“The Lost Girls”: why it’s a load of old rubbish
The lost girls: Illegal abortion widely used by some UK ethnic groups to avoid daughters 'has reduced female population by between 1,500 and 4,700' – Science – News – The Independent I saw this...
Category: Media
Why Muslims don’t join the Christian Right
The new intolerance: will we regret pushing Christians out of public life?: A Challenge to the Left Cristina Odone's headline article in this week's New Statesman describes how a liberal consensus has taken hold...
Not the ‘ally’ Muslims need
In today’s Guardian, there’s an article by Laurie Penny attacking those who have been campaigning against the supposed gender segregation on British university campuses (meaning, the separate seating arrangements at some Islamic society gatherings),...
More on “segregation” pseudo-controversy
Following my entry on the fake controversy over "segregation" (i.e. separate seating for men and women) at Islamic society events in London, Channel 4 News covered the issue this evening, featuring interviews with Maryam...
Mehdi Hasan’s phoney apologetics
British Muslims should stand up and say it: there is nothing Islamic about child marriage (at the New Statesman and also the Huffington Post) Mehdi Hasan argues that it is British Muslims' responsibility to...
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...
Letter to the Guardian on Niqaab
I wrote this letter last Thursday after seeing a series of very hostile letters in the Guardian following Kira Cochrane's article in which she interviewed women who wear the niqaab (who had been conspicuously...
Are the Tories evil? What is evil, anyway?
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...
TV adhan: media attack Muslim visibility
Yesterday, the Sun led with a headline “Ramadan-a-Ding-Dong”, a reference to Channel 4’s decision to air the Muslim call to prayer at different times of day during Ramadan. Their article includes an endorsement from...
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...
An Ahmadiyyah geography lesson
This letter appeared in yesterday's Daily Mail in response to the article by David Goodhart about the Ahmadiyyah centre in Morden last Monday (see earlier article). The letter starts off by stating that her...
When will people realise the Bulger killers were children?
BBC News – Three men jailed for selling information to the Sun On Wednesday a former prison worker and two former policemen were jailed for selling information to the papers, and the information the...
Go after abusive media companies, not bloggers
Samuel Johnson famously asked, in an essay written during the American war of independence, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”. These days, we hear...
Leveson: what about the content?
Last week the Leveson inquiry finally reported, and the key points can be found [here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/29/leveson-report-key-points), but they include a new independent regulator backed by statute but independent of government and the industry, with membership...
My letter on ME in today’s Telegraph
Means-testing pensioner benefits is a political rather than practical policy – Telegraph I wrote the Telegraph a letter on Monday in response to Max Pemberton's article on the issue of mental health stigma in...
On ‘child brides’ and irrelevant imams
I saw two stories in the mainstream press today that were about the state of the British Muslim religious establishment. One was in the Daily Mail by Baroness Cox which was based on a...
How to blaspheme in Pakistan
How to commit blasphemy in Pakistan | World news | The Guardian This is a fairly comprehensive assessment of the situation surrounding the blasphemy law in Pakistan right now. While I am not against...
Review: ITV’s “Don’t Hate Us”
ITV Player: Tonight — Don’t Hate Us Last Thursday ITV broadcast a documentary on the rise in hate crimes against people with disabilities which has occurred since the coalition government came to power and...
‘Problem families’: just take them into care?
Last week, a civil servant called Louise Casey published a report identifying 120,000 “problem families” and proposed an intervention scheme whereby social workers would actually sit in people’s houses and make sure they get...
Ann Leslie on how the media foments Islamophobia
Just as I was writing my post about the validity of the term ‘Islamophobia’ yesterday morning, the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live programme were discussing it. A hotline called “Tell MAMA” (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) had...