Iraq Inquiry

Gavin Cordon, Sam Marsden and Mark Bulstrode, Press Association, Independent, Blair insists he was right to stop Saddam, 29 Jan 2010 "Defiant Tony Blair declared today that he was right to take action to stop Saddam Hussein, even though his supposed weapons of mass destruction turned out not to exist."

'Islamic Human Rights Commission' opinion piece

Douglas Murray, Telegraph, The truth about the Islamic Human Rights Commission, recommended by Britain's Muslim Police, 21 Jan 2010 "As I noted earlier, the National Association of Muslim Police thinks British Muslims should report crimes to the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). It sounds a lovely organisation, doesn’t it? Human Rights. Who could be against that?

"The only problem, as so often with Islamic groups, is that it doesn’t do exactly what it says on the tin."

Opinion piece.

Digital Disruption

John Domokos and Haroon Siddique, Guardian, How young Muslims are fighting extremist propaganda, 29 Jan 2010

"The communities secretary, John Denham, has promised to make changes to the anti-extremism programme Prevent after Islamic groups accused it of stigmatising all Muslims as terrrorists and even spying on them. Haroon Siddique talks to participants on one of the schemes, the Digital Disruption project, about the value of what they are learning."

There's an interesting video attached to the above page.

Inayat Bunglawala

Guardian, Muslim Council spokesman wins payout over Mail on Sunday claims, 29 Jan 2010 "Associated Newspapers today agreed to pay out libel damages to Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman at the Muslim Council of Britain, over an inaccurate claim in the Mail on Sunday that he supported al-Qaida."

European Muslim Research Centre, University of Exeter

The European Muslim Research Centre is announced through the following article:

Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Robert Lambert, Guardian, Muslims in the UK: beyond the hype, 28 Jan 2010 "Today, we are proud to launch the European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC) at the University of Exeter. We hope that the EMRC will be part of a wider process of voices and perspectives which are too often being ignored, or buried under a tide of negative portrayals of Muslim communities and Islam by vociferous sections of the media and populist politicians."

There's a new report, published today via the EMRC website, (direct link: Islamophobia and Anti- Muslim Hate Crime: a London case study [pdf]. I haven't read this yet.

It will be interesting to track the progress of this centre, and to see what events and publications emerge. They have an Advisory Board that includes John Esposito (Georgetown University), Tim Niblock (University of Exeter) and Muhammad Abdul Bari (from the Muslim Council of Britain)

"Muslim students monitored in UK "

al-Jazeera, Muslim students monitored in UK, 25 Jan 2010 film report: I had some problems with the embedded feature here, so click on the link to see the report.

Surveillance society(?)

Telegraph, Terrorism and child pornography used to justify surveillance society, says academic, 23 Jan 2010 "The authorities have taken “advantage of the terrorist bombing in London” to erode civil liberties, according to Professor Ian Walden, an expert on internet communication and online security."