Wednesday October 31, 2007 
Only 1 in 400 anti-terror stop and searches leads to arrest
Vikram Dodd, The Guardian
Only one in every 400 stop and searches carried out under sweeping anti-terrorism laws leads to an arrest, official figures released yesterday reveal, triggering fresh pressure on the government and police over the controversial tactic. Official government figures covering 2005/6, the first since the July 7 2005 bombings on London, show a big increase in the use of the power, with Asian people bearing the brunt. One force, City of London, carried out 6,846 stops of pedestrians and vehicles without finding enough evidence to justify a single arrest. Stops under the Terrorism Act 2000 rely more on an officer's discretion than other powers to search, which require reasonable suspicion. The number of stops under terrorism laws in 2005/6 showed a 34% rise on the previous year to 44,543. Asians faced an increase of 84%, black people an increase of 51%, searches of "other" ethnic groups rose 36% and white people faced a 24% increase.

Blears targets Islamic extremism
BBC News Online
The government is to expand efforts to tackle extremism among young Muslims. New measures will include training imams to communicate more effectively, teaching citizenship in mosque schools and funding internet projects. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is set to announce a £70m funding package aimed at undermining the influence of extremists on young British Muslims. She is expected to say communities need the strength and skills to "face down a false and perverted ideology". By setting up local web-based projects where young Muslims can talk about their identities and grievances, it is hoped they will be less likely to be attracted to other sites run by radical groups. Ms Blears will say: "Given the scale and enduring nature of the threat we face, tough security measures are vital. But they cannot be the whole solution."

Cherie Blair speaks out against the veil
Ruth Gledhill, The Times
Cherie Blair has criticised Muslim religious dress for women where it fails to acknowledge "the woman's right to be a person."  The wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair warned against the full-face veil, or niqab, worn by strictly Islamic women worldwide because it could prevent a woman from expressing her personality. Mrs Blair, a practising Roman Catholic who is to publish her own memoirs in October next year, admitted that she had herself been educated by Catholic nuns who wore veils. She said she had no problem with women covering their heads. Mrs Blair's own Church forbids the ordination of women, forbids women from using condoms even when their husband has been infected by HIV while working away, and denies the sacrament of communion to women who are divorced and remarried without an annulment.

Cherie Blair: in time for a new Reformation (Ruth Gledhill)
2 Dumb Bimbos: Threesome!! (Bored Kidz)
Islamophobia and the Self-Hating Arab (Dunner's)
Immigration is an opportunity to build better public services argues new report (TMP)
UK needs around 1,000 black, Asian and ethnic minority women councillors (TMP)
Voices from the International Congress (Sufi News)
If you can't stand the hate... (Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF)
Policy Exchange hijacks professional research (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)
"Hate books" that aren't (indigo Jo Blogs)
Shared values (Morning Star c/o UK Watch)
Hate literature and the Saudis (Rolled-up Trousers)

Tuesday October 30, 2007 
Muslim groups draft rulebook for mosques to drive out extremists
Patrick Wintour, The Guardian
The new proposals to set out core standards for mosques have been drawn up by the year-old Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body (Minab), set up by the Al-Khoei Foundation, the British Muslim Forum, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain. The draft constitution for the regulatory body, released yesterday after months of internal consultation, proposes increasing the skills and competencies of imams, developing mosques as centres of community cohesion, citizenship and dialogue and strengthening accountability and governance. It also proposes improving access of women and young people to mosques. The new body, according to its constitution, would also provide advice on the suitability of imams and scholars coming from abroad. Mosques that sign up to the core standards framework would receive practical advice, guidance and support from Minab.

See: Reforms tainted at birth (Faisal Bodi, 29/06/06)

Number of attacks on ethnic minorities soar
Nigel Morris, The Independent
Numbers of attacks on people because of their race or religion are soaring, according to Government figures. The Ministry of Justice will this week disclose that 41,000 such offences were committed in 2005-06, a rise of 12 per cent on the previous year. The statistics confirm anecdotal evidence from immigrant groups that ethnic minorities have been increasingly targeted in recent years, with the Muslim community under particular pressure since the September 11 attacks six years ago. The figures will show black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people and are much more likely to be caught up in the criminal justice system.

How the Saudis used oil money to export a hardline ideology that fuels Islamist terror
Malise Ruthven, The Independent
King Abdullah's complaint that British authorities ignored Saudi warnings of an imminent attack on the UK before the atrocities of 7 July 2005 might be more convincing if they came from the ruler of a country less sympathetic to the Islamist agenda. Since the 1970s, when rising oil revenues enabled the Saudis to export the Wahhabi brand of fundamentalist Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia has been a major exporter of ideas and values that differ from those espoused by Osama bin Laden and his followers on issues of strategy, but not on the broader perspectives. During its years of rivalry with Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, the Saudi government nurtured leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood which President Nasser had forced underground after an attempt on his life in 1954.

King Abdullah flies in to lecture us on terrorism (Robert Fisk, The Independent) Iran-Rumi Anniversary (Sufi News)
Peter Hain admits 300,000 migrants left out of official statistics (James Kirkup and Gary Cleland, Daily Telegraph)
'Asian Cilla Black' brings arranged marriages to TV (Jerome Taylor, The Independent)
'Agenda of hate in British mosques' (Islamophobia Watch)
Rubbish from Riyadh (Brian Whitaker, Guardian CiF)
A distinct lack of honour (Salam Al-Mahadin, Guardian CiF)
Molana is always alive (Sufi News)
Put society first say leading lights of the British centre left (TMP)
A tale of two siblings (Asim Siddiqui, Guardian CiF)
Islamophobia and self-hating Arabs (Islamophobia Watch)
Increased mosque attendance is evidence of terrorist associations say police (Islamophobia Watch)
2 Dumb Bimbos: U Slut!! U Stole my Date!!! (Bored Kidz)
Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?(George Monbiot, The Guardian)
Hate literature and the Saudis (Rolled-up Trousers)

Monday October 29, 2007 
Indian Islamic group attacks BBC film for Bin Laden link
Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian
A BBC documentary shown last night came under attack from one of India's largest Islamic groups for linking their movement to Osama bin Laden and "extremist" Muslim groups around the world. The Deoband school, whose main madrassa Darul Uloom (House of Knowledge) lies 90 miles north-east of Delhi. Charles 'Ars dribbler' Allen, a 'historian' and one of the documentary's presenters, said: "I don't feel bad about condemning Deobandism. In India it set the Muslim cause back by a couple of centuries by turning its back on the west. In Pakistan and Afghanistan it has helped to promote extremism, intolerance and violence..."

Payout for engineer held in Belfast 'because he was black'
Henry McDonald, The Guardian
An engineer falsely accused of being an illegal immigrant while holidaying in Northern Ireland was arrested and imprisoned purely because of his race, the Equality Commission said yesterday. Frank Kakopa received £7,500 compensation and apologies from the immigration service after he was detained at Belfast City airport in August 2005 and sent to Maghaberry prison for two days. The case highlights the degree of racist attitudes towards foreigners within Northern Ireland officialdom, according to the only ethnic minority member of the Stormont assembly. Anna Lo said she knew of many similar cases where people legally visiting Northern Ireland had ended up under arrest or deported.

Racial and religious attacks up 12 per cent (islamophobia Watch)
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: You Ask The Questions (The Independent)
Blair failed to handle Bush on Iraq, claims biographer (Nigel Morris, The Independent)
Engineer jailed in Ulster wins damages for race bias (Sadie Gray, The Independent)
Rational Choice Theory and the Palestinian issue (Austrolabe)
Brick Lane's many narratives (Letters, The Guardian)
The real Ghada Karmi? (Jews sans frontieres)
Alton's departure is part of a wider drama (Peter Wilby, The Guardian)
US airport holds Minister after terrorism talks (Natalie Paris, Daily Telegraph)
A new 25 million dollar film on Rumi emerges from 'The Business Street' of Rome (Sufi News)
2 Dumb Bimbos: Dress Slutty! (Bored Kidz)
Worrying about what I eat should not supersede other things in life... (Kiki, Progressiveislam.org)
Rickets rises among Asians (Russell Jenkins, The Times)
Internet dating ticks all boxes for Muslims (Yepoka Yeebo, The Times)

Sunday October 28, 2007 
Provocative posters win Saatchi's 'art idol' contest
Andrew Johnson, Independent on Sunday
Maple's work features photographs of herself in politically provocative situations. The "Vote for Me" series, which won her the competition from an initial entry of hundreds of final-year students, shows her dressed as a Playboy bunny or in hijab with the slogan "Vote for Me – or else you're sexist/homophobic". She said yesterday: "I did a mock political campaign. My work takes the mick out of political correctness gone mad. I got an angry response from some people. It was good to get a reaction, but I do think PC is daft. I think a lot of people are trying to make sure that nobody gets offended. "I'll probably move on from that now. I don't want to be the one who just does work about Islam. A lot of my work is about identity."

Muslim Forum hits out at suicide bomber film
Nicholas Watt, The Observer
A controversial Channel 4 drama, which depicts a second-generation British Muslim woman as a suicide bomber, was condemned last night by the British Muslim Forum. Khurshid Ahmed said last night: 'Channel 4 should be working with us to defeat terrorism and extremism, not sowing hate and division in our communities, and reinforcing negative stereotypes.' The Home Office has viewed the film. A government spokesman said: 'Having seen extracts from the film and heard Mr Kosminsky's (the director's) comments, we can understand the British Muslim Forum's concerns. Given Channel 4's remit as a public service broadcaster, they should listen to the views of moderate Muslims who reject violence and extremism, and they should air those views alongside this film.'

It’s weird up north as Scientology moves in
Chris Gourlay, Sunday Times
THE Church of Scientology is preparing to expand its creed to the north of England by opening a centre in Manchester next year. The church, which has been criticised as a cult, has paid £3.6m for a disused distillery in the city. It plans to turn the five-storey building, near Old Trafford, into “a place of worship and religious instruction”. The move is part of a world-wide expansion strategy by the American organisation, which was founded by L Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in 1952. According to Graeme Wilson, Scientology’s head of communications, its aim is to establish “large new centres in major cities around the world, and Manchester is one of the priority cities for having such a centre”.

Britz: A Review (Yahya Birt)
Conversion vs. Reversion (Dunner's)
US protesters shout down Nick Griffin (Islamophobia Watch)
To conclude, was it the ex-Orangeman or the Jaffa Orangeman? (Jews sans frontieres)
Thousands Flee Tense Northwest Pakistani Town (Asharq Alawsat)
Islamic Cook Book (ProgressiveIslam.org)
Internet schools: The school on a sofa (Sarah Harris, IoS)

Saturday October 27, 2007 
Terror trial poet 'like Wilfred Owen'
Daily Telegraph
The verse of a Muslim woman who dubbed herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" and praised Osama Bin Laden on websites, has been compared in court with the great First World War poet Wilfred Owen. The defence counsel for Samina Malik, 22, who denies four offences of possessing articles likely to be useful to terrorists, said her verse was a sign of the times and as shocking as Owen's had been when first published. The court heard how Malik, of Southall, Middlesex, a WHSmith sales assistant at Heathrow airport, came to the attention of police after an email from her was discovered on the computer of another suspect who was under surveillance. During the trial the jury has heard extracts of her poems including: "Kafirs (non-believers) your time will come soon, and no one will save you from your doom!"

A True Culture War
R. Shweder, New York Times
A few weeks ago this newspaper reported on an experimental Pentagon “human terrain” program to embed anthropologists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It featured two military anthropologists: Tracy (last name withheld), a cultural translator viewed by American paratroopers as “a crucial new weapon” in counterinsurgency; and Montgomery McFate, who has taken her Yale doctorate into active duty in a media blitz to convince sceptical colleagues that the occupying forces should know more about the local cultural scene. How have members of the anthropological profession reacted to the Pentagon’s new inclusion agenda? A group calling itself the Network of Concerned Anthropologists has called for a boycott and asked faculty members and students around the country to pledge not to contribute to counterinsurgency efforts.

Muslim prisoners may sue over ham (Daily Telegraph)
Neocons Embrace Islamic Terror Group (Danny Postel, AlterNet)
Believe this! (Jews sans frontieres)
The Herbal Hill "heretics" (Indigo Jo)
Would You Have Sex With This Man? (Dunner's)
"Anti-Islamofascist" group to host ... British fascist (Indigo Jo)
Holocaust survivor versus holocaust industry (Jews sans frontieres)
15 lonely fascists protest in central London  (Islamophobia Watch)

Friday October 26, 2007 
Race row professor resigns from laboratory post
James Randerson, The Guardian
The DNA pioneer James Watson retired yesterday from his post as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state. The move is the coda to the race row that engulfed his visit to London last week following comments he made suggesting that black people were less intelligent than whites. The row led to his decision to curtail the lecture tour promoting his autobiography and left him fighting to save his reputation. On Thursday, his employers announced that as a result of his comments he would be suspended. Prof  Watson received the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology in 1962 along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery of the structure of DNA.

Danish-Muslim leader lampoons far-right over latest prophet cartoon
Gwladys Fouché, Guardian Unlimited
A far-right Danish political party controversially depicted the prophet Muhammad on election material yesterday. Now a high-profile Danish-Muslim politician has hit back with a poster lampooning the move. The ad by the Danish People's Party, the country's third largest political force, showed a hand-drawn picture of the Islamic prophet under the slogan "Freedom of expression is Danish, censorship is not". The ad was condemned as a "provocation" by at least one Danish-Muslim group, as Islam forbids representation of its most important prophet. Now Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Danish-Muslim politician ... has hit back with a poster showing a hand-drawn picture of the DPP leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, under the slogan "Freedom of expression is Danish, stupidity is not".

Episode 21: Ann Coulter is a Dumb C**t (Bored Kidz)
Shocking new videos where officials admit they killed people!!!  (Bored Kidz)
Is This Sister Married? (Umar Lee)
“We’re trying to bring an expression about us, to us, from us” (Wajahat Ali, Alt.Muslim)

Thursday October 25, 2007 
Denshawai,1906
Alain Gresh, c/o UK Watch
On 16 November 2005 Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, expressed his satisfaction at the 7 July bombings in London. He announced that Britain was one of Islam’s worst enemies; it had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Muslims across the ages, from Palestine to Afghanistan, Delhi to Denshawai. This reference to a small town in Egypt may have perplexed the western audience, but Denshawai meant more to millions of others. Gamal Abdel Nasser mentioned it on 26 July 1956 in his historic announcement of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.

Intellectual terrorism
Ghada Karmi, Guardian CIF
The newest and least attractive import from America, following on behind Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Friends, is the pro-Israel lobby. The latest target of this US-style campaign is the august Oxford Union. This week, two Israeli colleagues and I were due to appear at the union to participate in an important debate on the one-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Also invited was the American Jewish scholar and outspoken critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein. At the last minute, however, the union withdrew its invitation to him, apparently intimidated by threats from various pro-Israel groups. The Harvard Jewish lawyer and indefatigable defender of Israel, Alan Dershowitz, attacked the topic of the debate as well as the Oxford Union itself.

Phillips calls for representative actions to address growing crisis of discrimination claims
TMP
In his first major speech since taking over as Chair of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips has called for the government to introduce the use of representative actions, legal action taken on behalf of a group of named individuals that is similar to a class action law suit. Mr. Phillips was speaking to an audience in Cardiff at the annual Bevan Foundation lecture this week. Against a backdrop in which recent figures from the National Employment Panel indicate 83 percent of employers now believe they will never face sanctions for discrimination, Mr. Phillips said there were powerful reasons to shift the burden away from individuals taking individual claims - often at great personal cost and without adequate legal representation...

Nothing ordinary about “Rendition” (Hesham Hassaballa, Alt.Muslim)
Johann Hari and his friends (Islamophobia Watch)
'Every street in Britain could look like this in 50 years time', warns Mail (Islamophobia Watch)
Only two cheers for Muslim letter from Bishop of Rochester (Ruth Gledhill)
Anyone but Finkelstein at Oxford (Jews Sans Frontieres)
The Symbolism of Prayer (Abdur Rahman's Corner)
Episode 20: You're in the News, Dumbass!!!! (Bored Kidz)

Wednesday October 24, 2007 
Return of the Muslim other
Soumaya Ghannoushi, The Guardian
In a few days time a cluster of far-right groups under the name the Stop the Islamisation of Europe alliance will hold rallies in London, Copenhagen and Marseilles to demand an end to what they call "the overt and covert expansion of Islam in Europe". Although the events are likely to attract no more than a handful of protesters, their message resonates widely. On Saturday the rightwing People's party, notorious for its virulent hostility to ethnic minorities and Muslims, emerged as the victor in the Swiss elections, taking 29% of the vote, the best electoral performance by a party in the country's elections since 1919.

Terms of division
Anas Altikriti, The Guardian
One of the most interesting - often intriguing - aspects of any conflict is the role of language in either calming or inflaming feelings of apprehension, division, fear and hatred that lie between the conflicting parties. In the aftermath of 9/11, the world was introduced to the term "terrorism" and "terrorist" under a new definition - a considerably vague and loose one. Suddenly, the whole world seemed to be engulfed by, or engaged with the "war on terror" in one way or another. Parties on opposing sides of the same conflict would each claim to be fighting terrorists and waging war against terrorism. This evolved to include terms such as radicalism, fundamentalism and extremism, and the impact was to spread the net of suspicion and animosity much further and wider than was allowed by the term "terrorism".

Lessing angers America by saying September 11 'was not that terrible'
Emily Dugan, Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, has risked incurring the wrath of Americans by accusing them of overreacting to the 11 September attacks on the Twin Towers, which she said were really "not that terrible". Comparing the al-Qa'ida attacks – which killed almost 3,000 people – to the IRA's late 20th-century campaign – in which an estimated 2,000 were killed over three decades – the outspoken British author said that Americans were "naive" in thinking that the tragedy was unique. "11 September was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," she told the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

How Islam invented a bright new world (Cate Devine, The Herald)
Christian foster parents condemn 'gay laws' (Jonathan Petre, Daily Telegraph)
'Chopping board bacteria' ad banned (Channel 4)
Prison 'default' for mentally ill (BBC News Online)
Higher fertility, immigration and longer lives fuelling Britain's population rise (John Carvel, Society Guardian)
Episode 19: On The Run!!! (Bored Kidz)
To stop and search (Michael Eboda, Editor, TMP)
Don't blame Westphalia (Ian Williams, Guardian CIF)

Tuesday October 23, 2007 
Carbon output rising faster than forecast, says study
David Adam, The Guardian
Scientists warned last night that global warming will be "stronger than expected and sooner than expected", after a new analysis showed carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than predicted. Experts said that the rise was down to soaring economic development in China, and a reduction in the amount of carbon pollution soaked up by the world's land and oceans. It also means human emissions will have to be cut more sharply than predicted to avoid the likely effects. Corinne Le Quere, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia and British Antarctic Survey, who helped conduct the study, said: "It's bad news because the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has accelerated since 2000 in a way we did not expect..."

Climate change: from issue to magnifier
Mike Hulme, UK Watch
We have to reveal these deeper reasons why we disagree about Climate Change rather than pretending that louder, crisper and slicker communication of science will somehow bully the world to a convergence of response. Climate Change is a good magnifying glass for us to use in a more forensic examination than we have been used to of each of these projects – economic growth, free trade, poverty reduction, community-building, demographic management, social health, and more. Let’s use the magnifying power of Climate Change – its emphasis on the long-term implications of short-term choices, its global reach, its revelation of new centres of power, its attention to both material and cultural values – to attend more closely to what we really want to achieve for humanity: affluence, justice or mere survival.

Missing the point
Chuka Umunna, Guardian CIF
As ever, there is an elephant in the room which Jarrett and politicians who focus on sanction and yet more legislation ignore at their peril – deprivation. It is not an excuse but it provides some explanation for what we find happening on our streets. Gun crime disproportionately impacts on black people – they make up just 2% of the population in England and Wales but one-third of gun and homicide victims and suspects; 80% of black people live in areas ridden with poverty. Other victims of all ethnicities, like Rhys Jones in Croxteth, Liverpool are being gunned down in poor areas. So the real answer to this phenomenon perhaps lies in tackling the continuing inequalities in our society – and that is an altogether more complex policy challenge.

From unindicted to unconvicted (Shahed Amanullah, Alt.Muslim)
Abortion Act Anniversary (Ruth Gledhill, The Times)
Mohammed Atif Siddique sentenced to 8 years in prison (Islamophobia Watch)
Islamophobia in Europe (Islamophobia Watch)
Episode 18: Officer, Arrest Them!!! (Bored Kidz)
Exploring the human condition (Stacy Vanek Smith, CSM c/o Sufi News)
Governments aren't perfect, but it's the libertarians who bleed us dry (George Monbiot, The Guardian)
13th century Koran fetches record price at auction (Yahoo News)

Monday October 22, 2007 
Muslim Live8 brings home Darfur crisis
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
Chaotic scenes at Wembley Arena are nothing new for concertgoers. There is the frantic rush to get to the front of stage area, and queues build up for food and drinks. Last night was different. The queues were for the makeshift mosque in the arena's 200-seat restaurant and the rush was for prayer spaces before the show began as more than 10,000 Muslims attended a charity concert for Darfur. Billed as the Muslim Live8, the sell-out event was the first of its kind at the venue and drew artists and fans from around the world. To respect Islamic dietary requirements, Wembley became dry and halal for the night.

Putting it another way: blogs add to wealth of euphemisms
Martin Wainwright, The Guardian
Britain's traditional reluctance to speak directly for fear of causing embarrassment or offence has survived into the new world of blogging and instant communication across the world. Far from turning into a frank, straightforward nation, the country has invented hundreds of new euphemisms to add to its ancient store of phrases such as "my unmentionables" and "the departed". Modern employment rules and 24-hour media scrutiny of politics have played an important part, according to the new edition of Oxford University Press's dictionary of euphemisms. Personnel departments, variously disguised as People, Human Relations...

Asylum-seekers 'are left to starve' in Britain
The Independent
Thousands of people are forced to spend years living in abject poverty on the streets of Britain's cities after fleeing persecution in their own countries, an independent asylum inquiry has heard. The destitute have no access to help from the state as they have not been granted asylum, yet they prefer to stay in Britain rather than return home because they fear of being tortured or killed. Senior lawyers, doctors and immigration officials even claim such destitution is, in effect, now being used by the Government as policy, in an attempt to force desperate people out of the country. There are at least 280,000 people living in poverty in Britain after having their leave to remain refused.

A blemish on our record of providing sanctuary (John Waite, The Independent)
Case reveals tragedy of immigrant sex slaves (Cahal Milmo, The Independent)
Fear of the unknown (Frank Furedi, Guardian CIF)
Magistrate in gay adoption row to appeal (Jonathan Petre, The Telegraph)
Resources for responding to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (Islamophobia Watch)
My Out of Body Experience - A True Story (Darvish)
Sunday Express defends 'Britishness' against the Muslim hordes (Islamophobia Watch)
Christian magistrate in gay adoption row appeals against ruling (The Times)
Mirror pays damages for Al Qaeda slur (Islamophobia Watch)
Episode 17-Throw this Racist Book!!! (Bored Kidz)
Palestinian Prisoners Riot in Israel (Asharq Alawsat)
Horowitz and Darwish's snuff movie (Indigo Jo Blogs)

Sunday October 21, 2007 
Police: stop more black suspects
Mark Townsend, The Observer
One of Britain's leading black police officers is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed. In a speech that will reignite one of the most contentious issues in British policing, the president of the National Black Police Association will dramatically call for an increase in the policing strategy in black communities. It marks a U-turn by the association, which has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched by police.

Watson's bad science
Steven Rose
In my blog earlier this week, I was responding to James Watson's gratuitous attack on me and my alleged views on schizophrenia in Education Guardian. At that point I hadn't seen in detail - although many of the commentators on my blog obviously had - Watson's disgraceful remarks about differences between African and Euro-American intelligence. It was these that sparked the real firestorm. Within a day, the BNP had puffed them on their website. Black and anti-racist groups responded vigorously, as did Ken Livingstone's office. The Science Museum cancelled his sell-out lecture, making it clear that his remarks had gone "beyond the limit of acceptability".

C of E child abuse was ignored for decades
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Sunday Telegraph
Child abuse has gone unchecked in the Church of England for decades amid a cover up by bishops, secret papers have revealed. Lawyers warned last night that the Church faces a crisis as catastrophic as the one that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church and cost it millions of pounds in damages. Richard Scorer, a solicitor who has specialised in child abuse cases, said that the Church of England's mistakes amounted to "an appalling, shocking level of negligence" that is likely to leave it open to claims from victims who have been too afraid to speak out in the past.

'It moves me to see Asian kids with a Rooney shirt' (Andrew Anthony, The Observer)
City hosts asylum seeker summit (BBC News Online)
Muslim pop stars unite for Darfur (BBC News Online)
Rather than Anger, Explore your Internal Jihad with Muslims (GustavoMustafa, ProgressiveIslam.org)
Exiting Through the ‘Alley Gate’ (Mshari Al-Zaydi, Tabsir)
Why I won't be moving to Dubai (Rolled-up Trousers)
Tehran: Paris of the East (GustavoMustafa, ProgressiveIslam.org)

Saturday October 20, 2007 
Riven by class and no social mobility - Britain in 2007
Julian Glover, The Guardian
Ten years of Labour rule have failed to create a classless society, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that Britain remains a nation dominated by class division, with a huge majority certain that their social standing determines the way they are judged. Of those questioned, 89% said they think people are still judged by their class - with almost half saying that it still counts for "a lot". Only 8% think that class does not matter at all in shaping the way people are seen. The poorest people in society are most aware of its impact, with 55% of them saying class, not ability, greatly affects the way they are seen.

Halal food and no alcohol as Wembley hosts Muslim Live8
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
There will be no sex, drugs or rock and roll at Wembley Arena tomorrow night. The venue's 200-seat restaurant - sample dish: pork loin with mash - will be closed and converted to a prayer room, and alcohol has been banned from the premises. The charity pop concert for Darfur has been described as a Muslim Live8 and features artists who, although unknown to mainstream audiences and record companies in Britain, have sold millions of albums in Muslim-majority countries. It is the first event of its kind to be held at Wembley and special arrangements are in place for the 10,000 people expected. The start time was changed from 5.30pm to 6.30pm after the organisers, Awakening Entertainment, realised that thousands of people would rush out to pray at 5.59pm.

Deportation abuses 'should be investigated'
Robert Verkaik, The Independent
MPs have backed a parliamentary motion calling on the Government to investigate claims that failed asylum-seekers are routinely abused by their British guards when they are being forcibly returned to their own countries. The issue was first highlighted in The Independent, which published revelations this month about 200 cases of alleged physical or racist mistreatment. An early day motion tabled by Diane Abbott and signed by MPs raises particular concern that deportations continue to take place even when detainees have clear signs of mental or physical illness. The MPs are especially troubled by the case of a Cameroon woman who claims she was so badly beaten by her escort team during the flight that the Cameroon government sent her back to Britain.

Outside powers have turned Pakistan into a powder keg (Ziauddin Sardar, The Guardian)
School probes racism claim against boy, four (Daily Telegraph)
School fees paid for returning asylum seekers (Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph)
Like an infinite large Umbrella (Ishita Yadav, c/o Sufi News)
Swiss watch (Peter Beaumont, Guardian CIF)
Thee rich diversity of devotional expressions in Islam (Sufi News)
Khaleeji Consumption Disorder and other postcolonial malaises (Akram's Razor)
Employment law may apply to God's work (The Times)
Not the same Pakistan (Rafia Zakaria, Alt.Muslim)

Friday October 19, 2007 
Nobel scientist who sparked race row says sorry — I didn't mean it
Rajeev Syal, The Times
Last night, at a book launch at the Royal Society, Dr Watson withdrew the words attributed to him. “To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly,” he said. “That is not what I meant. More importantly, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.” He claimed to be baffled at the words attributed to him by The Sunday Times Magazine. “I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people reading those words have reacted in the ways they have,” he added. A spokesman for The Sunday Times said that the interview with Dr Watson was recorded and that the newspaper stood by the story. Dr Watson arrived in Britain yesterday to promote his latest book...

126 dead in suicide bombing as Bhutto returns to Pakistan
Declan Walsh, The Guardian
Benazir Bhutto's homecoming turned into a bloodbath last night when a suicide bomber struck the vehicle in which she was travelling, killing at least 126 people and wounding another 248. Ms Bhutto escaped unhurt and was evacuated to her residence in the city. A procession that had attracted several hundred thousand supporters was abandoned in chaos. The opposition leader had flown into Karachi hours earlier, ending eight years of self-imposed exile in Dubai and London. Two weeks ago, Baitullah Masood, a Taliban commander, vowed to send suicide bombers to kill her. Last night's attack, one the deadliest in the country's history, is likely to deepen the ongoing political crisis against the backdrop of a surge in Islamist violence.

Broken Promises on Child Poverty
Martin Narey, New Statesman c/o UK Watch
Twelve months ago, many of us were more optimistic. At the party conferences, we were encouraged to believe that a Brown government – with Ed Balls in an influential position – would be keen, and quickly, to commit itself to meeting Tony Blair’s courageous 1999 commitment to halve UK child poverty by 2010. Tony Blair’s pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 was one of the most moving and inspiring commitments made in the optimistic days after 1997. With this year’s PBR, it was abandoned. And nobody cares.

A sense of protection, under His wings (Sufi News)
The Return of the Native (Chapati Mystery)
A plea for mitigation (Erwin James, The Guardian)
Martin Amis – neither a racist nor an Islamophobe (it says here) (Islamophobia Watch)
The gentrification of the Hizb-ut-Tizer (The Islamicist)
Saudi Arabia: Blogging Continues to Gain Momentum (Abdul Ilah al Khalifi, Asharq Alawsat)
French anchor under fire for Moroccan boyfriend (Al-Arabiya)
Muslims Drive Me Krazy... cos there's so many Douche-Bags !!! (Sabina England)
What happened to “good Islam”? (Tariq Nelson, Alt.Muslim)
Scientist's tour axed amid race row (Channel 4)
Blair's war of words (Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CIF)

Thursday October 18, 2007 
War begins with words
Soumaya Ghannoushi, Guardian CIF
On Channel 4 News last night, Martin Amis stuck to the same strategy he has adopted since the eruption of the row a week ago over his statements on Muslims. The comments in question, he repeated, were not made in writing - as literary critic Terry Eagleton had suggested - but "conversationally" in a press interview. He has since written more than 25,000 words all of which, he maintained, he stands by. But this is as bad an excuse as he could have concocted. For the implication is that what may be unacceptable when scribbled on paper becomes perfectly acceptable and entirely excusable when uttered verbally. If anything, however, spontaneous dialogue is more capable of revealing one's inner thoughts and more expressive of one's real positions...

'Defeat Islam' says Hirsi Ali (islamophobia Watch)
Martin Amis launches fresh attack on Muslim faith (islamophobia Watch)
Salafism growing, but preaches no violence - Radio Netherlands Worldwide - Independent thinking, independent voice - English (CLOSER)
December celebrations to crown Year of Mevlana (Sufi News)
Keeping the Sufi faith (Sufi News)
London museum cancels race row scientist's talk (Reuters)
Dr Watson and the new race/IQ controversy (Indigo Jo Blogs)
God's honest truth? (Andrew Brown, Guardian CIF)

Wednesday October 17, 2007 
Home Office: migrants work harder, earn more and pay more tax than Britons
Nigel Morris, The Independent
Migrant workers contributed £6 billion to the country's economic growth last year and earned higher wages than their British counterparts, Home Office figures revealed yesterday. The study concluded that new arrivals were harder-working, brought sought-after skills and paid more in tax than they used in public services. The population rose by 189,000 last year, with 574,000 migrants arriving and 385,000 people leaving. The steady increase over the last decade has led to warnings that the country cannot cope with the growth. But the Government figures suggested migration was throwing a life-line to an economy suffering skills shortages and struggling to support a growing bill for pensions.

Migrant workers earn more than British
By Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph
Immigrant workers are both higher paid and more reliable than their British counterparts and contributed £6 billion to economic growth last year, a Government study said yesterday. Migrants earned £424 a week on average, compared with £395 for UK workers, and paid more in tax than they consumed in services. However, a separate paper issued together with the study by the Home Office admitted there were complaints about the impact of immigration on housing and other public services. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said the research showed that ''in the long run, our country and Exchequer are better off with immigration rather than without it".

Nobel scientist under fire for race comments
Staff and Agencies, Daily Telegraph
One of the world's most eminent scientists is at the centre of an extraordinary race row after reportedly claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people. James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked furious condemnation for comments made ahead of his arrival in Britain for a speaking tour. Dr Watson, who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". It was not made clear exactly what "testing" he is referring to.

MI5 'filmed Muslim terrorist camp' (Duncan Gardham, The Telegraph)
Minority and faith groups can help cohesion (Kevin Curley, Society Guardian)
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week's star lineup (Islamophobia Watch)
Required Reading (Tabsir)
SPCK: one man and his shop (Ruth Gledhill)
Gordon Brown: From Reformism to Neoliberalism (John Newsinger, c/o UK Watch)
The wrong diagnosis (Steven Rose, Guardian CIF)
Lost lifers (Edmund Clark and Erwin James, Society Guardian)

Tuesday October 16, 2007 
Black and Muslim lawyers plan breakaway regulator
Frances Gibb, The Times
Black and Muslim solicitors have accused Britain’s legal watchdog of racial discrimination and want to break away to establish their own watchdog body. The Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) and the Society of Black Lawyers have obtained figures that show that the Law Society’s regulatory arm is more than twice as likely to investigate misconduct allegations against ethnic minority solicitors than it is against white lawyers. They claim that the disproportionate attention is fuelled by discrimination, rather than by suspect practices. Figures published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2006 showed that 62 per cent of investigations related to nonwhite lawyers. The black and Muslim groups are looking into whether they can break away from supervision by the Law Society.

The show goes on ... and on
Ali Abunimah, Guardian CIF
The "Middle East Peace Process" is like one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over the price of admission. Unlike a few hours of theatrical escapism, however, the producers of the Middle East Peace Process hope that the audience will actually believe that what they are viewing on stage, whether performed in Madrid, Oslo, London, Washington or Sharm al-Sheikh is real-life and even has the potential to end the conflict caused by a century of western-supported Zionist colonisation in Palestine.

Report highlights blog censorship
BBC News Online
Bloggers are now finding themselves prey to censorship from repressive governments as much as journalists in traditional media, a report says. Reporters Without Borders' annual study of press freedom says China is one of the worst offenders, having imprisoned 50 people for postings on the internet. The report says governments realise the internet is now a key tool in promoting democracy and are moving to curb it. Eritrea was ranked bottom on overall press freedom by the pressure group. The African nation took the 169th slot on the sixth annual worldwide press freedom index, behind North Korea at 168th and Turkmenistan at 167th.

The making of the Muslim left (Ali Eteraz, Guardian CIF)
Ustad's Birthday Cake (Sufi News)
War Horse: God's own creatures and our humanity (Ruth Gledhill)
All addictions turn from pleasure to dependency (Anthony Giddens, The Guardian)

Monday October 15, 2007 
Migrant rights in UK criticised
BBC News Online
A study of how well European countries integrate immigrants places the UK ninth out of 25 EU nations. The continental-wide review praised the UK's nationality and residency laws, but said migrants did not have enough workplace or political rights. The study looked at policies across the continent and ranked countries on key factors affecting immigrants' lives. The British Council-led study found Sweden doing the most to help migrants settle - and Latvia the least. The project compiled a league table by looking at laws and policies towards immigrants once a nation has allowed them to enter a country. Overall, EU nations were found to be doing only half as much as they could, based on an ideal scenario drawn from all the best laws across the continent.

Police may take action on documentary claim
Richard Edwards, Daily Telegraph
Scotland Yard is considering formal action against the BBC after it made allegations of police corruption in a documentary about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. An independent police watchdog has found no evidence to substantiate claims in a Panorama programme that a detective took a bribe to shield the black teenager's killers from justice. Assistant Commissioner John Yates, accused in the programme of being party to a cover-up, is considering whether the Met will make a formal complaint to the BBC, or to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. A Scotland Yard source said: "There remains a great deal of anger that these unfounded allegations were the main part of the programme and a wealth of publicity trailers as well.

Sex, lies and videotape: turmoil at the Vatican
John Hooper, The Guardian
The Vatican was last night at the centre of an unusually public sex scandal after acknowledging it had suspended a senior official who was filmed apparently propositioning a young man in his office. Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, a capo ufficio, or section head, at the Vatican ministry responsible for the clergy, insisted yesterday he was not gay. He said he had posed as a homosexual to research a plot by satanists. The affair is the latest of several indications that the traditional immunity enjoyed by the Catholic church in Italy over sex scandals is gradually giving way. The Pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said on Saturday he was unable to deny rumours that the Vatican had suspended one of its top bureaucrats following a report shown on Italian television.

Abortion inquiry asks scientists to disclose links to faith groups (James Randerson, The Guardian)

Sunday October 14, 2007 
A lesson in humility for the smug West
William Dalrymple, The Sunday Times
About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the ruins of the Mughal capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of the 16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as philosophers, mystics and holy men of different faiths debated the merits of their different beliefs in what is the earliest known experiment in formal inter-religious dialogue. Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well as Sufi), Hindus (followers of Shiva and Vishnu as well as Hindu atheists), Christians, Jains, Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss where they differed and how they could live together. Muslim rulers are not usually thought of in the West as standard-bearers of freedom of thought; but Akbar was obsessed with exploring the issues of religious truth, and with as open a mind as possible...

Tony Blair plans launch of interfaith group
Jonathan Wynne-Jones and Patrick Sawer, Sunday Telegraph
Sick bags at the ready!! Tony Blair is to launch an interfaith foundation early in the new year to combat religious extremism. Mr Blair's initiative comes as he prepares to address America's most prestigious Catholic gathering this week, renewing speculation about his own possible conversion. His friends suggest he may use the occasion to make his first public reference to the aims of the foundation. Mr Blair, who was reading the Koran before the September 11 attacks on the US, has declared: "The tragedy is that Christians, Jews and Muslims are all Abrahamic religions. "We regard ourselves as children of Abraham but we have fought for so long." The Muslim Council of Britain has also given its support, as has Labour supporting Jewish business leader Sir Sigmund Sternberg.

Archbishop hits back at Dawkins
By Lauren Turner, The Independent on Sunday
Dr Rowan Williams said: "There are specific areas of mismatch between what Richard Dawkins may write about and what religious people think they are doing." Dr Williams described Professor Dawkins as a "wonderfully lively and attractive writer", but said his arguments did not fully engage with religion. In a message to the critics, he said: "Don't distract us from the real arguments by assuming religion is an eccentric survival strategy or irrational form of explanation." Dr Williams added that religious believers themselves were partly to blame by reducing God "to the kind of target Dawkins and others too easily fire at".

Doris Lessing and Idries Shah - The Nobel Prize Winner and the Sufi (Darvish)
Dame Vivienne attacks 'racist' magazines (Roya Nikkhah, Sunday Telegraph)
Bones and dust: the forgotten tragedy of Darfur (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)

Saturday October 13, 2007 
In the name of the Queen
Mark Lawson, The Guardian
There was a time when the job of knights was to defend the monarch, and, although his honour was achieved through the modern route of fundraising for charity, Sir Ian Botham spectacularly revived the tradition this week. In an interview he gave to the Guardian before receiving his prefix, he spoke of what the Queen had meant to his life and suggested that anti-monarchists should be hanged at Traitor's Gate. He didn't specify, but it seems fair to assume that those feeling the rope round their neck in this Beefy Britain would include the TV executives who allowed Her Majesty to be embarrassed by the false allegation that she had lost her rag with a photographer.

New charge over 'honour killing' (BBC News Online)
CNJ: "Report on 7/7 raises questions over role of security services" (The Cutting Edge)
Martin Amis leaps back into the ring (Kate Summerscale, The Telegraph)
Face to faith (Hamza Yusuf, The Guardian)
Citizen Journalism-Forgotten Journalist (philosophergirl, ProgressiveIslam.org)

Friday October 12, 2007 
Reporting Islam
Soumaya Ghannoushi, Guardian CIF
One warm Sunday afternoon a few years back, I went with my scout group on a march against the Iraq war shortly after our weekly meeting. Dressed in our scout uniforms, we joined hundreds of protesters waving banners and flags, blowing whistles, and chanting anti-war slogans to the beat of drums. While enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere, I watched a photographer scouring the crowd with a large camera in his hand. Walking past one row of protesters after another, he suddenly stopped near us and aimed his lens. His target, mind you, was not the uniformed scouts with their sweet, colourful homemade placards, but two figures nearby, swathed in black from head to toe, with only their eyes showing, their foreheads covered with headbands which read "jihad now".

Vimto peps up Ramadan faithful
Sara Hashash, The Times
A BIZARRE series of advertisements has resulted in record sales of a humble British fruit cordial that has become the Arab world’s most popular drink during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Vimto, a blend of fruit juices, herbs and spices, has long been regarded in the Middle East as an energy-boosting accompaniment to the evening meal after a day of fasting. This year, 11 commercials broadcast on Arab satellite television featuring the British brand have become cult viewing on the YouTube video-sharing website and its equivalent in the region, Ikbis.com. With the slogan “Hurry up! They’ll finish it all!” the ads show a world in which panic at the prospect of Vimto running out is such that in one scene a bottle is snatched from the hand of a man on his deathbed.

The future of mankind depends on us making peace, Muslims tell Pope
Ruth Gledhill, The Times
The “survival of the world” is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world have told the Pope and other Christian leaders. In an open letter signed by 138 leading scholars from every branch of Islam, the Muslims pleaded with Christian leaders “to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions”. The scholars stated: “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them — so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.” The phrasing has echoes of the biblical passage “He that is not with Me is against Me”, which was used by President Bush when addressing Congress after the September 11 attacks.

Amis launches scathing response to accusations of Islamophobia  (Jonathan Brown, The Independent)
Martin Amis in fresh attack on Islamists (Nigel Reynolds, Daily Telegraph)
'Dispatches' on extremists angered Saudis (Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph)
London bombings inspire Indian filmmaker (Reuters)
I did not advocate harassing Muslims (Martin Amis, Guardian Letters)
Under Pressure - Smash EDO (SchNEWS)

Thursday October 11, 2007 
Pope told 'survival of world' at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace
Ruth Gledhill, The Times
The "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today. In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders "to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions" and spell out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Koran. The Muslim scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."

Asian detective was victimised by Met bosses, tribunal finds
Vikram Dodd, The Guardian
An Asian detective yesterday said his career in the Metropolitan police was over after it was revealed an employment tribunal had found he had been victimised by his bosses. The tribunal found that the Met had victimised Detective Sergeant Gurpal Virdi in refusing him promotion in 2005 because he had previously won a race discrimination case against the force. In 1998 he was arrested and accused of sending racist hate mail to colleagues. The Met's actions in that investigation led to the force paying out £240,000 after being found to have racially discriminated against Mr Virdi. He then returned to work. But in 2005, he sued the Met again after being passed over for promotion.

Palestinian in court challenge to Israeli arms sales
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
A Palestinian yesterday launched a high court challenge to the government's approval of arms sales to Israel, which he argues are in breach of British and EU export guidelines and international law. Saleh Hasan, who says Israel uses British military equipment to repress Palestinians in violation of their human rights, travelled to London for the hearing before Mr Justice Collins. His counsel, Michael Fordham QC, told the judge the issue was of "wide public interest". The government has cleared the export to Israel of components for combat aircraft, electronic warfare equipment, helicopters, military aircraft cockpit displays, unmanned vehicles and anti-armour missiles. Britain also supplies parts for US Apache helicopters and F16 strike aircraft which have been used by Israeli forces against Palestinian targets.

Turkey: Fatwa allows Muslims to pray just three times a day (AKI Adnkronos International)
The rise of mosques becomes catalyst for conflict across Europe (Ian Traynor, The Guardian)
Privatising terror, outsourcing diplomacy (Wajahat Ali, Alt.Muslim)
Barbie inspires modest, Muslim alternative (Reuters)
The challenge of Muhammad (Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CIF)
A spoof too far? (Brian Whitaker, Guardian CIF)

Wednesday October 10, 2007 
Rebuking obnoxious views is not just a personality kink
Terry Eagleton, The Guardian
In an essay entitled The Age of Horrorism published last month, the novelist Martin Amis advocated a deliberate programme of harassing the Muslim community in Britain. "The Muslim community," he wrote, "will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children..."

Mosque Factor (Rolled-up Trousers)
Jesus image earns airport worker a suspension (Megan Levy, Telegraph)
Cynical Distortion around 7/7 and Operation Crevice (The Cutting Edge)
Islamic scholars produce guide to praying at 17,000mph (Ian MacKinnon, The Guardian)

Tuesday October 9, 2007  
Airlines face 'direct action' threat in deportations row
Cahal Milmo, The Independent
Carriers including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic were under growing pressure yesterday to refuse to carry asylum-seekers being forcibly removed from Britain after activists threatened direct action over allegations that detainees are being abused. The airlines were accused of profiting from the forced removals programme, which has given rise to a dossier of 200 cases where deportees have claimed physical and mental mistreatment by their British escort teams. The Independent can reveal that the Home Office paid British Airways more than £4.3m in 2006 to carry failed asylum-seekers and their escorts. A succession of carriers insisted they were obliged by law to accept the passengers.

Uniform dissent
Jessica Shepherd, Education Guardian
Educationalists say the new guidelines - and government policy in the past on this matter - are at best ambiguous, and at worst actually increase tensions between religious groups in the classroom. One of the most severe critics is Dr Dianne Gereluk, a senior lecturer in education at Roehampton University. Next spring, Gereluk is publishing a book, Symbolic Clothing in Schools, which is a damning critique of the way England has tackled the wearing of religious symbols in schools. As part of her research, she compared advice given to schools by the British, Canadian, US and French governments. She also interviewed schoolchildren and headteachers.

Muddy thinking
Kate Hilpern, The Guardian G2
More and more people like Bullimore are turning their backs on the label of schizophrenia and its conventional treatments in an attempt to reclaim their lives. In fact, many have joined a growing group of renowned psychologists and psychiatrists to form the Campaign for Abolition of the Schizophrenia Label (CASL). "The idea that schizophrenia can be viewed as a specific, genetically determined, biologically driven brain disease has been based on bad science and social control since its inception," says Paul Hammersley, who teaches cognitive behaviour therapies for psychosis at the University of Manchester, and who is leading the campaign.

Counter-reformation II (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Madness this way lies (David Goldberg)
Islamophobia on rise in Europe, experts claim (Islamophobia Watch)
Jon Gaunt rallies to the defence of 'our tolerant society' (Islamophobia Watch)
Total Propping Up Burmese Junta (Mark Steel, c/o UK Watch)

Monday October 8, 2007  
Marching for peace and freedom
Andrew Murray
The Stop the War Coalition has organised 19 demonstrations against the Bush "war on terror" since the autumn of 2001. Among them have been the largest political protests this country has ever seen. All of them have passed off without disorder or violent incident. Today our protest has been banned. Three meetings were held with the Metropolitan police at which no objection was raised to our proposal to rally in Trafalgar Square and then march past parliament before dispersing (allowing marchers to lobby their own MPs). At the fourth meeting - a week ago - the police suddenly advised us we could not go ahead. It would seem clear that this shift in attitude was the result of political intervention, from the Home Office perhaps but more likely, in this tightly controlled administration, from Downing Street.

Big Tent Islam in America
Emel Magazine, c/o Yahya Birt's blog
Despite all the pressures on them, American Muslims and their political and religious leaders seem optimistic and focused. One major challenge that remains unsolved is ISNA’s failure to attract the large African-American community, numbering some two million, to any significant degree. Overcoming this lies as much with issues of class as it does with intra-Muslim prejudice, but it is a divide that American Muslim leaders seem determined to address. The big tent of American Islam seems in rude health but has to grow further still.

Do Progressives Have the Wrong Idea About Change?
Don Hazen, AlterNet
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have written a book -- Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) -- that challenges the way we are used to thinking about solving social problems. As [they] put it: "Cautionary tales and narratives of eco-apocalypse tend to provoke fatalism, conservatism, and survivalism among voters -- not the rational embrace of environmental policies. This research is consistent with extensive social-science research that strongly correlates fear, rising insecurity, and pessimism about the future with resistance to change."

'Islam is Peace for Britain?' Robert Spencer thinks not (Islamophobia Watch)
Turkish Hackers Target Swedish Web Sites (Associated Press)
Major airline refuses to help with forcible removal of immigrants (Robert Verkaik, The Independent)
'Militants' arrested in Maldives (BBC News Online)
Fascists resist the 'creeping Islamification' of death (Islamophobia Watch)
In praise of “Uncle Phil” and his generation (Samana Siddiqui, Alt.Muslim)
There is no defence against these children of death (Robert Baer, Times Online)

Sunday October 7, 2007  
UK Muslims warned: don't drink poisonous 'holy' water
Jamie Doward and Charlie Francis-Pape, The Observer
British muslims are being warned that criminal gangs are operating a multi-million pound illegal racket selling them fake holy water wrongly labelled as having come from Mecca. The black market trade in fake 'Zam Zam' water - named after the 14ft-deep well in the holy city in Saudi Arabia from where the genuine substance flows - is becoming a serious concern for health officials. They have found that much of the water smuggled into the UK illegally and labelled as if it has come from the holy spring, which is visited by millions of Muslims every year as part of the Hajj pilgrimage, contains high levels of arsenic and nitrates that can be fatal if regularly consumed over time.

Moazzam Begg: We have to negotiate with al-Qa'ida
Paul Rodgers, Independent on Sunday
The knock came at midnight – it's traditional – but this was not a police raid. The armed men at the door wore no uniforms and said not a word as they forced British aid worker Moazzam Begg to the ground, shackling his arms and legs behind him. Before they pulled a hood over his head, he saw men heading into the rooms where his wife and children slept. Other men carried him to the back of a Jeep. As it drove through the streets of Islamabad, someone lifted his hood long enough for an American to thrust another pair of handcuffs in his face. "I got these from the widow of a 9/11 victim," he snarled, before snapping them on the captive's already cuffed wrists.

Fear of giving offence is killing 'our' culture (Islamophobia Watch)
Spain to host Islamophobia summit (Islamophobia Watch)

Saturday October 6, 2007  
A question of faith
Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian
"The Crusades was the beginning of Europe finding its soul. Islam and Judaism became the shadow side, the foil against which we [Christian Europe] measured ourselves. A righteous contempt of Islam was entwined with our anti-semitism. Ever since, our rhetoric about Muslims reflects a blind anxiety about our own behaviour - anxieties about our own capacity for violence are projected onto Muslims, similarly our attitudes towards women." Finding these long historical roots to current attitudes towards Islam has given Armstrong a passionate sense of her own personal crusade: "Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition. It is part of a habit of prejudice that made the death camps possible. It's as if we hadn't learnt anything from the 1930s."

The gripes of Roth
Mark Lawson, The Guardian
When the novelist insisted that a spirited denunciation of modern American culture in Exit Ghost reflected the views of his character rather than himself, I suggested that he must surely share that pessimism himself, having lived from a time when novelists such as himself and John Updike would be pictured on the front of newspapers and news magazines to an era in which the novelist who makes it to the front-cover of Time is Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. This time, Roth acknowledged that he felt he was living in a "dying moment" for western literature, in which the pressure not only on people's time but in their leisure time - through entertainment and communication devices - meant that the habit of reading for an hour or two in the evening, as Roth has done most of his life, has been lost.

Britain supports torture not in theory but de facto (Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist)

Friday October 05 2007/22 Ramadan 1428  
Ramsay and Muslim chef agree settlement in discrimination case
James Macintyre, The Independent
A Muslim chef who claimed he was unfairly dismissed from Gordon Ramsay's flagship Chelsea restaurant reached an out-of-court settlement with the celebrity chef yesterday, the day the case was due to go to a tribunal. In July it emerged that Tama Siby, 26, was planning to sue Mr Ramsay, his company and two other chefs at the restaurant. Mr Siby – who was promoted from kitchen porter – said he experienced racial discrimination at the eatery, which allegedly included being called a "black donkey", reports have claimed. Mr Siby, a French citizen of Malian origin, had been intending to claim at least £50,000 in damages to cover an alleged unlawful deduction of wages, injury to feelings and loss of earnings.

Banning braids could be classed as racist, schools told
Laura Clout, The Telegraph
Schools are being warned that they could fall foul of race discrimination laws if they ban "cornrow" hairstyles. New guidelines on school uniforms say that head teachers who stop pupils wearing the tight braids – or other traditionally ethnic hairstyles – could be accused of indirect discrimination because the styles are more likely to be adopted by specific racial groups. The guidance also says schools should "act reasonably" to accommodate religious requirements such as headscarves, and their uniform policy should have regard to human rights legislation concerning the right to manifest religion or beliefs.

The virtues of doubt
Tom Shakespeare, Guardian CIF
Why is it that every time I'm exposed to secularism, I feel more sympathetic to religion? Even this atheist can spot a baby disappearing along with the bathwater. I had high hopes when I went along to see AC Grayling talk last night, in the ever excellent series of public lectures organised by Newcastle University, and it all started so well: more bouffant than Melvyn, more witty than Dawkins, more intelligent than Hitchens. But then, perhaps because the event was co-sponsored by North East Humanists in their 50th anniversary year, the good professor started playing to the gallery and nuanced argument went out of the window.

British guards 'assault and racially abuse' deportees (Robert Verkaik, The Independent)
Hindu sacked over nose stud wins back job (Jonathan Petre, The Telegraph)
Arms trade obscenity (Cameron Duodu, Guardian CIF)

Thursday October 04 2007
How Liberals Lost their Anti-Racism
Arun Kundnani, UK Watch
The emergence of this new liberal sentiment is taking place on the back of anti-Muslim hysteria, just as in the 1970s conservatism regenerated itself by projecting an imaginary threat of black culture. The irony is that liberalism’s attempt to reinvigorate itself descends into claims to racial superiority. It pollutes progressive elements of liberalism and, in influencing Britain’s elites, gives rise to an atmosphere of bigotry. Much of the progress made fighting racism in Britain over the last 40 years was the result of an implicit alliance between the activism of black and Asian communities, their supporters among the white working class, and those elements among the liberal intelligentsia who saw the need for reform – if only to avoid violent conflicts on Britain’s streets.

Eagleton stirs up the campus with attack on 'racist' Amis and son
Ciar Byrne, The Independent
In the new introduction to the 2007 edition of his classic book, Ideology: An Introduction, Eagleton launches an impassioned attack on the views of "Amis and his ilk" who argue that the West needs to clamp down on Islam. Eagleton also attacks Amis's father Kingsley as "a racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays and liberals". He adds that he believes that "Amis fils has clearly learnt more from him than how to turn a shapely phrase". The spur for Eagleton's criticism is Amis's assertion that, as the Islamic population swells, "the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order". On 10 September 2006, the day before the fifth anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York, Amis published a controversial essay entitled "The Age of Horrorism", in which he argued that fundamentalists had won the battle between Islam and Islamism.

Mega mosque, mega problems
Zahed Amanullah, Alt.Muslim
Ever since London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games in 2005 (a day before the 7/7 bombings), the area around the proposed Olympic site in East London has been subject to a flurry of construction activity and proposals. Part of the rationale for the selection itself was to inject sorely needed economic activity and infrastructure into the neglected area. As such, the growing pains have prompted the usual debates about gentrification, allocation of funds, and the virtues of architectural context. But none of this activity has stirred up as much controversy as the proposed Abbeymills Mosque, slated by its critics as a "mega-mosque" with dire implications for everything from aesthetics to national security.

Immigrants 'tortured' before return to Sudan (Ben Russell, The Independent)
The failings of Dawkins' narrow approach (The Guardian letters)
On terrorists and lunar-tics ... (Irfan Yusuf, Ihsan)
Martin Amis on Islam – likened to 'the ramblings of a British National Party thug' (Islamophobia Watch)
Muslims in Burma (CLOSER)

Wednesday October 03 2007
UK-deported Darfuris 'tortured'
BBC News Online
Asylum seekers from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region have been tortured after being deported back to their capital from the UK, a human rights group says. The Aegis Trust said it had evidence that people from Darfur, in the west, had been abused while in detention in Khartoum - on the other side of Sudan. It said it had corroborated claims by five Darfuris who had had asylum applications rejected by the UK. The UK government is due to challenge a court ruling against deportations. In April, the Court of Appeal ruled that no further Darfuris could be deported. But the Home Office says it is safe to send them back to parts of Sudan other than Darfur and appealed to the House of Lords, which will consider the case on Thursday.

Middle Eastern cult heroes
Khaled Diab, Guardian CIF
Disillusionment at the region's internationally pliant but domestically repressive regimes and anger at Anglo-American and Israeli militarism have combined to ensure that leaders seen to be defying the west or Israel, no matter how recklessly or for whatever selfish reasons, are elevated to the level of cult heroes in the eyes of millions - usually outside their own countries. A reverse process is operating in many parts of the west, particularly the United States, where the same defiant figures are portrayed as irredeemably bad and irreducibly evil, while the unsightly corruption of co-operative ruling elites is airbrushed out.

Darfur's bitter ironies (Eric Reeves, Guardian CIF)
Not Dave-ing, but drowning (John Harris, Guardian CIF)
Report Supported by 7/7 Victims Calls for Major Security Reforms (The Cutting Edge)
Baba Ali needs your help (to get Ummah Films into 28 Million Homes!) (Baba Ali)
Single British Muslims.com (BBC Online)
Hate week comes to campus (Islamophobia Watch)
Muslims should embrace free speech (Sunny Hundal)

Tuesday October 02 2007
Pinprick cartoons & blasphemous cats
Shamsuddin Yusuf, Alt.Muslim
Another cartoon controversy has hit the Muslim world. But this time, it is not part of the European dynamic made familiar by the 2006 Denmark crisis and its lesser known Scandinavian cousin this year. This time the action is unfolding in Bangladesh, home to the world's fourth largest Muslim population (after Indonesia, Pakistan and India). And this time, it’s about more than blasphemy. Last month, Bangladesh authorities arrested twenty year old cartoonist Arifur Rahman, on charges of blasphemy and sedition for a cartoon he drew in the satirical magazine Alpin ("pin prick"). In it, he depicts an imam telling a small boy that he should always add the prefix "Mohammed" before a name, which leads to the boy referring to the cat in his lap as "Mohammed Beral (cat)."

Britain 'permissive environment for terrorists'
Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph
Labour has let Britain become a "permissive environment" for terrorists and extremists, the Conservative conference heard today. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the shadow security minister, said the country was at high risk of attack today because Government policies had made the nation more vulnerable. "They have made us less safe than we were in 1997," she added. Dame Pauline, a former diplomat and one-time head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said: "We live in an unquiet world and it is getting more dangerous." She added: "Labour failed to take precautions at home that its policies abroad demanded. The Blair-Brown government has damaged our international reputation, overstretched our Armed Forces ands weakened the cohesion of the country."

If you want to support the monks, then call Gary Player to account
George Monbiot, The Guardian
China has become the world's excuse for inaction. If there is anything that a government or a business does not want to do, it invokes the Yellow Peril. Raise the minimum wage to £6 an hour? Not when the Chinese are paid £6 a year. Cap working time at 48 hours a week? The Chinese are working 48 hours a day. Cut greenhouse gas emissions? The Chinese are building a new power station every nanosecond. China has become our looking-glass bogeyman: if you behave well, the bogeyman will get you. "China" is a projection of the west's worst practices. I mention this because the western companies still trading with Burma use it as their first and last defence. If we withdraw, they insist, China will fill the gap.

Bad Met planning led to De Menezes shooting, court hears (James Sturcke, The Guardian)
Shiraz Maher fails to prove his point (again) (Indigo Jo Blogs)
The callous hypocrisy of our asylum system (Nigel Morris & Ben Russell, The Independent)
John Reid, war criminal, Celtic chairman (Rolled-up Trousers)
Sociology or Anthropology? What’s the Difference? (Tabsir)
'Asian grooming' – Sunday Times and BNP find common ground (Islamophobia Watch)
Survey: Religion and SL (Second Life Insider)
A global roar (Indra Adnan, Guardian CIF)

Monday October 01 2007 
Maldives were 'warned of Islamic danger'
Daily Telegraph
The Government of the Maldives had received explicit warnings of the dangers of rising Islamic fundamentalism but failed to take action to address the issue, the country's former attorney-general told The Daily Telegraph. Dr Hassan Saeed, who resigned his position last month in protest at Government policies on the issue, said the Maldives government had received a detailed action plan to combat Islamist extremism but had "sat on its hands". "The action plan was submitted to the President and the government seven months ago but they failed to take any measures to address the issue of extremism. They've just sat on the report," he said from the capital, Male. Two men were arrested yesterday in connection with the attacks. Local sources said they were "jewellery repairmen" who had been linked to the mobile telephone used to trigger the blast.

Bomb that injured newlyweds blamed on dissidents (Helen Carter and Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian)
Nail blast couple in mercy flight (Robin Perrie, The Sun)
More thoughts on the Siddique trial (Rolled-up Trousers)
Response to Sayeeda Warsi on the BNP (Indigo Jo Blogs)
Is democracy good for everyone? (Various, Guardian CIF)
My Mentor: Rageh Omaar on George Alagiah (Sophie Morris, The Independent)
'Cringing to Muslims is so pointless' (Islamophobia Watch)
The real Maldives (Meera Selva, Guardian CIF)
Our march will not be stopped (Tony Benn, Guardian CIF)

index