March 2010 

March began with two women, one a Muslim, becoming the first people to be barred from boarding a flight because they refused to go through a full-body airport scanner. The Muslim woman decided to forfeit her ticket and left her luggage at the airport.

Watch out: democratic Muslims about
Inayat Bunglawala, Guardian CiF
We had a fairly good idea of what we were to be treated to in Andrew Gilligan's Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on Monday about the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE) – a mainly Bengali Muslim organisation headquartered in Whitechapel, East London – right at the outset, from the programme's hyperbolic title: "Britain's Islamic Republic".

Simon Darby, BNP leader, interviewed by pupils in their classroom
Fiona Hamilton, Times
Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, was phoned by 14-year-old students in Rochdale, Lancashire. The pupils, supervised by a teacher, asked him questions over the phone about the French ban on the hijab. The BNP’s policy is to ban Islamic dress in schools.
[Skoolz 4 Nartzees - A History of the Universe]

February 2010 

Nasty historian Niall Ferguson dumps his wife, following a string of torrid affairs, deciding finally to lay his humping hat on the mattress of self-hating Muslim neocon Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Surely no other couple were more made for each other than Fergi and Hirsi...

Inextricably linked to controversial mosque: the secret world of IFE
Andrew Gilligan, Torygraph
The Islamic Forum of Europe is dedicated, in its own words, to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam”.
[Muslims Found In Mosque Shock - Craig Murray]

Is this a triumph for the Islamic peacemakers?
Allegra Mostyn-Owen, This is London
“Every Salafi and Deobandi is not a terrorist but I have no hesitation in saying that everyone is a well-wisher of terrorists and this has not been appreciated by the Western governments,” said Dr ul-Qadri, who has the authority of a Sheikh–ul-Islam...
[Another plug for Minhaj-ul-Quran - Islamophobia Watch]
[Qadri’s fatwa breaks no new ground - Indigo Jo Blogs]

When words are immutable
Usama Hasan, Guardian CiF
The question: Are religious texts lost in translation? I agree with Salem Azzam's statement at the World of Islam Festival in 1976, "The best translation of the Qur'an is in the language of action." Thus, a short chapter such as Neighbourly Needs would be translated through faith and care for orphans and the needy...

These are not 'hijab gates' – they represent the whole community
Lutfur Rahman, Guardian CiF
The proposals for the arches – and they are simply proposals subject to consultation and planning approval – are a small part of a much wider regeneration scheme for the whole local community, which includes new play areas and improvements to local schools, roads, parks and other community facilities.

Muslim schools surpass national GCSE averages
Elham Asaad Buaras, Muslim News
Last year Muslim faith schools surpassed national averages in modern foreign languages and 5+ A* - C GCSE percentage indicators. For the last three years, one of the Muslim schools has been recognised by the Government as one of the top 100 highest achieving schools in the country.

Binyam Mohamed torture ruling: the restored passages
Guardian
Read the newly released text from the court of appeal judgment on M15's role in US torture of a British resident...
[Government fury as judges attack security services - Guardian]

Gaddafi bans most Europeans from travelling to Libya
Ian Traynor, Guardian
The row goes back to the summer of 2008 when Gaddafi's son, Hannibal, was arrested with his wife in a luxury Geneva hotel for allegedly beating up their domestic servants. He was released and the charges were dropped. But the Libyans arrested two Swiss businessmen who have been held in the country ever since.

MoD fights plan for mosque near Sandhurst academy
Nigel Bunyan, Torygraph
The mosque would have a large dome and two 100ft minarets positioned 400 yards from the parade ground. A spokesman for Surrey Heath Council said: “The submitted plans state there will be no access to the minarets above the roof level of the building.”

Torture collusion probe urged by human rights watchdog
Dominic Casciani, BBC News
The UK's human rights watchdog has called for an independent review of claims that British intelligence services colluded in torture.The Equality and Human Rights Commission says 25 people now claim the UK knew of their mistreatment abroad.

Doing it for ourselves
Salma Yaqoob, New Statesman
For Muslim women, the first decade of the 21st century ended pretty much as it started. Much was done in our name, little of which we had asked for. The century began with one of the poorest countries in the world being subjected to a deadly, multibillion-dollar onslaught from a coalition of the most powerful countries.

Yarl's Wood children face 'extreme distress', report reveals
Karen McVeigh, Guardian
Children held at an immigration detention centre face "extremely distressing" arrest and transportation procedures, and are subjected to prolonged and sometimes repeated periods of detention, according to a damning report by the Children's Commissioner.

Locked up indefinitely: The prisoners who have committed no crime
Emily Dugan and Jane Merrick, Independent
Home Office figures show that 225 people had been held in immigration detention for more than a year in 2009 – and 45 for more than two years. Women at Yarl's Wood detention centre are in the second week of a hunger strike over their prolonged time...

Muslimahs doing it for themselves
Ruqaya Izzidien, Guardian CiF
For far too long Muslim women have been the recipients of proposals, rather than the instigators. A friend of mine broke it down for me the other day in a brutally honest statement: the men go and find wives and the women sit at home waiting for husbands to find them.

'Every Hindu and Sikh should be praising the BNP'
Jenny Kleeman, Guardian
Rajinder Singh is flicking through the Pakistani channels on his Sky box from his sofa in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. Dressed in a crimson turban, he sits a metre from the ­enormous screen, translating the odd phrase for my benefit.

Complaints of prison racism rise among staff and inmates
Rowenna Davis and Paul Lewis, Guardian
Prison officers are more than twice as likely to be reported for racism than prisoners, according to new government figures showing alleged racist incidents across the prison estate have risen by a quarter.

Complaints of prison racism rise among staff and inmates
Rowenna Davis & Paul Lewis, Guardian
Prison officers are more than twice as likely to be reported for racism than prisoners, according to new government figures showing alleged racist incidents across the prison estate have risen by a quarter.

Muslim communities should do more to tackle potential terrorists, a chief constable warns
Richard Edwards, Torygraph
Sir Norman Bettison, the head of West Yorkshire Police, said that Britain is facing another 20 years of having to deal with the threat from radicalised home-grown extremists.

Chilcot will change the way Muslims see the west
Karen Armstrong, Guardian
As we watch the unfolding drama of the Chilcot inquiry, we should be aware that this is not simply an act of domestic cleansing. Whatever the implications for our political and judicial institutions, it is crucial that the British people learn how we came to go to war.

Counter-terrorism police stationed on campuses
Guardian
Counter-terrorism officers are being stationed in universities at risk of being targeted by extremists, it was reported today. The universities minister, David Lammy, said a number of institutions had been identified and instructed to work closely with the police.

Wearing a burka like putting on paper bag, says MP
BBC News Online
An MP has called the wearing of burkas the religious equivalent of "going round with a paper bag over your head". The Kettering MP said he had "huge sympathy" with those who wanted a ban on face-covering veils in public.

England is 'cesspit' breeding Islamists, says Soyinka
James Meikle, Guardian
England is a "cesspit" and breeding ground for fundamentalist Muslims, the Nobel laureate and political activist Wole Soyinka has said in an interview in which he also accused Britain of allowing the existence of "indoctrination schools".
[Wole Soyinka's rash words: Riazat Butt, Guardian]

The young French women fighting to defend the full-face veil
Lizzy Davies, Guardian
"I choose to wear this. Not every day, just now and again. But when I do wear it, it is entirely of my own volition. No one is forcing me," she says, standing on a busy street corner in the heavily Muslim northern district of Barbès.

Ex-gay files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion
Patrick Strudwick, Independent
In Britain today therapists are trying to convert gay men and women to heterosexuality. I know this, because for several months I infiltrated this network of therapists and put myself – a happy, "out" gay man – through treatment.

Peter Brook at 84: politics, philosophy and plays (Guardian)
The Future of 'Prevent' (Nafeez Ahmed, The Cutting Edge)
UK and Torture: The Bitter Truth (Craig Murray)
Yes to female circumcision? (anthropologi.info)
Understanding Islamic Feminism: Interview with Ziba Mir-Hosseini (Tabsir)
Attempt to link Islamic societies to terrorism (Indigo Jo Blogs)
FOSIS President: 'universities must defend their cultures of inclusivity, free speech and trust' (iEngage)
Concerns of the ummah (Sholto Byrnes, New Statesman)
Young British Muslim ex-prisoners unrepentant on views (BBC News Online)
Attacks on British Muslims are being brushed under the carpet (Left Foot Forward)
Is Your Professor an Islamophobe? (A. El-Sayed, Huff Post)

January 2010 

Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares was shocked to discover the FBI is using a digitally-altered image of himself on Osama Bin Laden wanted posters, to show how Bin Laden might look after a decade's worth of ageing and possible changes to facial hair.

Mail group pays Inayat Bunglawala al-Qaeda damages
BBC News Online
A government adviser has accepted "substantial" damages over a newspaper claim he supports al-Qaeda.  Associated Newspapers, which owns the Mail on Sunday, admitted the allegations were false, had apologised and would pay substantial damages and costs.

Media and politicians 'fuel rise in hate crimes against Muslims'
Vikram Dodd, Guardian
A rise in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in London is being encouraged by mainstream politicians and sections of the media, a study written by a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer, published yesterday, says. (report here - pdf)

Rich-poor divide 'wider than 40 years ago'
BBC News Online
The gap between rich and poor in the UK is wider now than 40 years ago, a government-commissioned report says. "Deep-seated and systemic differences" remain between men and women and minority groups in pay and employment, the National Equality Panel found.

Race charges follow English Defence League Stoke rally
BBC News Online
Three people have been charged with racially or religiously aggravated disorder offences after an English Defence League rally. Seventeen EDL protesters were arrested on Saturday and four remain in custody.

Mosque fire 'not race hate crime'
BBC News Online
Peter Clark, 19, said he had turned to drink and had been walking through woods when he came across a green container with petrol in it. The father-of-one said he tried to throw it at the fence of the mosque but missed and hit the building.

Natasha Walter: 'I believed sexism in our culture would wither away. I was entirely wrong'
Kira Cochrane, Guardian G2
We have arranged to meet to talk about her new book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism. It is organised in two distinct parts, and the first finds Walter ­taking a journey through the seedy underbelly...

CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones
Paul Lewis, Guardian
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

Rod Liddle defends quip about Auschwitz on Millwall fans' forum
James Robinson, Guardian
Liddle has posted dozens of messages on Millwall Online using the pseudonym Monkeymfc, including, allegedly, derogatory comments about Somalis, insulting references to the ITV newsreader Mary Nightingale and racist comments.

Half of young black people out of work
Independent
An analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that unemployment among black people aged between 16 and 24 is well over twice the 20% rate of unemployment among white young people.

UK Stop and Search Law Illegal: EU Court
IslamOnline
BRUSSELS— In a major blow to the much-criticized British anti- terrorism powers, the European Court for Human Rights has dismissed the random police stop and search measures as a serious breach of human rights, asking London to suspended them.

Islam4UK to be banned, says Alan Johnson
Alan Travis, Guardian
The Islamist group Islam4UK, which planned a march through Wootton Bassett, and its "parent" organisation, al-Muhajiroun, will be banned under new legislation outlawing the "glorification" of terrorism, Alan Johnson announced today.

The many faces behind the veil
Arifa Akbar & Jerome Taylor, Independent
Jilbab. Niqab. Al Amira. Dupatta. Burqa. Chador. Even the language used to describe the various kinds of clothing worn by Muslim women can seem as complicated and muddied as the issue itself. Rarely has an item of cloth caused so much consternation, controversy and misunderstanding as with the Islamic headscarf or veil.

George Galloway deported from Egypt
Haroon Siddique and agencies, Guardian
George Galloway was today deported from Egypt after police officers refused him re-entry into the Gaza Strip and bundled him on to a plane for London. The Respect MP Galloway, declared "persona non grata" by the Egyptian foreign ministry, arrived back in the UK at around 1pm.

MI5 'still using threats to recruit Muslim spies'
Robert Verkaik, Independent
MI5 faces accusations that its officers have blackmailed and harassed vulnerable immigrants living in Britain as part of a campaign to recruit spies to report on Muslim communities.

The war on terror has been about scaring people, not protecting them
Gary Younge, Guardian
So there was no ticking time bomb. No urgent need ever arose to torture anybody who was withholding crucial details, so that civilisation as we know it could be saved in the nick of time. No wires had to be tapped, special prisons erected or international accords violated.

Pressure on Islamic group to abandon Wootton Bassett protest
Daily Mirror
A town famous for honouring dead British soldiers returning from Afghanistan has called on an Islamic group to abandon plans to march through its streets. Islam4UK - which describes itself as a "platform" for extremists - is planning a parade in Wootton Bassett, Wilts.

Eurabian Follies (Tasbir)
Europol Report: All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t (Loonwatch)
What's the real risk from terror? (David Spiegelhalter, Guardian CiF)
Terror threat raised to "Be so scared u shit yourself" level (Guardian)
EDL calls for ban on veil – and on construction of mosques (Islamophobia Watch)
Terrorists and radicalisation (Enemies of Reason)
Government re-establishes link with Muslim Council of Britain (PP)
Teenage girl: Alpha has 'cult element' (Ruth Gledhill)
Celebrating Orthodox Christmas in Blaenau Ffestiniog (C. Morris, Times)
Winterval: The beast that wouldn't die! (5CC)
Abdurrahman Wahid obituary (Tom Fawthrop, Guardian)

December 2009