Bishop to lose castle home

James Newcome was the Bishop of Penrith for seven years. The castle residence of the Bishop of Carlisle is too expensive to maintain, Church Commissioners have decided.

Recently appointed bishop, the Right Reverend James Newcome, is now to be found alternative accommodation and a review of the castle undertaken.

The decision follows a reported maintenance bill of almost £2m for Rose Castle which dates back to 1340.

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The 14-bedroom castle, near Dalston, may now be put up for sale as the commissioners try to cut costs.

Andrew Brown, secretary to the Church Commissioners, said: “Rose Castle is a wonderful property, but a lot of money would need to be spent to make it suitable for a home and base for the bishop’s ministry.

“There are many calls on the commissioners’ financial support for the Church’s mission and ministry and so tough choices have to be faced.

“It was not an easy decision, but with local support, the Board of Governors feels it is the right decision for the Church of England’s mission.”

An earlier review of the castle in 2008 by the commissioners, who manage the Church of England’s historic assets, revealed that parishoners wanted the bishop to live in a more accessible location.

Bishop Newcome, 55, officially takes up his post later this year after a spell as Suffragen Bishop of Penrith.

BA worker ’speechless’ after losing religious discrimination case

Nadia Eweida sued the airline for religious discrimination after alleging she was barred from wearing a Christian symbol

A British Airways worker suspended for wearing a Christian cross said she was “very disappointed” at losing her claim for religious discrimination.

Nadia Eweida, from Twickenham, southwest London, took her case to an employment tribunal after complaining that a manager banned her from wearing a small cross around her neck.

“I’m very disappointed. I’m speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice,” she said after learning about the tribunal’s decision yesterday.

“But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff.”
Miss Eweida, 56, said that she turned down £8,500 from BA to settle out of court.

She said:

“I cannot be gagged about my faith.”

She vowed to proceed with her case if her solicitor agreed.

“It’s not over until God says it’s over,” she said.

The row erupted, according to Miss Eweida, after a diversity awareness meeting in October 2006 when a manager told her to remove it or hide her cross from sight.

When she refused, she was put on unpaid leave from her post at Heathrow Airport.

The company eventually changed its uniform policy and Miss Eweida returned to work in February last year. She continues to be employed by the airline. She has been on rest days this week, but will return to work tomorrow wearing her cross.

Miss Eweida said the root of her complaint was that the airline had “rules for one minority group but not the other”. She said that while Muslims and Sikhs were allowed to wear hijabs and religious Kara bangles respectively, she, as a Christian, was asked to remove her religious jewellery.“It is a form of discrimination against Christians,” she said.

She said she would have to consider whether to stay at the company. BA said it was pleased with the tribunal’s decision. A spokesman said: “We have always maintained that our uniform policy did not discriminate against Christians and we are pleased that the tribunal’s decision supports our position.

“Our current policy allows symbols of faith to be worn openly and has been developed with multi-faith groups and our staff. “Nadia Eweida has worked for us for eight years and continues to be a valued member of our staff.”

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She was portrayed in the press as a victim of cruel religious discrimination – a poor persecuted Christian who had been “banned” by British Airways from wearing a simple cross at work. And all this while her Muslim and Sikh colleagues were parading about in hijabs and turbans.

The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Tony Blair came out in her defence. The Daily Mail took up the cudgels on her behalf. One hundred MPs spoke out in her favour. Bishops demanded a boycott of BA. Evangelical Christians went into paroxysms of righteous fury. At last – here was proof that they were innocent victims of Christianophobia – as practised by our very own national airline.

An open and shut case, you might think. Nadia Eweida was a Christian martyr, pure and simple.

But hang on a moment. The employment tribunal, to which she complained, has just published its judgment, and it tells a rather different story. Not only did it kick out all her claims of religious discrimination and harassment, it also criticised her for her intransigence, saying that she:

“… generally lacked empathy for the perspective of others … her own overwhelming commitment to her faith led her at times to be both naive and uncompromising in her dealings with those who did not share her faith.”

One example of this was her insistence that she must never be required to work on Christmas Day, even though she had signed a contract that made it clear that she, like her colleagues, would be working in an operation that functions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and therefore required shift working and bank holiday working, too.

In order to be fair to everybody, BA used a union-approved ballot system to ensure that those who worked on Christmas Day were fairly and objectively chosen. If their name came up, they were at liberty to negotiate with their colleagues to change shifts and days on a like-for-like basis. But not Nadia. She insisted that, because she was a Christian, she must not be required to work on Christmas Day – or Sunday, come to that.

The tribunal commented:

“[Eweida's] insistence on privilege for Christmas Day is perhaps the most striking example in the case of her insensitivity towards colleagues, her lack of empathy for those without religious focus in their lives, and her incomprehension of the conflicting demands which professional management seeks to address and resolve on a near-daily basis.”

Eweida was originally suspended from work as a BA check-in clerk when she refused to wear a cross on a necklace underneath her uniform rather than on top of it. This breached stated uniform policy, which stated that no one was allowed to wear visible adornments around their neck.

But Eweida and her Christian activist backers managed to foment such a backlash that BA was forced into changing the policy. Now she can wear her cross visibly, and the airline offered her £8,500 compensation and a return to her job, with her point successfully made.

But no – she decided to continue pursuing the airline at the industrial tribunal. She was funded in her action by a rightwing religious law firm in Arizona called the Alliance Defence Fund, whose affiliated lawyer was Paul Diamond, a familiar figure in court cases demanding religious privilege.

The tribunal – unlike the Daily Mail – was required to look at all the evidence, and not consider only Eweida’s account of events. And having done so, it kicked the case out on all counts, saying that Eweida did not suffer any discrimination.

The tribunal concluded:

“The complaint of direct discrimination fails because we find that the claimant did not, on grounds of religion or belief, suffer less favourable treatment than a comparator in identical circumstances.”

The tribunal also heard how Eweida’s attitude and behaviour towards colleagues had prompted a number of complaints objecting to her: “Either giving them religious materials unsolicited, or speaking to colleagues in a judgmental or censorious manner which reflected her beliefs; one striking example,” said the judgment, “was a report from a gay man that the claimant had told him that it was not too late to be redeemed.”

Indeed, the proselytising motivation of her desire to wear the cross over her uniform instead of underneath it was underlined when she said: “It is important to wear it to express my faith so that other people will know that Jesus loves them.”

The details of this case make it clear that this is a woman who is wearing religious blinkers. In several instances she brought grievances and complaints against BA that had no basis in fact. She was convinced that BA was anti-Christian, and nothing would dissuade her from that opinion, despite the company jumping through hoops trying to accommodate the many and varied religious demands being placed on it. Indeed, there is a BA Christian Fellowship group that did not support Eweida’s fight, and confirmed that BA was already “making available facilities, time, work spaces, intranet use and supporting Christian charitable activities throughout the world” – but strangely we haven’t heard about them in the newspaper reports.

The tribunal notes that on the original claim form, Eweida states “I have not been permitted to wear my Christian cross; whilst other faiths (Sikhs, Hindu, Muslims) are permitted to manifest their faith in very obvious fashion. Secular individuals can show private affiliations.” The tribunal found the first and last assertions to be untrue. But Eweida would not be persuaded.

Her numerous demands for special treatment because of her religion showed a complete indifference to the effect it would have on the lives of others. Indeed, in one instance she made an accusation against the Christian Fellowship group that turned out to be completely fallacious, and the tribunal felt compelled to say: “We find it demonstrates to a degree the extent to which the claimant [Eweida] misinterpreted events, as well as her readiness to make a serious accusation without thought of the implications.”

Now we read that there is another case in the pipeline for British Airways. An orthodox Jewish man is bringing a case of religious discrimination because he is required to work on Saturday, the Jewish Shabat.

And a demonstration by Sikhs has just taken place outside the Welsh assembly, demanding that a schoolgirl be permitted to breach the school’s uniform policy by wearing a ceremonial bangle, the kara.

As Jonathan Bartley, of the religious thinktank Ekklesia said of the Eweida case:

“Like many of the other claims of discrimination being made by Christians, this has turned out to be false. People should be aware that behind many such cases there are groups whose interests are served by stirring up feelings of discrimination of marginalisation amongst Christians. What can appear to be a case of discrimination at first glance is often nothing of the sort. It is often more about Christians attempting to gain special privileges and exemptions.”

The National Secular Society has demanded that employers should be permitted to declare their workplaces secular spaces if they want to, without penalty. Attempts by employers to accommodate everyone have turned many workplaces into religious battlegrounds. It should now be OK to say: “Leave your religion at the door, please. And if you won’t and your religion doesn’t permit you to work in the way that this jobs demands you do, then please find another job that will.”

Terry Sanderson

Singapore’s future is secular

Singapore’s prime minister recently reaffirmed the city-state’s secularism in his National Day speech. Lee Hsien Loong said that “aggressive preaching” by religious groups and evangelising threaten the Singapore’s stability.

Mr Lee said: “The most visceral and dangerous fault line (in Singapore) is race and religion. Christians can’t expect this to be a Christian society. Muslims can’t expect this to be a Muslim society, ditto with the Buddhists, the Hindus and the other groups.” He reminded citizens that Singapore’s authority and laws “don’t come from a sacred book” and that the Government must remain steadfastly secular.

He commented that the recent upsurge in religious fervour around the world was dangerous – and cited America as a country that claims to be secular but was heavily under the influence of religion. In the most recent census in 2000, 43 percent of Singaporeans said they were Buddhist, 15 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, 8.5 percent Taoist and 4 percent Hindu.

UK Government says sorry to Alan Turing after 57 years

I’ve just recieved a response from the epetitions site regarding the call for an apology for the treatment and recognition of the hugh service to the war effort of Alan Turing, father of the modern computer. He was instrumental in breaking the German’s “Enigma Code” during WW2 and he was gay.

The history of Alan Turing is a sad one. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. A few years after he broke the German’s code for the British government – which Winston Churchill claimed was the most significant, tide-turning victory of WW2 – he was outed as a homosexual and arrested. At the time, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. It was also illegal. He lost his security clearance, effectively canning him from his government job, and was convicted of “gross indecency.” To avoid prison, Turing chose to instead undergo a chemical castration process. Two years later, he committed suicide.

The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He was seeking an apology for the way the mathematician was treated after his conviction. He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood.

The campaign was backed by author Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. The petition posted on the Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures.

He is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. However, he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing. In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called On Computable Numbers and in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester’s Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.

So today in 2009, some 57 years later, we get some recongition from the government

Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has (got some intern to write) written a
response. Please read below.

Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship (irony?) ; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him (a bit hollow if you had nothing to do with it). Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
– that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.

Gordon Brown

If you would like to help preserve Alan Turing’s memory for future
generations, please donate here: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/

Petition information – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/

The British government’s apology, while appreciated,  is long overdue.

Watch Kurt Cobain play Bon Jovi greatest hits!

Former Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have said they are “dismayed and very disappointed” at how Kurt Cobain is used in a video game. They do not agree that the band’s late frontman can be used to play songs by other artists in the new Guitar Hero.

In a joint statement, they said they “didn’t know” Cobain’s character in the game could be used to play any kind of song the player wants. Game makers Activision said permission had been granted by Cobain’s estate. Legal action The company said Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, had provided a written agreement which allowed the singer’s likeness as a fully playable character in the fifth game of the series. Along with the two Nirvana hits, Smells Like Teen Spirit and Lithium, Cobain’s character can also be selected to play 85 tracks by other artists.

“While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character,” said Novoselic and Grohl. “This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in ‘re-locking’ Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.”

Love has also criticised the game on Twitter and has threatened to sue Activision. The star said she “never signed” off the game and claimed, “there’s been four breaches of a very strict contract”. She added: “This trust are my employees, but whatthey [sic] are tryong [sic] to do is sickening, and they need to be fired, and repairations [sic] need made.”

Man and children held under terror law

Two police officers are under investigation after using anti-terror stop-and-search powers against a man and two young children in a south London street.

The 43-year-old man had his mobile phones, USB sticks and a CD seized by the officers, who were in plain clothes, and was asked to stand in front of a CCTV camera in order to have his photograph taken. The undercover Metropolitan police officers also took the man’s photograph with their own camera and searched the two children he was walking with – his 11-year-old daughter and his neighbour’s daughter, aged six.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said today it would “manage” the investigation into the incident in July, meaning that an independent investigator will control the inquiry conducted by the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards.

It is unusual for the IPCC to manage an investigation into an incident of this kind, and the decision comes amid mounting concern over police use of stop-and-search and surveillance powers. The commission has received dozens of complaints relating to the use of stop-and-search powers, but the nature of this complaint is understood to have concerned investigators.

In a statement today, the IPCC said: “The complainant states that, when he asked under what legislation his property was being seized, he was told it was under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He also complained that he was given no information as to when he could retrieve his goods or who to contact in order to do so, and that there was no communication from police despite assurances that he would be told when he could collect his things.”

The Met’s complaints bureau is known to have received a number of complaints relating to alleged misuse of anti-terror powers. Two months ago, Gemma Atkinson, 27, a film-maker from London, said she would challenge the Met at the high court after she claimed she was handcuffed, detained and threatened with arrest for filming officers on her mobile phone.

Lawyers for Atkinson said the Met’s complaints bureau has been slow to respond to their complaints. Atkinson was detained at Aldgate underground station one month after Section 58(a) – a controversial amendment to the Terrorism Act – came into force, making it illegal to photograph a police officer if the images are considered “likely to be useful” to a terrorist.

Speaking about the case of the 43-year-old man, the IPCC commissioner, Mike Franklin, who leads on the issue of stop and search, said: “The use of section 44 stop-and-search powers is a very sensitive issue and it is right that complaints of this nature are taken very seriously. It is particularly worrying that two young children were allegedly searched in this way. This investigation will look at whether the use of these powers in this case was lawful, reasonable and correctly carried out.”

I am a photographer, not a terrorist!

I have heard the stories of photographers being challenged by security guards and the police for simple shots of shopping centres or landscapes, but you never think it will every be you. . .

“Photography is under attack. Across the country it that seems anyone with a camera is being targeted as a potential terrorist, whether amateur or professional, whether landscape, architectural or street photographer.Not only is it corrosive of press freedom but creation of the collective visual history of our country is extinguished by anti-terrorist legislation designed to protect the heritage it prevents us recording.This campaign is for everyone who values visual imagery, not just photographers.

We must work together now to stop this before photography becomes a part of history rather than a way of recording it.” -   photographernotaterrorist.org

I work on a normal business site but that has the likes of QinetiQ and BAE Systems. I leave one evening and start the drive home. A police car is suddenly behind me with lights on so I move over to let them past and am surprised when they remain behind me, so a quick check of car tax and insurance dates flash through my mind. I also put aside the desire to floor it and appear on ‘Cops with cameras’ and use the excuse “I was only trying to get to a good spot to stop as quickly as possible”. I stop and am out of the car quicker than pc1 and pc2 who quickly start questioning my business with at XXXXXX and the business park. As my first brush with the law on the ‘wrong’ side, I am surprised that what should be a simple question is layered with the tone that removes the presumption of innocence.

Despite explaining, answering questions and showing ID and an access card, I am told I have to return to my work to answer more questions. A short ride in the back of the police car and I’m at reception and let out after a pc1 has had a brief  chat with site security. I get out to a torrent of questions from the head of site ’security’ about taking photos of the building and cctv cameras. Then follows a big to and through where I have no idea what they’re talking about until they inform me they spotted me taking pictures from last month. It all falls into place that I had brought in my good camera to take some good pics of my work and in the car park had taken some quick test shots and the cctv cameras (if they capture me, why can’t I capture them?). All the businesses in the area had been placed on alert and to look out for me driving around ’surveying’ their security. It turns out that they are all expecting an eco-protest soon as another building had been subject to a roof sit in protest for a few weeks at the begining of the year.

I have a strange feeling this wasn’t a one off incidence and as a photographer I can look forward to more questions and police contact for ‘terrorist actions’

DNA fingerprinting 25 years old (but DNA databases are wrong)

The scientist behind DNA fingerprinting has called for a change to the law governing DNA databases on the 25th anniversary of his discovery.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys uncovered the process by chance in his laboratory at Leicester University. The technique has since been used to solve crimes and identity cases. But it has also led to controversy over profiles kept on the national DNA database. “Innocent people do not belong on that database,” he said. The scientist stumbled across the groundbreaking development on 10 September, 1984. He realised that variable patterns in the structure of DNA could be used to distinguish one person from another.

‘Blue skies research’ It led to the development of DNA fingerprinting, which has been used to solve a range of crimes. Last year, 17,614 offences were solved using a DNA match, including 83 killings and 184 rapes. It has also been developed to help solve unanswered questions and disputes over personal identity, paternity, immigration, conservation and cloning.

In an interview to mark the anniversary of his discovery, Professor Jeffreys spoke of the importance of allowing academics freedom to research. Professor Jeffreys He said academics should be able to pursue “unfettered, fundamental, curiosity-driven” research. “Blue skies” research, which led to discoveries such as his own, was “the ultimate engine of all scientific and technological evolution,” he said, warning: “You lose that at your peril.”

He renewed his calls for the government to change the law governing the UK’s DNA databases – particularly the practice in England and Wales of keeping the DNA profiles of thousands of people who have neither been charged nor convicted. There are now more than five million profiles on the national DNA database, a rise of 40% in two years. He told the BBC: “My view is very, very simple, has been right from the outset. “Innocent people do not belong on that database. Branding them as future criminals is not proportionate response in the fight against crime. “And I’ve met a fair number of these people and some of these people are very, very upset and are distressed by the fact that their DNA is on that database. They cannot get it off and they feel as if they’re branded as criminals.“

£48,000 Goes to the Muslim Brotherhood

BY ALEXANDER MELEAGROU-HITCHENS

The Tax Payer’s Alliance (TPA) has released figures today on every local authority that has received Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) funding and what organisations have benefited from it.  The PVE fund has so far given out £12 million in tax payer money to projects aimed at preventing radicalisation.

One organisation, the Muslim Welfare House (MWH), has received just under £50,000 in PVE funds over the last two years.  The MWH is a member of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), which represents the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Europe.  The FIOE has very close ties with Holocaust promoter and leading MB scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and his European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) was founded by the FIOE.  This year, the FOIE commissioned Qaradawi to author a report entitled ‘The Nation and Citizenship in Light of the Origins of Islamic Doctrine and the Intentions of Shari’ah’.   On their website, the FIOE claims that it wishes to ensure ‘an accurate introduction of Islam’ in Europe.  That the FIOE consider Qaradawi as the best candidate to represent an accurate picture of Islam is a testament to how the organisation itself sees the religion.

The MB connections with the MWH are strong and up until 2007, of the 5 registered owners of the MWH, 3 were also directors of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the Brotherhood’s main presence in the United Kingdom.  Among them was Mohammed Sawalha, described by IslamOnline’s Arabic site as the “UK head of the Political Committee of the International Muslim Brotherhood organisation”, identified by the BBC as a “fugitive Hamas commander” and signatory to the now infamous Istanbul statement which called for continued support for Hamas and indirectly sanctioned attacks on the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean.  Joining Sawalha at the MWH until 2007 was Abdel Shaheed el-Ashaal, who is referred to by the pro-Brotherhood magazine Islamism Digest as a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood and who until 2000 was the company secretary for a company called the Hassan el-Banna [MB founder] Foundation. One of the stated aims of the Foundation was “to give a correct image of the thoughts, ideology and life of Imam Shaheed Hassan el-Banna.”

Since 2007, the MWH has undergone something of a clean-up, with all of its MB connected trustees and owners replaced with ‘clean slates’.  However, its connection with the FIOE means that it continues to carry out the work of the MB in the UK.  Although the MB does not present a direct terrorist threat, it promotes an ideology which helped create modern jihadist terrorism and is fundamentally incompatible with western notions of statehood.  French MB expert and author of ‘The Muslim Brothers in Europe:  Roots and Discourses’, Brigitte Marechal, has written how the MB in Europe continues to promote Islam not simply as a religion, but an all-encompassing framework which “suggests that Islam should be understood as a complete system that concerns state and nation, beliefs and legislation, cult and behaviour, and the social, political and historical.”  This all-encompassing ideology, which MB founder Hasan al-Banna referred to as shumuliyyat al-Islam and 1 of the 10 pillars of the MB project, is one of the driving forces for the jihadist terrorists who are currently trying to enforce sharia in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia and numerous other fronts.  However, the problem with the MB ideology does not lie only in its deep connections with jihadism, but also in its subversive promotion of Islam as an actual alternative system of governance.

The intention of the MB in Europe, and particular in the UK, is not to recruit suicide bombers, but rather to peacefully promote the shumuliyyat al-Islam in the hope that it will gradually initiate a reform of society along Islamist lines.  Using front groups like the MWH and MAB, they disseminate their ideology among British Muslims by organising events and lectures, and have seen some success in creating ‘ummah centric’ mindsets, whereby young Muslims feel a greater affinity with fellow Muslims around the globe than with their non-Muslim next door neighbour.

Those who may still insist that promoting the ‘soft’ Islamists of the MB is the only effective way to counter the violence of al-Qaeda should ask themselves how a band of reactionaries who either deny the existence of the threat, or openly praise bin Laden, could possibly be of any use:

• The Egyptian MB’s General Guide, Mahdi Akef, only last year refused to label bin Laden a terrorist, instead opting for the more cordial “jihad fighter” who battles against “oppression and corruption.”

• In 2004, Ahmed al-Rawi, former president of the MAB and president of the FIOE until 2007, signed a declaration supporting jihad in Iraq.

• Yusuf al-Qaradawi co-signed a letter earlier this year which claims “the events of the 11th of September 2001 were nothing but fabricated drama by some influential forces in America in co-ordination with Israeli Mossad.”

• Upon the arrest of the recently convicted transatlantic terrorists, former MAB spokesman and Hamas cheerleader Azzam Tamimi (who was given an MWH platform last January) could only offer the pathetic suggestion that the entire episode was invented by the government so as to “smear the image of Islam and the Muslims”.

Of course, there should be no attempts at censoring or criminalising MB members, activists and supporters – giving them the right to speak freely and organise themselves is a price worth paying to preserve our liberal society.  However, this does not mean that people should ignore the detrimental effects that the MB belief system can have on national unity, integration, citizenship and security.  Rather than paying for its promotion, the government should be providing more robust arguments against the politicised Islam of the MB.

Priest Sex abuse victim told to ‘go to hell’

MELBOURNE Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to “go to hell, bitch” in conduct labelled appalling by a Victorian magistrate.

Archbishop Hart later apologised to the woman in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for what magistrate Anne Goldsborough described as ”appalling words of abuse”.

But last night Archbishop Hart repeatedly claimed that he ”did not recall” his comments or the magistrate’s rebuke in mid-2004. ”It was a number of years ago, I don’t recall precisely,” he told The Age.

Abuse: A victim’s story

A nun who was abused by a Catholic priest tells her story.

//

When put to him that he would surely recall the comment because it had become an issue in court, he again said: ”I don’t recall.”

Court documents confirm the archbishop’s outburst after he was granted an intervention order against the woman, who had pursued him over her abuse by priest Barry Whelan in 2001.

The magistrate said that a ”very, very angry” Archbishop Hart had told the woman to ”go to hell bitch” after she knocked on his door at 1.20am in March, 2004. The woman was the subject of an earlier intervention order after she had thrown stones through a window of the archbishop’s house and hassled him and his staff.

Delivering her findings in June 2004, Magistrate Goldsborough said: “Archbishop Hart has apologised for this appalling and ungracious act directly from the witness box in my presence.”

The magistrate said she “did not consider he [Archbishop Hart] was fearful or had any apprehension for himself or others” when he found the woman on his doorstep – but also described her conduct as unacceptable.

The magistrate found that the archbishop was angry that his privacy had been significantly breached as a result of the early morning visit.

But Ms Goldsborough rejected the archbishop’s lawyer’s claim that the victim’s abuse was not a relevant factor in the intervention order court case.

”I am assured … by the archbishop himself that [he] … has a good understanding of the complex set of circumstances in which [the victim] finds herself at least in part caused by her … abuse by former father Barry Whelan.”

In her findings, the magistrate also said that after attending the archbishop’s house, the woman had later asked for an apology from the archbishop over his comments and told his staff over the phone that she wanted to kill him. Ms Goldsborough found that the woman ”had no intention to carry out this threat”, but said it was ”threatening and alarming”.

”[The victim] says all of the behaviour illustrated in her phone conversations is borne out of her hurt and frustration,” Ms Goldsborough found.

”While that may be entirely understandable in one sense it is absolutely unacceptable behaviour in all other senses.” Whelan abused the woman in 2001 after his suspension as a priest in the 1990s for abusing another woman had been overturned.

Over several decades, five women have accused Whelan of sexually abusing them, including a woman who was 13 at the time of the alleged abuse and a woman who claims to have had Whelan’s son. The church reached a confidential settlement in 2006 with the woman involved in the 2004 court case.

While being unable to recall his comments to the woman and his dressing down by the magistrate, Archbishop Hart yesterday detailed some of the events that led to the court case. ”I put my cassock on, I went down to the door and I was very annoyed … [she was] ringing and ringing and ringing, I had just got to sleep, I was very tired, I was about to go off to Rome and I went down and I am sure I would have spoken strongly, but what I said I don’t recall.”

The Age reported yesterday that a St Patrick’s Cathedral newsletter last month named Barry Whelan as a ”living treasure”, despite the church’s own investigator finding that he had abused several woman. The archdiocese has said this was a mistake and has apologised.

The Age investigation into the Melbourne Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse claims has also reported:

? That a priest accused of abusing a minor was told by a church investigator that he was the subject of a covert police probe.

Archbishop Hart said yesterday he had accepted Peter O’Callaghan’s denial that he was told not to tell the priest about the police inquiry.

? Comments from Melbourne Vicar General Les Tomlinson that there is a church sex abuse ”victims’ industry” that seeks to exploit victims to make money – which the Archbishop yesterday said ”weren’t helpful”.

? Calls from a victims collective, who are backed by two interstate bishops, to review the Melbourne archdiocese’s handling of complaints. Archbishop Hart said there was no need to review the system. ”I would much rather concentrate on the compassion that we need to show to victims … They are people who should have expected more from priests and it is a tremendous suffering to be let down by people they trusted.”

Wandsworth Council endorses religious discrimination in education

By Community Correspondent Stephen Evans

The new Equality Bill may be working its way through Parliament, but Wandsworth Council is still wholeheartedly endorsing religious discrimination and segregation in education.

A recent edition of Brightside, the magazine of Wandsworth Council, proudly announced that a “New Catholic school comes a step closer”. The Council has announced that the Saint John Bosco school will be the only completely new school to be built in the borough as part of the government-funded ‘Building Schools for the Future’ project.

Unfortunately, for the non-Catholics amongst us, this will be yet another religious school in Wandsworth that discriminates against the children of non-religious parents and those of the ‘wrong’ faith.

Just take a look at some of the admissions criteria for Wandsworth’s new state school:

• Baptised Catholic students whose parent(s) and themselves are active committed Roman Catholics.

• Baptised Catholic students who are active committed Roman Catholics.

• Baptised Catholic students who are currently attending a Roman Catholic school.

• Baptised Catholic students for whom there is evidence that the Church (e.g. parent(s), priest, parish worker or godparent) is actively and prayerfully working for their Roman Catholic upbringing.

• Christians who are active in their churches which are in membership of Churches Together in England.

• Other students, subject to their numbers and/or attitudes not endangering the Catholic ethos of the school.

There’s a further warning on the Wandsworth Council website that the Governors will “request proof of baptism and evidence of practice from the relevant Parish Priest or Minister.”

How on earth can such backward and antiquated discrimination against the non-religious be allowed in modern Britain?

The National Secular Society has consistently campaigned against faith schools, arguing that they are unjust, discriminatory and detrimental to community cohesion. Many experts seem to agree.

For example, research from London South Bank University demonstrates that the only way to achieve full integration in our communities is for all children to be educated together from primary stage. These findings are backed up by a new study carried out by Psychologists at the University of Ulster on the effects of integrated and segregated schooling in Northern Ireland. They found that sectarianism could be defused if more Catholic and Protestant children were sent to mixed-religion schools. Further recent research by the LSE and the Institute of Education demonstrates that religious schools not only fail to improve standards, but also create ‘social sorting’ of children along lines of class, ability and religion.

By endorsing faith schools, Wandsworth is colluding with religious organisations in segregating children by their parent’s faith – and often as an indirect result, by their race. Many areas of Wandsworth, like most other London boroughs, while being very multicultural remains heavily segregated. We desperately need less division in our communities, not more.

Faith schools are notorious for ‘cherry-picking’ the most promising children from the most affluent families, resulting in a version of ‘private schooling on the rates’. The effect is to deprive community schools of such pupils, making their already-difficult task nearly impossible. Religious schools may well be popular with parents lucky enough to get their children into them, but less so with the population as a whole who just want good schools, not religious schools. An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper found two thirds of the population said there should be no state funded faith schools at all.

So why is the Labour Government, and Tory opposition for that matter, so intent on handing over the education of children to religious organisations?

I put that question in a letter to local MP Sadiq Khan, but have yet to receive a response. Perhaps this is unsurprising. After all, the honourable member for Tooting is a well known advocate of mixing religion and politics and was the former Chairman of Tooting’s Gatton Primary, a state funded Muslim faith school which, in its own words, aims to: “inculcate in pupils the character and religion to live as a true Muslim.”

What makes the whole situation even more perverse is that there is little doubt that religious belief is in serious decline. Normal Sunday attendance at churches in England in 1980 exceeded 10% of the population. Today it’s around 6% and is projected by Christian Research to drop to 1.2% by 2050. The Government’s own latest Social Trends Survey revealed that 45.8% of British people now regard themselves as non-religious. In light of such findings how can anyone justify an expansion of religious schools?

The faith school system gives the religious, or those that pretend to be religious, greater choice while leaving the non-religious seriously disadvantaged. With state funded ‘minority’ faith schools on the increase, the situation is only going to get worse.

We must separate church and state

In England, our constitution is blighted by an ancient theocratic hangover. Time to sweep it away and bring England into the 21st century!

We’re not Iran, but our constitution does have a theocratic structure. I think this holds us back, impedes us, like an old invisible injury. Like a subtle poison in the blood, it quietly harms us. Most people seem unaware of it. Even Hazel Blears, who recently said that we are a secular democracy.

Yesterday a seminar was held at the UCL Constitution Unit to mark the launch of a book on the issue by Bob Morris. Church and State in 21st Century Britain is a meticulous analysis of the situation. No such study can be entirely neutral, but Morris seems to have no religious agenda; his aim is to point out that establishment is at odds with the principle of religious equality, making it “anomalous to the point of unsustainability”. He is wary of the term “disestablishment” but he does advocate the big reform – ending the monarch’s need to be Anglican.

In his presentation yesterday he said that reform would ideally come from the church itself. Otherwise it is likely to have reform thrust upon it, in a way it cannot control. So it is in its interest to lead the process. He acknowledged that here is little sign of this willingness as yet, but seemed hopeful that a fresh look at the issue might change that.

In the discussion that followed three Anglican representatives spoke. Each offered a slightly different flavour of the old conservative line: that it would be perilous to mess with our ancient constitution, that it might unleash an aggressive secularism. None admitted that there was a problem here that had to be faced.

These speakers confirmed my view that the Church of England looks very nice and liberal from a slight distance but at heart its philosophy is high Tory: tradition is sacred, those who want to tamper with it are dangerously shallow. I know of almost no Anglican who has said anything different, who admits Morris’ basic point that reform is necessary, so that we can have a constitution we can really affirm, and participate in, rather than an alienating relic from the imperial past. One exception is the Oxford theologian George Pattison, who has recently called for a more honest debate within the church (in an article in The Church Times). It is worth noting that Rowan Williams has failed to start the debate; he has allowed the reactionary position to become stronger – a piece of major political cowardice.

Might reform come from elsewhere? Of course the secularist lobbies advocate it, but in a sense this is unhelpful: it makes it seem an atheist cause, and so strenghtens the hand of the Anglicans, who scarify with the prospect of a Dawkinsish tyranny. Ideally it would come from a political movement that was also Christian, led by a new Cromwell figure.

Why is disestablishment not a mainstream liberal cause? It baffles me frankly. Why is it hardly ever mentioned by the columnists of this paper, except as a quick aside? To my mind it is the very essence of liberalism, that church and state should be separate. This is the English revolution that we have never quite had. It is the way to a new sort of political participation, a new sense that we are citizens of a modern state. Other aspects of constitutional change, and other liberal causes such as CCTV, DNA database and ID Cards are pathetically small-fry compared to this.

Now Christians start to burn books!

A Christian group in Wisconsin is actually suing for the right to engage in a public book burning to destroy copies of a book they consider to be “explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian”:

The offending book is Francesca Lia Block’s Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.

There was also another group that just fought to move the book into the adult section of the library, which calls itself the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries. The Christian Civil Liberties Union, the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries–aren’t those exactly the kind of Orwellian names you’d expect pro-fascist, anti-free speech organizations to call themselves?

They’re charging that the book’s physical presence in their local library caused them mental and emotional distress and that its alleged derogatory language “put one’s life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.” Wow! That must be some book to actually put lives in jeopardy. And since this book has been around for 15 years now, I would love to hear about all the lives who were destroyed by its mere existence.

The West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries claims they wish. . .

“. . .to protect children from accessing them without their parents’ knowledge and supervision.”

The old “protect them from themselves” gambit–a fascist classic. Fortunately, the library committee stuck to their guns by keeping the books in the young adult section. But the other group decided they wanted to burn the books.

“The word ‘faggot’ is very derogatory and slanderous to all males,” the suit continues. “Using the word ‘Nigger’ is dangerously offensive, disrespectful to all people. These words can permeate violence.” The suit also claims that the book “constitutes a hate crime, and that it degrades the community”, but surely their intended burning of this particular book is  a greater offense.

“They’ve filed a claim against the city of West Bend and the city has to decide if it is valid,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA’s office for intellectual freedom. “Their insurance company is evaluating the claim, but I would be very surprised if they found any merit in it … Should they find any merit in this claim, we would certainly support the library in fighting it.”

The legal challenge follows a lengthy campaign by some West Bend residents to restrict access to teenage books they deemed sexually explicit from library shelves, which was eventually thrown out at the start of June.

“Obviously we were really pleased with the outcome to that – there was a unanimous vote to keep the books in the library and we thought the matter should be over,” said Larry Siems, director of the Freedom to Write programme at PEN America.

Siems said there was clearly “a bit of theatre” in the lawsuit which followed. “They’ve filed a lawsuit which has little possibility of going forward legally, and they’re asking for damages which include the right to burn a book. It does seem more to gain publicity than a real serious challenge.” But, he said, PEN remained very concerned about the impulse behind the claim. “This is a group of people trying aggressively to rid the library of these books and that’s very serious – it needs to be fought.”

The claimants, he said, “have a right to continue to express their views, and this in a way is a creative attempt to express those views”. But it’s “also a dangerous game when you’re talking about something like book burning, calling on the law to burn books. It’s certainly completely un-American, and if they paused, I think they would agree.”

Catholic mother killed newborn baby from ’shame’ after giving birth alone

A Catholic mother, who did not know she was pregnant, killed her newly born son within moments of giving birth alone, an inquest heard.

Elizabeth Tevenan, 30, who later died from severe blood loss, gave birth in November 2008 in the downstairs lavatory of the home she shared with her parents in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Miss Tevenan, who was an only child with a strict Catholic upbringing, is believed to have been unaware of the pregnancy until she gave birth.

The inquest at Leamington Town Hall, Warwickshire, heard that her son was born alive and would have taken a few breaths before he died from having tissue stuffed down his throat.

The child who has now been named Nicholas Patrick Tevenan, weighed 6lb 13oz and was born at around 37 weeks.

In a statement read out by the coroner, paediatric pathologist Dr James Lucas said: “His lungs were expanded, he would have only taken a few breaths before death occurred.”

He described how a piece of tissue paper was found at the back of the throat.

“This constrained the entrance to the voice box, deliberately obstructing the upper airway, causing asphyxia which caused rapid death.”

The inquest heard that Elizabeth had been rushed to hospital after being found by her mother covered in blood, and showed signs of child birth upon examination.

Police then returned to the four-bedroom property to search for an infant where they found a baby concealed under a pile of towels next to the toilet.

PC Judith Wolsey from Warwickshire Police, told the inquest that she had entered the house and followed a trail of blood through the house to the downstairs toilet before finding the baby.

She said: “I felt physically shocked and “I remember saying ‘there’s a baby’ – I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.”

The officer told the inquest how they picked the baby up and tried to resuscitate him until the ambulance arrived.

Elizabeth’s parents did not attend the hearing, but the coroner read out a statement from her 58-year-old mother Bridget Tevenan.

In it Elizabeth was described as a “bubbly, happy” girl who loved reading novels, listening to Classic FM and watching Eastenders and Casualty.

Elizabeth was found by her mother in the bathroom on the morning of November 13 after she became concerned about her.

“She was in the downstairs toilet, I called to her through the door, ‘Are you ok’, and she said ‘Yes I’ll be out in 15 to 20 minutes’.

Shortly after Mrs Tevenan said when she opened the door she saw her daughter sitting on the toilet with blood all over her legs, at which point she rang the ambulance.

“I said ‘Oh my God you’ve haemorrhaged’ – she was white like snow and disorientated,” she added.

The inquest also heard that her mother tried to clean the blood from her legs because she wanted her to have “dignity” as she knew there would be men in the house.

Her mother said her family were Catholic and Elizabeth was “brought up very strict”.

She said she would have “loved” a grandchild and although she would have “hit the ceiling”, if she knew she was pregnant, she would eventually have “calmed down”.

The inquest was also told that Elizabeth’s mother knew she had a boyfriend, but she had never met him.

The father was identified as Noel Bannister, after DNA tests were carried out. He attended the hearing but refused to comment afterwards.

Coroner Sean McGovern said: “I am entirely satisfied she was unaware of her pregnancy. It is impossible to know when she became aware she was giving birth.

“If she’d been aware her water broke, it’s likely to me that early medical attention could have prevented her death.

“My verdict is that she died as a result of natural causes.

“I am satisfied the child was born alive but someone deliberately pushed tissue paper into the throat causing asphyxia leading to the death of the person.”

The coroner said they could have been “acting in a condition of complete panic” and recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

Witches’ coven claims religious persecution after church hall ban

Sandra Davis, the “high priestess” of Crystal Cauldron group in Stockport, Greater Manchester, said she was shocked to be told that the pagan group was not considered to be compatible with the church’s “ethos”.

Mrs Davis, 61, booked Our Lady’s Social Club in Shaw Heath, Stockport, for the group’s annual “Witches Ball” due to be held in October.

She hoped to attract up to 150 people to the social evening offering a buffet dinner and music from an Abba tribute band and selected the hall because it had disabled access.

But when she went to pay for the booking she was told by the manager that the Diocese of Shrewsbury, which owns the centre, had refused permission for the group to use it.

“It makes you think that there is still a little bit of that attitude from the past of the Catholics wanting to burn witches,” she said.

“I thought we had made progress, tat we could accept other people’s religious paths.”

Mrs Davis, who has 11 grandchildren, gave up her former job in a forklift truck company to set up the Crystal Cauldron, where she is known as “Amethyst Selmeselene”.

Based in a former post office, the 30-strong group runs a new age bookshop and sells cloaks, jewellery and medieval costumes on the internet as well as organising a children’s group called “Little Crystals”.

It also supports a local cat sanctuary as its designated charity.

Mrs Davis has since secured a new venue for the ball which she hopes will become an annual fixture in the town.

“It is a full family thing and it is a posh do too,” she said. “It is evening dress or fancy dress, last year most of us went in medieval costumes.”

The Reverend John Joyce, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Shrewsbury, said that it was out of the question for a pagan group to use its facilities.

“Parish centres under our auspices let their premises on the understanding users and their organisations are compatible with the ethos and teachings of the Catholic church,” he said.

“In this instance, we aren’t satisfied such requirements are met.”

Curriculum losing out to prayers

THE amount of time spent on prayers and religion means there is less time available for the rest of the curriculum at the North Dublin Muslim School, the school inspection report found.

The report says that external personnel are employed by the school to teach religion. They work in all classrooms for 45 minutes each day, teaching the Koran and Arabic — in other national schools the normal period is 30 minutes a day.

Pupils in middle and senior classes also attend prayers for 20 minutes each day with additional time required for preparation, the report says.

However, the report says all of this eats into the delivery time for the national school curriculum.

The inspectors say it is imperative that the integrity of the school day be maintained and that the suggested minimum timeframe be adhered to for delivery of the six curricular areas as advocated in the Primary School Curriculum.

It notes that some of the teachers absent themselves from class during these times.

They say it is essential that the pupils are supervised at all times by qualified and recognised teaching staff and that class teachers continue to have teaching contact with pupils throughout the school day.

The board has been told it must ensure that pupils are adequately supervised at all times by qualified teachers.

- John Walshe

Muslims angry at school’s sex education plans

British Muslims have reacted in anger at plans by a school in London to teach children about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history.

Muslim leaders are now calling on the council in Leytonstone, east London, not to prosecute parents for withdrawing their children from the lessons.

A spokesman said that up to 30 parents may face prosecution for withdrawing their children from school, disobeying the teachers in the school, “simply to secure a decent moral upbringing for their children.”

As part of the school’s plans for the lessons, they included a special adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet retitled Romeo and Julian as well as fairytales and stories changed to show men falling in love with men.

“Rather than filling the heads of impressionable boys and girls with fatuous drivel about gay penguins, schools should be ashamed of the fact that they are sending children out into the world barely able to read, write and add up properly,” said Iftikhar Ahmad of the London School of Islamics.

He accused teachers of promoting tolerance, but did not tolerate the parents’ views that their children were too young to be taught about gay relationships.

“This isn’t education, its cultural fascism,” said Mr Ahmad.

He added: “ If the local council does decide to go through with a prosecution, it would be in line with the government’s approach to the Muslim community. Muslims who believe homosexuality is a sin would be labelled as extremists.

“Liberal totalitarianism is a growing phenomenon in Britain and the west in general but many people will be shocked that the school can override a parent’s view of what’s appropriate or inappropriate to teach their children.”

He said that the only solution was state-funded Muslim schools with bi-lingual Muslim teachers as role models.

Light sensors cause religious row

A couple have taken legal action after claiming motion sensors installed at their holiday flat in Dorset breached their rights as Orthodox Jews.

Gordon and Dena Coleman said they cannot leave or enter their Bournemouth flat on the Sabbath because the hallway sensors automatically switch on lights.

The couple’s religious code bans lights and other electrical equipment being switched on during Jewish holidays.

They have now issued a county court writ claiming religious discrimination.

They also claim breach of their rights under the Equality Act 2006 and Human Rights Act 1998 and the case is due to be heard at Bournemouth County Court next month.

It has gone further than it should have done, I think they have jumped the gun Neighbour

The light sensors were installed at Embassy Court in Gervis Road to save money and energy but the couple, who live in Hertfordshire, felt they breached their religious rules.

Dr Coleman and her husband offered to pay for an override switch as a compromise but Embassy Court Management Company rejected this and the couple took legal advice.

They have said they will drop the legal action if an override switch is installed and their legal costs and compensation are paid.

The firm said almost all residents supported the installation of the sensors and taking legal action was the Colemans’ “prerogative”.

Other residents in the block of 35 flats, who could end up having to pay legal costs, are upset.

Neighbours meeting

One of them, who did not wish to be named but attended a management meeting last week with the couple, said: “For some time there has been discussions around here about the lights being on all day, which is crazy.

“Light sensors mean the lights only come on when you require them to be on, which is common sense.

“This couple are observant Jews. They have a religious problem with this.

“It has gone further than it should have done, I think they have jumped the gun.

“They did come to a meeting and put their point of view forward.

“The general view was that despite any differences the matter should be resolved as quickly as we can.

“It just seems to have been blown out of all proportion.”

In a letter to the other residents, the couple said they sought legal help because the sensor lights meant they would never again have full use of their flat.

They also said that their solicitors told them they had a strong claim.

Christian Murdered for Drinking Tea from a Muslim Cup

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Muslims running a tea stall beat a Christian man to death for using a cup designated for Muslims on May 9. The young man, Ishtiaq Masih, had ordered tea at a roadside stall in Machharkay village, Punjab, Pakistan, after his bus stopped to allow passengers to relieve themselves.

When Ishtiaq went to pay for his tea, the owner noticed that he was wearing a necklace with a cross and grabbed him, calling for his employees to bring anything available to beat him for violating a sign posted on the stall warning non-Muslims to declare their religion before being served. Ishtiaq had not noticed the warning sign before ordering his tea, as he ordered with a group of his fellow passengers.

The owner and 14 of his employees beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.

The other bus passengers and other passers-by finally intervened and took Ishtiaq to the Rural Health Center in the village. There Ishtiaq died as a result of spinal, head, and chest injuries. The doctor who took Ishtiaq’s case said that Ishtiaq had excessive internal and external bleeding, a fractured skull, and brain injuries.

Makah Tea Stall is located on the Sukheki-Lahore highway and is owned by Mubarak Ali, a 42-year-old Muslim. A correspondent visited the tea stall and observed that a large red warning sign with a death’s head symbol was posted which read, “All non-Muslims should introduce their faith prior to ordering tea. This tea stall serves Muslims only.” The warning also threatened anyone who violated the rule with “dire consequences.”

A neighboring shopkeeper said on condition of anonymity that Ali is a fundamentalist Muslim and all his employees are former students of radical Muslim madrassas (seminaries). Ali kept separate sets of cooking-ware for Muslims and non-Muslims at his stall.

Ishtiaq’s family said that they immediately reported the incident to the police and filed a case against Ali. Though the police registered their case, no action has been taken to apprehend Ali or his employees.

When asked the Pindi Bhatian Saddar police station about the murder, the police chief said that investigations were underway and they are treating it as a faith-based murder by biased Muslims. When asked about Ali’s warning sign, police chief Muhammad Iftikhar Bajwa claimed that he could not take it down.

However, the constitution of Pakistan explicitly prohibits such discrimination, and the police could take strong action against the warning sign. But because the police are also Muslim, Ishtiaq’s father claims that they are being derelict in their duties to prosecute the murderers who are still freely operating the tea stall.

Parents choose religion over their child’s life

OREGON CITY, Oregon (AP) – An Oregon judge has rejected defense claims of selective and vindictive prosecution in the manslaughter trial of a couple whose 15-month-old daughter died of pneumonia while they prayed for her recovery.

Clackamas County Judge Steven Maurer told lawyers for Carl and Raylene Worthington that the couple had a duty to seek medical care for their daughter, Ava, despite their religious beliefs. A state medical examiner has said the toddler, who died in March 2008, could have been treated with antibiotics.

The Worthingtons are members of the Followers of Christ – a small Oregon City church that advocates spiritual healing instead of medical care.

If convicted, the couple faces up to 10 years in prison.

Muslim faith school fails to meet standards

A TEAM of experts will be sent in to monitor the overhaul of a primary school which has been strongly criticised in the most damning inspection report ever issued by the Department of Education.

The unprecedented move follows a litany of shocking revelations contained in an inspection report into the North Dublin Muslim School in Cabra, which is housed in the former School for the Deaf.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe last night said the standards of management, teaching and learning at the school were “unacceptable” and that child protection policies were “inadequate”.

The findings — the most critical of nearly 3,000 inspection reports issued by the department — are set to cause alarm within Ireland’s 32,000-strong Muslim community.

The report — seen by the Irish Independent — will be officially published tomorrow. It reveals:

• Taxpayers’ money given to the school in the form of grants since it opened in 2001 is unaccounted for;
• The quality of teaching of English, Irish and maths is “poor” or “very poor“, with teacher morale “very poor“;
• Sanitary facilities are “inadequate;
• The school is in breach of several pieces of legislation;
• The school refuses to implement the music curriculum.

Separate correspondence, also seen by the Irish Independent, reveals that the school failed to pay around €37,000 it owed to the department.

To recover some of the money, the department withheld payment of the capitation grant in June 2008 and threatened to do so again recently.

Critical

The patron of the school, Imam Yahya Al-Hussein, said the report was too critical and a bit “over the top”.

He said the current board of management, appointed last November, inherited the problems and was trying to solve them. The former board chairperson Shahzad Ahmed was unavailable for comment last night.

The draft inspection report says that no financial accounts are available since the school opened and there is little physical evidence of where state grants have been spent.

The current acting principal (the fourth since it opened) has still not completed the probationary process. All the mainstream teaching staff resigned last June and the board made 12 new appointments. No member of the teaching staff had completed the probationary period at the time of the inspection on November 28 — only four of them are fully qualified within the Irish system.

The report says that the school is unable to provide support for newly qualified teachers or those experiencing professional difficulties.

Several policies that relate to the care, welfare and protection of children have not been drawn up. The school is in breach of the Education Welfare Act (2000) and of the Rules for National Schools.

The report says there are no policies on attendance; child protection; social personal and health education and on the duties of special needs assistants. The Relationships and Sexuality Education programme has not been implemented. There are no plans for assessment; for English as an additional language; for visual arts, physical education; drama and music.

The North Dublin school is one of two schools catering for the Muslim community. Pupil numbers there have fallen significantly since 2006, the report says. However, the report found inconsistencies between class roll books, the attendance book and the register of pupils.

Since 2006 almost 3,000 inspection reports have been published by the department on its website. There are two kinds of reports: single subjects; and Whole School Evaluation (WSE) such as that prepared for the North Dublin Muslim National School.

The inspectors review the quality of school management, school planning and the quality of learning and teaching. There have been a few very critical reports, mainly at post-primary level, but none come anywhere near this one in terms of the directness of the language and the criticism.

It represents a significant step change in the approach taken by the department whose lawyers checked and double checked the report before agreeing to its publication.

- John Walshe Education Editor

Terror law used to stop thousands ‘just to balance racial statistics’

Thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics, the government’s official anti-terror law watchdog has revealed.

Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he has got “ample anecdotal evidence”, adding that it was “totally wrong” and an invasion of civil liberties to stop and search people simply to racially balance the statistics.

“I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice,” he said. “But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches.”

The official reviewer of counter-terrorist legislation said there was little or no evidence that the use of section 44 stop-and-search powers by the police can prevent an act of terrorism.

“Whilst arrests for other crime have followed searches under the section, none of the many thousands of searches has ever resulted in a conviction for a terrorism offence. Its utility has been questioned publicly and privately by senior Metropolitan police staff with wide experience of terrorism policing,” said Carlile.

He added that such searches were stopping between 8,000-10,000 people a month.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the “section 44 stops” allow the police to search anyone in a designated area without suspicion that an offence has occurred. But Carlile is critical of the use of the powers used by the Met police, saying he felt “a sense of frustration” that the force did not limit its section 44 authorisations to some boroughs or parts of boroughs but used them across its entire area.

“I cannot see a justification for the whole of the Greater London area being covered permanently. The intention of the section was not to place London under permanent special search powers.”

None of the many thousands of searches had ever led to a conviction for a terrorist offence, he said. He noted, too, that the damage done to community relations was “undoubtedly considerable”.

Examples of poor, or unnecessary use, of section 44 abounded. “I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist, and no other feature to justify the stop.”

The Met has announced a review of how it uses section 44 powers. And the home secretary, Alan Johnson, is to issue fresh guidance to the police, warning that counter-terrorism must not be used to stop people taking photographs of on-duty officers.

Carlile uses his annual report to endorse complaints from professional and amateur photographers that counter-terror powers are being used to threaten prosecution if pictures are taken of officers on duty.

He said the power was only intended to cover images likely to be of use to a terrorist: “It is inexcusable for police officers ever to use this provision to interfere with the rights of individuals to take photographs.” The police had to come to terms with the increased scrutiny of their activities by the public, afforded by equipment such as video-enabled mobile phones. “Police officers who use force or threaten force in this context run the real risk of being prosecuted themselves for one or more of several possible criminal and disciplinary offences,” he warned.

He mentioned an incident in which two Austrian tourists were rebuked by officers for photographing Walthamstow bus station, in east London.

David Miliband wants MI5 interrogation kept secret

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, told MPs today that he will not allow the public to see the secret interrogation policy that is at the heart of allegations that MI5 has been colluding in the torture of British citizens.

Gordon Brown has ordered that the policy be rewritten after a series of people complained that they had been questioned by British intelligence officers after being asked the same questions under torture by Pakistani and Bangladeshi intelligence officers. Brown has also pledged that the policy would be made public.

However, Miliband told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs select committee today that he has no intention of making public the policy as it currently stands, because of the risk of prejudicing a number of on-going court cases. Pressed further, he said that the currently policy would not be published even once those court cases have concluded, as to do so would “lend succour to our enemies”.

He added that the policy had been reviewed by the Intelligence and Security Committee, the group of MPs and peers who are supposed to oversee the activities of Britain’s intelligence agencies, and that the ISC was able to “square the circle between secrecy and accountability”.

The ISC sits in secret, its members and its reports to the prime minister are published after being censored in consultation with the agencies themselves.

Asked about the morality of receiving intelligence that has been extracted through torture, Miliband told the committee: “We would never procure intelligence, or procure evidence through torture. We would never say to another intelligence agency ‘Please get us information about X’ and, you know, abandon our legal and ethical commitments in respect of how you find that.”

Evidence heard in court has contradicted that, however. Last September Manchester Crown Court heard how MI5 and Greater Manchester Police drew up a list of questions for use by a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency which was unlawfully detaining Rangzieb Ahmed, a man from Rochdale. By the time Ahmed was deported to Britain 13 months later three of his fingernails were missing. Furthermore, civil proceedings brought on behalf of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was freed from Guantánamo earlier this year, has resulted in the disclosure of the questions that MI5 asked be put to him, despite knowing that he had been tortured in Pakistan and having reason to believe he was being tortured after being rendered elsewhere.

Miliband admitted that the the co-operation between MI5 and MI6 with foreign security and intelligence agencies during counter terrorism operations could risk detainees being mistreated.

“It is not possible to eradicate the risk of mistreatment. A judgment needs to be made”, he said in a letter to the committee. “We cannot act in isolation in order to protect British citizens.” He acknowledged that some countries had “different legal obligations and different standards to our own in the way they detain people and treat those they have detained”. He added that this “cannot stop us from working with them”.

As well as allegations of collusion in torture in Pakistan, where British intelligence officers have questioned people being held by agencies whose use of torture is widely documented, there have been allegations of complicity in the torture of British citizens detained in Bangladesh, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Miliband refused to answer questions from the committee yesterday about allegations that MI5 officers had put the same questions to detainees that had earlier been put, under torture, by foreign intelligence officers, claiming that to do so may prejudice ongoing court cases.

The only cases currently before the courts are those in which the British government and its intelligence agencies are being sued for damages by the alleged victims of torture.

Referring to the secret interrogation policy, Miliband did tell the committee: “Before 2004 the guidance was informal, after 2004 it was more formal. It is now comprehensive, including comprehensive legal advice to all officers.”

He also said the interrogation policy would be made available to defence lawyers representing terrorist trial defendants who allege that they were tortured by foreign agents, and then questioned by British intelligence officers, before being deported to the UK and prosecuted. “Surely, it is founding principle of our legal system: defending counsel can call for whatever papers they want,” he said. “Defence counsel having these papers isn’t the same as putting them on the internet.”

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem shadow spokesman of foreign affairs, said that British intelligence officers had been given “inadequate” guidance on their obligations while interrogating detainees held overseas.

A prince and a philistine

Perhaps we should not be surprised that the Prince of Wales, ­working “prince to prince”, has persuaded the Qatar royal family to reject Richard ­Rogers’s ­design for the new ­housing project on the site of the Chelsea Barracks. As Rogers says, architecture “evolves and moves forward”. The Prince of Wales does not. For all his pretensions, he personifies a mindless admiration for antiquity. He thinks of Britain as a theme park where gawping tourists and sycophantic “subjects” can briefly relive the past. The monarchy is, of course, the central exhibit – described by its more sophisticated adherents as decorative, convenient and harmless. It ceases to be any of those things when it imposes its prejudices on the public.

Prince Charles is clearly a ­philistine – a quality which would not be a ­handicap in his line of work were it not for the presumption that prompts him to believe he is an expert on subjects about which he is ignorant. He knows nothing about architecture, as Poundbury proves. It is not surprising that Clarence House primly announces: “We don’t want to get into a debate with Richard Rogers.” That pathetic admission is a perfect example of the prince wanting to have his organic cake and eat it. He is prepared to step outside the bounds of royal propriety to interfere in the life of the country, but when asked to defend his intrusion he becomes again the heir to the throne who must avoid controversy.

Richard Rogers, in an admirably ­moderate response to the Chelsea outrage, takes pity on the prince – “an unemployed individual looking for a job”. It is fair to say in the royal defence that the long wait debilitated all his predecessors. But that does not excuse behaviour that should alarm convinced monarchists and add thousands of recruits to the republican cause. His interference in the Chelsea ­Barracks decision exemplifies all that is most unacceptable about a hereditary monarchy. As a result of blood and birth, a middle-aged man of no particular merit enjoys a special status in society. More sensible members of the royal family are discreet about their “divine right”. Charles recklessly chooses to use his position to advocate his favourite causes – alternative medicine, badger culling, architectural pastiche.

The result, in our still deferential ­society, is the propagation of weird ideas. I recall a past president of the Royal Institute of British Architects rhetorically asking me to estimate how many new council offices would, thanks to the Prince of Wales, have polystyrene Corinthian pillars in their public rooms. But in modern Britain, the next head of state should be more than a bad and highly expensive joke. The one good thing to come out of the whole Chelsea Barracks scandal is the attention that it focuses on the anachronism which is the hereditary monarchy and the ­consequences of a royal family. No one can imagine an elected head of state interfering ­capriciously and arbitrarily in a quasi-judicial planning decision. The idea that his or her offspring might claim a special right to influence the character of a major building development is absurd. Therein lies the truth about the monarchy. A “royal family” – superior because of its genes – is an absurdity.

Perhaps, as long as the royal family plays within the rules, that only matters to egalitarians who hate the idea of a hierarchical society in which the Windsors are the publicly acknowledged pinnacle. In this tight little right little island it is difficult to stimulate much opposition to a hereditary monarchy as long as it accepts that its function is to be polite to foreign heads of state, present the FA Cup to the winner and make platitudinous speeches to mark solemn occasions. But once the sovereign and her family begin to believe that they have an intrinsic importance and a duty to propagate a particular point of view, the argument that they are a benign curiosity is more difficult to sustain. Where is it likely to end? If the Prince of Wales can exercise covert influence over what sort of building goes up in Chelsea, how can we be sure that he will not at least try to use his royal prestige and connections to impose his will on other decisions which are none of his business?

As a privy councillor I am entitled to give advice to the Queen. If she wants the monarchy to continue on its untroubled way, she should tell her son to respect the restraints of his position. Better still, she should let it be known through the Palace PR machine that she disapproves of his demarche to the Qatari royal family and does not believe that, because they are one feudal monarchy, the Prince of Wales should behave as if he is the heir to another. She might also point out that his reverence for all things ancient does not seem to include respect for the constitution and that republicans like me rejoice at the damage he does to the idea of monarchy.

Roy Hattersley

Watch out – that engineer could be a terrorist!

WHO becomes a terrorist? An MI5 report leaked to London newspaper The Guardian in August 2008 concluded that there is no easy way to identify those who become involved in terrorism in the UK because there is “no single pathway to violent extremism” and that “it is not possible to draw up a typical profile of the ‘British terrorist‘ as most are ‘demographically unremarkable’”.

The extraordinary lengths the German authorities went to after 9/11 to track down potential terrorists are a stark example of how useless profiling can be. They collected and analysed data on over 8 million individuals living in Germany. These people were categorised by demographic characteristics: male, aged 18 to 40; current or former student; Muslim; legally resident in Germany; and originating from one of 26 Islamic countries. Then they were sorted into three further categories: potential to carry out a terrorist attack (such as a pilot’s licence); familiarity with locations that could be targets (such as working in airports, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, the rail service, labs and other research institutes); and studying the German language at the Goethe Institute.

With the help of these categories authorities whittled the 8 million down to just 1689 individuals, who were then investigated, one by one. Giovanni Capoccia, an Oxford-based political scientist who analysed this case, reported that not one of them turned out to be a threat. All the real Islamic terrorists arrested in Germany through other investigations were not on the official “shortlist” and did not fit the profile.

Does it follow, as some scholars now think, that anyone, given the right conditions and the wrong friendships, can end up joining a terrorist group? Not entirely. We found that engineers are three to four times as likely as other graduates to be present among the members of violent Islamic groups in the Muslim world since the 1970s. Using a sample of 404 Islamic militants worldwide (with a median birth date in 1966), we tracked down the education of 284. Of these, 26 had less than secondary education, 62 completed secondary education (including madrasas), and 196 had higher education, whether completed or not. Even if none of the cases where we lack data had higher education, the share of those with higher education would be a hefty 48.5 per cent.

The next move was to find out what they had studied – and we tracked down 178 of our 196 cases. The largest single group were engineers, with 78 out of 178, followed by 34 taking Islamic studies, 14 studying medicine, 12 economics and business studies, and 7 natural sciences. The over-representation of engineers applies to all 13 militant groups in the sample and to all 17 nationalities, with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

Our finding holds up quite well in another sample of 259 Islamic extremists who are citizens or residents of 14 western, mostly European, countries, and who have recently come to the attention of the authorities for carrying out or plotting a terrorist attack in the west. Although this sample contains far fewer people with higher education than the older members of the first group, nearly 6 out of 10 of those with higher education are engineers.

We also collected data on non-Muslim extremists. We found that engineers are almost completely absent from violent left-wing groups, while they are present among violent right-wing groups in different countries. Out of seven right-wing leaders in the US whose degrees we were able to establish, four were engineers: for example, Richard Butler, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations, was an aeronautical engineer, and Wilhelm Schmitt, leader of the right-wing, extreme anti-government, pro-localism group known as the Sheriff’s Posse Comitatus, was an engineer with Lockheed Martin. Among the total membership of the Islamic groups, however, the over-representation is still much higher.

This could be a coincidence: if the group founders are engineers they would also be more likely to recruit other engineers via their educational or professional networks. This explanation only works up to a point. It does not explain why engineers are over-represented in groups in which the founders were not engineers, or why the founders of groups that were not in contact with each other were often engineers.

Why engineers? Everybody’s first reaction is that they are recruited for their technical proficiency in bomb-making and communications technology, but there is no evidence for this. A tiny elite tends to do the technical work in these groups, and jihadist recruitment manuals focus on a personality profile rather than technical skills.

So we are left with two hypotheses: either certain social conditions impinge more on engineers than on other graduates, or engineers are more likely to have certain personality traits that make radical Islamism more attractive to them. Our best guess is that the phenomenon derives from a combination of these two factors.

With engineers in the Middle East we have very intelligent, ambitious students who have found it difficult to find professional satisfaction, both individually and collectively in their desire to help their countries develop. Graduates of very selective degree programmes, they may have endured relatively greater frustration in a stagnant and authoritarian environment.

The fact that engineers are not over-represented in Saudi Arabia offers some support for this, for, alone among the countries of origin of terrorists, Saudi Arabia has had a shortage of engineers and has thus offered better employment opportunities. However, even in western countries and south-east Asia, where labour market opportunities are better for all graduates, engineers appear relatively more attracted to violent Islamist groups than other graduates. Why is this?

We reckon that something else is going on, something at the individual level, that is, relating to cognitive traits. According to polling data, engineering professors in the US are seven times as likely to be right-wing and religious as other academics, and similar biases apply to students. In 16 other countries we investigated, engineers seem to be no more right-wing or religious than the rest of the population, but the number of engineers combining both traits is unusually high. A lot of piecemeal evidence suggests that characteristics such as greater intolerance of ambiguity, a belief that society can be made to work like clockwork, and dislike of democratic politics which involves compromise, are more common among engineers.

So the bottom line is that while the probability of a Muslim engineer becoming a violent Islamist is minuscule, it is still be between three and four times that for other graduates.