Islamic hate literature distributed in British prisons, leaked report finds

Extremist Islamic hate literature is available on the bookshelves of British jails and distributed to inmates by Muslim chaplains, according to a leaked report.

A review into extremism in prisons found misogynistic and homophobic pamphlets and hate tracts endorsing the killing of apostates were available in chaplaincy rooms, the Times reported.

Hate literature and CDs were reportedly discovered in more than ten prisons in November.

A summary of the review, led by former prison governor Ian Acheson, was supposed to have been released last month but was postponed. The review was ordered by Michael Gove.

The report is also said to have found that chaplains at some jails encouraged inmates to raise money for Islamic charities linked to international terrorism.

.... Muslim chaplains, appointed by the Ministry of Justice, can earn up to £40,000. There are around 100 employed full time in prisons. [The Telegraph] Read more

Imams are allowed to preach hate in prisons

Muslim chaplains appointed by the Ministry of Justice routinely distribute Islamist hate literature in British prisons, a leaked report has found.

The review, ordered last year by Michael Gove, found extremist pamphlets and CDs in more than ten jails in November. It uncovered misogynistic and homophobic leaflets, hate tracts encouraging the murder of apostates and ultra-conservative Islamic literature preaching contempt for basic British values.

The material, some of it published in Saudi Arabia, was kept on bookshelves in prison chaplaincy rooms where it was available for anybody to come in and pick up, a Whitehall source said.

The review, led by a former senior Home Office official, has not yet been cleared for publication. Its discovery of extremist literature is understood to have prompted an urgent internal alert in the Ministry of Justice that warned of a risk of “severe reputational damage” to the department. [The Times (£)] Read more

Thank you Trevor Phillips, you’ve made me much more radical than before

.... I have repeatedly said that I as a Muslim am not interested in “assimilation” but I’m fully integrated in my country as a Muslim.

How else could I – as a headscarved Muslim woman – walk into somebody else’s sacred space (Blackburn Cathedral) and survive for ten years?

However, that doesn’t mean that I will not challenge certain unjust policies of my government whether that be Prevent, or international policies impacting local communities, such as what’s happening in Palestine or Kashmir. Or for that matter a lack of religious and political leadership in my own faith community, or local politicians who rule their communities through divisive policies.

What really came through the documentary for me was that the only way to be fully “integrated” into our society was to accept “certain chosen” liberal, democratic values. Well, as I have often said I have no issues with “certain values” as long as those values do not contradict God’s laws. When I was asked about homosexuality for the documentary I stated clearly that the act of homosexuality is forbidden in Islam and I am driven by my faith values. But that doesn’t mean that we can become judge and jury and harm those on the streets who are homosexuals. [5Pillars] Read more

Muslims label AfD 'Nazis' over plan to ban minarets

The Central Council of Muslims responded in unequivocal terms to a hard anti-Islam stance announced by the populist Alternative for Germany party over the weekend.

"For the first time since Hitler's Germany there is a party that once again is discrediting a whole religious community and threatening its existence," Central Council of Muslims chairman Aiman Mazyek told public broadcaster NDR on Monday morning.

He was responding to interviews with the AfD leadership published on Sunday that commit the party to a tough anti-Islam line.

“Islam is a political ideology that is incompatible with the [German] constitution,” AfD spokeswoman Beatrix von Storch told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) in an interview.

While she allowed that “many Muslims belong in Germany,” she insisted that “Islam does not belong in Germany.”

The party's deputy chairman Alexander Gauland went further in comments to the FAS, turning to medical terms and dubbing Islam a “foreign body” in German society. [The Local] Read more

Family in handshake row wants to be Swiss

The family of the two Muslim schoolboys who refused to shake hands with their female teachers has applied for Swiss citizenship, a local paper has discovered.

The teenagers’ father – an imam at a Basel mosque – placed an application in January, authorities in the canton of Basel-country confirmed to the Basler Zeitung newspaper.

The two schoolboys, aged 14 and 15, from Therwil in Basel-country, caused outrage in Switzerland last month when they said they did not want to shake their female teachers’ hands because to do so went against Islam, which prohibits physical contact with the opposite sex aside from immediate family.

Seeking a compromise with the students but wanting to avoid discriminating female teachers, their school took the decision to exempt the boys from shaking any teacher’s hand.

The decision was seen as an affront to Swiss customs and caused consternation across the country, with Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga insisting that “shaking hands is part of our culture”. [The Local] Read more

Scottish Muslim groups fail to attend Ahmadi anti-extremism event

Ahmadi Muslims in Scotland have launched an anti-extremism campaign following the death of the Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah, despite the failure of other prominent Muslims to attend the event.

Representatives of the Glasgow Central Mosque and the Muslim Council of Scotland were invited to attend the launch alongside other faith groups, but the Guardian understands that both sent their apologies at the last minute.

Shah, who lived in the multicultural Shawlands area of Glasgow, was fatally stabbed outside his newsagents on 24 March.

Shah was an Ahmadi, a member of a minority sect of Islam that faces persecution and violence in countries such as Pakistan and is treated with open hostility by many orthodox Muslims in the UK because it differs from their belief that Muhammad is the final prophet sent to guide humankind. [The Guardian] Read more

Muslim father loses circumcision court battle over sons

The man argued that circumcision would be in accordance with his religious beliefs.

But the boys' mother, who is separated from their father, disagreed.

At a Family Court hearing in Exeter, Mrs Justice Roberts said the boys, who are six and four, should first reach an age where they can make the decision for themselves.

'Individual choices'

The man had argued that it would be "in the children's best interests to allow them to be circumcised" in accordance with his "Muslim practice and religious beliefs".

His former partner "opposes that course until such time as the children have reached an age where they are competent to give consent to such a procedure," the judge added. [BBC] Read more

Why Islam has to thrash out thorny issues of sexuality, women and its idea of masculinity

I have arrived back to the city I grew up in, Glasgow, to attend and present at a conference being held at the University of Glasgow with support from the Royal Society of Edinburgh on ‘The Unthought in Islam: Gender Perspectives’. The presentation topics are quite varied.

The opening address today comes from Juliane Hammer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill USA on Muslim women and prayer and how American Muslims negotiate gender, practice and space. Subsequent papers will look at women’s Mosques and women Imams amongst the Hui Muslim communities in contemporary China, Eve as a paradigmatic feminine figure in Muslim tradition, Muslim women in Scotland and Shi’a women and self-flagellation. [Herald Scotland] Read more

Belgian PM backs minister's comment that some Muslims cheered attacks

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel backed his outspoken interior minister over comments that a significant number of Muslims had cheered the Brussels bombings, and said supporters of terrorism were a cancer that needed removing.

Jan Jambon told Belgian daily De Standaard in a Saturday interview that a significant part of the Muslim community had danced with joy after the attacks that killed 32 people on March 22.

Jambon, part of the Flemish separatist N-VA party, faced criticism from fellow ministers and opposition, some demanding he back up his views with evidence, others that he apologize immediately.

Michel provided backing for his minister late on Sunday, saying the national security council had been told about expressions of support for the Brussels attackers.

"I can confirm that there have been endorsements for the attacks," Michel said in a statement, although this was only from a small minority. [Reuters] Read more

Trevor Phillips: some more responses and reflections

Since I last posted on this topic the full poll results have been published, Trevor Phillips’ documentary has been broadcast and a great deal of ink and airtime have been devoted to dissecting the results.

I had quibbles with the programme – but still more quibbles with many of its detractors. So here are a few reflections, with links to just some of the many comment pieces – good and bad – generated by both poll and programme. [Harry’s Place] Read more

Islam not compatible with German constitution, says AfD party

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Sunday Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and vowed to press for bans on minarets and burqas at its party congress in two weeks' time.

The AfD punished Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats in three regional elections last month, profiting from popular angst about how Germany can cope with an influx of migrants, over a million of whom arrived last year.

"Islam is in itself a political ideology that is not compatible with the constitution," AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"We are in favour of a ban on minarets, on muezzins and a ban on full veils," added Storch, who is a member of the European Parliament.

Merkel's conservatives have also called for an effective ban on the burqa, saying the full body covering worn by some Muslim women should not be worn in public. But they have not said Islam is incompatible with Germany's constitution. [Reuters] Read more

Trevor Phillips's documentary on Muslims was shocking - but not surprising

‘Our findings will shock many people,’ promised Trevor Phillips at the beginning of What British Muslims Really Think (Channel 4, Wednesday).

But the depressing thing is that I doubt they will, actually. I think the general British public have known for some time what Phillips’s documentary professed to find surprising: that large numbers of Muslims don’t want to integrate, that their views aren’t remotely enlightened, and that more than a few of them sympathise with terrorism. It’s only the establishment elite that has ever pretended otherwise.

As former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Phillips was very much part of that elite. He commissioned the 1997 Runnymede report that popularised the word ‘Islamophobia’. The fact that so impeccably liberal a figure is now issuing a mea culpa like this speaks volumes about how dire the situation has grown. ‘Everyone who has pinned their hopes on the rise of reforming and liberal British Muslim voices are in for a disappointment,’ said Phillips. [883 comments]

[TOP RATED COMMENT 65 votes] Nothing will change In 10-15 years another TV programme will be made about the same subject. The only difference will be a larger proportion of Muslims supporting terrorism/covering women/banning gay men and women. And every year more will come and more will be born in Britain. No one has any backbone to stop it and the law/government all support it due to white guilt and fear of looking racist. When the English are a minority in England don't expect the non-English to have any guilt or fear, of treating us the way ISIS treats its nonmuslims in Iraq or Syria

[2ND 44] ANOTHER COMMENT SAID: "Well if the white majority choose not to have babies, they cannot be surprised when they become a minority, the answer to your problem is for white women to have more babies."

A stunningly ignorant comment.

Particularly in light of the future population problems of the world, the destruction of marriage and the family unit, abortions on request and the fact that most modern western family units cannot afford to have one spouse stay at home all the time. Filling the country with cheap labour will only drive down wages thus requiring both spouses to work.

In a nutshell, liberal ideology has enabled the very things I have just mentioned above.

And now you b tch and whine because western women are 'not having enough babies'... the planet has a population problem for god sake!

"the answer to your problem is for white women to have more babies."

And overpopulate us? No Mary the answer is clearly to stop importing 3rd worlders on mass and maintain our population at a level where we can self provide if required. All you want to do is load this country with people, turning it into a socialist overcrowded broken hellhole and then later you'll be whining about the fact cat rich. You work for them, you support their policies and you don't even realise because you are so utterly blinded by race guilt liberal BS.

[3RD 35] What I have always found amazing is how the Left and the BBC worked tirelessly to destroy Apartheid in South Africa whilst enthusiastically promoting the same ideology in the UK.

Separate Development is a euphemism for Apartheid. Multiculturalism is a euphemism for Separate Development

It is all about segregation - we are well on our way to being Balkanised with all the problems that is going to bring.

[4TH 28] I live in the heart of the Muslim stronghold of West Yorkshire and have mixed with a lot of Muslim people socially and politically. It's getting worse for liberals as they come under increasing pressure to conform to third world practises. I've worked with young people who have been just like everyone else until Grandma decides they are too western; then they're off on Hadj and never come out after work any more. As for a couple of guys we all knew were gay being forced into arranged marriages! There is now a purity race on; who is most religious? Who behaves in the most Muslim way? Etc etc.

I worked with a guy who was high up in the accounts department in my company who went to prayers every Friday, where he was routinely mocked for wearing a suit. He left the company after a couple of years of it. But before he went he cajoled a young Muslim colleague into accompanying him to Friday prayers when he had previously joined in with the Friday pizza run and played Half Life at lunch time instead of praying.

Unless this pressure can be reversed every Muslim will at least pay lip service to the wilder strictures of the ROP. We have pandered for so long they think they are untouchable and the refuseniks have no one to turn to. For decades the contraception advisors at Dewsbury maternity hospital have been banned from advising Muslim women 'because their GPs don't like it'. I don't know about Muslim men having a paternal and infantilising attitude to women, the left leaning establishment are no better. [The Spectator] Read more

Liberals are blind to the threat posed by Islamist terror

The result on stage is shocking, but not for the reasons I expected. Instead of showing the multiple facets of the issue, the overwhelming explanation offered is that we are to blame for losing our children to Islamic State.

This is the message from the mothers of Molenbeek whose sons left to fight in Syria; from Charlie Winter, a senior research associate from Georgia State University; from Moazzam Begg, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay; and from sixth-form students in Tower Hamlets.

To most of the characters, Isis is the creation of the West. Our racism, our Islamophobia, our wars against the Muslim world have, apparently, given birth to it. If we get murdered on our streets by our compatriots it is only because our children who became terrorists felt they had no other option in life. Poor devils.

All those voices are legitimate in a democracy, where they can be heard on the airwaves and read in print. But they need to be challenged, especially when the ambition is to portray the attraction of jihadism for European teenagers, otherwise those voices become the only views deemed acceptable. [The Times (£)] Read more

What do British Muslims really think?

This was the week when British Muslims became experts in research methodology.

Trevor Phillips, who led the Equality and Human Rights Commission, presented the Channel 4 show What British Muslims Really Think on Wednesday night, which was based on an ICM survey — and it has created quite a debate.

The ICM surveyed 1,000 Muslims face-to-face and found that:

One in 25 Muslims (four per cent) said they felt at least some sympathy with people who took part in suicide bombings, while a similar proportion said they had some sympathy with “people who commit terrorist actions as a form of political protest”.

A quarter – 25 per cent – said they could understand why British school girls could be attracted to become “jihadi brides” overseas.

Less than half (47 per cent) agreed that Muslims should do more to tackle the causes of extremism in the Muslim community.

52 per cent believed homosexuality should not be legal in Britain, 39 per cent agreed “wives should always obey their husbands”, and 31 per cent said it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife.

78% said the media had no right publish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Rather than addressing the important issues raised from this poll, the usual suspects — including left-wing commentators — are either downplaying the worrying responses or dismissing this entirely as ‘Islamophobic’. We don’t like it when our dirty laundry is aired in public. There are either absolutely no problems, or if there are, it’s everyone else’s fault but ours.

This poll didn’t really tell us anything new. It is a fact that British Muslims, on the whole, do tend to be more conservative. As writer and lecturer Kenan Malik points out: [Sedaa.org] Read more

“Now the Writing Starts”: An Interview with Adonis

In your new book, Violence et Islam, you wrote that ISIS represents the end of Islam. Will there be a new beginning?

"You know, we have to remain believers. How so? If people, if humanity, comes to an end, then the world ends. As long as there are individuals—what I am saying now is that I am not alone. There are many individuals, in Egypt and other countries, who say what I am saying. This is why we have to remain confident that the human will reach a stage where he will find better solutions.

But when and how will be determined in time. But I can say that the Arabs will never advance as long as they think and operate in this old, jihadist, religious context. It is not possible. This is what is extinct, what has ended. ISIS is the last shout. Like a candle about to go out, it ends with strength."

"The renaissance needs time. Our society, during the fifteen centuries since the foundation of the first Islamic state, has not been able to establish a society of citizens. With a citizen’s duties come rights.

Until now, Arab societies are formed of individuals who carry out the same duties but have different rights: the Christian does not have the same rights as the Muslim, for instance. Fifteen centuries. How can we solve fifteen centuries in a week or two, a month or two? But I trust that the time will come, but outside this context." [The New York Review of Books] Read more

Migrants Riot After Being Denied Halal Food

.... The incident happened at a converted hotel in the small town of Unken, when a travelling halal meat salesman turned up at the centre in the middle of the night to sell his products to the residents.

Kronen Zeitung says the migrants quickly flocked to the salesman, however the centre’s management had other ideas. They told the merchant to go away, fearing the noise from the excited residents would disturb the neighbours.

Migrants reacted angrily to this, however, and started shouting and protesting. Some then marched to the town hall to continue their protest, with state broadcaster ORF reporting “tumultuous” scenes.

Six migrants were expelled from the centre following the incident and have been relocated elsewhere in Austria. [Breitbart London] Read more

Belgian minister says many Muslims 'danced' after attacks

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said Saturday that a "significant" part of the Muslim population celebrated attacks, blaming the country's policies for failing to integrate migrants into society.

He did not explicitly refer to last month's jihadist attacks on Brussels' airport and metro system that killed 32 people

"A significant section of the Muslim community danced when attacks took place," Jambon said in an interview with the Flemish-language De Standaard newspaper.

The Belgian minister also accused Muslim residents of Brussels' largely immigrant Molenbeek neighbourhood of attacking police during an operation last month to arrest a suspect in connection with the deadly attacks in Paris last November.

"They threw stones and bottles at police and press during the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. This is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil. Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it won't be overnight," he said. [France24] Read more

Not all British Muslims think the same – whatever Channel 4 might claim

.... After the programme aired I was called “an apologist for extremists” – which I found hugely amusing. I don’t think I talked about extremism at all. I was criticised for even agreeing to participate. But I had felt being a part of the conversation was more productive than ignoring it altogether. Let the liberal Muslim voice be heard (for a change).

Despite all the negative output and divisiveness it stirred up, despite all the critique and quarrelling, despite all the Twitter trolling, the Facebook abusing, the pointing and laughing (occupational hazard), I stand by my very first contribution on the documentary: “It’s a privilege that we get to live in a country, the UK, which lets us practise our belief. And I firmly take this as a privilege. Muslim people, we can go to the mosque, we can pray, we can dress the way we want to … we’ve got halal food pretty much everywhere. What a time to be alive!”

I made my points. Antisemitism is wrong. Homophobia is wrong. Misogyny is wrong. Surely in 2016 people can just take that as given? British Muslims are good people, so don’t buy into the scaremongering. Britain is better than that. [995 comments]

[TOP RATED COMMENT 347 votes] Part 94 in the Guardian's "Islam is so amazing" series

I really don't get it. Why is this religion held up on a pedestal so much? What is so great about it?

[2ND 327] "How can it be possible that the views of 1,000 odd people can prove something about an entire community?"

That’s the whole concept of doing surveys and polls. They don’t claim to be foolproof, but they do generally give a broad-strokes indication of something that would otherwise be impossible to quantify.

As you say, you’re on the liberal end of the scale – so why get so defensive when someone talks about the less-liberal end of the scale? Why does that not merit discussion?

[3RD 302] Personally I believe the polls were properly conducted and accurate. They were defended pretty convincingly in this letter to the paper: See here

All facts are friendly. A poll, properly carried out, cannot be "phobic" or "scaremongering". It is simply a snapshot of the reality. Yes, the results might be worrying and these results were, although they were not surprising IMO. Are you suggesting the results should have been concealed because they were disturbing? Or that these questions should never have been posed in the first place?

We’re being “othered”.

No, some British Muslims are "othering" themselves by choosing not to integrate as previous waves of migrants have done. It's great that you do not do this and that you are not antisemitic or misogynist. Unfortunately - as the polls have shown - many of your co-religionists are. There is no point in blaming Channel 4 for reporting what is there. [Guardian Cif] Read more

What British Muslims really think about Channel 4's show

We asked British Muslims to review Channel 4’s show: What British Muslims Really Think. Here’s what they said:

If there was a show titled “what do British – insert characteristic here – really think” it would sound judgemental and discriminatory. Muslims aren’t one block of consciousness; Pakistani Muslims often have differing views to Arab Muslims, African Muslims often have differing views to Malaysian Muslims and so on. What kind of Muslims did the sample consist of? Sunni, Shia? Hanafi, Hanbali? Deobandi or Barelwi? To use only 1081 Muslims as a sample to represent 3 million Muslims is inflammatory, misleading and dangerous.

.... It was claimed that Muslims are homophobic, misogynistic and that they wish to impose ‘sharia law’. I’m not denying that these elements exist but more emphasis should have been made on the possible cultural background to these views; many rural communities in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh do have a culture of accepting polygamy and not accepting non-heterosexual relationships.

Perhaps a comparison with the views of other non-Muslim first generation migrants and, or rural communities would have been helpful in order to show that the programme wasn’t just targeting one religion. [The Guardian] Read more

Trevor Phillips’s flawed poll will do nothing to help integration

.... Is integration a one-way process? No, integration is a two-way process where there are cross-influences from both cultures and compromises from all sides to integrate the minority culture into the majority culture. If communities maintain their identities and live peacefully alongside each other by accommodating each others’ viewpoints surely that’s integration? Moreover, perhaps addressing issues affecting integration like education and job discrimination and socio-economic deprivation is what needs to be done.

I could go on but I won’t because there is much a bigger point that is being overlooked. Why was there a need for the poll in the first place?

This is the question that sincerely needs to be asked. Why are Muslims repeatedly being questioned about their thoughts and religious beliefs? And this is where as a British Muslim I worry we are sleepwalking towards assimilation which is one-directional and relies on minority communities giving up on their beliefs and cultures in order to be accepted. In this case to fit in with so-called “British Values.”

Perhaps if Philips had asked what ideas, concerns and expectations Muslims have (ie what Muslims “really” think) instead of telling us what we should think, then that may have been the start of a constructive dialogue to promote integration. [5Pillars] Read more

What a Bristol Muslim actually thinks about Channel 4's What British Muslims Really Think

The Bristol Muslim Cultural Society's project manager Rizwan Ahmed has shared his views on the Channel 4 show What British Muslims Really Think, and revealed how there are a few more pressing matters at hand...

As a British Muslim What Do I Think….

I don't normally like to get political but seeing this furor around this whole "What British Muslims Really Think" programme and survey which I realised (after some very deep thought and pondering and philosophical thinking for all of two seconds…) was about as representative of what I think as a British Asian Muslim as Nigel Farage is to Race Equality.

After thinking about it for a few more moments I realised that at the moment as a nation we sort of have a few other more pressing social matters to worry about...

Some of these are - in no particular order and also not exhaustive list:

1) A housing crisis with severe shortages of affordable homes up and down the country.

2) Problems with a struggling NHS and striking Doctors.

3) The elderly who were once the backbone of our country and spent decades supporting the UK through their hard sweat, blood and tears now being abused and neglected in some so called "care homes". [Western Daily Press] Read more

Muslim support for theocracy, not terrorism, is the real threat to confront

.... Trevor Phillips offered some partial suggestions about breaking up ethnic segregation in schools, but why would any non-Muslim want to send their child to an Islamic faith school? Diversity cannot exist in schools designed around one religious ethos to the exclusion of all others. We cannot continue with a faith-segregated education system.

Politicians must stop paying lip-service to integration and actually start doing the things necessary to promote it.

We can't afford to be naive or unduly optimistic about the strength or influence of reforming voices within Islam: The torrent of abuse, death threats and murders faced by 'heretics' within British Islam keeps many would-be allies of this project silenced. They need the support of wider society, however it can be offered. And ex-Muslims must finally be listened to by those on the left who have ignored and silenced them.

If there is to be an 'us' versus 'them', it must not be between Muslims and non-Muslims, but the secularists of all religions and none against those who would impose Islam by violence or political means on others.

Society needs to set a much higher standard than simply 'feeling British' and being 'peaceful'. Almost all British Muslims meet this standard; yet many more live in fear of expressing more liberal views than this. This, not the battle against terrorism, is the real generational struggle. [National Secular Society] Read more

The Citadel considers first-ever uniform exception: allowing a Muslim hijab

The Citadel is considering a request from an admitted student that she be allowed to wear a hijab in keeping with her Muslim faith, a move that would be an unprecedented exception to the school’s longstanding uniform requirements.

If the request for the traditional Muslim hair covering is granted, it apparently would be the first exception made to the Citadel’s uniform, which all cadets at the storied public military college in South Carolina are required to wear at nearly all times. (At beaches, for example, college rules stipulate that, “Cadets will change into appropriate swimwear upon arrival and change back into uniform when departing.”)

A spokeswoman said that to her knowledge, in its nearly 175-year history, the school has never granted a religious, or other, accommodation that resulted in a change to the uniform.

As word spread on social media, students, alumni and others responded strongly to the idea of an exception being made at an institution where uniformity, discipline and adherence to rules are defining values, where loyalty to the corps is paramount and individual preferences are trivial.

That the first exception might be for a Muslim student was an additional provocation for some — and welcome symbolism for others — in the midst of a national discussion about Islam in U.S. culture. [The Washington Post] Read more

Germany agrees 'historic' refugee integration package

.... The deal, hammered out in seven hours of late-night talks between Merkel's conservative Christian Union bloc and the Social Democrats (SPD), also included plans for new anti-terror legislation.

The integration bill would take a carrot-and-stick approach, providing subsidised courses to help newcomers find their way in German life but, in some cases, denying residence permits to those who fail to take up the offer.

Germany took in more than a million asylum seekers in 2015 and Merkel has faced virulent criticism from sceptics, particularly from within her conservative camp, who argue that Europe's top economy is ill-equipped to cope with the influx.

She told reporters the measures would foster the settlement of those who stay in the country in the long run.

"We know, after hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived in our country, that we are facing a two-pronged challenge: on the one hand controlling the flow of refugees... and of course on the other hand not just registering them but integrating them," Merkel said. [AFP] Read more

What do British Muslims Really Think? Now we know. And it's terrifying

I sat down to watch 'What British Muslims Really think' with my best multicultural head on.

I cleared my mind of all preconceptions; grubby Rochdale cabbies passing white girls round for sex like a fried chicken bargain bucket, Imams beating kids into devotion, and the truly indoctrinated, blowing up Brussels to get 72 virgins in paradise.

Putting my feet up on the recycling bin, channelling my inner Polly Toynbee, I waited to sit corrected - prepared to accept the most dangerous Muslim in Britain is Bake Off's Nadiya Hussain armed with a Victoria Sponge.

But, much as it pains me to say it, I have been right all along. British Muslims are not part of some rich tapestry of urban life. It's a myth, dreamed up by the BBC, and perpetuated by the Islington elite.

It is them and us. And THEY have no wish to be anything like US.

The reason Muslims enjoy our country is because it is tolerant. Not the bits where we are tolerant of each other, you understand. Not the fact we respect your right to be Jewish or utterly ungodly. Or our warm embrace of those who identify as straight, gay, lesbian or as gender-fluid as a snail. [Daily Mail] Read more