Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Before and during the Afghan invasion twelve years ago, it was hotly debated whether torture of terrorist suspects is justified, particularly (but not only) when a terrorist has been arrested and it is suspected...
Last night three children were found dead at their home in New Malden, at an address half a mile from where I live. Olivia Clarence, aged four, and twins Max and Ben Clarence, aged...
This morning, I saw on the Facebook group for Invest in ME a link to an article on the Mad in America website announcing the launch of the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry (CEP), which...
This is the anniversary of Connor Sparrowhawk going into the Slade House learning disability unit in Oxford, where he died 107 days later, in the bath, as a result of staff negligence. His supporters...
Yesterday I read on the Telegraph‘s website that Katherine Bowes-Lyon, a cousin of the Queen who was severely mentally disabled and had lived in an institution most of her life, had died aged 87....
This past week, since the publication of the report into the preventable death of Connor Sparrowhawk in a learning disability mental health unit in Oxford last July, my timeline has been buzzing with reactions...
This morning I read a news report and a blog about a single mother who is fighting to keep her two daughters out of the foster care system in Alberta, and find them a...
It's been reported recently that a man who killed a man with one punch on a street in Bournemouth has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison (see also today's Daily Mirror), which means...
Today the report into the death (PDF) of Connor Sparrowhawk, an 18-year-old who drowned in an NHS learning disability unit in Oxford last July (see earlier entry), was published. That it was published was...
Update 5:43pm: The report is out. My response is scheduled for publication at 6:30pm GMT. Southern Health: report publication update Southern Health, the NHS trust responsible for the death of Connor Sparrowhawk in one...
Regarding the ongoing case of Claire Dyer, the 19-year-old autistic woman from Swansea who is being threatened with a transfer to a secure hospital in Northampton, which neither she nor her family wants: a...
I've been unable to get the ongoing case of Claire Dyer (right), currently being threatened with forced transfer to a secure hospital unit 185 miles from home under a wholly inappropriate section of the...
Update 23rd January: the tribunal has been adjourned with no decision made; this is because more evidence is needed from the health board. Claire therefore remains under section and the threat of transfer to...
Carers and care workers are the best kind of people. So why are they treated so disgracefully? Yesterday the Guardian published the above article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, best known for co-founding Vagenda magazine...
Woman with Down syndrome prevails over parents in guardianship case (from the Washington Post website) Yesterday Jenny Hatch, who had been fighting to free herself from a restrictive guardianship arrangement which required her to...
Owen Jones: Cruel? Certainly. Unforgivable? Beyond doubt. But the Tories aren't actually evil – Comment – Voices – The Independent Last week Sunny Hundal posted an article on Liberal Conspiracy in which he made...
BBC News – Frederic Kanoute supports disabled man's Ramadan fast Imraan Adam is a Muslim who lives in Derby and has cerebral palsy, and earlier this week it was reported that the council in...
Last week I read about two separate distressing incidents that underline the need for support for people with disabilities to remain living with their families if that is at all possible. The first happened...
Today the Daily Mail published a quite astonishing and appalling article by Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs (and former spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the Pro-Euro Conservative Party and NO2ID) calling...
Last week I heard the news that a 14-year-old boy with severe autism, Alex Spourdalakis, had been murdered by his mother and another female carer in a suburban area near Chicago after they had...