A deafening silence that betrays our values.... Multiple wives will mean
multiple benefits...Foreign doctors face ban on training.
I believe that the time has come to face up to the injustice being
perpetrated, not on vulnerable ethnic communiutiies, but on our own
native-born population by laws - which laws? - which deny us our
natural rights.
As well as what I quote here, there is also the Mosque in Oxford
which is applying to broadcast calls to prayer 5 times a day
amplified from the minaret of its mosque. This mosque is situated
about a mile from a predominantly Moslem area and its immediate
neighbours are mainly white middle-class academics. The
amplification will therefore have to be considerable to reach its
adherents. The neighbours are furious but - as usual - the local
bishop and race-relations-obsessed cchuch functionaries think that
the Moslems should be able to inflict their wishes on the
neighbourhood. They could, of course, send text messages or rely on
the 'faithful' to be ...er ... faithful. But no; in a mainly
Christian area an alien creed has priority, it seems.
It is time that these alien newcomers were reminded that they should
conform to the customs and laws of the host majority population.
This also applies to the question of the rights of women, polygamy
[why should we provide for the children of second marriages? ],
hygiene in the NHS, and respect for a brave bishop who comes from a
mainly Moslem world but has the courage to speak out.
It is time for a British backlash against the misuse
(misinterpretation?) of our laws to oppress ourselves.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx cs
===================
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 3.2.08
1.Leading Article ---
A deafening silence that betrays our values
Four weeks ago, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, expressed
on these pages his concern at the lack of integration into British
society of some Muslim communities living here. He has since received
an enormous amount of support from private individuals for his
remarks - as well as death threats from fanatics who said they would
kill him unless he stopped criticising the religion of Islam
(something which he insisted he was not doing).
The most striking aspect of the response to his article, however, has
not been that bigoted and offensive reaction from a small number: it
has been the almost complete silence from the Government on the
issues he raised. Despite recent claims by ministers that they want
to revise the policy of multiculturalism, and that they wish for a
vigorous national debate on what should replace it, their reaction to
this - and indeed to all other attempts to generate debate - has been
deafening silence. You could be forgiven for thinking there is a
conspiracy to prevent discussion of the issues that the bishop, and
millions of other Britons, are so concerned about.
The official reluctance to confront those issues acts far more
effectively than death threats to suppress their discussion. Yet
questions of immigration and integration are amongst the most
critically important faced by Britain. As we report today, thousands
of women in Britain are being beaten, bullied, intimidated and indeed
sometimes murdered by members of their own families - and it is being
done in the name of their religion and of "traditional values". An
investigation by the Centre for Social Cohesion has established that
whole communities have been involved in suppressing their female
members' wholly legitimate desire to marry whom they choose, to
follow careers of their own, and to dress and live according to their
own will, rather than at the command of a male relative.
No one in Government could possibly endorse the cruel denial of
elementary freedoms to women. An absolutely basic value of the free
and tolerant society in which most of us want to live is that every
adult should be able to choose whom they will marry, where they will
work, and what they will wear. No one who believes in liberal values
(and every member of the Government insists that they are committed
to those values) can accept that women should be denied an education,
or should be bullied into marriages which they oppose, or denied the
right to go outside their homes without being accompanied by, or
getting permission from, a male relative. Yet that is precisely what
is happening in some of the tightly knit immigrant communities in
Britain.
The brutal coercion of women has been aided and abetted by Government
policy, and thus by the ministers who make and implement it. The
attitude of the state to those who would deny women fundamental
freedoms should be one of active engagement to prevent any such
appalling abuse: it should be an aggressive campaign to ensure that
the law is enforced and that illegal coercion of women is prevented;
and to ensure that "traditional" attitudes change. People who come
from cultures where coercive behaviour towards women is the norm
should be made to realise that it will not be tolerated in this country.
And yet what do we actually get from the Government? So far, a
failure to tackle cultures that endorse the brutal oppression of
women. As we also report today, the Government has just taken the
dismally retrograde step of recognising polygamy: men with more than
one wife will be able to claim benefits for each additional spouse.
How this can be squared with the Government's rhetoric of commitment
to women's rights is beyond us: it is a quite clear incitement to the
humiliating and blatantly unjust practice of allowing men, but only
men, to take more than one spouse.
"The issues are so sensitive that nobody has been prepared to talk
about them," says Shahien Taj, director of an organisation dedicated
to trying to free women from the oppression of cultures which endorse
their coercion. She laments the detrimental effect that silence has
on her work. The Government has a duty to talk about the issues, and
to do something about them. In failing to do so, it betrays our most
fundamental values - and thousands of women in Britain.
================AND --->
2. Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim
extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, The
Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by ministers
means that polygamous marriages can now be recognised formally by the
state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the
arrangement is legal.
The outcome will chiefly benefit Muslim men with more than one wife,
as is permitted under Islamic law. Ministers estimate that up to a
thousand polygamous partnerships exist in Britain, although they
admit there is no exact record.
The decision has been condemned by the Tories, who accused the
Government of offering preferential treatment to a particular group,
and of setting a precedent that would lead to demands for further
changes in British law.
================AND --->
3. After 'no-go' bishop, multiculturalism debated
By David Harrison
The Bishop of Rochester's article in The Sunday Telegraph last month
has reignited the row over multiculturalism.
The doctrine was unquestioned for nearly three decades. But the
bombings of July 2005, when home-grown Muslim suicide attackers
killed dozens of London commuters, led many to blame multiculturalism
for causing deep divisions in Britain.
The attacks shone a light into Britain's "separate" and "closed"
communities, where many ethnic and religious groups led "parallel
lives", cut off from mainstream society and where values were
increasingly in conflict with those of the host country.
A consensus has emerged that the multiculturalism experiment was
necessary, but that its time is over.
A month after the 7/7 bomb attacks, David Davis, the shadow home
secretary, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that multiculturalism had
failed Britain and led to a "splintering of loyalties" which
threatened modern society".
He said: "Britain has closed societies within an open society, and
the situation has been made worse by the Government's policy of
neglect. For too long there has been a habit of tiptoeing around
issues, particularly with respect to Muslim communities. This has led
to the sort of problems that have fostered terrorism in our own
country."
The following month, Trevor Phillips, the head of the Commission for
Racial Equality, which had long supported multiculturalism, said
Britain was "sleepwalking to segregation".
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said: "I am worried that we
have allowed communities to grow up which live parallel lives." He
suggested that Islamic schools should consider admitting a quarter of
their pupils from other faiths, and give children more experience of
life outside their community.
Gordon Brown has said Britain has "overemphasised diversity at the
cost of what holds us together". The prime minister believes that
everyone in Britain should learn English and have an understanding of
British history.
In October 2006, Jack Straw, then the Leader of the Commons, whose
Blackburn constituency is 25 per cent Muslim, sparked a fierce debate
when he suggested that community relations would be improved if
Muslim women did not wear full veils, describing the practice as "a
visible statement of separation and difference".
Last December, the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, said the drive
for a multicultural society had left Britain increasingly intolerant.
The country was losing its identity because of over-zealous political
correctness and a failure to deal with immigration.
Warning signs of multicultural tensions were there long before the
2005 bombings. The riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in 2001
revealed segregated communities in conflict.
Professor Ted Cantle, from Coventry University's Institute of
Community Cohesion, the author of a report on the riots, called for
major policy changes.
Too much focus on Muslims had left them feeling under siege, he said.
"We should be trying to improve our relationships with the many
groups that make up Britain's Muslim community. If not, there's a
real danger they will become more embittered."
================AND --->
4. Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'
By Julie Henry and Laura Donnelly
Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in
to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is
against their religion.
Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections
to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their
sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest
in Islam.
Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate
with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which
stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".
The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such
as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.
Minutes of a clinical academics' meeting at Liverpool University
revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children's hospital
had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns.
Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes
from a medical school committee said that "a number of Muslim females
had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to
the elbow for appropriate handwashing".
Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who
refused to "scrub" as this left her forearms exposed.
Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would
prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn
that it could leave trusts open to legal action.
Hygiene experts said last night that no exceptions should be made on
religious grounds.
Dr Mark Enright, professor of microbiology at Imperial College
London, said: "To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of
MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area
around the wrist.
"I don't think it would be right to make an exemption for people on
any grounds. The policy of bare below the elbows has to be applied
universally."
Dr Charles Tannock, a Conservative MEP and former hospital
consultant, said: "These students are being trained using taxpayers'
money and they have a duty of care to their patients not to put their
health at risk.
"Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if
they feel unable to abide by the guidelines that everyone else has to
follow."
But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the
body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam.
"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or
patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it
said. [nor are such people forced to practise medicine in Britain -cs]
Dr Majid Katme, the association spokesman, said: "Exposed arms can
pick up germs and there is a lot of evidence to suggest skin is safer
to the patient if covered. One idea might be to produce long,
sterile, disposable gloves which go up to the elbows."
================AND --->
[I put this here because it is relevant , I would have thought to the
previous article -cs]
5. Foreign doctors face ban on training posts
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
Ministers will announce a crackdown on overseas doctors this week in
an attempt to prevent thousands of British medics from facing
unemployment.
Foreign doctors from outside the European Union, who account for half
of all applicants for jobs this year, face a ban on having their
specialist medical training funded by taxpayers.
The increased competition from abroad means that three junior doctors
will be chasing every post this year.
Ministers are desperate to redress the balance and are preparing a
move that Gordon Brown hopes will be seen as backing his declaration
of "British jobs for British workers" last autumn.
A Government source said: "We need to do something quickly about this
and restricting access to specialist medical training is an area
where we think we can make a difference."
Thousands of overseas doctors will be hit by the crackdown. Andrew
Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: "It is Government
incompetence which has led to a situation where there are three
applicants for every place.
"We have a lot of overseas doctors who have been here for years and
who have the legitimate expectation they can complete their training
here."
Last year, the Department of Health (DoH) issued guidance that
foreign doctors could only be considered for a training post if there
was no suitable candidate from Britain or the EU.
However, the guidance was successfully challenged in court by the
British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, who claimed it
was unfairly discriminatory. [Have the British no rights over
foreigners? -cs]
Ministers are appealing against the court decision, but the appeal is
not due to be heard until later this year.
In the mean time, 16,000 foreign doctors training in Britain have to
be treated the same as British candidates applying for a post as a GP
or a specialist.
The problems facing junior doctors have been made worse by a cut in
the number of training posts from 15,600 to 9,000 after changes came
in last year.
Three medical schools have opened in the last decade and a chaotic
online application system for junior doctors, introduced last year,
has been scrapped.
In the long term, ministers are considering introducing charging for
post-graduate training for overseas medics, according to Government
sources.
Doctors' leaders warn that without changes, thousands of British
junior doctors will have to work abroad.
A DoH spokesman said: "Any changes to the rules will only affect
people applying in the future, not those already here.
"We are considering this issue, there is a Lords appeal soon, and
we'll make further announcements in due course."
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