Islamic organisations receive more public funding for ‘equality’ than all other religious groups put together in Scotland, it has been revealed. Almost 60 per cent of all grants given out by the Equality Unit has gone to just five Muslim groups.

The groups were awarded £1.5 million of public money, dwarfing the £137,500 given to Christian charities and the £110,000 given to Jewish organisations. Muslims make up less than one per cent of Scotland’s population but two thirds identify themselves as Christians.

A Labour backbencher George Foulkes said: “I’ve had representatives raise this and they are deeply concerned at the imbalance in the grant allocation.” He warns: “They say not only is it unfair but it’s dangerous.”

Murdo Fraser, the Tory deputy leader stated there was nothing wrong with giving grants to different religious groups but underlined that it had to be “proportionate”. Mr Fraser said: “It would be legitimate to ask why the Government is so focussed on giving such large sums to Muslim groups at the expense of other faiths”.

A representative for the Muslim Council of Scotland accused Mr Foulkes of stirring up trouble between faiths.

A spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond pointed out that the figures do not include funding from other areas which contribute to charities such as faith schools and aid organisations.

Christian Institute news release, 11 March 2009

The Britsh National Party seizes on this latest example of “the Islamification of Britain”:

“The ‘Equality Unit’ is part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and runs a series of programmes from its Edinburgh offices including special units devoted to the rights of ‘gypsies, travellers, transgender equality, faith and race equality, and refugees and asylum seekers’. The British National Party has vowed to dismantle the network of anti-white and anti-British organisations which exist only to further discriminate against the indigenous population of this country.”