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October 2009
"I said to him, 'Your
party's built on hatred.' He started shouting at
me, pointing his finger. The rest of his lot
were all laughing and smirking. I just felt a
bit sick inside to see him there to be honest.
There they were with their poppies on, trying to
put this respectable front on, yet they're happy
to confront a 13-year-old at a war memorial to
try and get their point across." William Robey.
Reshaping Prevent
Jonathan Githens-Mazer &
Robert Lambert, Guardian CiF
While the initial coverage of Arun Kundnani's
report for the Institute of Race Relations
(IRR),
"Spooked", has focused
on accusations of spying and large-scale
targeted surveillance, the most insightful
aspect of the report is its charting of the
transformation of counter-terrorism policy in
the UK.
Police in £9m scheme to log 'domestic
extremists'
Paul Lewis, Rob Evans & Matthew Taylor, Guardian
Police are gathering the
personal details of thousands of activists who
attend political meetings and protests, and
storing their data on a network of nationwide
intelligence databases.
When Bonnie Greer met Nick Griffin
David Cohen, Evening Standard
"We were seated next to
each other and ... he tried to make small talk.
"Bonnie, how many times have you been on?" he
asked. "Bonnie, do you find it scary?" I looked
him straight in the eye. "No," I replied
sharply, "but you might."
More than 22,000 complain to PCC over Stephen
Gately piece
Stephen Brook, Guardian
The Press Complaints
Commission has received a record 22,000
complaints about Jan Moir's article about
Stephen Gately since Friday – more complaints in
a single weekend than the regulator has received
in total in the past five years.
Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on
innocent
Vikram Dodd, Guardian
The government programme
aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured
into violent extremism is being used to gather
intelligence about innocent people who are not
suspected of involvement in terrorism, the
Guardian has learned.
Cambridge Muslim Integration College
IslamOnline
"We want to help them to
broaden their community and make it part and
parcel of the wider British community, and to
understand British society better” Dr Michael
Berdine, director of the Cambridge Muslim
College, told Cambridge News...
Listen closely
Hena Ashraf, Alt.Muslim
Seen and Not Heard is
an assessment of young Muslims in the United
Kingdom, by Sughra Ahmed of Britain's Policy
Research Centre. The study, conducted over 18
months and released in September 2009.
Mecca super-hotel to offer spa, butler and a
chocolate room
Riazat Butt, Guardian
Raffles, which gave
thirsty wanderers the Singapore Sling, is
opening a luxury hotel in Mecca. Undeterred by
restrictions on beautifying oneself during the
Hajj, the hotel will also have segregated gyms,
beauty parlours, grooming salons and a spa.
Ministers to spend £12m fighting white
working-class extremism
Robert Verkaik, Independent
Hundreds of "white
enclaves" across the UK have been chosen to
receive special funding from the Government, in
an effort to curb the spread of racist extremism
among the working classes.
Children start school too young — wait till
they’re 6, experts say
John O'Leary, Times
Formal schooling should be
delayed until children reach 6, according to the
biggest review of primary education for more
than 40 years. The Cambridge Primary Review,
published today, says that five-year-olds should
continue with the play-based curriculum used in
nursery...
The looming threat of terror that comes from the
far right
Johann Hari, Independent
Britain is facing the real
risk today of a bombing campaign that targets
random civilians for death – but it is being
virtually ignored. When its supporters step
closer every day to mass murder, nobody notices.
Geert Wilders wins appeal against ban on
travelling to UK
Alan Travis, Guardian
The far-right Dutch
politician Geert Wilders intends to travel to
London next week after an immigration tribunal
ruling overturned a ban on visiting Britain. The
Home Office said it was disappointed...
Michael Moore's anti-capitalist crusade
Paul Harris, The Observer
Moore has unveiled an
unexpected trump card against conservatives who
so vociferously attack him: Christianity. Moore
is a practising Catholic and has put religion at
the core of Capitalism: A Love Story.
Emir of Qatar's £1.5m gift to mosque 'won votes
for Jack Straw'
Sunday Times
Jack Straw helped to
secure a £1.5m donation from the Emir of Qatar
to a mosque in his Blackburn constituency. The
justice secretary’s help in fixing the gift was
used by the Labour party to woo the Muslim vote,
it was claimed this weekend.
Armed Forces Muslim Association launched
AsianImage
The new head of the
British army said the launch of a support
network for Muslims in the armed forces
“reflects the growing numbers, importance and
relevance” of their service to the UK.
Tune into our racist culture war, live on
primetime TV
Marina Hyde, Guardian
Of all the unlikely
flashpoints for a culture war, primetime
Saturday night telly would be up there, with its
cavalcade of unchallenging talent shows and
family-friendly jokes designed to keep as wide a
range of demographics as possible sitting in
slack-jawed defeat before it...
Call for anti-Islamic marches ban
BBC News Online
There are calls to ban two
marches planned by a group of football fans
called the Welsh Defence League. They claim it
is to protest against radical Islam and they are
not racist but opponents accuse them of being a
fascist organisation targeting Muslims.
Pew maps the Muslim world
Ed Stoddard
The Pew Forum on Religion
& Public Life just released a demographic study
of the Muslim world it says is “the largest
project of its kind to date.” The report is
called:
Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report
on the Size and Distribution of the World’s
Muslim Population.
Politicians urged to tackle far-right
Michael Holden, Reuters
Far right militants are
getting more sophisticated and politicians need
to challenge their message head on, an expert on
community relations says. Professor Ted Cantle,
who led the government review into the 2001
riots which erupted in towns across northern
England...
Nine Lives by William Dalrymple
Ruaridh Nicoll, Observer
In March, in the Observer,
Dalrymple bemoaned the dynamiting of the tomb of
anther Sufi saint, Rahman Baba, at the foot of
the Khyber Pass, and it is a story he relates
again in Nine Lives.
Why are black people turning to Islam?
Richard Reddie, Guardian
Black Muslims in this
country, just like in the US, have also gained a
reputation for "cleaning up" the lives of those
involved in crime, drugs and gang violence...
Gay Muslims need support
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
Some religious communities are not reciprocating
the tolerance and respect they insist on from
others when it comes to gay rights, particularly
in Muslim and some Christian communities.
Muslim groups hit out over 'funding with
security strings attached'
Haroon Siddique, Guardian
The government is facing a
rebellion over its anti-terrorism strategy from
Muslim groups that claim public funding to
tackle social deprivation has been made
contingent on security co-operation.
Muslim graves smashed by vandals
BBC News Online
Up to 20 Muslim graves
have been targeted and vandalised at a cemetery
in south Manchester. The vandals struck at the
Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road overnight
on Thursday. Staff found the Muslim section of
the cemetery littered with broken headstones...
September 2009
Straw to join BNP's Nick Griffin in Question
Time debate
Jenny Percival, Paul Owen & agencies, Guardian
Jack Straw has confirmed
he will join the BNP leader Nick Griffin on an
edition of the BBC's Question Time programme.
Labour had previously made a point of not
appearing alongside the far-right party, but
Straw said today that he was "delighted" to have
the opportunity to take on Griffin, MEP for the
North West, on the flagship programme.
BNP politician banned from council over false
murder claims
Hélène Mulholland, Guardian
One of the highest-profile
members of the British National party has been
banned from sitting on his local council for a
month and censured by the Greater London
authority after giving false details about
murders on a video blog. Richard Barnbrook, who
holds a seat on Barking and Dagenham council and
is the BNP's only London assembly member...
British Muslims youth, seen but not heard
Sughra Ahmed, Muslim News
Seen and Not Heard: Voices
of Young British Muslims, published by the
Policy Research Centre, explores some of the key
concerns and challenges facing Britain’s young
Muslims. That’s quite a task given the facts:
according to Census data, the average Muslim is
28 years old (which is 13 years below the
national average)...
UK's 'flying diplomats' aim to tackle terror
threat at home
Riazat Butt, Guardian
Sir Christopher Prentice,
the British ambassador to Iraq, will travel to
High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire tomorrow to
speak to an audience of young British Muslims to
counter the idea that the west is at war with
Islam and that Iraqis are suffering because of
western military intervention.
The steady rise of Islamic finance
Emily Buchanan and Bhasker Solanki, BBC News
Online
Islamic finance is based
on rules from Islam's holy texts - the Koran.
Scholars claim the fundamental difference to
conventional banking is that Islamic finance is
more ethical. First it bans any form of "riba"
or interest, preventing consumers being
exploited by high rates of borrowing.
So has anyone really been 'Islamified' against
their will?
Mark Steel, Independent
The most effective
opposition [to the BNP] comes when communities
refuse to be intimidated. The idea of inviting
them into the mainstream in order to expose them
is well-meaning, but I doubt whether Griffin
thinks: "We can cope with united communities
opposing us – but the perfect cutting remark on
Newsnight and we're stuffed."
Don't repeat this mistake
Yahya Birt, Guardian CiF
This weekend John Denham
compared today's far right to Oswald Mosley's
1930s fascists, and announced a drive to counter
the extremists within white working-class
communities. Yet it won't do for the government
to extend its current counter-terrorist policies
to treat the white working classes as another
"at risk" category.
Obama's big silence: the race question
(Naomi Klein, Guardian)
How Islamist gangs use internet to track,
torture and kill Iraqi gays
Jason Burke, The Observer
Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at
least six hours a day searching internet
chatrooms linked to gay websites. "It is the
easiest way to find those people who are
destroying Islam and who want to dirty the
reputation we took centuries to build up," he
said.
English Defence League: chaotic alliance stirs
up trouble on streets
Robert Booth, Matthew Taylor & Paul Lewis,
Guardian
The rise of the English
Defence League, whose protests against Islamism
have sparked violent city centre clashes, has
been chaotic but rapid. Three months ago, no one
had heard of the EDL...
[English
Defence League humiliated in Harrow
-Lenin's Tomb]
Airline terror trial: US 'undermined British
investigation'
Duncan Gardham, Torygraph
The police investigation into the al-Qaeda
airline bomb plot was undermined after the US
pressurised Pakistan to arrest the suspected
ringleader Rashid Rauf, it has emerged...
Islam's Threat to UK Jews That Never Was
Inayat Bunglawala, IslamOnline
This episode highlights a continuing danger to
UK Muslims about which they need to be
constantly vigilant: the malignant presence of
agent provocateurs who are clearly intent on
portraying Muslims and their faith in the worst
possible public light.
I was naive; we got distracted. But the real
work carried on
Trevor Phillips, Guardian
The British have a proud history of standing up
for human rights and of contempt for
discrimination. But we don't always practise
what we preach, as my family discovered when
they arrived from British Guiana in the early
1950s.
Neo-Nazi jailed over terror plot (BBC News
Online)
90 arrested in Birmingham anti-Islam rally
(Press TV)
Wartime nostalgia blinds us to Britain's changed
realities
Mark Mazower, Guardian CiF
As we mark the 70th
anniversary of the start of the second world
war, the British obsession with the war runs on
and on. There is the endless recycling of the
same themes – Dunkirk, the D-day landings and
Churchillian greatness – that starts to devalue
the heroism of those times as much as to
celebrate it.
Young British Muslims angry with police and
media
Reuters India
Many young British Muslims
feel demonised by the police and the media and
say they have come under pressure to prove their
loyalty since the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2005
London bombings, a study has found. The report
for the Policy Research Centre, an Islamic think
tank, was intended to give young Muslims their
own voice...
[Young
Muslims speak up, Sughra Ahmed, Guardian
CiF]
The Burkini = Militant Islam? (Bikya Masr)
Chicken Little Goes to Europe (S Holmes, The
American Prospect) | 