit. The ideology is easy to absorb. It paints the world in black and white. And it offers you a chance to belong. Case dropped against boy, 15, who held up sign branding Scientology 'a cult' Daily Mail The case against a 15-year-old boy who was facing possible legal action for holding up a placard which branded the Church of Scientology a "cult" has been thrown out. The Crown Prosecution Service took just a day to decide it was not in the public interest to take the teenager to court after he was handed a summons by the City of London police. The boy was "strongly advised" by officers to get rid of the sign which said "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult" at a protest... Friday May 23 2008 'Recent convert to Islam' is arrested after bomb explosion in restaurant Alexi Mostrous, Times A Muslim convert with a history of mental illness who was “preyed upon and radicalised” injured himself yesterday after a device he was carrying exploded in a busy shopping centre in Exeter. Nicky Reilly, 22, received serious facial injuries after the device went off at lunchtime in a family restaurant at the new £230 million Princesshay shopping centre. Another device was defused by bomb disposal teams. Tony Melville, Devon and Cornwall’s Deputy Chief Constable, said last night that Mr Reilly had been “preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of”. Mr Reilly’s neighbours said that he had been brainwashed. Tibet could be 'swamped' by mass Chinese settlement after Olympics, says Dalai Lama Julian Borger, Guardian The Dalai Lama claimed yesterday that Beijing was planning the mass settlement of 1 million ethnic Chinese people in Tibet after the Olympics with the aim of diluting Tibetan culture and identity. Tibet's exiled spiritual leader also claimed that some of Asia's most important rivers which flow from the Tibetan plateau are being polluted and diminished by careless industrialisation and unplanned irrigation. Turkish crisis puts "post-Islamist" reform on hold Tom Heneghan, Reuters Turkey's moves toward greater religious freedom, which some saw as the sign of an evolving moderate Muslim society, have been put on hold by a political crisis that could outlaw the "post-Islamist" ruling AK Party. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose bid to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves at universities triggered the crisis, would probably not champion further religious reform even if he won the court case against his party, Turkish analysts say. The racism behind integration (Islamophobia Watch) How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart (Rebecca Walker) Thursday May 22 2008 Credit crunch 'will cause ethnic violence' Richard Edwards, Telegraph Julie Spence, Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, said her officers were already struggling to cope with the consequences of migration and warned that if the economic downturn continued, it would heighten tensions in communities with large numbers of migrant workers. Speaking at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth on Wednesday, Mrs Spence said: "We do wonder what is going to happen as the credit crunch starts to bite. We have already seen [claims that] 'people are taking our jobs'. Reformed jihadist released as court case begins Andrew Norfolk, Times A former jihadist recruiter ... was released without charge yesterday after being held for 12 days under the Terrorism Act. Hassan Butt, 28, who has been offered Home Office funding to support his work, was arrested by officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on May 9 as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan. His release came as lawyers for the police appeared at the High Court to defend an attempt to force journalists to hand over materials relating to Mr Butt. [Writer in legal fight to protect terror notes: Aislinn Simpson, Telegraph] Our mission is liberation, says Somali Islamist leader Simon Tisdall, The Guardian The senior leader of Somalia's Islamist opposition vowed yesterday to expel US-backed Ethiopian troops by force and create an Islamic republic in the war-torn country on the Horn of Africa. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who led Somalia's Islamic Courts movement and who the Bush administration claims is a terrorist linked to al-Qaida, said Mogadishu's western-backed Transitional Federal Government was run by "traitors". Abortion debate: MPs face backlash (Martin Beckford, Telegraph) Student union rejects academic's IQ claims (Polly Curtis, The Guardian) Registrars fear being driven out over gay weddings (Telegraph) Museum covers mummies' modesty after surge of complaints by visitors (Russell Jenkins, Times) Building Churches Allowed: Qaradawi (IslamOnline) Berlusconi clamps down on Gypsies (John Hooper, Guardian) Are Indian Muslims leading the way in condemning terror? (Alistair Scrutton, FaithWorld) 'No place for the hijab in civic life' says Irish journalist (Islamophobia Watch) A real Orwellian story (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist) Release Equatorial Guinea pastor (Amnesty International) Ex-ex-gay to speak at Lambeth (Ruth Gledhill) Dalai Lama to visit Olympics if China talks are constructive (Riazat Butt, The Guardian) Drive to clean up TV (in Afghanistan) leaves soap fans fearing for their one respite from reality (Declan Walsh, Guardian) 'Morning-after pill? It's against my religion' (Eve Dugdale, Manchester Evening News) Wednesday May 21 2008 Transsexual driving instructor in row over threat by Muslim student Andy Bloxham, Telegraph Emma Sherdley, 42, used to be called Andrew but is now legally a woman after a sex change operation. She works for an all-female driving school and was sent to give a married Muslim woman her first two-hour lesson. The pupil, who has not been named, appeared unconcerned but asked to go home half-way through the lesson, citing the need to breast-feed. However, her husband soon rang the Sheffield-based driving firm, called Laugh'n'Pass, to complain. Legal Opinion: How accusations of TV fakery led to a libel action Nick Armstrong, Independent The makers of Channel 4's Dispatches investigation "Undercover Mosque" last week won their libel action against West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The story began as one of a string of fakery stories last summer during British television's annus horribilis – only this time it was not a "fair cop" and it was the cops who ended up in the dock, apologising in the High Court to the programme-makers for getting it wrong. MPs throw out bids to reduce abortion limit Nigel Morris, Independent Abortions will remain legal for up to 24 weeks into pregnancy after MPs rejected a series of attempts to cut the limit after an impassioned debate in the House of Commons. In the first test of parliamentary opinion on abortion for 18 years, supporters of a reduction called votes on reducing the limit to 12, 16, 20 and 22 weeks. But they were thrown out by decreasing majorities, with calls for the 22-week maximum defeated by 304 to 233 votes, a margin of 71. Number of new British citizens under Labour hits 1.2m mark Richard Ford, Times A record number of foreigners became British citizens last year, bringing the total since Labour came to power to almost 1.2 million, according to figures published yesterday. Three quarters of those getting a British passport came from Asia and Africa with the main nationalities being Indian, Philippine, Afghan, South African and Pakistani. The figure is 7 per cent up on the previous year and was the highest number ever granted in any year. Women win right to children without fathers Mark Henderson, Francis Elliott, Ruth Gledhill and Sam Coates, Times Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins. The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68. Registrar Lillian Ladele 'faced sack for obeying Christian doctrine on gay unions' (Fiona Hamilton, Times) Jewish population on the increase (Robert Pigott, BBC News) Church of Scientology: Boy faces court for 'cult not religion' placard (John Bingham, Telegraph) Smith's Bordering on the Ridiculous (Daily Star) Should men-only Muslim teams be barred from the Olympics? (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld) Yeah, I thought it was you! (5CC) Tuesday May 20 2008 Labour: Lord Ahmed faces police probe over death crash on motorway John Bingham, Telegraph The Crown Prosecution Service said it was examining a police file following an investigation into the accident on the M1 in South Yorkshire on Christmas Day last year. The 50-year-old Labour peer was at the wheel of his gold-coloured X-Type Jaguar when he hit a stationary red Audi A4 in the fast lane of the motorway at Thorpe Hesley, near Rotherham. The Audi's Slovakian driver, Martyn Gombar, 28, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, was killed. [Britain's first Muslim peer faces charges over text message he sent shortly before fatal car crash: The Mail] Bombing victims outraged over third anniversary premiere date for 7/7 terror attack movie about innocent Muslim man being shot dead The Mail Families of those killed by the 7 July bombings today expressed shock at the "insensitive" timing of the premiere and said they knew nothing of what is the first movie based on the attacks. Shoot On Sight is to be premiered in London on the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks. With a cast including Brian Cox and Greta Scacchi, the film is a fictionalised account of the killing of an innocent young Muslim man by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the outrage. Reform Jewish prayer book 'dispels sexism' Cahal Milmo, Independent For generations of Jews, the first lines of the Amidah – the central daily prayer of the religion – have invoked a distinctly male God. As well as eulogising the "God of our fathers", practising Jews refer to the patriarchs of their faith – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the last Friday of this month, members of the Movement for Reform Judaism, who make up a quarter of Britain's Jews, will add a further line to the prayer. To Live Crawling or Die Standing? (Between the Lines) Rome: Schools to remove ethnic foods from menu (Islam in Europe) Mosque plan gets go-ahead amid 'racist' row (Islamophobia Watch) Muslim Women's Rap Collective: Deeyah ('Ilm al-insaan) Dalai Lama criticises 'one-sided' Chinese teaching (Matthew Weaver and agencies, guardian.co.uk) MPs vote for hybrid embryos after Brown makes plea to permit 'moral endeavour' (Nicholas Watt, The Guardian) Detention centres to be expanded (Emily Dugan, Independent) 'Asylum' a negative word - report (BBC News Online) Should the term 'asylum' be banned? (Mark Easton, BBC News Online) Iran urged to overturn sentences against women activists (Amnesty International) Cartoons Commemorating Nakba @ 60 (Sabbahblog) Monday May 19 2008 Police chief Peter Fahy: Discrimination holds back black officers Rob Davies, Telegraph The Chief Constable of Cheshire constabulary, Peter Fahy, admitted that officers from ethnic minorities were being unfairly discriminated against. He said promotions in organisations such as the police were often based on whether the applicant's face fitted, and said fairer selection is needed in to get black and Asian officers into the top ranks. Mr Fahy, 44, was until recently the spokesman for race and diversity on the board of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo)... Radical Christians Penetrate Britain (IslamOnline) Bereaved pet owner Sue Rogers turns her cat into black diamond ring (The Times) Who Speaks for Islam? (Ronald Lukens-Bull, Tabsir) The ugly face of the British evangelical lobby (Indigo Jo Blogs) Sunday May 18 2008 Britain is focal point for terrorism, warns Europe's police force Brian Brady, Independent on Sunday Britain is the focal point for Islamic terrorism across Europe, and its controversial military campaigns overseas are putting the entire continent at risk, a disturbing new report has warned. An analysis of the terrorist threat by Europol, the European Police Office, has concluded that the dangers posed by militant groups rose to unprecedented proportions in 2007, with steep increases in the number of arrests, plots and attacks. Registrar sues for right not to marry gays Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph Islington council in London has told Lillian Ladele she could lose her job unless she agrees to preside at the ceremonies. She claims “discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief”. The employment tribunal ruling could set a precedent over whether employees can be required to act against their consciences. The Civil Partnership Act was introduced in 2004, giving same-sex couples the same rights as married couples. Swelling chorus demands: Save Our Churches Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, have backed the Save Our Churches campaign. The campaign calls for a number of measures to keep churches at the heart of community life including changing planning rules to help them adapt and providing grants. It has also won the backing of public figures, including the actress Joanna Lumley and the musician Jools Holland. Sssh! It's the silent majority Musab Bora, Guardian CiF Yesterday's Islamophonic podcast featured an interview with a very nice lady from British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) which was launched earlier this month. While the notion of any group speaking out for tolerance should be applauded, it was rather surprising that a single issue group is given so much prominence. I look forward to a similar level of exposure for the newly-formed Birmingham Muslims for Mild Curries (BMMC). Neoconceit and the Iraq Debacle (Tabsir) Why the police now have to ask teenage muggers: 'Do you eat chips? (Eileen Fairweather, Mail) How do international Shariah Boards work? (Austrolabe) Afghan journalist appeals blasphemy conviction (Tome Heneghan, FaithWorld) Pritt Stick “4 girls”… (Jess McCabe, F-Word) Friday May 16 2008 Racists made life hell, says son of murder accused Habib Khan Dominic Kennedy , Times Years of misery endured by a Pakistani family living next door to British National Party activists were outlined yesterday in the murder trial of a Muslim man accused of stabbing his far-right neighbour to death in the street. Keith Brown, the dead man, was a friend of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, and was said to have resented the Asian family building a grand house next to his home in Stoke-on-Trent. Habib Khan, 50, denies murdering Mr Brown, 53, with an 8in blade during a fracas last summer. Police admit: we're losing war against heroin trafficking Sean O'Neill, Times The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) claimed it was making headway in tackling fraud, gun-running and the cocaine trade but that success in tackling heroin smuggling was “more elusive”. Soca stated in its annual report: “While interdictions of both heroin and opium base surpassed those of the previous year and good leads to money flows were secured, there remained much to do, in the light of increased production, against this very difficult target.” New alcohol law prompts fears for Turkish bar trade Robert Tait, The Guardian The Islamist credentials of Turkey's conservative-run government have come under renewed scrutiny over a new law on alcohol which critics claim could stop bars and restaurants from selling drinks by the glass. The regulation, which came into force this week, bars the sale of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes outside their original packaging. Offenders could face maximum fines of more than £4,000. Critics claim it is consistent with an AKP "hidden agenda"... Propaganda frenzy! (5 Chinese Crackers) International Day Against Homophobia (Helen G, F-Word) UK inquiry into torture and death of Iraqi in UK custody must be independent (Amnesty International) Thursday May 15 2008 Police and CPS apologise to programme makers Owen Gibson, The Guardian West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service will today issue a high court apology and agree to pay six-figure libel damages to Channel 4 and the independent makers of a Dispatches documentary, Undercover Mosque. The broadcaster and Hardcash Productions launched the action after the media regulator cleared them of TV fakery and ruled they "dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context". [Police apologise for 'fake' claim over Channel 4 mosque documentary: Adam Sherwin, Times] Brothers guilty of running down father-of-two David Pallister, Guardian Balbir Matharu saw one of the men breaking his van window and tried to stop him. But the thieves, Albert and Tommy Willett, drove off in their car, dragging Matharu under it for 40 metres along the road, then ran over him. Talking after the death of Matharu the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, criticised the press for coverage reflecting "institutional racism". More attention had been paid to the murder of a white lawyer, Tom Rhys Price, who died during a mugging, than to the killing of Matharu.... Queen wears headscarf at Turkish mosque Gordon Rayner, Telegraph Her Majesty, who had been wearing a wide-brimmed hat and white shoes, adhered to the Islamic dress code, which requires women to cover their heads and all visitors to remove their footwear, during the visit to the 15th century Green Mosque in the eastern city of Bursa. The monarch is making a four-day state visit to highlight and strengthen Britain's ties with Turkey, which the UK is supporting in its campaign to become a member of the EU. Challenging the future with a profound lack of history (Indigo Jo Blogs) Johann Hari having one of his turns (Jews sans frontieres) Islamophonic: The non-Muslim Muslims (Riazat Butt , guardian.co.uk) Wednesday May 14 2008 Europe's most racist fans come to Britain (and there's not a black player in sight) Nick Harris and James Macintyre, Independent Manchester police and the Government have warned some of the world's most notoriously racist football fans – those of Zenit St Petersburg – not to bring their abuse of black players to Britain when their side face Glasgow Rangers in the Uefa Cup final at the City of Manchester stadium tonight. Uefa's chief spokesman, William Gaillard, also intervened as the prospect of racist clashes threatened to return to England's terraces. "There will be zero tolerance," he said. The New Evangelicalism: "Not to Attack or Exclude" Deepak Chopra, Washington Post The strikingly new note in the Evangelical Manifesto is that it intends to be conciliatory. In affirming that they totally identify with their faith, the writers quickly declare that their purpose is "not to attack or exclude." This seems to reverse the very impulse that brought the religious right to power politically. By erasing the line between faith and the voting booth, evangelicals absolutely excluded anyone who believes in a secular Constitution and its separation of church and state. 'HM Government has never been approached by people from outer space' Michael Evans, Times Files containing hundreds of previously classified reports are being released today in the hope of persuading ufologists that there has been no cover-up regarding the existence of visitors from outer space. Yet the files do show that the MoD conducted a rigorous investigation of every alleged sighting of a UFO until well into the 1980s. In a briefing note in 1979 the MoD wrote: “Her Majesty’s Government has never been approached by people from outer space.” Dinner with the Bakrs ... a middle class family from Gaza (Guardian films) US Court blocks long distance triple talaq (Akram's Razor) Queen dons a headscarf for Mosque visit (Lucy Bannerman, Times) Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen - threat or benefactor? (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld) Women priests say 'no' to women bishops at any price (Ruth Gledhill, Times) The Trouble With Muslim Pundits Today (The Manrilla Blog) Tuesday May 13 2008 Islam's refuseniks Nesrine Malik, Guardian CiF Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan have caused a stir for allegedly being "brave enough" to criticise Islam and nail their colours to the west's mast of values. Each, in her own way, has either deliberately or inadvertently (but inevitably), placed herself in an antithetic position to the religion and the religion's followers; realistically, focusing on a lesbian, an atheist and a secularist ... all of them earnestly seeking to bring about reform in Islam - is a self-defeating exercise. (DT says: this is a must read) Pride & prejudice: How the far right muscled in on middle England Julian Baggini, Independent 'Billy Blair? Yeah, he's a friend of ours. He's a good bloke." It's not unusual to hear local shopkeepers back their newly elected councillor straight after an election. What is extraordinary is that here in Maltby, Rotherham, Will Blair has just won the seat for the BNP and the shopkeeper in question is Birmingham-born British Asian Kaz Singh. Singh's comment is a warning to anyone trying to make easy sense of the success of nationalist parties in this month's local elections. Straw: too many white male judges BBC News Online Too few women and people from black and Asian backgrounds are appointed judges, Jack Straw has told MPs. The justice secretary said the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), formed two years ago, had so far failed to create a "more diverse judiciary". Concerns about white, middle class men dominating the bench were justified, he told the Justice Select Committee. Mr Straw said he was determined to ensure that the judiciary represented wider society better. The (soaring) cost of living under New Labour (Lenin's Tomb) Darling announces £120 tax cut to defuse 10p row (Deborah Summers & Andrew Sparrow, guardian.co.uk ) Birmingham professor speaks at extremist Islamic group debate (Islamophobia Watch) Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear (James Randerson, Guardian) 'It shows a rap guy trying to find a girlfriend who's a believer' (Ed Pilkington, Guardian) Thousands of known illegal immigrants STILL got National Insurance numbers, admit ministers (James Slack, Daily Mail) Restraint Urged Following Lebanon Clashes (Amnesty International) Round-up: Austria, Hassan Butt, Julian Baggini in Rotherham, life in Yemen (Indigo Jo Blogs) Sunday May 11 2008 The Muslim middle class Jason Burke, Guardian CiF He - though it could be a she - is around 40 years old. He is not badly off, certainly better off than his parents who had received only a basic education and much better off than their parents who worked a small plot of land at least a days bumpy transport from the city where he now lives with his with relatively young children. He may have a university education in a scientific subject or may have left school to go into a family business. He is in commerce, law, medicine and is articulate and modern. One in five churches faces being lost Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Sunday Telegraph Britain will lose up to a fifth of its churches in the space of a generation unless action is taken to halt the decline, according to new research. The number of churches is forecast to fall from 48,500 now to only 39,200 in 2030. Today church leaders warn that the crisis threatens to devastate parishes, depriving local communities of important focal points. Conservationists said Britain was in danger of losing a large slice of its built heritage. Responding to these concerns, the Telegraph is launching a campaign... Hey nonny no, no, no: Goths and pagans are reinventing morris dancing Cole Moreton, Independent on Sunday Just before dawn, by an empty shingle beach, sinister figures move through the gloom. Living shadows, they're dressed all in black, their coats made from long rags, their faces obscured by paint. But their eyes burn brightly as they gather in a circle. If some poor insomniac comes walking the dog now – at 5am on a cold, damp morning – they'll get a massive fright. "Hey-ya!" yell eight men and women as they come together with a loud clash of sticks, and what appears to be a blend of... The imam and the rabbi (Muqtedar Khan, Alt.Muslim) Boris Johnson On Islam (The Anorak) Saturday May 10 2008 Blasphemy laws are lifted Martin Beckford, Telegraph A campaign to repeal the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel, which made it illegal to insult Christianity, was proposed in January by the Liberal Democrat Evan Harris. It was supported by public figures including the author Philip Pullman and the academic Richard Dawkins. They claimed the little-used laws served no useful purpose, while allowing religious groups to try to censor artists. Evangelists had tried to prosecute the director-general of the BBC over the controversial musical... Letter from me in the New Statesman (Indigo Jo Blogs) Friday May 09 2008 Lies and deception Noorjehan Barmania, The Guardian "Let's get our stories straight," says Hounslow Man. I drag my eyes up from my book and raise a quizzical eyebrow. "Well," he suggests quietly, "you could be my sister." "Sister!" I splutter. "How can I be your sister? I'm your girlfriend. It would be too creepy to pretend that I am your sister." He gazes at me in an abstract way. "You look like her, you know, you are about the same height and shape," he says. "And you wear your hair like her. People will believe you are my sister." Cardinal: UK a land of spiritual homelessness Martin Beckford, Telegraph Britain is becoming a country of "spiritual homelessness" because society makes people afraid to express their faith, according to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, said many people want to live by shared values and find a meaning for their existence, but modern society sends out the message that to believe in God is to take a step backwards from being independent and mature. (Cardinal says Britain must not be a 'God-free zone': Riazat Butt, The Guardian) Archbishop and Pope talk about Christian-Muslim relations Ekklesia Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has described his private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican earlier this week as "friendly and informal". They spent almost half an hour in the Pope's study. Afterwards Dr Williams said: "[W]e discussed a number of ecumenical issues, some of the Pope's impressions from his American visit and common issues in Christian Muslim dialogue." This latest meeting was the second private encounter between the two leaders. Ethnic groups 'get on together' Andrew Bomford, BBC News Most people get along successfully with people from other ethnic backgrounds, research has suggested. Just 2% of 18 to 54-year-olds in Birmingham said they did not have friends from other backgrounds, a study by the Barrow Cadbury Trust found. More than half of the 1,000 people questioned claimed they socialised with each other on a daily basis. But Commission for Racial Equality research suggests only 30% of such relationships lead to strong bonds. Sugar's fame fails to win him place in Jewish power list Riazat Butt, The Guardian He is worth £800m and has a TV show that regularly attracts 7 million viewers. But fame and fortune have not secured Sir Alan Sugar a place in the Jewish Power 100. The tycoon, who this week berated candidates on The Apprentice for not understanding the word kosher, is missing from a list naming the people deemed to be the most influential in shaping British Jewish life. Published today by the Jewish Chronicle, the Power 100 features rabbis, philanthropists, journalists and academics. High court orders release of radical preacher Qatada (Alan Travis, Guardian) British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus (Tom Kelly, Daily Mail) And if Hitler were born in America? (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist) McCain's 'spiritual guide' wants America to destroy Islam (Islamophobia Watch) Police bid to tackle Islamophobia (Imtiaz Tyab, BBC News Online) Your Independence is our Nakba (Jamal Dajani, Huffington Post) Why Ken welcomed Qaradawi – Daniel Finkelstein explains (Islamophobia Watch) London elections and the BNP (Five Chinese Crackers) Transplant of human organs not violative of Islam: Ulema (Amin Ahmed, Dawn) Thursday May 08 2008 The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics Johann Hari, Independent Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh... (Stupid Zionists: Indigo Jo Blogs) July 7 bomber 'was not good Muslim' Elizabeth Stewart and agencies, guardian.co.uk One of the men accused of helping the July 7 bombers told police he used to smoke cannabis and drink alcohol with the man who masterminded the terrorist attacks, a court heard today. Mohammed Shakil, 31, told officers that Mohammed Siddique Khan "was not a good practising Muslim" and he couldn't "in his wildest dreams" think why he would take part in suicide bombings. In two interviews with the police, Shakil told police he and Khan had become friends in their early 20s when they "drank alcohol and smoked cannabis together". Bail for Islamic preacher Qatada BBC News Online Islamic preacher Abu Qatada has been granted bail with a highly unusual 22-hour curfew by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Qatada last month won an appeal against deportation to Jordan but remained in prison. He could now be free in weeks. The Home Office, which is appealing against the deportation decision, said it was extremely disappointed. Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian, was convicted in his absence in Jordan of terrorist offences in the 1990s. (Hate preacher Qatada bailed: The Sun) Practising Muslims 'will outnumber Christians by 2035' (Islamophobia Watch) Young Video Makers Try to Alter Islam's Face ('im al-insaan) Public life cannot be 'God-free', says cardinal (Riazat Butt, guardian.co.uk) Sir Cliff to the rescue (Ruth Gledhill) Catholic-Mormon tension over LDS baptism of the dead (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld) Dutch play probes “mercy killing” as euthanasia deaths fall (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
index

Abu Dharr (Daily Terror) May 2008

Saturday May 31 2008
‘This is not the way I should have been treated in a country I love’
Polly Curtis and Anthea Lipsett, The Guardian
For more than a decade, Nottingham university felt like the safest place in the world for Hicham Yezza as an undergraduate, doctoral student, campus activist and, most recently, employee. But two weeks ago his world caved in when he was arrested under the Terrorism Act. The 30-year-old Algerian was detained by police for possessing a copy of the al-Qaida training manual that he had been given to print by a friend researching the terrorist group’s techniques for his MA.

Now Muslim Clerics to Teach Our Children
Daily Express
Moves to allow Muslim clerics into classrooms to address pupils were condemned yesterday. The latest scheme put forward by Schools Secretary Ed Balls was greeted with derision. Critics branded the proposals by the under-fire minister unworkable and unnecessary. The package of measures, to be published next week, will set out a proposal to invite British-born imams into schools to speak about growing violent extremism among young people.

A principle under threat
Leader, The Guardian
Reporters who investigate this shadowland are therefore to be encouraged. Shiv Malik is one such journalist, researching Muslim extremism in this country even before the attacks of July 2005. Yet his work and that of other journalists, media outlets and publishers risks becoming a lot more difficult. For the past few months Mr Malik has been trying to fend off an order from Greater Manchester police to surrender his notes and tapes of interviews with the terrorism suspect Hassan Butt.

Face to faith (The Rev Dr Joanna Collicutt, The Guardian)
Islam, not gays, will split the Church (MPACUK)

Friday May 30 2008
Tony Blair's Faith Foundation to sell religion as force for good
Tom Baldwin, Times
Tony Blair launches his Faith Foundation in New York today, saying that he wants to spend most of his remaining years ensuring that religion is seen as a force for good in the world. The new organisation, for which he is seeking hundreds of millions of pounds of charitable funding, will focus on developing better understanding between faiths as well as fostering concrete action on fighting poverty and disease. “In the end, this will be what I dedicate a very large part of my life to,” he told The Times yesterday.

Nazir-Ali is a prophet and prophets are rejected by their own, as Jesus was. He is a serious man for serious times
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
Michael Nazir-Ali, the 106th Bishop of Rochester, is accustomed to the limelight and has been making headlines since 1994, when he became the first ethnic minority holder of the post in the historic Kent city. His impact on the Church of England, an institution famed for fudges and niceties, has been equally bold, with Nazir-Ali proving he is cut from a different cloth. Recent comments about the need to convert Britain's Muslims and how radical Islam is filling the "moral vacuum"...
[Bishop's move: Guardian Leader]

Bishop says collapse of Christianity is wrecking British society - and Islam is filling the void
Sean Poulter and Niall Firth
The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday. It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum. In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.
[The Bishop of Hate: MPACUK; If a Christian knocks at your door: Between the Lines;
Bishop of Rochester 'doing the BNP's work': Islamophobia Watch]

Scare tactics
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
Journalists from several newspapers rang yesterday seeking a reaction to the latest remarks from Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester. You will recall that Nazir-Ali hit the headlines at the beginning of this year when he claimed that British Muslims were setting up "no-go areas" across the UK. What had he actually said this time, I asked wearily. "Christianity is central to British identity but its marginalization has created a moral vacuum which radical Islam threatens to fill," I was told.

BNP hijack murder trial to recruit new members saying 'anyone who gets angry - get involved with the BNP'
Christian Gysin, Mail
The BNP is attempting to recruit new members by highlighting the case of a 'white martyr' killed by a Muslim elder during a neighbourhood dispute. Father-of-six Habib Khan, 50, was cleared of murder after Stafford Crown Court heard he had suffered years of abuse. The jury instead convicted him of 52-year-old Keith Brown's manslaughter - and warned he faces a prison when he returns to Stafford Crown Court for sentencing.

Institutionalised Child Abuse In the Name of The Endless War for Civilization, Freedom and All That (The Cutting Edge)
Asian women 'denied free votes' (BBC News Online)
Muslim TV crew stopped under terror law (Islamophobia Watch)
French Muslims’ marriage annulled over virginity lie (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
War in Iraq: US marine reassigned for distributing coins bearing Bible verses (McClatchy newspapers guardian.co.uk)
Making “Medieval” Islam Meaningful (Daniel Varisco, Tabsir)
Dunkin' Donuts buckles to zionist hate campaign (Jews sans frontieres)
Muslim scholar responds to “Sharia smear” against Obama (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Warning after Australian town blocks Islamic school proposal (Barbara McMahon, The Guardian)
Tutu calls for end to blockade of Gaza (Rory McCarthy, Guardian)
Sex warning: 'Women have to be more careful than men' (Robert Tait , guardian.co.uk)
No action over racist attack on Stephen Lawrence centre (Times)
Nadwi on Maududi: a traditionalist maulvi’s critique of Islamism (Tabsir)
The Donut & the Scarf! (Between the Lines)
Haycast 06: Sunny side of Hay (Francesca Panetta , guardian.co.uk)
The sun of my sons (Amina Wadud)

Wednesday May 28 2008
As family mourns, three more arrested over park killing
Martin Wainwright, Guardian
The family of murdered teenager Amar Aslam spoke yesterday of the popular and friendly boy whom they called "Moon" because he lit up their life. As police arrested three more British Asian youths in connection with the suspected gang killing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Amar's elder sister, Samreen, said: "Nothing can replace him. We still believe that he will come through the door." The Labour MP for Dewsbury, Shahid Malik, called for "a change in society"...

Telegraph hosts anti-immigrant blog by BNP
Rachel Williams, Guardian
Richard Barnbrook, the British National party's London Assembly member, has used a blog on the Daily Telegraph's website to blame immigrants and their sons for knife and gun crime among young people in the capital after a spate of murders. Under the headline "Blame the immigrants", the posting on My Telegraph, a platform which allows readers to publish their own articles, Barnbrook claims the perpetrators are protected by a government eager to secure the "Ethnic Block-Vote"...

Tutu enters Gaza to start investigation into deaths
Rory McCarthy, Guardian
Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop, met the former Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza at the start of a much-delayed UN investigation into the shelling by the Israeli military of a Palestinian house which killed 18 members of a single family in Beit Hanoun. Tutu was sent by the UN human rights council to lead the inquiry only days after the incident in November 2006. However, the Israeli government did not give him a visa...

Against forced marriages (Between the Lines)
Public reading of ‘radical material’ that led to terror arrests (Trinketization)
Fascists expose 'Islam's 1,300 year war on Western Civilisation' (Islamophobia Watch)
Zionists against Islamism (Islamophobia Watch)
'Radical Islam is filling void left by collapse of Christianity in UK' (Islamophobia Watch)
Fly the flag in opposition to mosque, urges UKIP councillor (Islamophobia Watch)
Islamic Clothing Update (Mere Islam)
Ramadan's festival (Sarfraz Manzoor)
Marranci on the Anthropology of Islam (Tabsir)
Blame the Immigrants (5 Chinese Crackers)
Scientology protest: Liberty challenges police over summons (Anil Dawar, guardian.co.uk)
France arrests 8 over mosque attack (Press TV)

Tuesday May 27 2008
Amar Aslam, 17, beaten to death in weekend of violence
Steve Bird, Times
An Asian teenager was beaten to death in a park in West Yorkshire after pitched battles between rival gangs of youths. The severely battered body of Amar Aslam, 17, was found in a walled wildlife garden in Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury, at 7.30pm on Sunday. His death was feared to have been the culmination of a series of fights between youths in the park over the weekend. It remains unclear whether the boy was in a gang and killed by a rival...

Muslim TV channel to stage interfaith game show
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
Britain's first interfaith game show is to be launched, pitting Jews against Muslims, Sikhs against Christians and Hindus against Buddhists, with contestants competing for cash prizes. Faith Off, the working title of a series on the Islam Channel, will attempt to promote good relations and mutual respect between Britain's religious communities. Two teams of four will go head to head in each episode, answering quick-fire and general knowledge questions in the eight-part series...

Missing mum in Muslim gear
Anthony France, The Sun
A WOMAN who has gone missing with her five children has been spotted – wearing Muslim clothing. Natalie Bracht, 34, was caught on CCTV in a robe and headscarf. The images were filmed at London’s King’s Cross railway station on May 17. Earlier that day, she had sported a red jacket and blue trousers as she left her home in Sunderland with her daughters aged five to 13. Police were concerned for Natalie’s emotional well-being and believe she may be being sheltered by someone.

Bombing suspect leaves hospital (Chris Court, PA/Independent)
Finger-jabbing? Us? (Indigo Jo Blogs)
The War of the Walkers (Koonj the Crane)
Misreading the Arab Media (Tabsir)
Ed Husain accuses Muslim critics of 'intimidation' (Islamophobia Watch)
Minority Report: Ahmadis celebrate 100 years but who are they and what do they believe? (Jerome Taylor, Indyblogs)
Al-Malika ('Ilm al-insaan)

Monday May 26 2008
Church of England row over Muslim conversion
George Pitcher, Telegraph
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims. However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. Britain's only Asian bishop, he was tipped (by himself) to become Archbishop of Canterbury before Dr Rowan Williams's appointment in 2002.

Muslim gangs 'taking control of British top security prison' (Duncan Gardham, Telegraph)
Norway: Discriminating crossword puzzles (Islam in Europe)
Billions wasted on UN climate programme (John Vidal, Guardian)
Comparative Islamic Studies (Tabsir)
Islam In The UK: Mullahs Under Your Beds (Anorak)
Agnostic about atheism (Tracy Quan, Guardian CiF)
Immigrants who struggle to speak English will lose benefits under Tory plans (Rosa Prince, Telegraph)
The holy post: coming to a church near you (Giles Fraser, Guardian)

Sunday May 25 2008
Muslim gangs 'are taking control of prison'
Jamie Doward, The Observer
Prison officers at one of Britain's maximum security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a confidential report obtained by The Observer. An internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a 'serious incident is imminent' as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners. The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, says there is an 'ongoing theme of fear and instability' among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim.
[Jail staff 'fear Muslim inmates': BBC News Online]

Sorry Mum
John Coles, The Sun Online
THE brainwashed Muslim convert arrested over the botched Exeter bombing has said sorry to his mother for the distress he caused her. Nicky Reilly’s extraordinary apology was revealed yesterday as a neighbour told how he had seemed obsessed with a video showing Briton Ken Bigley, 62, being beheaded in Iraq in 2004. Reilly, 22, spoke by phone to mum Kim Reilly, 40, from the hospital where he was recovering from injuries suffered in the blast.

SunniPath's 5-year Anniversary Program (Mere Islam)
Nazir-Ali backs initiative to convert Muslims to Christianity (Islamophobia Watch)
'Britain's phoney war on terror' (Islamophobia Watch)
Couldn't Sky Arts find a Muslim? (Islamophobia Watch)
Corporate rats jump ship, but why are unions still funding New Labour? (Rebellion Sucks)

Saturday May 24 2008
Face of British 'Suicide' Bomber
Gary Nicks, The Star
THIS is face of oddball loner Nicky Reilly, injured by three horrific bombs after he was brainwashed into a suicide mission by evil Muslim fanatics he met in his local chip shop. MUSLIM convert Reilly had three “fireball” devices powerful enough to trigger a massive explosion in the Exeter café bombing. Police believe the 22-year-old was hellbent on turning the packed Giraffe eaterie into a raging inferno and causing a terrible death toll.
[Brainwashed at the chip shop: The Sun]

Comment: violent Islam appeals to social misfits
Andrew Norfolk, Times
It is the exclusive club that will accept almost anyone as a member. To become a Western foot soldier of jihadist Islam, and in some cases its sacrificial, exploding lamb, requires no one to pass a test of intellect or psychological stability. Numerous examples of would-be martyrs have illustrated that violent Islamism is a death cult that holds a particularly seductive appeal to the social misfit. The ideology is easy to absorb. It paints the world in black and white. And it offers you a chance to belong.

Case dropped against boy, 15, who held up sign branding Scientology 'a cult'
Daily Mail
The case against a 15-year-old boy who was facing possible legal action for holding up a placard which branded the Church of Scientology a "cult" has been thrown out. The Crown Prosecution Service took just a day to decide it was not in the public interest to take the teenager to court after he was handed a summons by the City of London police. The boy was "strongly advised" by officers to get rid of the sign which said "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult" at a protest...

Friday May 23 2008
'Recent convert to Islam' is arrested after bomb explosion in restaurant
Alexi Mostrous, Times
A Muslim convert with a history of mental illness who was “preyed upon and radicalised” injured himself yesterday after a device he was carrying exploded in a busy shopping centre in Exeter. Nicky Reilly, 22, received serious facial injuries after the device went off at lunchtime in a family restaurant at the new £230 million Princesshay shopping centre. Another device was defused by bomb disposal teams. Tony Melville, Devon and Cornwall’s Deputy Chief Constable, said last night that Mr Reilly had been “preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of”. Mr Reilly’s neighbours said that he had been brainwashed.

Tibet could be 'swamped' by mass Chinese settlement after Olympics, says Dalai Lama
Julian Borger, Guardian
The Dalai Lama claimed yesterday that Beijing was planning the mass settlement of 1 million ethnic Chinese people in Tibet after the Olympics with the aim of diluting Tibetan culture and identity. Tibet's exiled spiritual leader also claimed that some of Asia's most important rivers which flow from the Tibetan plateau are being polluted and diminished by careless industrialisation and unplanned irrigation.

Turkish crisis puts "post-Islamist" reform on hold
Tom Heneghan, Reuters
Turkey's moves toward greater religious freedom, which some saw as the sign of an evolving moderate Muslim society, have been put on hold by a political crisis that could outlaw the "post-Islamist" ruling AK Party. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose bid to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves at universities triggered the crisis, would probably not champion further religious reform even if he won the court case against his party, Turkish analysts say.

The racism behind integration (Islamophobia Watch)
How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart (Rebecca Walker)

Thursday May 22 2008
Credit crunch 'will cause ethnic violence'
Richard Edwards, Telegraph
Julie Spence, Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, said her officers were already struggling to cope with the consequences of migration and warned that if the economic downturn continued, it would heighten tensions in communities with large numbers of migrant workers. Speaking at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth on Wednesday, Mrs Spence said: "We do wonder what is going to happen as the credit crunch starts to bite. We have already seen [claims that] 'people are taking our jobs'.

Reformed jihadist released as court case begins
Andrew Norfolk, Times
A former jihadist recruiter ... was released without charge yesterday after being held for 12 days under the Terrorism Act. Hassan Butt, 28, who has been offered Home Office funding to support his work, was arrested by officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on May 9 as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan. His release came as lawyers for the police appeared at the High Court to defend an attempt to force journalists to hand over materials relating to Mr Butt.
[Writer in legal fight to protect terror notes: Aislinn Simpson, Telegraph]

Our mission is liberation, says Somali Islamist leader
Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
The senior leader of Somalia's Islamist opposition vowed yesterday to expel US-backed Ethiopian troops by force and create an Islamic republic in the war-torn country on the Horn of Africa. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who led Somalia's Islamic Courts movement and who the Bush administration claims is a terrorist linked to al-Qaida, said Mogadishu's western-backed Transitional Federal Government was run by "traitors".

Abortion debate: MPs face backlash (Martin Beckford, Telegraph)
Student union rejects academic's IQ claims (Polly Curtis, The Guardian)
Registrars fear being driven out over gay weddings (Telegraph)
Museum covers mummies' modesty after surge of complaints by visitors (Russell Jenkins, Times)
Building Churches Allowed: Qaradawi (IslamOnline)
Berlusconi clamps down on Gypsies (John Hooper, Guardian)
Are Indian Muslims leading the way in condemning terror? (Alistair Scrutton, FaithWorld)
'No place for the hijab in civic life' says Irish journalist (Islamophobia Watch)
A real Orwellian story (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)
Release Equatorial Guinea pastor (Amnesty International)
Ex-ex-gay to speak at Lambeth (Ruth Gledhill)
Dalai Lama to visit Olympics if China talks are constructive (Riazat Butt, The Guardian)
Drive to clean up TV (in Afghanistan) leaves soap fans fearing for their one respite from reality (Declan Walsh, Guardian)
'Morning-after pill? It's against my religion' (Eve Dugdale, Manchester Evening News)

Wednesday May 21 2008
Transsexual driving instructor in row over threat by Muslim student
Andy Bloxham, Telegraph
Emma Sherdley, 42, used to be called Andrew but is now legally a woman after a sex change operation. She works for an all-female driving school and was sent to give a married Muslim woman her first two-hour lesson. The pupil, who has not been named, appeared unconcerned but asked to go home half-way through the lesson, citing the need to breast-feed. However, her husband soon rang the Sheffield-based driving firm, called Laugh'n'Pass, to complain.

Legal Opinion: How accusations of TV fakery led to a libel action
Nick Armstrong, Independent
The makers of Channel 4's Dispatches investigation "Undercover Mosque" last week won their libel action against West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The story began as one of a string of fakery stories last summer during British television's annus horribilis – only this time it was not a "fair cop" and it was the cops who ended up in the dock, apologising in the High Court to the programme-makers for getting it wrong.

MPs throw out bids to reduce abortion limit
Nigel Morris, Independent
Abortions will remain legal for up to 24 weeks into pregnancy after MPs rejected a series of attempts to cut the limit after an impassioned debate in the House of Commons. In the first test of parliamentary opinion on abortion for 18 years, supporters of a reduction called votes on reducing the limit to 12, 16, 20 and 22 weeks. But they were thrown out by decreasing majorities, with calls for the 22-week maximum defeated by 304 to 233 votes, a margin of 71.

Number of new British citizens under Labour hits 1.2m mark
Richard Ford, Times
A record number of foreigners became British citizens last year, bringing the total since Labour came to power to almost 1.2 million, according to figures published yesterday. Three quarters of those getting a British passport came from Asia and Africa with the main nationalities being Indian, Philippine, Afghan, South African and Pakistani. The figure is 7 per cent up on the previous year and was the highest number ever granted in any year.

Women win right to children without fathers
Mark Henderson, Francis Elliott, Ruth Gledhill and Sam Coates, Times
Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins. The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68.

Registrar Lillian Ladele 'faced sack for obeying Christian doctrine on gay unions' (Fiona Hamilton, Times)
Jewish population on the increase (Robert Pigott, BBC News)
Church of Scientology: Boy faces court for 'cult not religion' placard (John Bingham, Telegraph)
Smith's Bordering on the Ridiculous (Daily Star)
Should men-only Muslim teams be barred from the Olympics? (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Yeah, I thought it was you! (5CC)

Tuesday May 20 2008
Labour: Lord Ahmed faces police probe over death crash on motorway
John Bingham, Telegraph
The Crown Prosecution Service said it was examining a police file following an investigation into the accident on the M1 in South Yorkshire on Christmas Day last year. The 50-year-old Labour peer was at the wheel of his gold-coloured X-Type Jaguar when he hit a stationary red Audi A4 in the fast lane of the motorway at Thorpe Hesley, near Rotherham. The Audi's Slovakian driver, Martyn Gombar, 28, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, was killed.
[Britain's first Muslim peer faces charges over text message he sent shortly before fatal car crash: The Mail]

Bombing victims outraged over third anniversary premiere date for 7/7 terror attack movie about innocent Muslim man being shot dead
The Mail
Families of those killed by the 7 July bombings today expressed shock at the "insensitive" timing of the premiere and said they knew nothing of what is the first movie based on the attacks. Shoot On Sight is to be premiered in London on the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks. With a cast including Brian Cox and Greta Scacchi, the film is a fictionalised account of the killing of an innocent young Muslim man by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the outrage.

Reform Jewish prayer book 'dispels sexism'
Cahal Milmo, Independent
For generations of Jews, the first lines of the Amidah – the central daily prayer of the religion – have invoked a distinctly male God. As well as eulogising the "God of our fathers", practising Jews refer to the patriarchs of their faith – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the last Friday of this month, members of the Movement for Reform Judaism, who make up a quarter of Britain's Jews, will add a further line to the prayer.

To Live Crawling or Die Standing? (Between the Lines)
Rome: Schools to remove ethnic foods from menu (Islam in Europe)
Mosque plan gets go-ahead amid 'racist' row (Islamophobia Watch)
Muslim Women's Rap Collective: Deeyah ('Ilm al-insaan)
Dalai Lama criticises 'one-sided' Chinese teaching (Matthew Weaver and agencies, guardian.co.uk)
MPs vote for hybrid embryos after Brown makes plea to permit 'moral endeavour' (Nicholas Watt, The Guardian)
Detention centres to be expanded (Emily Dugan, Independent)
'Asylum' a negative word - report (BBC News Online)
Should the term 'asylum' be banned? (Mark Easton, BBC News Online)
Iran urged to overturn sentences against women activists (Amnesty International)
Cartoons Commemorating Nakba @ 60 (Sabbahblog)

Monday May 19 2008
Police chief Peter Fahy: Discrimination holds back black officers
Rob Davies, Telegraph
The Chief Constable of Cheshire constabulary, Peter Fahy, admitted that officers from ethnic minorities were being unfairly discriminated against. He said promotions in organisations such as the police were often based on whether the applicant's face fitted, and said fairer selection is needed in to get black and Asian officers into the top ranks. Mr Fahy, 44, was until recently the spokesman for race and diversity on the board of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo)...

Radical Christians Penetrate Britain (IslamOnline)
Bereaved pet owner Sue Rogers turns her cat into black diamond ring (The Times)
Who Speaks for Islam? (Ronald Lukens-Bull, Tabsir)
The ugly face of the British evangelical lobby (Indigo Jo Blogs)

Sunday May 18 2008
Britain is focal point for terrorism, warns Europe's police force
Brian Brady, Independent on Sunday
Britain is the focal point for Islamic terrorism across Europe, and its controversial military campaigns overseas are putting the entire continent at risk, a disturbing new report has warned. An analysis of the terrorist threat by Europol, the European Police Office, has concluded that the dangers posed by militant groups rose to unprecedented proportions in 2007, with steep increases in the number of arrests, plots and attacks.

Registrar sues for right not to marry gays
Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph
Islington council in London has told Lillian Ladele she could lose her job unless she agrees to preside at the ceremonies. She claims “discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief”. The employment tribunal ruling could set a precedent over whether employees can be required to act against their consciences. The Civil Partnership Act was introduced in 2004, giving same-sex couples the same rights as married couples.

Swelling chorus demands: Save Our Churches
Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, have backed the Save Our Churches campaign. The campaign calls for a number of measures to keep churches at the heart of community life including changing planning rules to help them adapt and providing grants. It has also won the backing of public figures, including the actress Joanna Lumley and the musician Jools Holland.

Sssh! It's the silent majority
Musab Bora, Guardian CiF
Yesterday's Islamophonic podcast featured an interview with a very nice lady from British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) which was launched earlier this month. While the notion of any group speaking out for tolerance should be applauded, it was rather surprising that a single issue group is given so much prominence. I look forward to a similar level of exposure for the newly-formed Birmingham Muslims for Mild Curries (BMMC).

Neoconceit and the Iraq Debacle (Tabsir)
Why the police now have to ask teenage muggers: 'Do you eat chips? (Eileen Fairweather, Mail)
How do international Shariah Boards work? (Austrolabe)
Afghan journalist appeals blasphemy conviction (Tome Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Pritt Stick “4 girls”… (Jess McCabe, F-Word)

Friday May 16 2008
Racists made life hell, says son of murder accused Habib Khan
Dominic Kennedy , Times
Years of misery endured by a Pakistani family living next door to British National Party activists were outlined yesterday in the murder trial of a Muslim man accused of stabbing his far-right neighbour to death in the street. Keith Brown, the dead man, was a friend of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, and was said to have resented the Asian family building a grand house next to his home in Stoke-on-Trent. Habib Khan, 50, denies murdering Mr Brown, 53, with an 8in blade during a fracas last summer.

Police admit: we're losing war against heroin trafficking
Sean O'Neill, Times
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) claimed it was making headway in tackling fraud, gun-running and the cocaine trade but that success in tackling heroin smuggling was “more elusive”. Soca stated in its annual report: “While interdictions of both heroin and opium base surpassed those of the previous year and good leads to money flows were secured, there remained much to do, in the light of increased production, against this very difficult target.”

New alcohol law prompts fears for Turkish bar trade
Robert Tait, The Guardian
The Islamist credentials of Turkey's conservative-run government have come under renewed scrutiny over a new law on alcohol which critics claim could stop bars and restaurants from selling drinks by the glass. The regulation, which came into force this week, bars the sale of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes outside their original packaging. Offenders could face maximum fines of more than £4,000. Critics claim it is consistent with an AKP "hidden agenda"...

Propaganda frenzy! (5 Chinese Crackers)
International Day Against Homophobia (Helen G, F-Word)
UK inquiry into torture and death of Iraqi in UK custody must be independent (Amnesty International)

Thursday May 15 2008
Police and CPS apologise to programme makers
Owen Gibson, The Guardian
West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service will today issue a high court apology and agree to pay six-figure libel damages to Channel 4 and the independent makers of a Dispatches documentary, Undercover Mosque. The broadcaster and Hardcash Productions launched the action after the media regulator cleared them of TV fakery and ruled they "dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context".
[Police apologise for 'fake' claim over Channel 4 mosque documentary: Adam Sherwin, Times]

Brothers guilty of running down father-of-two
David Pallister, Guardian
Balbir Matharu saw one of the men breaking his van window and tried to stop him. But the thieves, Albert and Tommy Willett, drove off in their car, dragging Matharu under it for 40 metres along the road, then ran over him. Talking after the death of Matharu the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, criticised the press for coverage reflecting "institutional racism". More attention had been paid to the murder of a white lawyer, Tom Rhys Price, who died during a mugging, than to the killing of Matharu....

Queen wears headscarf at Turkish mosque
Gordon Rayner, Telegraph
Her Majesty, who had been wearing a wide-brimmed hat and white shoes, adhered to the Islamic dress code, which requires women to cover their heads and all visitors to remove their footwear, during the visit to the 15th century Green Mosque in the eastern city of Bursa. The monarch is making a four-day state visit to highlight and strengthen Britain's ties with Turkey, which the UK is supporting in its campaign to become a member of the EU.

Challenging the future with a profound lack of history (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Johann Hari having one of his turns (Jews sans frontieres)
Islamophonic: The non-Muslim Muslims (Riazat Butt , guardian.co.uk)

Wednesday May 14 2008
Europe's most racist fans come to Britain (and there's not a black player in sight)
Nick Harris and James Macintyre, Independent
Manchester police and the Government have warned some of the world's most notoriously racist football fans – those of Zenit St Petersburg – not to bring their abuse of black players to Britain when their side face Glasgow Rangers in the Uefa Cup final at the City of Manchester stadium tonight. Uefa's chief spokesman, William Gaillard, also intervened as the prospect of racist clashes threatened to return to England's terraces. "There will be zero tolerance," he said.

The New Evangelicalism: "Not to Attack or Exclude"
Deepak Chopra, Washington Post
The strikingly new note in the Evangelical Manifesto is that it intends to be conciliatory. In affirming that they totally identify with their faith, the writers quickly declare that their purpose is "not to attack or exclude." This seems to reverse the very impulse that brought the religious right to power politically. By erasing the line between faith and the voting booth, evangelicals absolutely excluded anyone who believes in a secular Constitution and its separation of church and state.

'HM Government has never been approached by people from outer space'
Michael Evans, Times
Files containing hundreds of previously classified reports are being released today in the hope of persuading ufologists that there has been no cover-up regarding the existence of visitors from outer space. Yet the files do show that the MoD conducted a rigorous investigation of every alleged sighting of a UFO until well into the 1980s. In a briefing note in 1979 the MoD wrote: “Her Majesty’s Government has never been approached by people from outer space.”

Dinner with the Bakrs ... a middle class family from Gaza (Guardian films)
US Court blocks long distance triple talaq (Akram's Razor)
Queen dons a headscarf for Mosque visit (Lucy Bannerman, Times)
Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen - threat or benefactor? (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Women priests say 'no' to women bishops at any price (Ruth Gledhill, Times)
The Trouble With Muslim Pundits Today (The Manrilla Blog)

Tuesday May 13 2008
Islam's refuseniks
Nesrine Malik, Guardian CiF
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan have caused a stir for allegedly being "brave enough" to criticise Islam and nail their colours to the west's mast of values. Each, in her own way, has either deliberately or inadvertently (but inevitably), placed herself in an antithetic position to the religion and the religion's followers; realistically, focusing on a lesbian, an atheist and a secularist ... all of them earnestly seeking to bring about reform in Islam - is a self-defeating exercise. (DT says: this is a must read)

Pride & prejudice: How the far right muscled in on middle England
Julian Baggini, Independent
'Billy Blair? Yeah, he's a friend of ours. He's a good bloke." It's not unusual to hear local shopkeepers back their newly elected councillor straight after an election. What is extraordinary is that here in Maltby, Rotherham, Will Blair has just won the seat for the BNP and the shopkeeper in question is Birmingham-born British Asian Kaz Singh. Singh's comment is a warning to anyone trying to make easy sense of the success of nationalist parties in this month's local elections.

Straw: too many white male judges
BBC News Online
Too few women and people from black and Asian backgrounds are appointed judges, Jack Straw has told MPs. The justice secretary said the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), formed two years ago, had so far failed to create a "more diverse judiciary". Concerns about white, middle class men dominating the bench were justified, he told the Justice Select Committee. Mr Straw said he was determined to ensure that the judiciary represented wider society better.

The (soaring) cost of living under New Labour (Lenin's Tomb)
Darling announces £120 tax cut to defuse 10p row (Deborah Summers & Andrew Sparrow, guardian.co.uk )
Birmingham professor speaks at extremist Islamic group debate (Islamophobia Watch)
Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear (James Randerson, Guardian)
'It shows a rap guy trying to find a girlfriend who's a believer' (Ed Pilkington, Guardian)
Thousands of known illegal immigrants STILL got National Insurance numbers, admit ministers (James Slack, Daily Mail)
Restraint Urged Following Lebanon Clashes (Amnesty International)
Round-up: Austria, Hassan Butt, Julian Baggini in Rotherham, life in Yemen (Indigo Jo Blogs)

Sunday May 11 2008
The Muslim middle class
Jason Burke, Guardian CiF
He - though it could be a she - is around 40 years old. He is not badly off, certainly better off than his parents who had received only a basic education and much better off than their parents who worked a small plot of land at least a days bumpy transport from the city where he now lives with his with relatively young children. He may have a university education in a scientific subject or may have left school to go into a family business. He is in commerce, law, medicine and is articulate and modern.

One in five churches faces being lost
Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Sunday Telegraph
Britain will lose up to a fifth of its churches in the space of a generation unless action is taken to halt the decline, according to new research. The number of churches is forecast to fall from 48,500 now to only 39,200 in 2030. Today church leaders warn that the crisis threatens to devastate parishes, depriving local communities of important focal points. Conservationists said Britain was in danger of losing a large slice of its built heritage. Responding to these concerns, the Telegraph is launching a campaign...

Hey nonny no, no, no: Goths and pagans are reinventing morris dancing
Cole Moreton, Independent on Sunday
Just before dawn, by an empty shingle beach, sinister figures move through the gloom. Living shadows, they're dressed all in black, their coats made from long rags, their faces obscured by paint. But their eyes burn brightly as they gather in a circle. If some poor insomniac comes walking the dog now – at 5am on a cold, damp morning – they'll get a massive fright. "Hey-ya!" yell eight men and women as they come together with a loud clash of sticks, and what appears to be a blend of...

The imam and the rabbi (Muqtedar Khan, Alt.Muslim)
Boris Johnson On Islam (The Anorak)

Saturday May 10 2008
Blasphemy laws are lifted
Martin Beckford, Telegraph
A campaign to repeal the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel, which made it illegal to insult Christianity, was proposed in January by the Liberal Democrat Evan Harris. It was supported by public figures including the author Philip Pullman and the academic Richard Dawkins. They claimed the little-used laws served no useful purpose, while allowing religious groups to try to censor artists. Evangelists had tried to prosecute the director-general of the BBC over the controversial musical...

Letter from me in the New Statesman (Indigo Jo Blogs)

Friday May 09 2008
Lies and deception
Noorjehan Barmania, The Guardian
"Let's get our stories straight," says Hounslow Man. I drag my eyes up from my book and raise a quizzical eyebrow. "Well," he suggests quietly, "you could be my sister." "Sister!" I splutter. "How can I be your sister? I'm your girlfriend. It would be too creepy to pretend that I am your sister." He gazes at me in an abstract way. "You look like her, you know, you are about the same height and shape," he says. "And you wear your hair like her. People will believe you are my sister."

Cardinal: UK a land of spiritual homelessness
Martin Beckford, Telegraph
Britain is becoming a country of "spiritual homelessness" because society makes people afraid to express their faith, according to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, said many people want to live by shared values and find a meaning for their existence, but modern society sends out the message that to believe in God is to take a step backwards from being independent and mature.
(Cardinal says Britain must not be a 'God-free zone': Riazat Butt, The Guardian)

Archbishop and Pope talk about Christian-Muslim relations
Ekklesia
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has described his private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican earlier this week as "friendly and informal". They spent almost half an hour in the Pope's study. Afterwards Dr Williams said: "[W]e discussed a number of ecumenical issues, some of the Pope's impressions from his American visit and common issues in Christian Muslim dialogue." This latest meeting was the second private encounter between the two leaders.

Ethnic groups 'get on together'
Andrew Bomford, BBC News
Most people get along successfully with people from other ethnic backgrounds, research has suggested. Just 2% of 18 to 54-year-olds in Birmingham said they did not have friends from other backgrounds, a study by the Barrow Cadbury Trust found. More than half of the 1,000 people questioned claimed they socialised with each other on a daily basis. But Commission for Racial Equality research suggests only 30% of such relationships lead to strong bonds.

Sugar's fame fails to win him place in Jewish power list
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
He is worth £800m and has a TV show that regularly attracts 7 million viewers. But fame and fortune have not secured Sir Alan Sugar a place in the Jewish Power 100. The tycoon, who this week berated candidates on The Apprentice for not understanding the word kosher, is missing from a list naming the people deemed to be the most influential in shaping British Jewish life. Published today by the Jewish Chronicle, the Power 100 features rabbis, philanthropists, journalists and academics.

High court orders release of radical preacher Qatada (Alan Travis, Guardian)
British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus (Tom Kelly, Daily Mail)
And if Hitler were born in America? (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)
McCain's 'spiritual guide' wants America to destroy Islam (Islamophobia Watch)
Police bid to tackle Islamophobia (Imtiaz Tyab, BBC News Online)
Your Independence is our Nakba (Jamal Dajani, Huffington Post)
Why Ken welcomed Qaradawi – Daniel Finkelstein explains (Islamophobia Watch)
London elections and the BNP (Five Chinese Crackers)
Transplant of human organs not violative of Islam: Ulema (Amin Ahmed, Dawn)

Thursday May 08 2008
The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics
Johann Hari, Independent
Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh...
(Stupid Zionists: Indigo Jo Blogs)

July 7 bomber 'was not good Muslim'
Elizabeth Stewart and agencies, guardian.co.uk
One of the men accused of helping the July 7 bombers told police he used to smoke cannabis and drink alcohol with the man who masterminded the terrorist attacks, a court heard today. Mohammed Shakil, 31, told officers that Mohammed Siddique Khan "was not a good practising Muslim" and he couldn't "in his wildest dreams" think why he would take part in suicide bombings. In two interviews with the police, Shakil told police he and Khan had become friends in their early 20s when they "drank alcohol and smoked cannabis together".

Bail for Islamic preacher Qatada
BBC News Online
Islamic preacher Abu Qatada has been granted bail with a highly unusual 22-hour curfew by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Qatada last month won an appeal against deportation to Jordan but remained in prison. He could now be free in weeks. The Home Office, which is appealing against the deportation decision, said it was extremely disappointed. Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian, was convicted in his absence in Jordan of terrorist offences in the 1990s.
(Hate preacher Qatada bailed: The Sun)

Practising Muslims 'will outnumber Christians by 2035' (Islamophobia Watch)
Young Video Makers Try to Alter Islam's Face ('im al-insaan)
Public life cannot be 'God-free', says cardinal (Riazat Butt, guardian.co.uk)
Sir Cliff to the rescue (Ruth Gledhill)
Catholic-Mormon tension over LDS baptism of the dead (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)
Dutch play probes “mercy killing” as euthanasia deaths fall (Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld)

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