Police have arrested a bus driver who allegedly called a woman passenger a Muslim terrorist and asked her if she had put a bomb on his bus. An investigation was launched by First Buses in Leeds after Turkish-born Hatice McGraffin, 29, claimed a driver made the inflammatory remarks as she boarded her bus on Thursday morning.

Cafe worker Mrs McGraffin claimed he said: “‘You are an Islamic terrorist – you have put a bomb on the bus’. I asked people on the bus ‘are you listening to this’ but they ignored me. I am not even a practicing Muslim and I am married to an Englishman. I got off the bus and went to work but I couldn’t work. I was crying so much and my hands were shaking, I had to go home. This is the first time this has happened to me in my life. There are lots of Muslim people living in this country, does he think they are all terrorists?”

Yorkshire Evening Post, 23 January 2010

Imams and religious scholars from hundreds of Muslim organisations will gather in Birmingham on Saturday, 23rd January to discuss the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim attacks in the UK and across Europe. We are pleased to announce that Wes Streeting, President of the National Union of Students and Salma Yaqoob, Birmingham City Councillor will be present and take part in the meeting.

Convened by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the meeting will note with deep regret and concerns that Islamophobia is becoming largely acceptable and tolerable due to the silence from our political leaders and by some sections of the media. This further enhances the legitimacy to ignore the concerns of the British Muslim community and increases the possibility of more anti-Muslim violence. Due to the lack of any clear policy or directive by the government, it has emboldened the far right groups, who are now increasingly targeting Muslims and their places of worship with virtual impunity.

MCB press release, 22 January 2010

A vocal minority of bigots are responsible for Amir Khan’s decision to move to the US

By John Wight

Morning Star, 20 January 2010

Good luck to Amir Khan with his decision to sign with Golden Boy and re-focus his career in the United States from now on. There are undoubtedly many reasons for the young Bolton fighter’s decision, but money surely isn’t one of them – not for a young man who’s already made more than enough in his short career thus far.

Nor will it be because he’s been unhappy with his relationship with Frank Warren, the man responsible for shepherding his pro career since he returned to Britain with an Olympic silver medal from the games in Athens back in 2004. Indeed, he deserves much credit for bringing Khan on the way he has, especially after his one defeat at the hands of Breidis Prescott in 2008.

After such a devastating KO Khan’s confidence would inevitably have been shaken and lesser promoters might have struggled to coax him through the inevitable months of depression and doubts which followed. That Khan has bounced back from that low point in such convincing style is in no small way a credit to Warren, who never for a second lost belief in his protege, even when the knives were out among the British boxing literati. That said, lest people start to get the impression that Warren is running a Christian charity, his relationship with Khan has earned him a pretty penny over the years, which should help to sweeten the bitter pill of losing him to pastures new.

In a pure boxing sense the timing of this move could not be better. Since decamping to LA to train under Freddie Roach, Khan has embraced both Freddie’s training regimen and the southern Californian lifestyle, where year-round sunshine sits in stark contrast to the British winter weather which this year has been bad enough to make the South Pole seem like a better alternative. Gone are early winter mornings trussed up in three layers in order to venture out for roadwork, having to summon up every ounce of determination in order to do so without questioning your sanity.

There’s also the mouth-watering prospect of being matched against and beating the sport’s elite, winning the respect of what remains the most educated and sophisticated boxing public there is at the same time. Khan’s incredible speed and rate of improvement under Roach put both of the aforementioned well within his grasp over the next few years and it will be interestesing to see how his career progresses as a result.

However, we should not fall into the trap of fooling ourselves that boxing is the only reason for Khan’s decision to cut his ties with Britain. In fact, there is reason to believe that boxing isn’t the main reason. Regardless of those who think otherwise, the world of sport does not exist in isolation from the world around it and in Britain anti-Muslim racism has poisoned society to the point where it’s impossible to pick up a newspaper or watch the TV news without a negative stereotype of Muslims or Islam staring back at you.

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