Talk about patting yourself on the back Humza Yousaf , You say highjacked I have never seen a better job than this

Nationalist MSP Humza Yousaf  (please note the word Nationalist)

He go's on to say

“I think it’s a good symbol that other patron saint days, for example St George’s day, have at times been highjacked by the far-right but ours celebrates cultural diversity. I think that’s a really positive sign and symbol for Scotland.

Ok lets have a look at who organised it . Not The annual St Andrews Day march , but the 

The annual St Andrews Day Anti-Racism march

The annual St Andrews Day Anti-Racism march, organised by the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC),

Trade unionists, political activists, and faith and community groups were among the protestors to turn up while Humza Yousaf MSP, Michael McMahon MSP, Zita Holbourne of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh of the Ethnic Minority Women’s Network, and STUC President, Mike Kirby were among the speakers.

And not forgetting the other in this double act

 Holbourne of BARAC added: “I think it’s fantastic there’s an annual event like this in Scotland. It sends out a very clear message that Scottish people will not tolerate fascism or racism.

This annual event Holbourne has been going on for a long time and as far as I remember it had nothing to do whit fascism or racism when it started.

link to story

The Eyes of Asia

Thanks to Cheradenine Zakalwe

 Can't resist some more Enoch Powell quotes. The prescience almost makes you weep.

Indians and others protested last night that a speech by Mr Enoch Powell yesterday to Southall Chamber of Commerce was dangerously inflammatory and damaging to race relations in an area that contains one of the highest concentrations of Indians in the country. Mr Powell said that Asians posed more of a threat to Britain than Black Power. "Our towns and Cities are being taken over and transformed not by the Caribbean but by Asia". he said. "It is by Black Power that the headlines are caught, and under the shape of the Negro that the consequences for Britain of immigration and what is miscalled 'race' are popularly depicted. "Yet it is more truly when he looks into the eyes of Asia that the Englishman comes face to face with those who will dispute with him the possession of his native land."

...Referring to the example of Detroit, Mr Powell quoted a British planner's writing in a professional journal, who found in particular "the polarization of attitudes and locations, fear, lack of contact between various income groups, diminishing contact between black and white populations, go hand in hand with changing locations". Mr Powell prophesied: "The name of that city a generation ahead could be Bradford or Birmingham or London. Yet it need not be. The power of decision is still in our hands, and that power is a power over numbers; but it is a power which grows weaker as each year goes by and which once lost is never to be had again."

Source: The Times, November 5, 1971

Andy's new group are at the American embassy in London on Friday 2nd December @ 12 till 2pm

Funny how this is in no UK papers

London: Schools to tackle genital mutilation

Via Deutsche Welle:

It is estimated that some 20,000 girls in the UK could be subjected to FGM. Each year, 6,500 girls in central London alone could face FGM, making it the city with the highest number of girls at risk in Europe.

Now London hopes to curb the practice by raising awareness through the integration of FGM education in secondary school curriculum. The London Metropolitan Police have teamed up with the agency Kids Taskforce and the local Lilian Baylis School to create a video featuring young girls learning about FGM's consequences through interviewing various authorities. The video is part of an FGM resource pack for teachers and students, and can be downloaded by schools using a password.
"I think it's absolutely vital that boys and girls know about this subject," said Detective Sergeant Vicky Washington from the London Metropolitan Police. "It may not be that they are at risk, but they could be exposed to someone who is. It's also about educating young people that this is happening and that it's child abuse and violence against women and has horrific debilitating effects, both short and long-term."

Gym 'liberates' Muslim women and rest of you infidels can jog on even if it was your money that put it up

Leicester Mercury published Gym 'liberates' Muslim women

A female-only community gym with a focus on attracting Muslim women was officially opened at the weekend. Assistant city mayor Councillor Manjula Sood cut the ribbon to open AK Fitness for Women, in Temple Road, Spinney Hills, on Saturday. The gym's... Full Article at This Is Leicestershire

No point looking the Full Article has been pulled, must have thought better    

Sweden Democrats adds opposition to Islam to party program

Via Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish):

The Sweden Democrats are singling out Islam as the religion which clashes most with Swedish culture. This is the first time the party states its opposition to Islam in its party program.

The new program says as follows: "Islam and particularly its strong political and fundamentalist branch is, according to the view of the Sweden Democrats, a religious ideology which has proven itself to have the most difficulty to harmoniously coexist with Swedish and Western culture. Islamism's impact on Swedish society should therefore be counteracted as much as possible and immigration from Muslim countries with strong elements of fundamentalism should be severely limited."

Christian worker loses her job after being 'targeted' by Islamic extremists

A Christian worker has launched a landmark legal action after she lost her job when she blew the whistle on what she says was a campaign of "race hate" by fundmentalist Muslims.

Nohad Halaoui is claiming that she and other Christian staff were systematically harassed

Nohad Halawi, who worked at Heathrow Airport, is suing her former employers for unfair dismissal, claiming that she and other Christian staff at the airport were victims of systematic harassment because of their religion.

She claims that she was told that she would go to Hell for her religion, that Jews were responsible for the September 11th terror attacks, and that a friend was reduced to tears having been bullied for wearing a cross.

Mrs Halawi, who came to Britain from Lebanon in 1977, worked in the duty-free section as a perfume saleswoman of the airport for 13 years but was dismissed in July.

Her case is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, who say it raises important legal issues and also questions over whether Muslims and Christians are treated differently by employers.

It comes amid growing concern among some Christians that their faith is being marginalised and follows calls from Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for Christians to be given greater legal protection in the wake of a series of cases where they have been disciplined or dismissed for practising their faith.

Read the Rest Here 

BBC reassures us all about Morocco Islamist election win

We shall definitely be following the developments over the next few months and years, and can be certain that the BBC will never retract or admit that they were wrong if the once secular Morocco goes tits up

Arab Times are a changin'

"Your Country Is Finished..."

"Your Country Is Finished..."

François Desouche has posted a copy of a police report ("procès verbal) dated November 7, 2011 from the city of Mantes-la-Jolie. It isn't clear how the report became available to HostingPics where a readable version can be found, except that an anonymous policeman must have uploaded it.

The report first gives the names (which are blackened out) and functions of the officers in charge that afternoon:

We testify that a person dressed all in black, with her face covered, rang the intercom. That she was also wearing black gloves. That she was still covered when she came to the door to inform us that she had come for her daughter who had been arrested for shoplifting.

In order to verify that she was really the mother of the girl, we asked the woman to prove her identity. She then handed us a national ID with the name Nadia……….., born……….

We then took this person into an office separate from the public area and informed her of the law concerning the niqab.

This person immediately replied that she was in her rights under Koranic Law which is her only law.

We asked her then to show her face in order to verify that it was really the person pictured on the ID.

After several minutes, hesitatingly, she agreed to show us a little bit of her forehead and a bit of her chin.

We informed her that covering one's face in a public area was a second degree violation and that the facts would be filed in a police report.

The woman, without allowing us to continue, said that our country is finished and that soon the Muslims will be in power, that Frenchwomen are all whores dressed as they do. That no one , not even the judge will prevent her from dressing this way.

At that moment, the woman began speaking to us in Arabic and refused to speak any more French.

We wanted to inform her of the reason for her daughter's arrest, namely, shoplifting an item worth 100 euros from a cosmetics counter, but she refused to sign the accusation against her daughter, a minor.

The woman then became hysterical and vociferated in the police station saying that we French will not be around much longer, that power will soon be in the hands of the Muslims.

The woman left the police station still vociferating at the admissions desk and swearing that Koranic Law would win.

She left the headquarters with her daughter, her face still covered.

I like comment #7 at François Desouche:

- She's nice. She gives us warning. Now, all we have to do is take a few preventive measures...

Anyone want to organise St George's Day and Christmas.

POPULAR public events attended by thousands of people could be wiped from Horley's calendar.
The town's chamber of commerce has announced it will no longer organise town-centre fairs – on St George's Day, in the autumn and at Christmas.

This year's festive event will go ahead on Saturday to coincide with the Christmas lights switch on, for the final time.

Chamber chairman Fiona Stimpson said: "This is the last fair we are going to organise for the town. If the town wishes to have these fairs, they need to get someone else to organise them.
"We are a chamber of commerce – we are a business organisation.

Read more 

Muslim Medics Boycott Lectures on Darwin and Evolution

Muslim biology students are boycotting lectures about evolution because they conflict with their creationist beliefs, one of Britain’s leading scientists has revealed.

Steve Jones, emeritus professor of human genetics at University College London (UCL), said increasing numbers of his undergraduates were refusing to attend his lectures on evolution and complaining that the subject should not be taught on their course.

“It is a minority of students ... but [the problem] is definitely there and it is definitely growing,” said Jones, who teaches introductory genetics to about 300 first-year students, about a fifth of whom are Muslim.

“I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches ... now it is Islamic, overwhelmingly.”

Jones said he was also aware of trainee doctors on UCL’s medical course, one of the most highly ranked in Britain, who refused to learn about evolution.

He added that refusal to discuss evolutionary science for religious reasons was growing among schoolchildren and a pupil had recently walked out of a talk he was giving on the subject.

Jones’s comments add to a growing row over creationism within British Islam. Increasing numbers of British Muslims believe Darwinism is incompatible with their conviction that Allah created mankind and all the other species in a single act of will after bringing the world into existence.

Earlier this year Usama Hasan, imam of the Masjid al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton, east London, and a senior engineering lecturer at Middlesex University, received death threats after suggesting that Islam and Darwinism could be compatible.

Tensions had risen last December when a Saudi cleric told a congregation in Birmingham that those who believed in evolution were unfit to lead Friday prayers.

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and former Oxford professor, first raised the Muslim boycott of lectures in an interview with the Times Educational Supplement last month.

“Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution — this is almost entirely Muslims,” he said. “I think there’s a very, very pernicious influence that is lasting up to the university years.”

Jones, who is also a founding professor at AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities, said: “They don’t come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn’t have to learn this stuff.”

He said that the students’ reasons for studying biology were “a mystery to me ... I think if you are a creationist you are basically wrong and self-deluding, but you are perfectly at liberty to go and study chemistry or English literature, but why study biology? It makes no sense.

“What they object to — and I don’t really understand it, I am not religious myself — they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God, who knows everything. But anyone who spins a coin knows there are random processes.”

Jones said that a biology or medical student who did not wish to learn about evolution could “probably muddle through, although I hope you would realise you were deluding yourself”.

Inayat Bunglawala, founder of Muslims4UK and formerly a senior figure at the Muslim Council of Britain, blamed the growth of creationist belief among Muslims partly on the campaign of Adnan Oktar, a Turkish author who writes under the name Harun Yahya.

He began his work after studying the success of Christian creationists in America. He links Darwinism to Nazism and his books include The Skulls that Demolish Darwin, which proclaims “the burial of Darwinism as Europe awakens”. Speakers sent by Yahya regularly tour Britain and earlier this year spoke in London, Manchester, Leeds, Dundee and Glasgow. They spoke at UCL in 2008.

Bunglawala said: “He has glossy books and videos, which are heavily promoted by Islamic bookshops and on Islamic TV channels where they are aired many hours a day.”

He added: “It is unfortunate that some Muslim students, when it comes to the opportunity to learn about evolution, boycott them [sic] without even listening or walk out of classes. This goes against the express words of the Koran which are to read, open your mind and use your critical faculties.

“Many Christian thinkers have ... learnt to interpret the Bible in a way which does not in any way negate the teaching of science ... it is important Muslim thinkers perform the same service.”

link

Schools in Oslo Segregated to Stop Exodus of White "Ethnic" Norwegians

Apartheid row at Norwegian school after it segregates ethnic pupils

A political row has broken out in Norway after a secondary school segregated students with ethnic backgrounds in classes away from white Norwegians.

Bjerke Upper Secondary School in Oslo filled one of the three general studies sets solely with pupils with immigrant parents, after many white Norwegians from last year's intake changed schools.

The controversy over the decision has highlighted the unease in Norway over how to integrate the 420,000 "non-Nordic" citizens who immigrated between 1990 and 2009, and who make up 28 per cent of Oslo's population.

"This is the first time I've heard about this, and it is totally unacceptable," Torge Ødegaard, Oslo education commissioner, said on Friday, before pressuring the school to inform parents that the three classes would now be reorganised. The letter to parents read: "Such a division of the students is not in accordance with the requirements of the Education Act. The school regrets this error."

But Robert Wright, a Christian Democrat politician and former head of the city's schools board, struck back, arguing that the authorities had been wrong to block the move. He also said that other Oslo schools should start to segregate classes to prevent a situation of "white flight" developing.

"I think we have to try this to see how it's functioning," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Bjerke School has come up with a radical solution to a real problem, but the politicians have just said 'no'."

He said that the school's decision reflected problems stemming from the high rate of immigration Oslo has seen in recent decades.

The decision only came to the parents' notice earlier this month after Avtar Singh, a Punjabi Norwegian, confronted Gro Flaten, the school's headmistress, on why his son, Gurjot, had no ethnic Norwegian classmates.

"She said straight out that the school had experienced ethnic Norwegian students dropping out if they weren't grouped together in smaller classes," he told Dagsavisen newspaper.

Mrs Flaten told The Daily Telegraph: "We made the decision because many Norwegian students were moving to other schools because they were in classes with such a high percentage of students from other nations. They seemed to be in a minority."

Students at the school have expressed their anger at the segregation. "This is apartheid. They do this because I'm from Africa and my father is from Africa," said Ilias Mohamed, 17, from Somalia, who was part of the immigrant-only class. "But everyone of us is a Norwegian."

Hibba Tudorache, 18, whose parents came to Norway from Romania, said: "The students are really mad about this. It's an insult to those of us who are from other countries. It's discriminatory to put the white Norwegian people before us."

But Helena Skagen, 18, the head girl at the school, said she understood what the school authorities had been trying to do.

"They had the best intentions. They just wanted to keep the Norwegian students at the school. But they now know that what they did was wrong because you can't split the students according to their culture," she said.

Mr Wright added that he believed that the shadow of Anders Breivik, the anti-Islamic extremist who massacred 77 people in Oslo in July, had made discussions of immigration difficult in Norway.

"I think it's a very emotional discussion because of what happened in July, and for that reason politicians don't want to enter the discussion at all, because they are afraid," he said.

link

Awwwww ... Sweet Little Baby Jihad

The picture shows little baby Jihad and his proud Berlin mother. At 6 kilos he is one of the heaviest babies ever born in Germany, and the heaviest known to have been born without an operation. Yes, Jihad really is the baby's name. His father Mohammed from Lebanon insists that the name does not signify Holy War but the idea that he will do his duty to Allah. Jihad is the 14th child born into the family.

Source: Der Spiegel Via: PI

Community rift over undercover police in mosques

Some Muslims feel that non-Muslims posing as members of the faith within a mosque was disrespectful.

Relations between the Muslim community and Greater Manchester Police are being strained after officers infiltrated mosques.

Some Islamic groups have told the BBC Asian Network that they are angry about undercover tactics used in recent counter terror operations.

Police deny relations with the community have deteriorated.

The North West Counter Terrorism Unit carried out an investigation which involved officers posing as Muslims.

They attended prayer meetings and services at a dozen unnamed mosques in Manchester after they befriended four Muslim men for more than a year.

Three of the men, Munir Farooqi, 54, Israr Malik, 24, and Matthew Newton, 29, were convicted of terrorism charges in September. Another man was acquitted.

The court heard Farooqi, a former Taliban fighter, had tried to recruit the undercover policemen to go to Afghanistan to fight British soldiers.

'It's alarming'
 
Malik and Newton worked alongside Farooqi at his bookstall.
Farooqi was given four life sentences, Newton was jailed for six years and Malik was given an indeterminate sentence and told he would serve at least five years.

But the covert nature of the operation has led to tensions between Greater Manchester Police and its Islamic advisory group.

Yasmin Dar, a member of the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Mosques and Community Forum, said: "It's alarming, you've got one community that is being targeted.

"I've not heard of any cases of undercover officers going into churches or synagogues, so why a particular faith? Relations with the police have hit rock bottom. It's created a lot of mistrust with the police."

Imam Habib ur-Rehman says that undercover policing in mosques cannot be supported

 

Another Forum member Rabnawaz Akbar said: "Mosques are a special place for Muslims and when people were told that this had happened they just felt betrayed. It's left a scar on the good relations that had been built over the years."

Ms Dar said this issue, coupled with the police decision to apply to confiscate the home where Farooqi's family live led to all 15 members of the forum walking out of a meeting with the police earlier this month.
At the meeting they had called on the Chief Constable Peter Fahy to reconsider the decision to apply to court for a forfeiture order.

The Muslim Safety Forum, a national organisation which advises the police on issues concerning British Muslims, says the way in which counter terror investigations are carried out must change.

However, Professor Eric Grove, from the Centre for International Security and War Studies at the University of Salford, believes that undercover investigations are necessary, including possible conversions to Islam.

'Part of counter terrorism'
 
"I don't think there's much alternative to the current tactics, in the current circumstances. Human intelligence infiltrating the society from which terrorists, sadly, do come, is a necessary part of any counter terrorism campaign.

"If people are converting for this, you can see why imams find this difficult and unwelcome, but on the other hand it's probably inevitable."

Imam Habib-ur-Rehman, of the Madina Mosque in Levenshulme, says that he feels insulted by the fact that non-Muslims pretended to be part of the faith.

He said: "We will never welcome such people who record our messages secretly, not such undercover activities, definitely not. We will never support them."

I support the police, and I'm against terrorism, but this gives mosques, Muslims and the police a bad name.”

Nomi Khan Worshipper at Manchester Central Mosque

 

Members of the Islamic communities were angered when they heard that police officers had posed as Muslims, he said. He explained that things could have got out of hand had people started to protest on the streets.

"We were disappointed and angry but at the same time we remained peaceful, we tried to remain law abiding - an angry person can do anything."

The Muslim Safety Forum (MSF) represents more than 30 Islamic organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain, Muslim Parliament, Federation of Student Islamic Societies, and mosques.

It offers advice to the Metropolitan Police and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) on Islamic issues. Its counter terrorism spokesman Shamiul Joarder argues Muslims are already taking the lead in the fight against extremism.

"We've seen it through Finsbury Park Mosque - it was the Muslims who took out Abu Hamza."

He says the authorities need the support of the Muslim community in order to counter terrorist activity effectively.

"The police haven't managed to foster positive relationships with the Muslim community, otherwise they could use these channels to get the information they need. This kind of infiltration is not the way forward."
'Praised by the judge'
 
Greater Manchester Police declined to give an interview but issued a statement. It said: "There was simply no other way for this terror network to be uncovered other than the use of undercover officers, and the police were praised by the judge.

"We also do not agree with the view that relations with the Muslim community are at an all-time low - that does not reflect the numerous consultations, forums and public meetings we have had with members of the community since the convictions.

"We accept the forfeiture order is an emotive one and has engendered strong feelings, but the response we had to the convictions themselves was very positive."

Link 

Remember folks, rejection of Islam (refusing to be Islamized) is Islamophobia

Islamophobia group relaunched

A parliamentary group to tackle Islamophobia has been re-launched at Westminster, with the support of MPs from across the political divide. 

The group originally sparked controversy after it was revealed that an anti-Zionist organisation was to act as its secretariat.

The newly reformed All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia was set up last week and will begin work immediately on an inquiry into the extent of anti-Muslim prejudice in Britain today.

The APPG will be co-chaired by Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes; Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Perry Barr, Birmingham; and Stuart Andrew, Conservative MP for Pudsey, Leeds.

MPs voted by 60-2 in July to drop the organisation iEngage from providing administrative support to the group. The Community Security Trust has described the group as having a “troubling attitude to antisemitism”.

The vote followed the resignations of founder co-chairs Lord Janner and Conservative MP Kris Hopkins in February.

Read more here

Denmark: Muslim cousin marriages fills schools for retarded

Latest news from Denmark: "Cousin-cousin marriages fill special schools":

Immigrant children constitute a majority in schools for mentally handicapped and retarded children. The risk of mental and physical disabilities increases significantly when cousins ​​marry each other.

Cousin-marriages are highly prevalent in immigrant communities and this is reflected in the number of immigrant children in schools for the mentally retarded. New figures from Copenhagen shows that special schools for children who are born with disabilities or mental retardation, in several cases have a clear majority of immigrant children

. At Engskolen, Fensmark School and Frederiksgårs School, which are schools for mentally handicapped and mentally retarded children easier, six out of ten children are bilingual.

 This phenomenon is allowed for by Islam's marriage law, which is delineated in Qur'an 4:23-34, making this something for which Sharia opens the door.

Britain and Turkey: a new special relationship

The case for a strong bilateral partnership between Britain and Turkey has never been stronger, writes William Hague. 

 

The President of Turkey was welcomed to Britain by the Queen today amid a spectacle of pomp

 

Last year within three months of becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron arrived in Ankara. When asked "Why Turkey?" and, "Why so soon?" he said: because Turkey is vital for our economy, vital for our security and vital for our politics and our diplomacy.

Turkey is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. A young, energetic and entrepreneurial workforce – over half the population is under 29 years old – is an integral part of the success story. Analysts predict that Turkey will be one of the world’s top ten economies by 2050.

As we recover from the current economic crisis, the case for a strong bilateral partnership between Britain and Turkey has never been stronger.

This week’s State Visit to the UK by Turkey’s President, Abdullah Gul, reminds us that Turkey is a country that is developing a new role and new links for itself, within and beyond existing structures and alliances.

The UK and Turkey have a strong relationship across the range of foreign policy and security issues. Over the last 18 months we have laid firm foundations for that relationship through an ambitious Strategic Partnership which prompted the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to say that relations with the UK had entered a “golden age.” Indeed they have.

Since the Partnership was signed, we have established a UK-Turkey CEO Forum, composed of around 25 of the most senior business figures from our two countries to discuss the strategic issues that will deliver profitable business for the future.

This week’s State Visit provides a platform for forging deeper commercial partnerships. By the end of this year, trade is expected to reach £9 billion, representing a 40% increase since 2009. British companies concerned about falling demand for their products should extend their reach now to Turkey. Many, such as Vodafone, Diageo and Tesco are already doing so.

Turkey is vital for our security: we work together as NATO allies across the world. In Afghanistan, we share the same objectives. Turkish troops and diplomacy are making vital contributions towards the creation of a more secure future, most recently with the valuable discussions at the Istanbul Conference on regional support for Afghanistan. Closer to home, in the Western Balkans we are working together to secure the gains made in the last 16 years to bring stability to the region

Cant be botherd to post the rest ,you read it here

 THE QUEEN HOSTS A HALAL STATE BANQUET

Link

Pakistan Fighting at Political Meeting in London

Have not got a clue what it is over but a fun watch

The fight starts in the 2nd minute when someone jumps up and shouts something about Pakistan.

Video Link

VIDEO: Muslim voices at Occupy London protest

Taji Mustafa visits the UK's biggest tent protest – Occupy London at St Paul's – and explores how Islamic economic principles offer solutions to capitalism's global economic problems.

Norway: Iraqi rape suspect flees, calls police for help in coming back

You cant make this up

Norway: Iraqi rape suspect flees, calls police for help in coming back

Via VG (Norwegian):

A 33-year old Iraqi suspected of multiple rapes has fled Norway, but is in regular contact with the police, saying he wants to come back.

The Iraqi came to Norway in 2005 as an asylum seeker. He is suspected of six attack rapes in Oslo. He fled to his homeland after he came to the police's attention in a rape case in 2010.

He's now in regular contact with the police and calls several times a month to the Oslo department.

"He calls and says he wants to come back to Norway to explain himself. It's a pretty absurd situation," Kristin Rusdal of the Oslo police told VG Nett.

The Iraqi claims he doesn't have the necessary travel document which he needs to return to Norway. The Norway embassy in Jordan offered to assist him to get the documents he needs.

"We wish to bring him back to Norway, but he must obtain an Iraqi passport before he can travel. He claims it's impossible for him to get a passport. The embassy says it's not true," says Rusdal.

Since Norway doesn't have an extradition agreement with Iraq, the police are dependent on the 33 year old coming back voluntarily.

"He can't get an Iraqi passport for various reason. Then he needs to explain himself to the local authorities, which he doesn't want to. My client wonders why the embassy can't issue a temporary entry document for Norway," the 33-year old's lawyer, Randi Spydevold, told VG Nett.

Rusdal says that the embassy has told them he must get an Iraqi passport in any case. Additionally, he wants the embassy to send him the passport by mail, but such a document requires him to show up personally. He needs to help out in order to resolve the issue.

The rape suspect also said he wants to decide the details of his flight to Norway.

The 33 year old is suspected of six rapes in the years 2007-2010. Five are considered assault rapes. The police had secured DNA samples from three of the cases in 2007, but got no match in the registry. It was only when they found a fingerprint in a rape case in 2010 when they linked it to the 33 year old. The Iraqi denied the accusations and was freed due to lack of evidence.

The police took a DNA sample from him before he was released. By the time they got the results, the 33 year old fled the country. He's now wanted by Interpol. The police had gotten information that he's been through Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Romania before he turned up in his homeland.

Church leader: some officials are ‘out to get’ Christians in Britain

Revd Dr Malcolm Brown has warned that sometimes the authorities really are 'out to get' Christians.

Sometimes the authorities really are “out to get” Christians in Britain, a senior figure in the Church of England has warned.
Revd Dr Malcolm Brown said that many groups agreed that a housing trust’s decision to discipline a Christian employee for comments he made about civil partnerships was “crazy” and “bonkers”.
He cited the way Roman Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to either close or ditch their religious ethos as an example of an unnecessary restriction on religious groups.

Tension

Dr Brown, the Church’s Director of Mission and Public Affairs, said: “It’s a constant tension in being a Christian in a country that’s still on the whole comfortable for Christians.
“That said, I think there is a problem. It relates to what I said earlier about power, because when a body that was formerly had its worldview taken as normal for most people, feels it’s no longer in the driving seat, there’s naturally a sense of unease, anxiety and loss.
“Which comes out as a sense of ‘they’re out to get us’. But sometimes they are out to get us.”

Flourish

Dr Brown added: “The case of the Catholic adoption agencies is a locus classicus for all of us of a case where no apparent harm would have been caused for anyone had the decision been made to allow different sorts of adoption agencies to flourish according to their worldview.”
Dr Brown’s stark warning came as he appeared before a parliamentary inquiry, chaired by Gary Streeter MP, into the marginalisation of Christianity.
Last month it emerged that Adrian Smith had been demoted and had his pay slashed by forty per cent after he described the registration of civil partnerships in churches as “an equality too far”.

Bible

In September police officers in Blackpool told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying bible texts, claiming that it breached public order laws.
And Christian registrar Lillian Ladele, a marriage registrar who was disciplined because she asked whether her religious beliefs about same-sex civil partnerships could be accommodated in her workplace, is currently taking her case to Europe.

link

UK 'to remain top Islamic financial centre'

He said many UK universities already offered Islamic finance degrees and UK institutions provided Islamic finance for small- to medium-sized businesses across the country.

So the muslims get interest free loans,Degrees and every one else gets saddled whit big debts, I wonder if non muslims can get these loans ? (think not)

The UK and London will remain the world's leading international and Islamic financial centres, said  British Ambassador Iain Lindsay at a UK roundtable discussion at the WIBC.

'Islamic finance, like every other type of financial activity, benefits from the UK's combination of experience, variety of skills, geographic location, infrastructure, transparency and openness,' he said.

'The UK recognises the tremendous opportunities that Islamic financial services have to offer.
'The latest figures for Sharia-compliant assets in the UK are $19 billion and $1 trillion globally with a potential global growth to $4 trillion.'

'As a leading centre for financial innovation where Islamic structures are constantly being developed, our goal is to position the UK as the global partner of choice for the provision of Islamic financial services.'
'This includes the development of strong partnerships with other centres of Islamic finance, including Bahrain,' he said.
'In the UK we have a proven record of developing and delivering retail domestic and wholesale international investment Islamic financial services and products and the necessary legal and financial skills and expertise to take full advantage of this key market,' he added.

'The UK is in ninth place globally and is the leading Western country and is seeking to consolidate its position as the gateway to Islamic finance in Western Europe.

'We have 22 UK banks which offer Islamic banking of which five are fully Sharia-compliant, more than any other Western country.'

'We have 31 sukuk issues raising $19 billion on the London Stock Exchange and there is a growing focus on the development of Islamic funds.

'There are 34 managed from the UK but asset managers are keen to innovate this market and there are more than 20 law firms supplying specialist services in Islamic finance,' he said.

'The UK is moving Islamic finance from the niche to the mainstream market with world-leading expertise, skills and financial infrastructure to support this dynamic sector,' he added.

He said many UK universities already offered Islamic finance degrees and UK institutions provided Islamic finance for small- to medium-sized businesses across the country.

'All the above demonstrates the strength of the UK and how ideal we are as partners of choice in the development of Islamic finance,' he added.

'The success of WIBC demonstrates that Bahrain is an ideal location for businesses looking to establish themselves in this region,' he added.

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Foreigners own more than half of City

Foreign investors now own more than half of the City of London, a new report has found.

It is the first time more than half of the Square Mile has been in the hands of overseas investors, who have increasingly looked to London’s financial district as a safe haven from the global financial storm.

Foreign ownership of the City has increased markedly since the ‘Big Bang’ some 25 years ago. Just eight per cent of the Square Mile’s office buildings were held by foreigner investors in 1980, but research commissioned by Development Securities shows this figure has increased to 52 per cent this year. Some 45 per cent of the City was held by foreign owners when the last Who Owns the City? report was published in 2006.

Germans are the leading foreign investors in the City, holding 16 per cent of properties in the area, the report said. They are followed by US owners (10 per cent) and Irish investors (four per cent), while Middle Eastern ownership has gone up from two per cent in 2005 to six per cent this year. Japanese ownership has fallen from 11 per cent in 1995 to two per cent this year.

Development Securities chief executive Michael Marx said: “London’s attractiveness to foreign investors has clearly been undeterred by the widespread economic turmoil. City offices are perceived to offer quality and transparency - a ‘safe haven’ for foreign buyers who have, in turn, deepened liquidity in the market. It could be argued that these overseas investors, now in the majority, are critical to future values in the City. The question is: will the level of foreign ownership continue to rise dramatically?”

Foreign buyers have invested more than £26bn in City properties since 2003, according to Marx. They account for two thirds of all investment and put London ahead of New York, Paris and Frankfurt as the world’s biggest destination for inward investment. Overseas investors own more than 44 million sq ft of office space in the City, the report estimates.

The number of private individuals buying up City property has also increased in the last few years, the report said. Some six per cent of City floor space is owned by private foreign investors, a figures that will rise should South African Nathan Kirsh purchase Tower 42 for £290m.

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Thousands of migrants 'disappear' in cities under new official system

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have ‘disappeared’ at the stroke of a pen under a new official counting system.
The method has led to apparent large falls in the numbers of migrants thought to live in London and other major cities.
The change has provoked fury among council leaders who say the immigrant populations of their districts have been grossly underestimated by government statisticians.

Migrants 'disappear': London, Manchester, Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford are among cities who have had 'large downward revisions' from the new counting method

Westminster and Kensington in London, Manchester, Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge are among places thought to have had their estimated populations reduced by many thousands by the Office for National Statistics.
Colin Barrow, Tory leader of Westminster, said: ‘After four years of work supposedly improving migration estimates, the ONS apparently still has little idea how many migrants are in this country or where they live and work.
‘Our incoming migrant population appears to have dropped by 17 per cent over four years; you only have to go out into the bars and restaurants in the West End to see that migrants come to Westminster to live and work in much greater numbers than this.’

More than nine out of ten migrants to the UK live in England, which has become the sixth most crowded major country in the world, the MigrationWatch think-tank said last week.
Last year net migration was 239,000. 
The new estimates method, to be used from next year onwards, uses the same source of immigration statistics the ONS has always used. This is the International Passenger Survey, a check on intentions of arrivals at air and sea ports and on the Eurostar.
From this researchers use a complex formula, based on other official population databases, to estimate the number of yearly arrivals.
Under the new method, this formula has been tweaked, resulting in changes to the estimated numbers arriving at certain towns and cities.

Only 4,000? The new estimate pins the number of migrants in 2009 in Westminster to just 4,000. Tory leader Colin Barrow finds this seriously questionable

Some have fallen while others have risen, but the total remains unchanged.
Westminster’s migrant population has been reduced by 10,000, and Manchester’s and Bristol’s  each by 30,000. According to ONS briefing papers, Kensington and Chelsea, Oxford and Cambridge have had ‘quite large downward revisions’.
Mr Barrow said: ‘We would seriously question the estimate that fewer than 4,000 migrants came to Westminster in the 2009 financial year to seek work.
'We have seen more people registering with doctors and paying council tax in Westminster, so we fail to understand how the government statisticians can be so wrong.’
Councils can lose millions in Treasury grants if Whitehall cuts their population estimates.
The ONS was scheduled to publish papers about the new migration counting system last week, but failed to do so. Some places are said to show a higher count, such as Newham, East London, with a 13 per cent increase.
The ONS declined to comment yesterday.

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EU AGENCY: HEY LET EM ALL IN, ACCESS TO FREE EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE…….

Illegal migrants in the EU are being denied basic rights to education and healthcare, even though governments have a legal obligation to respect them, the 27-nation bloc's watchdog agency said Monday.

"It's very important to remind ourselves that the reason people have human rights is because they are human beings. Human rights do not follow from a work permit or residence permit. The passport to human rights is that you're born," said Morten Kjaerum, head of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights

"I understand why it's difficult for people to comprehend, since these persons are irregular, why they should have rights," Kjaerum told reporters at an EU conference in Poland.

"But we employ irregular migrants as cheap domestic workers to clean our homes. We eat the fruit and vegetables that they pick. We may need them in our hotel business, otherwise hotel prices would be way higher and we'd have fewer tourists," he underlined.

"What we see though it that many member states turn a blind eye to this issue," he added, without singling out countries.

EU and UN accords set out rights to free primary school education and access to basic healthcare -- the two issues in Kjaerum's spotlight.

"These two rights are non-negotiable," applying to citizens and migrants, whether legal or illegal, the Danish trained-lawyer said.

"This is not a moral statement. It is simply law," he added.

"It goes without saying that it's up to member states to decide who should enter their territory and who should be allowed to remain. But as long as people are within the jurisdiction of the member states, they have to protect their basic rights," Kjaerum stressed.

In a report, the EU agency said healthcare rights are "unevenly protected", with children and pregnant women often not getting the free treatment that citizens enjoy.

The right to education "remains unclear in many countries," with free access to state schools only available in five EU nations, it said.

It also warned that police raids in schools and hospitals could drive migrants away.

Illegal migrants are also vulnerable to exploitation by employers, who can get away with physical abuse and failing to pay wages because migrants fear deportation if they seek justice, it noted.

The economic crisis may have worsened the situation, said Kjaerum, saying anecdotal evidence showed "a considerable number" of illegal migrants have "slid from the grey labour market and are now part of the extreme exploitation labour market".

Estimates for the number of illegal migrants in the EU range from 1.9 million to 3.8 million, with the top destinations in descending order being Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Poland.

Such migrants are thought to make up six to 12 percent of the bloc's non-EU-born residents.

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UK Finally Acts to Protect Teens from Muslim Sex Gangs...

Bring these evil men to book: Asian gangs who groom teenage girls for sex to be finally targeted in crackdown

• Catalogue of failures by police and care agencies to protect teenage girls highlighted in report
• Caregivers have suggested that political sensitivities are to blame for failures
• Government will this week publish a National Action Plan to combat child sex exploitation

The Government has finally answered the call to protect vulnerable children in danger of sexual exploitation.

It will, this week, publish a National Action Plan designed to make the issue a 'top priority' for every local authority.

The news comes amid a devastating report into the failures of police and care agencies to protect teenage girls who have been groomed, raped and sold by male gangs, most of whom are Asian.(Muslim)


The mother of one teenager from Leeds, who attempted suicide after a gang rape, said her daughter was the victim of a 'broken system.'

'Everyone failed her,' she told The Times. 'There was no sharing of information.
'They (police) had the names and knew where they (abusers) worked yet the men who did this have never once been arrested or spoken to by the police.'

West Yorkshire Police vowed to look again at the case to see if 'there is evidence that can help bring evil men to book'.

Growing worry: CCTV footage shows now jailed gang members Mohammed Romaan Liaqat and Abid Mohammed Saddique meeting girls as they cruise the streets of Derby in a BMW

Jailed: Saddique, left, and Liaqat, right, were leaders of the paedophile ring in Derby and committed a catalogue of offences against vulnerable young girls

Children's charity Barnardos has been calling on the Government to take action on child exploitation since January with its Cut Them Free campaign.

Other caregivers have also suggested that political sensitivities are to blame for a near paralysis of the systems designed to keep children safe.

JOSIE'S STORY

Like most little girls, Josie lived for horses. She had an exemplary school record with 100 per cent attendance rate.
But at 13, the teen from Keighley, West Yorkshire, was given a laptop and quickly became addicted to Facebook.
Her father was then warned his daughter was spending a lot of time with older Asian men.
One even told the father he would 'slit his throat' when he answered the phone to him.
From there it got worse. Josie started disappearing overnight and began drinking.
Yet, when her father locked his daughter in her room to protect her, it was he who got into trouble with the police for false imprisonment.
He told The Times he has since collected every scrap of evidence to prove his daughter is being sexually exploited by gangs.
'The police kept saying that they're waiting until Josie realises it's wrong,' he said.
'Is that really the best they can do?

CHARLOTTE'S STORY

When the father of 14-year-old Charlotte looked at his daughter's Facebook profile, he discovered 'loads of male, Asian friends.'
Concerned, he started to restrict his daughter's activities. The teen from Keighley, West Yorkshire, then went to live with her mother.
He tracked down all the names and addresses of her friends he believed were involved and passed them on to police.
Meanwhile her school was reporting Charlotte had begun arriving looking 'dirty and extremely thin'.
She was going missing for days at a time, according to agency notes.
By October last year she 'admitted she has slept with different Asian males.'
The police told Charlotte's father they hoped to take action against the men.
That was 17 months ago and he is still waiting.
'There's no will to deal with this issue in Keighley' he said.
'What chance have these kids got if that's the attitude of the police?'

There is a culture 'which assumes that once a girl gets to 14 she's beyond hope of intervention - it's too late,' a source told The Times.
Police and care agencies often say that they cannot take action against suspects without the victim's co-operation.
However, a 2008 protocol established by the force and West Yorkshire's five local authorities states: 'Adults involved in child sexual exploitation... should be treated as child sex abusers and subjected to the full rigour of the criminal law.'

NICOLA'S STORY

Nicola is the only case in six who was groomed by a gang of white men.
The abuse began when she was 12 after a visit to Leeds from her family home in Bradford.
Nicola had thought they were 'really nice people' but by 13 she was doing drugs - 'everything but heroin'.
She was raped twice. The first time she was 'drugged up to the eyeballs' and remembers being dragged into a bedroom and gang raped.
Afterwards her mother took Nicola to the police station, only to be told that 'we don't deal with that here'.
In desperation Nicola's mother took her daughter to New Zealand and away from the gang.
She let her return four months later.
Nicola did return to her old haunts but discovered it wasn't really what she wanted.
'I used to think it was so exciting,' she told The Times. 'But after New Zealand, it was like seeing them with another pair of eyes.'
She hasn't been back since.

Children's minister, Tim Loughton, suggested two weeks ago that the plan will call on councils to act with a 'much greater urgency' to identify victims of sexual exploitation while taking 'robust action against those who commit these appalling crimes.'
As well as the gang rape case of the girl in Leeds, five new cases have been highlighted by The Times' investigation.
No one has been prosecuted for sex exploitation in any of them. Only one of the girls in the six cases had been in care.
One was groomed by white students, but in all the other cases, the perpetrators were Asian, mostly of Pakistani origin.
This pattern of abuse at the hands of male Asian gangs in the West Yorkshire area has been highlighted before, but never formally acknowledged. 
In January the Asian ringleaders of a gang in Derby, who brought a ‘reign of terror’ to a city’s streets, targeting and grooming young girls for horrific sexual abuse, were jailed.
Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat were told they would serve a minimum of 11 years and eight years respectively before they could be considered for release.
A DfE spokesman refused to reveal the contents of the National Action Plan but said: 'We are publishing an action plan this week and that will draw on work around the country to prevent sexual exploitation, identify those at risk and support victims.
'It will address the challenge of securing prosecutions and the need for robust action against perpetrators.
'Child sexual exploitation is an appalling form of child abuse and we are determined to do everything possible to stamp it out. '

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Denmark: Kindergarten cancels Christmas church service

Denmark: Kindergarten cancels Christmas church service

Via Frederiksborg Amts Avis (Danish):

The Ørnevang kindergarten will not participate in the traditional Christmas service at Lillerød church this year. The kindergarten decided to cancel its participation out of consideration for the non-Christian children.

Local priest Carsten Mulnæs asks why children from culturally-open Muslim families and all other families are being deprived of a piece of Danish Christmas tradition, just because several families or teachers do not want to expose the children to benedictions.

Manager Susan Lund Andersen says that the kindergarten has many Muslim children who weren't able to participate in the event because their parents did not want their children to participate in prayer or benedictions in the Church of Denmark.

Susan Lund Andersen also met with Danish parents who don't want their children to get a benediction, where the family is not a member of the church of Denmark. She says they decided it should be the parents' responsibility to take their children to whatever service they prefer.

the issue will now be discussed by the board.

Secret Video Shows Egyptian Police, Security Staging Attack on Copts

Millions of people world-wide have seen videos of Egyptian Army trucks chasing and crushing Christian protesters under their wheels during the events of the Maspero Massacre on October 9, which claimed the lives of 27 and injured 329 Christians (AINA 10-10-2011).

The ruling military council has denied that military forces used live ammunition against the Maspero protesters, or that personnel intentionally used armored vehicles to run over civilians. After blaming the Copts for using firearms, they later changed their story and put the blame on "unidentified" civilians who infiltrated the demonstrations, targeting both the peaceful protesters and the military police to cause a rift between the military council and the people. In all of its statements the military has cleared the army of any wrong-doings.

Evidence during the Maspero Massacre have now emerged which exposes the military police and state central security of committing other grave abuses against the Copts. "These are war crimes," says Dr. Emad Gad, a scholar at Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, "and Field Marshal Tantawi is responsible for it. He who issued this order should be prosecuted."

Video evidence has emerged proving that the so-called "unidentified" civilian element, or "thugs" as they are sometimes called and who are increasingly implicated in crimes by the authorities to shift the blame away from themselves, worked together with the military police and central security during the Maspero massacre.

Although the assailants in the footage were careful not to be caught on camera, Muslim activist Galal Mohannad was on his way to Maspero when he stumbled on the evidence and secretly taped it on his phone, risking his life in the process. He passed through this road with its inspection points because he is a Muslim. On YouTube he titled it "Bloody Sunday, thugs, police and army…one hand."

Coptic activist Mark Ebeid said that "thugs are either security personnel in civilian clothes, or ex-prisoners on the security and police's list of dangerous criminals and they hire them to kill or do any dirty work for them, or radical Muslims, who are only to eager to oblige the police and satisfy their desire to kill Christians."

Renowned TV commentator Bilal Fadl of the independent Tahrir TV aired this footage of how the thugs were intercepting Copts in the streets and how on orders of the security they even went into the Hilton hotel and dragged Copts out. He also commented on how they were waiting for the Coptic demonstrators to arrive to attack them (video).

Details of another Maspero incident were given in an article written by well-known journalist and TV personality Yosry Foda. The article was titled the "Egyptian Schindler," an analogy of the German businessman Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.

According to a Muslim owner of a company based in Maspero at the site of the Coptic massacre, he struggled to walk past the wounded, the dead and the human remains that filled the entrance of the company's building and the narrow corridor leading to the stairs.

When he went up to his office, he saw the look of horror among the workers and on the faces of some forty Copts, including a priest, who had sought shelter there. The staff told him of how the military police, armed with machine guns, broke into the company's headquarters in search of Copts. The Christians were hidden in the restrooms. Some Muslim employees in the company gave their ID cards to the Christians to hide their true identity.

The man and his staff spent the first night guarding the Copts who were hidden in the restrooms. From time to time the military police came for a surprise inspection, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by people in plain clothes.

The man periodically visited the Copts and provided them with food and drink. They began to formulate a plan to sneak out of the building using the rear entrance, in twos and threes, and a cover story should they be stopped in the street.

Some Christians agreed to say they were on their way to early morning prayers at the mosque. This continued for about forty-eight hours, during which the man succeeded in secretly bringing out all Copts safely except the pastor. Despite repeated attempts the pastor refused to change his religious attire.

After describing this incident in his article, Fouda addressed the ruling the Supreme Council of the armed forces: "tell us that members of the military police have lost their nerve amid the chaos and committed a mistake.

Tell us, when they ran over their brothers, they did not believe that this is 'halal' [lawful]. Tell us that the heirs of the state security when they looked at the religion on the ID they were deceived, misguided, corrupt. You simply must tell us you made a mistake, this is more honorable for you, us and the whole country."

The military police stormed the Maspero headquarters of the independent News Channel 25 and Al-Hurra TV, which were airing the clashes live and were forced off air (video showing the storming of both stations). The military police told the staff they were looking for Copts, which is evident in this footage.
By Mary Abdelmassih

The return of France’s polygamous Muslim butcher

France’s infamous ‘polygamous Muslim butcher’ was back in the headlines today, this time because two of his supposed wives were caught wearing the niqab, or full Muslim veil, on the school run. The development is the latest twist in a surreal tale that we have yet to hear the last of.

The Halal butcher owner from the western city of Nantes, who has been accused over the past few years of polygamy, terrorist activity, aggravated rape and benefit fraud, is back in the French press again. This time, Lies Hebbadj is in trouble on behalf of two of his partners, who were caught wearing the niqab in public (illegal under French law since April), and fined 140 euros each.


Hebbadj outside court on Monday with his legal wife and one of his mistresses (AFP).

Hebbadj first made it into the headlines in April 2010 when his legal wife was arrested for wearing a niqab while driving a car, which the police deemed dangerous. Ticking every box on the ‘unwelcome immigrant checklist’ (despite arriving in France at the age of two), he effortlessly embodied the far-right’s raison d’etre and shot to fame as the ‘polygamous Muslim butcher from Nantes’. The accusations – that he had travelled to Pakistan to train as a terrorist, lived with four women, had dozens of children, was running an Islamist sect – soon started to fly.

So when he was actually charged with welfare fraud in June that year, and then aggravated rape two months later, the real charges were overshadowed by the array of fantastic rumours drummed up by the rightwing press.

The situation was not helped by Hebbadj’s twisted sense of humour. When then interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, threatened to take Hebbadj’s French passport away from him for practicing polygamy in the summer of 2010, he laughed off the claims by arguing that he had one legal wife and three mistresses – what could be more French than that? “If I’m stripped of my nationality for having mistresses, they’ll have to strip a lot more people here in France,” he told reporters with a smirk.


Hebbadj taking his dog for a walk in April (AFP).

Born in Algeria in 1975, Hebbadj became a French citizen when he was married in 1999. According to his neighbours, he’s a quiet resident who spends his evenings visiting his female friends (presumably his mistresses – they’re all single mothers who wear the niqab but continue to produce offspring). While he is accused of Islamist dealings, local Muslim leaders argue he is more interested in cars and women than Islam, which they say he employs as “a costume that he puts on to seduce women”.

On Monday, Hebbadj returned to the spotlight when he turned up at court to represent his wife and mistress. Accompanied by a posse of fans to protest against the charges, the ‘criminals’ themselves had to wait outside, for the same infraction that got them arrested in the first place (they were wearing the niqab). Hebbadj told the judge he was happy to attend the hearing because it meant he could appeal the sentences and request to be heard in a court of human rights (without specifying one in particular).

The ruling UMP party was probably delighted to see Hebbadj back in the papers – he could prove a useful tool in the run-up to the presidential election. Nicolas Sarkozy has shown a willingness to upset the country’s 5 million-strong Muslim community if it means winning back far-right voters who are siding with the more hardline National Front party. With his distinctive attire, niqab-clad harem and snarky sense of humour, Hebbadj is the perfect excuse for a hardline approach to immigration.

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Eighth wonder of the world? The stunning temples secretly carved out below ground by 'paranormal' eccentric

Nestling in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, 30 miles from the ancient city of Turin, lies the valley of Valchiusella. Peppered with medieval villages, the hillside scenery is certainly picturesque.
But it is deep underground, buried into the ancient rock, that the region's greatest wonders are concealed.
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Hall of the Earth: An amazing room built on the 'supernatural' visions of its creator

Here, 100ft down and hidden from public view, lies an astonishing secret - one that has drawn comparisons with the fabled city of Atlantis and has been dubbed 'the Eighth Wonder of the World' by the Italian government.
For weaving their way underneath the hillside are nine ornate temples, on five levels, whose scale and opulence take the breath away.
Constructed like a three-dimensional book, narrating the history of humanity, they are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Big Ben is 15,000 cubic feet.
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Light fantastic: The giant glass dome of the Hall of Mirrors

Play time: Children look happy in the amazing surroundings

Few have been granted permission to see these marvels.
Indeed, the Italian government was not even aware of their existence until a few years ago.
But the 'Temples of Damanhur' are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.
It all began in the early Sixties when Oberto Airaudi was aged ten. From an early age, he claims to have experienced visions of what he believed to be a past life, in which there were amazing temples.
Around these he dreamed there lived a highly evolved community who enjoyed an idyllic existence in which all the people worked for the common good.
More bizarrely still, Oberto appeared to have had a supernatural ability: the gift of "remote viewing" - the ability to travel in his mind's eye to describe in detail the contents of any building.
"My goal was to recreate the temples from my visions," he says.
Oberto - who prefers to use the name 'Falco' - began by digging a trial hole under his parent's home to more fully understand the principals of excavation.
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Breathtaking: The miles of tunnels enable air to circulate

House of secrets: Below this house is the Damanhurian temple which is one of the largest temple complexes in the world

But it was only as he began a successful career as an insurance broker that he began to search for his perfect site.
In 1977, he selected a remote hillside where he felt the hard rock would sustain the structures he had in mind.
A house was built on the hillside and Falco moved in with several friends who shared his vision. Using hammers and picks, they began their dig to create the temples of Damanhur - named after the ancient subterranean Egyptian temple meaning City of Light - in August 1978.
As no planning permission had been granted, they decided to share their scheme only with like-minded people.
Volunteers, who flocked from around the world, worked in four-hour shifts for the next 16 years with no formal plans other than Falco's sketches and visions, funding their scheme by setting up small businesses to serve the local community.
By 1991, several of the nine chambers were almost complete with stunning murals, mosaics, statues, secret doors and stained glass windows. But time was running out on the secret.
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Hall of Spheres: Creator Oberto Airaudi based his creation on wonderful visions

Bright window: The window decorations have a church-stained window theme

The first time the police came it was over alleged tax evasion and still the temples lay undiscovered. But a year later the police swooped on the community demanding: "Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside."
Falco and his colleagues duly complied and opened the secret door to reveal what lay beneath.
Three policemen and the public prosecutor hesitantly entered, but as they stooped down to enter the first temple - named the Hall of the Earth - their jaws dropped.
Inside was a circular chamber measuring 8m in diameter.
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Hall of mirrors: The hall has a classical Greek feel

Egyptian wall paintings: Damanhurian art is greatly influenced by both Egyptian and Celtic sytles

A central sculpted column, depicting a three dimensional man and woman, supported a ceiling of intricately painted glass.
The astonished group walked on to find sculpted columns covered with gold leaf, more than 8m high.
Stunned by what they had found, the authorities decided to seize the temples on behalf of the government.
"By the time they had seen all of the chambers, we were told to continue with the artwork, but to cease further building, as we had not been granted planning permission," says Esperide Ananas, who has written a new book called Damanhur, Temples Of Humankind.
Retrospective permission was eventually granted and today the 'Damanhurians' even have their own university, schools, organic supermarkets, vineyards, farms, bakeries and award-winning eco homes.
They do not worship a spiritual leader, though their temples have become the focus for group meditation.
'They are to remind people that we are all capable of much more than we realise and that hidden treasures can be found within every one of us once you know how to access them,' says Falco.

New research on 'Representation of Muslims in the British press'

Academics at Lancaster University have completed an ESRC financed research project on ‘The representation of Muslims in the British press 1998-2009'. The researchers analysed over 200,000 media articles written on Islam and Muslim over the eleven year period. The research is the most extensive study done to date and is in the same vein as earlier studies such as the Cardiff University report of 2008, ‘Images of Islam in the UK: The Representation of British Muslims in the National Print News Media 2000-2008’ and a further ESRC/AHRC funded research project on ‘Media portrayals of religion and the secular sacred’ led by Professor Kim Knott and Dr Elizabeth Poole (2010). The study, conducted by Dr Paul Baker, Professor Tony McEnery and Dr Costas Gabrielatos, reiterates key findings from other studies reinforcing claims of media bias towards fringe groups at the expense of mainstream Muslims, and on word association with Islam and Muslims engendering negative connotations with the religion and its adherents. From the research summary paper: “A Lancaster University research team led by Dr. Paul Baker and funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council, has collected and analysed over 200,000 newspaper articles written about Islam and Muslims between 1998 and 2009. This amounted to 143 million words of journalism which was analysed by the team using computer software to search for and identify language patterns across the articles in order to give an idea of the most frequent ways that Muslims are written about. Generally, the team found that the majority of representations took care not to make over-generalising statements about Muslims in an overtly negative way, although some tabloids did use headlines such as MUSLIMS TELL BRITISH: GO TO HELL! (Daily Express, November 4th, 2010), BBC PUT MUSLIMS BEFORE YOU! (The Star, October 18th, 2006), MUSLIM SCHOOLS BAN OUR CULTURE (Daily Express, February 20th, 2009). “More generally expressly negative, and at times vituperative, were a few columnists, especially in The Sun newspaper. For example, Julie Burchill (The Sun June 24th, 2009), on Muslim women who wear the veil wrote: ‘We let shroud-swishing zombies flout OUR standards of freedom and tolerance every day.’ Jeremy Clarkson (The Sun, June 30th, 2007) wrote: ‘the "Muslim community" was allowed to parade through London urging passers-by to blow up a skyscraper and behead the infidels’ and John Gaunt(The Sun June 20th, 2008)wrote ‘we wasted thousands in legal aid on silly little misguided Muslim girls to take schools to court for the right to dress like a Dalek in a full veil’. Yet, in the past, complaints about patently Islamophobic columnists to the Press Complaints Commission have resulted in the response: ‘The column clearly represented a named columnist’s personal view and would be seen as no more than his robust opinions’ – a defence that some newspapers and columnists have clearly exploited. “More common than the expressly negative representation of Muslims, was a more subtle set of implicitly negative representations, with Muslims often being ‘collectivised’ via homogenising terms like ‘Muslim world’ and written about predominantly in contexts to do with conflict, terrorism and extremism. For example, collectively, when a British newspaper mentioned the word Muslim/Muslims an ‘extreme belief’ word like extremist or fanatic occurred next to it about 1 in 20 cases (proportionally, The Guardian wrote least about extremist Muslims only writing about them 1 in 36 times - at the opposite end of the spectrum The People had extremists as 1 in 8 examples of all mentions of Muslims). Interestingly, however, the British press couldn’t decide for some time what to call Muslim extremists. Back in 1998 they were hardliners, although they had changed into fanatics by 2001. Militants took over between 2002-6, slightly overlapping with the rise of radicals from 2004-8. Starting in 2005, the press slowly settled on extremists. This is a general picture - individual newspapers had their favourite terms: The Times also used zealots while some of the red-tops sometimes opted for muppets, sheep, lowlife and cretins. Overall, references to extremist Muslims were much higher than to ‘moderate’ ones. For every one moderate Muslim mentioned, 21 examples of extremist Muslims are mentioned in the British press. It is also interesting to note that so-called ‘moderate Muslims’ often got praised in a way which implies they are good because they aren’t fully Muslim. “Explicit references to extremism were also found next to the word Islamic 1 in 6 times across all the newspapers – indeed it is likely that Islamic is now difficult to use in a neutral way as it is so heavily laden with negative overtones and disapproval. “The Daily Mail caused consistent and known offence by spelling Muslim as Moslem; up until 2003, The Mail and The Express regularly wrote about Moslems. The spelling has a pronunciation which sounds like the Arabic word for ‘oppressor’, and the Muslim Council wrote to both newspapers asking them to spell it Muslims in future. The Express complied, but The Daily Mail continued with Moslem for about a year after that, being the last newspaper to abandon the spelling. Where The Mail did occasionally write approvingly of Muslims it was when it played one social group off against another as in the story ‘Driven out by the Gay Mafia: Leading Scots Muslim forced to quit charity group after objections to his support for traditional family values’. (Daily Mail, June 15, 2006). “Overall the project highlighted a serious journalistic problem – Muslims who just get on with their lives aren’t seen as newsworthy, so it’s the likes of Abu Hamza who are more likely to attract press attention. Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims, is written about much less than troubled yet less populous areas such as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Yet when newspapers write about a minority group like Muslims, if they focus on a violent subset of that group, there is the danger that the majority suffer guilt by association. In a climate where the UK can spawn a group like the English Defence League, a wider set of representations of Islam would signify a welcome change to reporting practices. Muslims deserve a better press than they have been given in the past decade.” This research summary is for the forthcoming publication ‘Discourse Analysis and Media Bias: The representation of Islam in the British Press’ by Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C. and McEnery A. (2012, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).