Pinochet: goodbye and good riddance
It was with some delight that I read the news this evening that General Pinochet had died. It cheered me up somewhat since I've been feeling rather depressed this week. I don't have any...
Author: Matthew Smith
Winterval? Bah, humbug!
Today's Guardian features an investigation into the alleged "War on Christmas", in which various council, health service, charity and education functionaries supposedly erase reference to Christmas, prevent people from putting up Christmas light displays...
Khadija Ravat and the niqab’s good name
The contrived controversy over the Channel 4 “Alternative Christmas Message” dragged on today, with the Daily Mirror featuring an interview with the lady in which she told the interviewer that she, being a patriotic British citizen, will be watching the Queen rather than her own message. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, however, comes out with the usual attack on the niqab, alleging that Channel 4 “has decided to glamorise and validate the veil, showing cool indifference to the meanings of one of the most violently contested symbols in the world today”. The article appeared in the Evening Standard, which does not generally publish its opinion pieces online.
I am OK
Greetings and as-Salaamu 'alaikum to my overseas readers, Some news outlets have reported that a "severe tornado" had struck London today. While there were severe storms in many areas of London, the tornado itself...
Khadija’s Christmas message
Via Deenport and Pickled Politics, we hear that Channel 4 is planning to have a woman in niqab to read their “alternative Christmas message” this year: A veiled Muslim woman will deliver this year’s...
Sat-navs and civil liberties
This week the old chestnut of “road pricing” – that is, charging motorists by the mile depending on where they drive and when – appeared again in a report comissioned by the Government and produced by the former British Airways chief Rod Eddington, which appeared on Friday. The report “concludes that the potential benefits of charging motorists for using roads will outweigh the costs of the scheme” and that charging “will put some people off driving entirely, cut congestion and carbon emissions and could raise up to £16bn a year in payments”.
Zeyno Baran: new treason threat to Turkey
More on the situation in Turkey: Zeyno Baran of the "Hudson Institute" has an article in the current edition of Newsweek alleging that there is a 50% chance of the Turkish military staging a...
Is Douglas Murray making up facts?
The Social Affairs Unit – Douglas Murray argues that the Papacy has been degraded by Pope Benedict's U-turn on Turkey's entry to the EU Douglas Murray, author of the author of the Social Affairs...
Misbah case: the mother should let her go
Comment is free: If you love somebody … Yvonne Roberts argues that the best thing for Misbah Rana's mother to do if she actually cares for her daughter is to let her go: Whatever...
Old Europe, new Europe
This is a shocking story from today’s (Tuesday’s) Guardian about a new wave of persecution of central Europe’s Roma (Gypsy) minority, which has started to take the form of destruction of Roma neighbourhoods and...
Religious arbitration in the UK
BBC 'Magazine' feature: An end to one law for all? A very interesting (and, I'm sure, controversial) feature on the largely little-known system of arbitration in the UK. The best-known example is the Jewish...
Prostitutes and druggies welcome – but no veils please
Intolerance in Europe – washingtonpost.com An editorial from today's WaPo which highlights the hypocrisy of Europe's increasing intolerance towards its Muslim minority: Sometimes the bigots portray their crude attacks on Muslim beliefs and culture...
Rats out, roaches in as Nazis try to butter up Jews
There is a letter in the current edition of the Jewish Chronicle, the "establishment" paper of the British Jewish community, from Alan Goodacre defending the British National Party from this article by Melanie Phillips...
Time for a new way of funding religious societies
With the controversy over Nadia Eweida's cross having now led to British Airways reviewing their policy on staff uniforms and religious jewellery, a related controversy, over funding of student religious societies, continues to make...
Mormons, Muslims and abusive polygamy
The Guardian yesterday carried a major feature on the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists who dominate two small towns in the Utah/Arizona border area: Husband and Wives gives the whole historical background, the details of the...
The Indie frees its comments pages
Via Harry's Place, it appears that the Independent has abandoned its policy of charging people to read its comments pages online. Personally I wonder if this was because most of the columnists worth reading...
Naima Bouteldja: Muslims and European authoritarianism
Naima Bouteldja, in today's Guardian, discusses the impending Dutch niqab ban and the pattern of governments stoking anti-Muslim hostility for political ends: Naima Azough, a Dutch Green MP, points out that the ban would...
Have the jobsworths struck again?
Today a Coptic Christian woman, Nadia Eweida, lost her appeal against a decision by British Airways staff not to allow her back into a public-facing role while wearing her cross pendant. Today the Archbishop...
419 scams “still a huge problem”
A study by Chatham House reveals that the Nigerian "419 scam", in which people are scammed out of "advance fees" when they respond to letters asking for help getting the scammers' wealth out of...
Announcement: rally tomorrow in London
Via Islamophobia Watch, a rally to "defend freedom of religion, conscience and thought" and "end attacks on Muslims" is to be held tomorrow (Monday 20th) at Methodist Central Hall (in Westminster, across the road...