By Faisal | Published:
March 12, 2010
The BBC reports:
Teachers in England should not be banned from membership of the British National Party or any group which may promote racism, a review has concluded.
The government commissioned the report last September after a leaked list identified 15 BNP members as teachers.
Review author Maurice Smith added his recommendation should be reviewed every year, which ministers have accepted.
Mr Smith, a former chief inspector of schools, said a ban on BNP members in schools would be “taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut”.
“I do not believe that barring teachers or other members of the wider school workforce from membership of legitimate organisations which may promote racism is necessary at present,” he said.
I cannot disagree with that.
However, predictably enough the usual assortment of fashionable muddle-headed leftists and faux-liberals are up in arms about the decision. Such as Pickled Politics, Islamophobia Watch, and a collection of Trots, for example.
By Effendi | Published:
March 8, 2010
Today is International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.
But in some parts of Tower Hamlets, some things remain the same:
Shiria Khatun, 38, told the police that callers threatened to kill her and her four young children. In one call, they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead.
The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians. She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.
However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign.
By Guest | Published:
March 2, 2010
This is a cross-post by Azarmehr from “For a democratic secular Iran. For peace and prosperity in the Middle East”
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I found about a Stop the War meeting in the House of Commons where Galloway was speaking through my friend. Peyvand Khorsandi [Shappis Khorsandi's brother]. We decided to go along and meet this stooge of dictators face to face. While queuing to go through the security we told the policeman who was directing the people to different queues that we were going to Committee Room 19. Two of the Stop the War enthusiasts heard us and cheerily said to us,
‘Oh we are going to the same meeting as well. Are you Palestenians?’
To which we replied,
‘We like Palestinians but we are Iranians’.
The two women got even more excited and replied,
‘Oh we support Iran against the West!’
By Effendi | Published:
February 26, 2010
Good news (that’s sarcasm) for people who feel their right to be religiously offended trumps freedom of expression:
Renowned Indian artist MF Husain, under attack from hardline Hindus for his paintings of nude Hindu goddesses, has been offered Qatari nationality.
The artist made the announcement in The Hindu newspaper. It is not clear whether he will accept the honour.
Since 2006, 95-year-old Mr Husain has been living in Dubai and in London.
The Hindu said that his “impending change of nationality brings to a close one of the sorriest chapters in independent India’s secular history”.
Correspondents say that Mr Husain – who has been forced to flee the country – is one of India’s most pre-eminent artists.
In 2006 he apologised for a painting in which he represented the country as a nude goddess. In the mid-1990s there were huge protests in Mumbai (Bombay) after he painted a whole series of nude Hindu goddesses.
Hindu nationalist groups accused the artist of hurting their religious sentiments and defiling their religion.
By Effendi | Published:
January 8, 2010
Sunny Hundal of Pickled Politics and Liberal Conspiracy is a “journalist” who fancies himself as a champion of civil liberties. This was his last evidence-free and appallingly unresearched piece on Abdulmutallab’s radicalism at UCL in CiF:
Singling out universities as potential conveyor belts for terrorists is an old talking point for neocons. The most notorious example in recent times was American commentator Daniel Pipes’s project Campus Watch, which created dossiers on professors and universities that did “not meet its standard of uncritical support for the policies of George Bush and Ariel Sharon”, according to one critic. Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, told the Telegraph: “UCL boasts on its website that it has 8,000 staff for 22,000 students, which is an enviable staff/student ratio. What have they been doing?” Their jobs, perhaps?