MacGregor sentencing deferred for eighth time

The sentencing of Neil MacGregor was deferred again today. The latest psychaitric report stated that he should be admitted to hospital for examination. However, there have been no beds available to date. There will be another hearing on Friday 3rd July to review whether an assessment order under mental health legislation can be issued by [...]

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Letter to the Metro on veils

While comparing a religion with over a billion adherents to a “balaclava cult” might be amusing to some, it hardly helps to address serious issues. And I do wonder what qualifies non-Muslim men to declare what is an “insult to Muslim women”? Forcing a lady to remove a garment is as abhorrent as forcing her [...]

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Glasgow 2014 to bring people together

Last week we facilitated a meeting between Muslim organisations and the organisers of the Commonwealth Games. Particularly fascinating for me was Gordon Arthur’s stated intention to engage the countries of the Commonwealth like never before. He also said he hoped to use the excitement behind the games to get people to work together better than [...]

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Should jummuah khutbas be in English?

Shaykh Amer Jamil will recommend this week that the talk preceding the Friday sermon needs to be relevant to the issues facing youth and delivered in English (since the youth are the majority of the community and their needs should take priority). But some think this can go further so that the khutba itself is [...]

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Indian and Chinese kids doing very well. What’s wrong with the Pakistanis?

The Scottish Government recently published a report on SQA attainment and school leaver qualifications in Scotland. The headline was that ethnic minorities, specifically Asians, were doing better than the national average. Delving into the figures however, the familiar pattern of the last few years emerged. The figures show that the average tariff scores for Pakistanis [...]

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