** 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,...
Joan Smith in her column in The Independent on Sunday last weekend wrote about the Roshonara Choudhry case. Rehearsing the history of movements that have or do use political violence to attain their ideological goals, Smith also adds her usual critique of Islamic dress observed by Muslim women...
Operation Black Vote is running a series of seminars as part of its Community Empowerment Roadshow 2010/2011. The next such will take place in Manchester on Saturday 27 November. The purpose of the seminars is “to increase Black and minority ethnic (BME) awareness of local governance and to...
A court has heard that British servicemen, who filmed hundreds of interrogation sessions at “the UK’s Abu Ghraib” prison in Iraq, may be guilty of war crimes. From The Guardian: “Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the facility, operated by a...
The Evening Standard yesterday reported that the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, is to investigate whether the Met Police were justified in their apprehension of six men in the so-called ‘Muslim plot to kill Pope.’ According to the ES, Lord...
The Evening Standard on Friday ran a double page feature on Muslim women and their wearing of the niqab and burqa in growing numbers. ES feature writer Nosheen Iqbal asks, “…just what is it about the burka and the niqab — two types of face veil, the terms are often used interchangeably...
Reading Leo McKinstry’s barely comprehensible babble in his Daily Express column yesterday, one could conclude: • British Muslims are a separate entity from the ordinary British taxpayer. Perhaps they don’t pay taxes at all. They may all be on benefits.• A handful of people...
Security services have reportedly “softened” their support for control orders according to Mark Townsend writing in the Observer. The paper yesterday reported: “In a surprise development, senior Whitehall security sources broke ranks to reveal that MI5 was ‘not wedded’ to keeping the...
Mark Hendrick MP has sponsored an Early Day Motion on Islamophobia calling on Government “to bring in tighter regulation to tackle this and other forms of religious and racial discrimination.” The EDM has been supported by 25 MPs to date. Read the list of MPs here. Is your MP among...
Two high court judges have ordered that Phil Woolas’ election as MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth is “void” and have ordered a re-run of the General Election campaign for the constituency. The statement from Mr Justice Nigel Teare said: “In an election address entitled The Examiner,...
The newspapers today relay the sentencing of Roshonara Choudhry for the stabbing of Stephen Timms MP and the transcript of her interview, released by the police, which reveals her apparent radicalization through listening to online lectures by Anwar Al-Awlaki. But the news that dominates the...
