The Centre For Social Cohesion

According to the Daily Telegraph a spokesman for the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) conceded that ‘fear of sounding prejudiced’ has discouraged frank discussion of black gang crime involving knives and guns. However, Home Office minister Baroness Scotland recently told the home affairs select committee: ‘We accept there is an increasing problem of the use of guns and we are trying to address it. We have not had any evidence that this issue is solely or disproportionately an issue for black young men.’

As a people we have become hyper-sensitive about race, but criticism of a phenomenon like gang culture can be race-related without being racially prejudiced. The guiding principle should be that everyone ought to be judged by their conduct, not their race. Black youths have been drawn disproportionately to gang life, but it’s not because they are black. The congregations of evangelical churches are also disproportionately black but that tendency too is not causally connected to race.

Recently, I posted a blog expressing concern about newspaper reports that this year’s poppy crop in Afghanistan promised to be of record proportions. My concern arose from that country being the source of virtually all of the world’s entire supply of heroin, and from how active in its illicit sale were those here with connections to that part of the world.

It turns out that I am not alone in harbouring such concerns.

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.”

A South London woman ordered to be executed by her father and uncle in a 2006 honour killing was “let down” by the police after she initially went missing, an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission has concluded.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was killed by her family because she loved the wrong man. Before her death, Mahmod had sought to warn police that her life was in danger – ultimately without getting the protection that might have saved her.

Abu Izzadeen and Simon Keeler were sentenced to four and a half years at Kingston Crown Court today after they were found guilty of fundraising for and inciting terrorism.

Izzadeen, tried under the name Omar Brooks, and Keeler were convicted on the basis of speeches they gave at London’s Regent’s Park Mosque on November 9, 2004.

At the time, US-led forces in Iraq were fighting in Falluja. The men urged their audience to fight British and American forces in Iraq and to donate money to fund terrorism, calling September 11th 2001 a “great day”.

Another May, another Mayor mercifully less prone than some to praising preachers of hate, and now, to add further icing to the cake of all who long for this country to return to the days when it was a tolerant, peaceful and civilised place in which to live, another moderate Muslim organisation to join the recently launched Quilliam Foundation in tackling the pockets of extremism and intolerance that remain among Britain’s Muslim community.