** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE** Rights group Muslim Engagement & Development (MEND) have launched a new report The Great Debunk: Challenging Islamophobic Conspiracy Theories, which examines how false narratives about Muslims once limited to the far-right fringes have entered mainstream political,...
BBC News covers the outcomes of two trials involving men who are alleged to have made hoax bomb threats. The first, involving Timothy Bingham, who made hoax bomb threats against mosques in Southampton, has ended with Bingham handed a two year suspended sentence. BBC News reports: “A man who made...
The Independent and The Times today both trail the speech to be delivered this evening by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi in which she is expected to say that an “underlying, unfounded mistrust” is fuelling anti-Muslim hatred. Lady Warsi is expected to reveal results from a specially commissioned YouGov...
Shadow Justice Secretary, Sadiq Khan MP, in an article for Politics Home today sets out why he believes the voting age should be lowered to 16. He writes: “Think of some of the things that a 16 year old is able to do of their own free will, like marry or enter into a civil […]
BBC News reports on the sentencing of a man to three months in prison for racially aggravated harassment after he dumped a pig’s head outside a mosque in Newbury, Berkshire last October. From the BBC: “Rory Rowbottom, from Thatcham, left the animal’s head at the mosque on Pound Street in...
The Times (£) today publishes a column by Lord Paddy Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, in which he argues that the conflicts in Mali and Algeria are not “a fight against ‘us’” but a fight of “Islam vs Islam”. Lord Ashdown refers to the way in which the War on Terror has...
The Daily Mail reports on the sentencing of a teenager who pulled the hijab from a Muslim female and punched her pregnant friend in the head in a racist attack in Royston, Glasgow last September. The teenager, who carried out the assault with her aunt, has been jailed for two years and eight...
It would seem events in Mali and Algeria have stirred Islamophobic sentiments at home among those who use any and every opportunity to rehearse their deep seated prejudices against Islam and Muslims. Melanie Phillips in her column in yesterday’s Daily Mail weaved a confused narrative linking the...
The Leicester Mercury publishes a lovely open letter from a local resident to the community of Masjid Umar in Evington Road, Leicester. The letter reads: “I want to thank your community for the most amazing selfless act that happened on Friday night – it has truly moved me and has changed my...
Chair of the Home Affairs select committee, Keith Vaz MP, has tabled an early day motion urging police forces to record Islamophobia as a category of hate crime, similar to the uniform recording of anti-Semitism. EDM 945 states: “That this House notes the recognition of anti-Muslim sentiment and...
There was an interesting snippet of election information in James Forsyth’s column in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. Forsyth writes of the strategy being employed by the Conservatives to woo the ethnic vote ahead of the next general election, and beyond. Forsyth reports, “Conservative...
