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Category Archives: UK
Finding jobs ‘not easy’ for Muslim graduates
Muslim students are finding it harder to break into the job market than other graduates, government figures revealed today.
The minister for employment, Margaret Hodge, revealed that 76% of Muslim graduates of a working age are in jobs compared with 87% among all graduates.
Ms Hodge, who chairs the cross-government ethnic minority employment taskforce, told a seminar in London today: “Ensuring everybody has equal access to work is not just morally right – it’s good for business and the economy because it means we are making the most of our talents.”
She added: “But these figures show that some employers are missing out and too many graduates from ethnic minority communities are being left behind.”
Sarwar in talks after city bombs
Glasgow MP Mohammed Sarwar has told the prime minister that more must be done to engage young Muslims in mainstream British life.
Mr Sarwar was part of a delegation of senior Muslims who met Tony Blair to discuss the London bombings.
The Labour MP said they were united in the fight against terrorists.
A task force will look at the problem of young Muslims feeling disconnected – a move greeted with scepticism by the Muslim Association of Britain.
Mr Sarwar said the Muslim community in Scotland was in a “state of shock” after the bombings in London.
GALHA calls on home secretary to ban Qaradawi
GALHA’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “As well as supporting extremist positions on many sensitive issues, notably suicide bombing, Dr Qaradawi is virulently homophobic. He is not the sort of person who should be welcomed here at any time, let alone at a time when the country is reeling from the kind of extreme violence that is spawned by his religion. We are particularly concerned about the incitement to violence and hatred that his preaching brings. There should be no room for bigots like him in our pluralist society.”
Ken: Why West must take share of the blame
Ken: Why West must take share of the blame
Evening Standard, 19 July 2005
Ken Livingstone today suggested that decades of western intervention in the Middle East and the Iraq war may have an impact on the bombers. The Mayor pointed to abuses of captured Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by American forces. He said the ban on moderate Muslims, such as former singer Cat Stevens, from entering the United States would also have contributed. He said the war on Iraq ‘wouldn’t have helped’ and said the CIA had funded Osama bin Laden to fight against Soviet forces only for him to turn against the West.
Giving his first City Hall press conference since the London bombings, Mr Livingstone said: “We created these people. We built them up. We funded them. This has been a terrible legacy. This will all have some impact on how these young men’s minds were formed. This particular strand of extremism was funded by the West in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was just another businessman until he was recruited by the CIA. I suspect the real problem was that we funded these people, as long as they were killing Russians. We gave no thought to the fact that when they stopped killing Russians they might start killing us.”
He also revealed that controversial Muslim preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was banned from entering the US and who was reported to be attending a conference in Manchester next month, was in fact not going to attend. The Mayor’s office recruited an Arabic speaker to contact Al-Qaradawi’s office and was told that the sheikh was “unaware of any invitation to come to Britain”.
Mr Livingstone, who met Al-Qaradawi at City Hall last year, also said academics described him as a “leading progressive Muslim”.
Controversial cleric to visit UK
Mohammed Umer, of the Ramadhan Foundation, said the invitation to Dr Qaradawi had been sent in January and there was no reason to rescind it following the London bombings. “What’s actually happened in London, we condemn it, yet the reality of Youssef al Qaradawi is that he is the flag bearer of moderation in the Muslim world,” he said. “We agree with people and we disagree with people. For example, Nelson Mandela, when he was in prison, he was labelled as a terrorist but when he came out he became a freedom fighter. Youssef al Qaradawi is the same person who, after the London events, came out and clearly stated that it was un-Islamic.”
Another right-wing call to ‘rethink our multicultural society’
“Those close to Blair say it is now time to ask whether multiculturalism is to blame – and to accept that pockets of Muslim Britain have been allowed to become isolated and radicalised, thinking they live in an enemy state.
“It is a sign of the paucity of debate in Britain that multiculturalism is used interchangeably with ‘immigration’. It is, instead, a specific form of immigration where the foreigners are not encouraged to integrate. The alternative is the ‘melting pot’ method of integrationism used by the United States, whose newcomers must learn English, salute the flag and sign up to a set of values. They must buy into a basic idea that they have to belong. This would be seen as cultural imperialism in Britain, where a mosaic-style of immigration has been preferred. The natural consequence has been segregated ghettos – and pockets of radicalism, left alone to seethe.”
Fraser Nelson in Scotland on Sunday, 17 July 2005
Tariq Ramadan ‘urges violence for Islam’, claims Standard
Another hysterical attack on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, from the Evening Standard. Dr al-Qaradawi, Tariq Ramadan and Azzam Tamimi of MAB are bracketed with Abu Qatada and Omar Bakri as “urging violence for Islam”.
Ken welcomes cleric who backed bombers
by Joe Murphy and Isabel Oakshott
Evening Standard, 18 July 2005
Ken Livingstone today backed an extreme Muslim cleric despite mounting calls to ban him from Britain. The Mayor said there was nothing wrong with allowing Yusuf al-Qaradawi to visit London to give a lecture.
The Egyptian-born scholar is banned from the US after praising suicide bombers as martyrs and vilifying Jews and homosexuals.
The Government is under intense pressure to stop allowing Islamic radicals to enter Britain – with a damning report today claiming extremists have been allowed to flourish in London. But today the Mayor said that the scholar should be given a voice in the wake of the London bombings.
Al-Qaradawi has been invited to make a speech to an Islamic conference in Manchester on 7 August. The 79-year-old was at the centre of uproar last year when Mr Livingstone welcomed him to City Hall despite protests. Demonstrations were mounted by a coalition of Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and gay people. His latest visit to London will fuel criticism that the Government is playing into the hands of terrorists.
However, the Mayor says that Al-Qaradawi has condemned the London bombings. Asked if he would be welcoming the cleric again, Mr Livingstone today refused to give a direct answer. But he issued a statement which read:
“London at this time urgently needs people in all communities, above all in the Muslim community, who unequivocally condemn the bombings in London on 7 July and help us to isolate, find and deal with those considering further atrocities. I am for banning anyone who supports or is any way equivocal about condemning the terrorist attacks on London.”
Mr Livingstone said he was satisfied that Al-Qaradawi had condemned the atrocity as being wholly incompatible with Islam. He went on: “I believe it important that Britain’s Islamic community hears, through every means possible, condemnation of this from leading Islamic figures and urge them to speak out with all the means they possess on this issue.”
Declare war on economic jihad, urges Mail’s Israel correspondent
Matthew Kalman, the Daily Mail‘s correspondent in Israel, asserts that the London bombings require a ban on fundraising for charities linked to Hamas and Hezbollah. Difficult to see the logic of that, given that neither Hamas nor Hezbollah had anything to do with the London bombings – indeed, both organisations have unequivocally condemned the attacks. Needless to say, the Mail also tries to implicate Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie: ‘There can never be justification for killing civilians’
The Independent interviews Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB.