FGM and the fallacy of symbolism
Sarah Sands: We cannot lose the battle for liberal values - Comment - London Evening Standard Sarah Sands is the editor of the London Evening Standard, and this article by her appeared in yesterday’s...
Category: Terrorism
A suspected war criminal to settle a hostage crisis?
The BBC just reported that the trial at the Hague of William Ruto, the Kenyan deputy president, for crimes committed after the 2007 general election, has been suspended so that he can go back...
Huge impact? Hardly.
Yesterday a 21-year-old Somali woman from London was given a community service order for posting an offensive tweet about the soldier Lee Rigby after his stabbing last month (but before the full facts about...
Anjem Choudary is not Gerry Adams
In the wake of last week’s Woolwich stabbing, there have been renewed calls to ban “hate preachers” from appearing on TV, most notably Anjem Choudary, the leader of al-Muhajiroun. Muslims, including myself, have for...
What’s an imam to do?
Last Friday at 1pm, Jeremy Vine had a slot about Islam and Muslims on his talk show on BBC Radio 2 — nice timing. This was, of course, prompted by the brutal murder of...
Woolwich knife attack is not terrorism
Yesterday a British soldier was attacked by two men with butchers’ knives on a street in Woolwich, south-east London, and killed in broad daylight in public view near to a primary school not long...
On Freedom of Information, the IRA and the Taliban
For the digital revolution, this is the Robespierre moment | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian Simon Jenkins is arguing that he agrees with Tony Blair who said in 2010 it...
Baron-Cohen on Anders Breivik
Anders Breivik: cold and calculating, yes – but insane? (from today’s Guardian) This article by Simon Baron-Cohen appeared in today’s Guardian and questions the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia given him by “independent” experts in...
Young adult marriage visa ban: unjust, now unlawful
Supreme Court overturns non-EU young spouses ban (from BBC News) The UK Supreme Court has ruled that a government ban on British citizens bringing spouses under the age of 21 from outside the EU...
Eurabian nightmare
The end of Eurabia - FT.com Ths image is from the Spectator, the British political magazine, and represents what passed for journalism on the European and American right during the post-9/11 era. The occasion...
On Norway
This past weekend was dominated by two major death-related news stories: the bombing and subsequent massacre in Norway on Friday, and the death (to me at least, sudden and unexpected) of the singer, Amy...
Osama bin Laden and Islamic burial
Osama bin Laden did not deserve an Islamic burial | Stephen Suleyman Schwartz | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Stephen Schwartz wrote this article for Comment is Free (run by the Guardian) on the...
The things that don’t add up about OBL’s death
Since I heard the news about Osama bin Laden’s alleged killing in Pakistan, a few things have not seemed right about the official story. They have offered absolutely no proof that the job has...
The offender and the offended
Warning to the US: Don't Play by Islamic Rules (from Standpoint magazine) This article is Douglas Murray’s treatment of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy, in which he smears Muslims by equating them with...
Yes, the law DOES apply to middle-class White people
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not...
Who’s radicalising who?
Today it was revealed that a report commissioned by University College London, the college where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to bomb a plane from Amsterdam to the USA last December, concluded that he...
White guy threatens to bomb airport, gets slap on wrist, much whingeing ensues
Last week a guy called Paul Chambers was fined a total of £1,000 (all but £385 of which was either costs or a “victim surcharge”) for posting a tweet threatening to blow up an...
Bombs in breast implants?!
The Sun today put out a story alleging that female suicide bombers were being fitted with bombs disguised within breast implants so that they couldn’t be detected by airport screening devices, according to “terrorist...
Further thoughts on Qadri fatwa
A couple of weeks ago I posted an entry about Dr Tahir ul-Qadri’s fatwa condemning suicide bombings. It seems to have provoked the biggest debate of pretty much any recent post on here since...
Qadri’s fatwa breaks no new ground
The London Evening Standard yesterday had a two-page feature on a forthcoming fatwa by the leader of the Minhaj-ul-Quran group, Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, which unequivocally condemns suicide bombings. The feature is dominated by a...