Gary Streeter MP has sponsored an Early Day Motion welcoming the intervention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in support of a “reasonable accommodation” of religion and belief in public life. The motion reads: “That this House welcomes the decision of the Equality and Human...
Following the horrific attacks in Norway last Friday which killed at least 76, Democracy Now! have interviewed Ali Esbati, who was on Norway’s Utoeya Island at the time of the fatal shooting and the Director of the Norwegian Center Against Racism, Kari Helene Partapuoli. Esbati reflects on the...
Andrew Gilligan in the Daily Telegraph today does his best to detract from and diminish the threat posed by far right extremism in the wake of the horrific attacks in Norway. He writes: “Clearly, the number killed by Anders Behring Breivik is greater than in any single Islamist terror attack...
A survey by the Pew Research Center, published last Friday, reveals that almost ten years after the 9/11 attacks and five years since the last survey, there is a continuation of tensions between the West and majority-Muslim nations. Both hold general negative stereotypes of the other, although...
Letters in The Independent today make interesting reading for those distressed at the knee-jerk reaction of the paper’s religious affairs correspondent, Jerome Taylor, who in an article online on Friday entitled, ‘Jihadist networks have long singled out Norway,’ wrote: “As of yet there...
The Socialist Worker reports on another act of vandalism on a mosque, this time in Luton. “Racist thugs vandalised a Luton mosque during the early hours of Friday morning. They spray painted “EDL” and a swastika – the symbol of Nazi Germany – on the walls, and smashed windows. “Imam...
In the wake of the Arab spring, the British government has published a strategy document entitled ‘Building Stability Overseas Strategy’ (BSOS). As the foreword states, the Arab Spring has “challenged long standing notions of stability. Challenges to oppression, if managed peacefully, can...
The BBC yesterday reported that a man involved in a racially aggravated incident, involving a pig’s head thrown on the site of a proposed mosque in Nottingham, has been sentenced. “Nottingham Magistrates heard Payne failed to stop others placing the pig’s head and had also left racist...
The Jewish Chronicle reports on a decision by the BBC to uphold a complaint against Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman for an edition of Newsnight broadcast on February 14th 2011. The complaint concerned Paxman’s failure to challenge claims made by Louise Ellman MP, accusing Hamas of using...
The Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg stated in a press release yesterday that bans on full-face veils may alienate women rather than liberate them, “It is more likely that such laws – so obviously targeting the adherents of one religious faith – would...
