The Centre For Social Cohesion

In case people are interested, I was on the BBC's Hardtalk earlier today. It is repeated throughout the week at various times on BBC 24 and BBC World. Subjects covered include Iraq, Afghanistan, Fukuyama, the purported 'Clash of Civilisations', Islam and European welfarism.

The programme can also be watched online for another 6 days by clicking here.

Parents with children in their final year at primary school will today learn how successful they have been in securing for their children a place this coming September at a secondary school of their choice.

Those who have been through this process will know what a trying time it is.

With the life chances of today’s generation of children being so dependent on the level of their educational attainment and that in turn depending so much on the quality of their schooling, the demand for places at schools achieving good examination results far exceeds supply.

Today the blog takes a slight departure from social cohesion to highlight a story we feel is of urgent importance: British authorities’ decision to deport a young gay Iranian man home to almost certain hanging.

No, you didn’t misread. Her Majesty’s government has refused to grant asylum to 19 year-old Iranian Mehdi Kazemi. After coming to the UK to study English, Kazemi learned that an ex-boyfriend had been convicted and hanged for sodomy back in Iran – after naming Kazemi as a former partner.

Senior Indian officals have warned have warned that Sikh militant groups in the UK may be planning and funding attacks on targets in India.

On 4 March, the BBC's File on Four programme quoted senior Indian police offiers as saying that money raised by Sikh groups in the UK is being used to "fund militant activities in the Punjab".

A new study funded by the Home Office has estimated that 3,000 women are forced in marriage every year in the UK.

The report noted that this figure is higher than previous estimates and observed that the government's Forced Marriage Unit only deals with 300 cases a year - meaning that only 1-in-10 women forced into marriages are able to obtain help from the government.

More than enough, perhaps, has already been said about the speech given last week by the Minister for Culture Margaret Hodge in which she criticised the Proms and other unnamed iconic cultural events -- the Henley Regatta?, Glyndebourne? -- for not being sufficiently inclusive.

So well does the Culture Minister's speech epitomise a central flaw in so much current governmental thinking about community cohesion as to warrant a brief re-visitation.

A man connected to the July 7th London bombers was yesterday jailed for 16 months for possession of a CD containing an al-Qaeda training manual.

Khalid Kaliq of Beeston, Leeds, admitted one count of possessing a document likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The head of Blackburn’s only state girls’ Muslim school pledged his support for an oath of allegiance to be introduced in British schools.

Head of Tauheedul Islamic Girls High School, Mufti Hamid Patel, agrees with former attorney general Lord Goldsmith that encouraging school-leavers to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country would give teenagers a sense of belonging.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has written an open letter to the Guardian criticising their decision to cover the soon-to-be launched Quilliam Foundation, a thinktank dedicated to countering Islamic extremism in the UK.

The letter, written by Inayat Bunglwala, the MCB's assistant secretary-general, additionally queried the article's claim that UK Islamist groups have previously declared their moderate opponents "apostates" and attacked the Guardian writer's decision to quote Usama Hasan, one of the group's advisors, in the article. It also criticised the Quilliam Foundation's members for supporting government anti-terrorism measures.

The government welcomed the Centre’s recent honour crimes report, “Crimes of the Community: Honour-based violence in the UK”, published February this year, during a discussion Monday on the adequacy of government measures to protect victims of such violence.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, Lord West of Spithead, said that the government was aware it had not done enough. “We are determined to tackle so-called honour-based violence and to ensure that any gaps in services can be filled,” he told the House of Lords.

2008 is European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. I bet you didn’t know that.

According to its own dedicated website, the purpose of the year is ‘to encourage all those living in Europe to explore the benefits of our rich cultural heritage and to learn from different cultural traditions’.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation today published a new report 'Immigration, faith and cohesion' examining challenges to "community cohesion" among recent immigrant communities.

Focusing mainly on Muslim communities in Birmingham, Bradford and Newham, the report, which was based on interviews with 319 individuals, idenitified a number of important trends:

The Court of Appeal has ruled that a marriage between Muslims that was permissible under Sharia law cannot be recognised in the UK.

The man in question, a 26 year old Briton known only as “IC”, had severe learning difficulties and the mental age of a three year old. He was married over the telephone to a Bangladeshi woman chosen by his parents in September 2006.

At present, approximately a third of all schools in England and Wales are denominational, a status that permits them, when oversubscribed, to select pupils whose parents avow the same faith as these schools.

The overwhelming majority of Britain’s state-funded denominational schools are Anglican. There are, however, also very large numbers of Roman Catholic and Jewish schools relative to the respective sizes of their numbers. By the same token, there are currently very few voluntary-aided Muslim schools relative to the number of Muslims in Britain who are increasingly calling for parity of treatment.

The director of a Muslim organisation says that the police are "overcautious" when investigating Asian gangs suspected of prostituting young white girls, as they fear being labelled racist.

Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, told the BBC’s Panorama programme that these gangs “should be treated as criminals. They are not Asian criminals, they are not Muslim criminals, they are not white criminals. They are criminals and they should be treated as criminals.”

‘Crimes of the Community’, the Centre’s recent report on honour-based violence in the UK, was mentioned in a New Statesman article, Thursday 27 March, calling for the criminalisation of forced marriage to tackle honour-related crimes.

Criminalising forced marriage is the “first step” in dealing with honour killings, the article’s author, Ziauddin Sardar, said. “Making forced marriage illegal will send a strong message to those who maintain this obnoxious tribal custom that it has no place in contemporary Britain.”

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, has released 'Fitna', his long-awaited short film about Islam and Europe.

The 15 minute production shows Islamic terrorist attacks interspersed with quotes from the Quran. It also describes the Netherlands as being “under the spell of Islam” and ends by urging Muslims to “tear out the hateful verses” from the book.

Philip Balmforth, a West Yorkshire policeman who is recognised as one of the UK's leading authorities on honour-violence, has been threatened with the sack for speaking to the press.

Balmforth has been suspended from his duty and faces a disciplinary hearing later this week for giving an interview to The Times about Asian children who go missing from schools in Bradford.