Malaysian groups criticise plans for Chelsea’s summer visit

Malaysian Muslim groups have called for protests when Chelsea football club visits in July because the coach, Avram Grant, and a player are Israeli.

An alliance of 21 Muslim groups is angry the Malaysian authorities have given permission for the Israelis to visit the country with the London club.

Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Malay Muslim majority is strongly pro-Palestinian.

Malaysian citizens are banned by their government from visiting Israel.

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Algeria and Syria criticise British human rights record

The United Kingdom came in for robust questioning on its human rights record from other UN member states last week at the Human Rights Council, during the historic first session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Over the course of three hours, 38 countries took the floor to ask UK Justice Minister Michael Wills about a wide range of issues, including racial discrimination, corporal punishment against children, abuses committed by UK armed forces abroad, and failure to ratify particular UN conventions and their protocols.

Coming at a time when the UK government is trying to pass yet another piece of counterterrorism legislation, which includes extending pre-charge detention to 42 days, it’s no wonder a significant number of countries asked about UK counterterrorism policies. Neighbors such as The Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland expressed concern about 42 day detention, but so did countries like Syria and Algeria. Algeria’s representative pointed out that the Human Rights Committee – the UN body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – had recently “upbraided” Algeria for allowing up to twelve days of pre-charge detention.

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Ziauddin Sardar lays into Quilliam Foundation founders

The embrace of former extremists is a slap in the face for Muslims who have worked tirelessly to build a British Muslim identity and foster inclusion by constructive community activity. It’s another attempt at the marginalisation of the overwhelming majority who never had a moment’s doubt that Islam gives no sanction for such murderous and misguided perversion of belief.

I am troubled by the fact that former extremists are seen as the only people who know how to deal with extremism. Just because you have been an inmate of a mental hospital does not mean you are an expert in clinical psychology. But former extremists are being lionised because they confirm the basic tabloid prejudice that violence is a natural part of being a Muslim. So whose ignorance is being vindicated? Certainly the potential of an open, unapologetic belief in Islam as a valuable part of British society is not on the agenda.

At every stage of dealing with extremism, the government has made the wrong choice. First, only British-trained imams were to be promoted, though how and what they were trained in was not examined. Then there were to be roadshows at which religious scholars selected for their moderation and tractability, rather than an understanding of the problems of young British Muslims, would explain the error of extremist ways. Then Sufism was touted as the solution, and the Sufi Muslim Council was created as the voice of moderation. Now the way forward is with sinners who were once mouthpieces for jihadi propaganda and advocated the violent rejection of all things western.

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Parliament’s dirty little secret

The House of Commons, held up as a beacon of democracy, has a ‘dirty little secret’, according to black MPs – its racism.

Dawn Butler, only the third black woman ever to have become an MP, said she faced such frequent racism from politicians of all parties that she had to ‘pick her battles’ to avoid being constantly in conflict with her colleagues. Disillusioned by what she has found, she is calling for a dedicated complaints department with the power to suspend politicians and send them on awareness training courses.

‘I thought people in Parliament would be progressive. It is still a shock that they are not,’ she said. ‘Over the past 400-plus years, the only black people – and black women in particular – in Parliament have been there to cook and clean. For some politicians, it’s still a shock to come face to face with a black women with any real power. Racism and sexism is Parliament’s dirty little secret.’

She is backed by Diane Abbott, the only other black woman in the Commons, who said that she had suffered 20 years of prejudice. ‘In the beginning, some of it was sheer ignorance. I remember being shocked when a Labour MP asked me once whether we celebrated Christmas in Jamaica,’ said Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

‘It has not helped that the Labour party powers-that-be have always seen me as “uppity” but I have dealt with the racism and misogyny by reaching out to other black women.’

Butler, who won the Brent South seat in 2005 when she was 35, described how shocked she was by the attitude of a senior Conservative who challenged her right to have a drink on the Commons’ Thameside terrace, a privilege reserved for MPs.

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The end of Euston

Well, that’s another piece of political quackery killed off.

Good riddance.

And still they say nothing about their own

Daniel Hannan, Tory MEP for South-East England, attacks Tony Blair’s handling of the Saudi-BAE corruption case. Yet, he fails to mention that his own party has come out in support of proposals that will allow governments to block future criminal investigations into cases just like the BAE scandal.

The Telegraph bloggers have obviously fallen into line behind ‘their side’ with this story. They now have three tagged “BAE Systems”, yet not a single one mentions Tory support for Labour’s proposals.

Denis MacShamelessapologistforabuseofpower

Denis MacShane’s attack on the judiciary, following their verdict on the Saudi-BAE corruption scandal, is torn to shreds by Septic Isle.

Review of ‘Islam and the Secular State’

Robert Hefner review’s Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im’s latest book Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a at The Immanent Frame.

Pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby launched

J Street, a new ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ lobby, has been launched in the US.

The goal of the lobby is to “promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically” and a “new direction” in American foriegn policy. It is an attempt to counter American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and to give a voice to what most American Jews think about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

J Street has prominent American and Israeli supporters and Prospect Magazine has some more background.

8 year old Yemeni girl goes to court to get divorce

An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse.

According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.

“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.

Nasser said that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”

“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months,” added Nasser. “He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”

Nasser’s uncle, who does not want to reveal his name, is following the case now as her guardian. According to her uncle, after Muhammed Nasser, the girl’s father, lost his job as a garbage truck driver in Hajjah, he became a beggar, and soon after suffered from mental problems.

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