The Communities and Local Government select committee has published the findings of an inquiry into the role of local councillors in the UK. The inquiry looked into a number of issues including the nature of councillor- local community relationship; the recruitment of councillors; barriers and...
The National Secular Society reports on the ‘collapse’ of the trial of a man charged with causing “religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress by demonstrating hostility based on membership of a particular religious group” after he tore pages from a copy of the...
BBC News, the Independent and the Daily Telegraph have all reported on the $5.8million payout by a US based private defence company to 71 Iraqis who alleged they were tortured in the company run prisons and detention centres in Iraq. The victims include former detainees of the notorious Abu Ghraib...
News website, The Local, draws our attention to a study by academics at the University of Bielefeld, in Bielefeld, Germany, which demonstrates an increase in Islamophobia in Germany with Muslims becoming the “new targets of prejudice and exclusion”. The findings are part of a ten-year research...
The Guardian and The Times (£) today cover the Labour Party’s strategy to target 106 constituencies for the 2015 general election. The party has hired one of President Barack Obama’s advisers, Arnie Graf, to train 1000 staff to run campaigns in the target constituencies, building on the grass...
The Independent on Sunday carried an article by the paper’s religious affairs correspondent, Jerome Taylor, on the experience of British Somalis being detained and questioned at airports under schedule 7 anti-terrorism powers. The report follows the recent detention of the British Somali double...
BBC News and the Guardian have both reported on the publication of a draft ‘Leveson bill’ by the media reform campaign group, Hacked Off. The bill is a response to the report published by Lord Justice Leveson last November into the culture, ethics and practice of the press and future reform of...
The ten-month prison sentence given to the leader of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), Stephen Lennon, for using a friend’s passport to enter the US has been reported across the media, including BBC News, the Independent, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. The purpose of his...
BBC News reports that the plans to convert a disused Scouts Hut in Thurnby Lodge, Leicester into an Islamic community centre have been turned down by the city council. The decision follows a consultation with local residents after weeks of protests against the proposals put forward by the As-Salaam...
The London Evening Standard draws our attention to the comments of Tory MP for The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard, to Prime Minister David Cameron’s assertion that the party needs to increase its ethnic minority representation. In an article for Politics Home, Pritchard lambasts the idea of...
