PrairiePundit

Alasdiar Palmer: ... The most charitable interpretation of the reaction of Anil Patani, the Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, to the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque is that he was in a state of deep denial. The programme recorded preachers at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham making remarks that were not only bigoted and full of hate but also bordered on incitement to murder. Abu Usamah, one of the main preachers, was shown saying: “Osama Bin Laden, he’s better than a thousand Tony Blairs, because he’s a Muslim”; “Allah has created the woman, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete”; and advocating that homosexuals should be “thrown off” mountains. Mr Patani’s reaction? To refer the programme makers to the Crown Prosecution Service for inciting racial hatred. He also referred the programme to Ofcom, the TV regulator, sending out a press release as he did so. Mr Patani’s press release claimed that “those featured in the programme had be...

Independent: Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest. The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years. The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which "aims to improve the response of police and othe...

Sunday Telegraph: 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. ... If you pay more for a certain type of conduct you will get more people participating in that conduct. That was one of the lessons of ...

Scotsman: AN URGENT review of Scotland's open prisons was demanded last night after it emerged that a prisoner released to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting savagely raped a girl of 16. Robert Foye, 28, had been allowed out of Castle Huntly open jail, near Dundee, and had been on the run for almost a week when he carried out the vicious attack on the teenager. There is widespread concern that a man jailed for ten years for attempting to murder a police officer was given the opportunity to commit such a crime. ... Some 50 prisoners have absconded from Scotland's two open prisons – Castle Huntly and Noranside, near Forfar – since last April. Most fail to return from work placements or home visits, although some have just walked out of prisons designed to give inmates a degree of freedom before they can be considered for release, mainly to test their likelihood of reoffending. Previous incidents involving inmates from open prisons include John Campbell, who murdered his broth...