News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and North America
On 29th July, Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine were fatally stabbed while attending a dance class in Southport. The horrifying incident sparked the worst unrest in UK in a decade. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg55we5n3xo) Misinformation spread that the attack was conducted by a 17-year-old Muslim immigrant, who fled to UK
Writing in The Telegraph, Ed Husain says that the case of Anjem Choudary, the Islamist hate preacher who is due to be released from jail next month, demonstrates that the West “still has no answer to the Islamist ideal of the Caliphate”. He goes onto suggest that the discourse of the Labour leadership is fuelling Islamist extremism.
The former leader of the far-right group the English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson, has been jailed for thirteen months for breaking contempt of court laws with a Facebook Live video that could prejudice an ongoing trial. His supporters have protested his imprisonment, and Donald Trump Jr. has leant his support to their cause.
Sunday 6th May 2018 saw two to three thousand people march through London flying national flags and holding signs decrying limits to freedom of speech. Yet commentators see their rhetoric regarding civil and religious rights as a contradiction.
A study from Liverpool Hope University has revealed that parents are pulling their children out of religious education classes because they do not want them to learn about Islam. Four in ten school leaders said they had received requests to remove children from religious education lessons.