Mohammad Sawar, who became Britain's first ever Muslim member of parliament in 1997, has said he will step down after the next elections.
He said he took the decision after receiving numerous death threats from the friends of three Pakistanis who were imprisoned for their brutal murder of a white teenager in Glasgow in 2004.
Sawar - of Pakistani origin himself - played a key role in arranging for the three to be extradited from Pakistan.
News that the Labour MP had been threatened by members of Britain's Pakistani community for helping punish the killers of a white teenager has evoked sympathy but little surprise or outrage.
Jack McConnell, the Scottish Labour Party leader, said: "Mohammad Sarwar made history and made a real difference. He and his family deserve a break; they can look back with pride on all he has achieved."
McConnell's mundane response is evidence of how violence and the threat of violence have become an accepted part of race relations in Britain - and indeed in Europe as a whole.
In the last few years, Britain has seen protests against 'anti-Islamic' cartoons, multiple suicide bombings and an attempt to kidnap British Muslim soldiers.
In France, Muslim girls have been stoned to death for not observing Ramadan in Marseilles. In Paris a French jew was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Muslim gangs.
In Holland, politicans and writers have also been murdered. In Denmark cartoonists live in hiding.
By comparison, Iran's decision to renew Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie now seems almost quaint; the unlikely reminder of a more innocent, perhaps less complicated, age.
Comments (1)
Lets not miss out the violent shut down of the play Behzti by some people of religious conviction in Birmingham (2004).. oh and Tony and George the famously moderate Christians that they are, getting rather violent and making some threats against quite a few folks.. mainly of Islamic Persuasion.. a bit of balance guys please....
Posted by AcidDrip | June 27, 2007 7:53 PM
Posted on June 27, 2007 19:53