Blair’s simplistic formula for tackling radical Islam is leading him to support some of the most oppressive forces in the region, argues Arun Kundnani.
Update: See also Patrick Cockburn, “Demented Tony Blair recites the Saudis’ creed in his latest speech”, Independent on Sunday, 27 April 2014
Police asking people to snoop on relatives has been criticised as unworkable and unrealistic.
Tony Blair’s anti-democratic tirade chimes with David Cameron’s toxic manoeuvring at home and in the Muslim world. argues Seumas Milne.
The trust that runs schools at the centre of claims of a Islamist “plot” in Birmingham says it has received hate mail after a series of leaks purporting to come from Department for Education and Ofsted investigations were published in the media.
Park View education trust, the governing body of the Park View, Nansen and Golden Hillock schools in Birmingham, said that the leaks and disclosures were “causing unwarranted and unnecessary alarm amongst families who are seeing reports of their schools ‘closing’ and teachers being ‘removed’ alongside any number of other sensational allegations.
“And just this morning one of our schools received hate mail, which we can only conclude is a direct consequence of media reporting,” it said.
Teachers from Birmingham schools being investigated by Ofsted over an alleged Islamist takeover plot have reportedly been told their schools will be downgraded because they were “not teaching anti-terrorism”.
Other teachers were asked by Ofsted inspectors if they were homophobic, according to Roger King, the National Union of Teachers’ executive member for Birmingham, who said he had received complaints from members whose schools were being investigated in one of several inquiries into the alleged plot. “You do question how objective Ofsted were when they went into those schools,” King said.
The claims come as Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools in England, announced he was going to Birmingham to take personal charge of the investigation into 16 schools in the city, amid media reports claiming all the schools had been downgraded after visits by Ofsted inspectors.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali lost an honorary degree from Brandeis for articulating the same twisted thinking as Dick Cheney, argues Eric Levitz.
Nathan Lean takes on Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
LONDON: Members of the racist English Defence League (EDL) staged a protest outside Regent’s Park Mosque here during Jummah prayers, attempting to spark confrontation between the worshippers and the EDL but the Metropolitan police intervened to stop the break out of violence.
Dozens of EDL members arrived outside London’s historic mosque for the timing of Jummah prayers to provoke the worshippers into a confrontation but it’s believed that at least three people arrested belonged to the EDL. A spokesman of Scotland Yard told The News that “a man has been arrested for attacking the police and two are in custody for causing affray during the protest”.
The turnout for Jummah prayers due to the Easter Holidays was more than the usual and arrangements were made also in the car park of the mosque to accommodate thousands who had turned for the prayers.
The EDL protestors, draped in England flags and most of them drunk and abusive, arrived half an hour before the prayers and started shouting racial epithets over their own loudspeaker, accompanied by patriotic music such as “God Save the Queen”. They called Muslims “terrorist scum”, “go back to your countries”, “Muslims not needed”, “shut down the mosques”.
On Thursday, New Democracy‘s candidate for Athens mayor, Aris Spiliotopoulos, was accused of toeing his party’s ultra-nationalist line by Gavriil Sakellaridis, main opposition party Syriza’s runner for the same position.
Sakellaridis made a clear reference to Laos, which used to be the most right-wing party in Greek Parliament until the sudden emergence of Golden Dawn, declaring that “Spiliotopoulos is running on a LAOS 2012 platform”.
Spiliotopoulos, a former minister of education and tourism, had called for a referendum in Athens on plans to construct a mosque in the city, in an interview on the Greek broadcaster Skai TV on Thursday [pictured]. He strongly opposed the idea, claiming that the capital does not need “another pole for illegal immigration”.
For more than seven hours Thursday, students and community members gathered at the UC Berkeley School of Law to discuss the presence of Islamophobia in culture and society.
At the Fifth Annual International Conference on Islamophobia Studies, founded and directed by UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, attendees listened to panelists describe issues ranging from the discrimination against Muslims to the representation of Muslim women in the media.
Islamophobia is described by Bazian as “an irrational belief and hostile attitude directed toward Islam and Muslims that problematizes them as a subject matter.”
The annual conference is one aspect of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, founded in response to the rise of Islamophobia in the United States and parts of Europe around the time President Barack Obama was elected, Bazian, who directs the project, said.
The project aims to establish the study of Islamophobia as an academic discipline by engaging scholars around the world with the conference. It also aims to expand the event to other countries, including France and Austria.