Court criticises Ofsted for penalising Islamic school over gender segregation
A high court judge has ruled that Ofsted inspectors were wrong to penalise an Islamic faith school because of their “erroneous” view that segregation of boys and girls amounted to unlawful discrimination. But Mr Justice Jay allowed Ofsted, the body that regulates schools in England, to publish the rest of its inspection report placing the school into special measures, after inspectors found books in the school library that gave tacit approval to domestic violence. Ofsted’s original inspection report was withheld after the school – which cannot be named – won an injunction arguing that publication would cause it “widespread and…
Home Office confirms Prevent strategy to be reinforced
The government’s controversial Prevent counter-radicalisation strategy is to be toughened rather than scaled back despite criticism that it is a toxic brand and a “big brother” security operation among Britain’s Muslim communities. The Home Office confirmed that a secret Whitehall internal review of Prevent, ordered earlier this year by Theresa May when she was home secretary, has concluded that the programme “should be strengthened, not undermined” and has put forward 12 suggestions on how to reinforce it. The overhaul of the programme is to be detailed as part of the government’s wider reworking of its counter-terrorism strategy, known as Contest,…
“I’m Arab and Glad Trump Won”
It’s not that we see Trump any differently. Trump is an egotistical racist misogynist who, in a rational world, shouldn’t be in any position of power. Then again, neither should Hillary Clinton. We watched from afar (as ‘afar’ as the internet allows anyhow) as the 2016 presidential campaign rolled on, and, at first, we wanted Bernie Sanders to win, and were very glad to see just how much support he managed to get, but then, Bernie did two Very Bad Things; he said he was okay with Obama’s Blacklist and his usage of drone strikes, and he said that he’d…
US mothers tell daughters: “don’t wear hijab” after Trump win
American Muslims have expressed “tremendous levels of fear” after Donald Trump was unexpectedly elected as the 45th President of the United States, with some saying they had been warned not to wear their hijabs. The Republican has consistently criticised Muslims and during the campaign pledged to ban them from entering the USA, promising a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the country. Many social media users responded with anxiety to his shock victory, with one Twitter user saying her mother had ordered her not to wear her hijab for fear of racist reprisals. https://twitter.com/harryonmen/status/796250292215873536 https://twitter.com/harryonmen/status/796250950503526400 The tweet captured the sense of anxiety among US Muslims,…
Corbyn critics take heed: “Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump”
Donald Trump has beaten Hilary Clinton in the US Presidential Elections, in what is looking like 'America's Brexit'. However the following reminder of statistics published by The Independent this morning gives us food for thought for navigating the increasingly tumuluous terrain that appears to be ahead in British politics—particularly for those who still think Jeremy Corbyn is 'unelectable', possibly based on an outdated status quo... “Right now in every major poll, national poll and statewide poll done in the last month, six weeks, we are defeating Trump often by big numbers, and always at a larger margin than Secretary Clinton…
Charity sells Nazi anti-Islamic T-shirts for funds
Whilst the charity commission has had its spotlight disproportionately on Muslim charities, a military charity has been selling Nazi anti-Islamic T-shirts to raise funds. Also read: New Report Exposes Anti-Muslim Bias of Charity Commission An undercover investigation by BBC Scotland has discovered a military charity is selling anti-Islamic and Nazi-themed clothing to raise funds. The charity, 1st Knight, provides respite breaks abroad for military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is registered with the Charity Commission and has signed up to the industry Code of Fundraising Practice. 1st Knight told the BBC it had now withdrawn the merchandise from…
MPs slam UK policy towards political Islam
UK Foreign Affair's Committee's bold report should oblige Foreign Office to reassess way it interprets political Islam. The back-bench Foreign Affairs Committee was for many years a prestigious but unfortunately also a toothless body. It rarely asked, still less answered, difficult or embarrassing questions. It amounts to an outright repudiation of the neo-conservative ideology which has dominated British and American thinking about Islam and the Middle East ever since Tony Blair was elected prime minister It saw its role as whitewashing government policy. Populated by a sycophantic collection of timeserving MPs on the look out for knighthoods, it never knowingly…
Edward Snowden Vindicated? Shocking court rulings on “unlawful surveillance”
by Glenn Greenwald WHILE MOST EYES ARE FOCUSED on the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, three major events prove how widespread, and dangerous, mass surveillance has become in the west. Standing alone, each event highlights exactly the severe threats which motivated Edward Snowden to blow his whistle; taken together, they constitute full-scale vindication of everything he’s done. Earlier this month, a special British court that rules on secret spying activities issued an emphatic denunciation of the nation’s domestic mass surveillance programs. The court found that “British security agencies have secretly and unlawfully collected massive volumes of confidential…
Israeli outrage at Chinese Airline labelling ‘Palestinian Territories’ on in-flight map
A Chinese airline has replaced “Israel” with “Palestinian Territories” on its in-flight multimedia system. Israeli passengers flying from Beijing to Tel Aviv on Hainan Airlines discovered that the word “Israel” was nowhere to be seen on the map. The screens, which were photographed on the flight which landed on Tuesday at Ben Gurion Airport, show Syria, Cyprus and Lebanon clearly. However, only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem appear on the map; Israel has been omitted. “We thank you for contacting us and turning our attention to this regrettable technical mistake,” Hainan Airlines said in response to complaints by passengers. “The airline…
“Where have all the white folks gone?”
A report was released this week by the academic Ted Cantle warning of the dwindling number of white residents in the ethnic minority dominated areas of the inner city. Between the 2001 and 2011 census, the white British population of Birmingham fell from 65.6% to 53.1; in Leicester it declined from 60.5% to 45.1%; and in Newham in London, only 16.7% of the population is white British. This is a follow-on from his influential 2001 report that argued that one of the causes of the riots in Bradford and Oldham that year was that people lived “a series of parallel” lives.…