The recent British elections resulted in the defeat of the Labour Party government after 13 years in power and the emergence of a new Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition, the first of its kind in over 30 years...
Britain goes to the polls on May 6, to elect the government that is expected to run the country for the next five years. Unlike most elections in recent years, the contest is genuinely too close for the results to be predicted...
To be a European Muslim by Tariq Ramadan. Pub: The Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK, 1999. Pp: 272. Pbk: £5.95.
The NPT was opened for signatures in 1968. Initially, the US, Soviet Union, Britain and 59 other countries signed the treaty...
The officers involved here stand accused of holding the heads of victims inside a toilet and repeatedly flushing it, as part of their interrogation.
“You’re going to remember this day for the rest of your life” — these words were uttered by anti-terror police officers to intimidate and terrify British Muslim Babar Ahmad during the brutal assault inflicted upon him in a pre-dawn raid on his home on December 2, 2003. They were right; Ahmad never forgot that day and spent the last five years struggling to ensure that it would live in the memories of the British public forever.
On November 12, the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, Interpal received notification from their bank, the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB), that Lloyds TSB (their clearing bank) had served notice on IBB to cease all dealings with Interpal. Clearing banks are responsible for processing all financial transactions.
On September 8, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court found three Muslim men, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, guilty of conspiracy to murder using home-made bombs. Four of their co-defendants, Arafat Khan, Waheed Zaman, Ibrahim Savant and Umar Islam, had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance.
In recent months, politics in the UK has been dominated by debate over how long the authorities should be allowed to hold suspected terrorist before they are charged or released. Fahad Ansari points out that in fact many Muslims are already held for years in British jails without trial.
Deciding who and who not to talk to has always been a strategy used by those in power against those they seek to control. FAHAD ANSARI discusses the attempts of the British government to find or establish an acceptable leadership for the British Muslim community.
That the world is a nasty place is not in doubt; what is seldom admitted is the depth of the plight of the oppressed, especially Muslims, and the level of hypocrisy that passes for the rule of law and international order. The militarily powerful oppress and terrorize the weak under the guise of fighting “terrorism”, while the rich exploit the poor in the name of progress.
When it hit the airwaves in 1996, Al-Jazeera took the Arab world by storm. Compared to the sterile reporting of government-controlled channels in the Arab world, Al-Jazeera came as a breath of fresh air, although the better informed knew this was a mirage. Al-Jazeera was slick and took on some subjects (though not all) that the rest of the Arab media dared not broach.
Despite its traditional reputation for tolerance and multiculturalism, the British government, like all colonial powers, has a long history of trying to impose meanings and leaders on Islam and Muslims. FAHAD ANSARI discusses the latest strategy being promoted in Britain, as a time when Muslims are under increasing pressure.
Ramadan 1427 provided enough evidence of the truth in Allah’s words for any Muslim to solidify his or her faith. Almost daily for about three weeks, minister after minister, newspaper after newspaper, commentator after commentator voiced opinions about the “Muslim problem” and how to solve it.
This month, the Islamic Human Rights Commission will publish a detailed critique of the British government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation, written by FAHAD ANSARI. Here we publish an extract focussing on the targeting of “extemism”.
On August 24 the British government announced details of new measures to be taken against foreign Muslims living in Britain. Foreign Muslims will be deported from Britain, or not permitted to enter the country in the first place, if they are considered by the government to be “fostering hatred or fomenting, or glorifying terrorist violence”.
As soon as it became clear that the chaos on London’s public transport on the morning of July 7 was the result of something rather more than the usual maintenance problems, Muslims inBritain knew that they would come under immense pressure if it was confirmed that Muslims were responsible, as most observers immediately suspected.
The timing could hardly have been better: within days of Tony Blair’s confirming that Britain’s general elections will be held on May 5, an illegal immigrant from Algeria was convicted at the high court of what government officials, police and the media described as an international conspiracy, planned by al-Qai’da, to manufacture ricin poison and use it for a mass terrorist attack in London.
Three British Muslimahs made headlines last month when they were arrested by the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem and accused of involvement in terrorism, before being cleared...
Three British Muslimahs made headlines last month when they were arrested by the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem and accused of involvement in terrorism, before being cleared...