The joint statement was released by the Network of Sikh Organisations UK, The Hindu Forum of Britain, and The Sikh Media Monitoring Group UK.
It says the reluctance of the media and the government to discuss the "disproportionate representation of Muslims in such cases" and the fact victims are "almost always non-Muslim girls" is adding to the cause of far-right groups such as the BNP.
A court in Germany jailed five Kurdish siblings on Wednesday for the "honour killing" of their 18-year-old sister after she left home to live with her German boyfriend.
A Muslim woman who pretended she was raped by her boyfriend, leading to his prolonged torture by a gang, because she thought he would show explicit photos of her to her devout parents has been jailed.
Sonia Begum, 21, had complained to her cousin Shahen Ahmed, 21, that the man had sexually assaulted her.
Ahmed then rounded up a gang who kidnapped and set fire to the 22-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The four suspects have all been apprehended. Just like the victim, all four are of foreign descent. Three have a Belgian passport, one a Turkish passport. According to the suspects, the victim "made advances".The four suspects are Eric Parmentier, Jeremy Wintgens, Jonathan Lekeut and Mutlu Kiziaslan. Based on their names, the suspects might be of 'foreign descent', but they are not Muslim (with the possible exclusion of the Turkish suspect). The family thinks the murderers were both homophobic and xenophobic.
The judicial authorities were hesitant about the homophobic motives at first, but later during the day they changed the charges after a fourth suspect confessed that they "wanted to teach the man a lesson", Het Laatste Nieuws reports.
The Congress of Russian Communities is preparing a legal center aimed at protecting ethnic Russians in their conflicts both with the law and with other ethnic communities in the country.
(...)
Albanian religious leaders on Sunday slammed a planned gay pride parade, with a spokesman for the Muslim community saying it would pose a "danger" to society.
"Such public demonstration is an abuse of human rights and freedoms and presents a danger for the morals and tradition of the Albanian family," Agron Hoxha told local media.(source)
A mosque near Brussels has been targeted in an arson attack in which the imam died.
A Muslim man was arrested in the attack on the mosque in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels, the Belgian capital, said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels Prosecutor's Office.
"It seemed that this person showed up and pulled out a knife and an axe, and that he spread flammable products - petrol, we assume - in order to start a fire and threaten the mosque occupants," Mr Meilleur said.
(source)
BBC director-general Mark Thompson has claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is ‘pretty broad shouldered’.
He suggested other faiths have a ‘very close identity with ethnic minorities’, and were therefore covered in a far more careful way by broadcasters.
But he also revealed that producers had to consider the possibilities of ‘violent threats’ instead of polite complaints if they pushed ahead with certain types of satire.
Mr Thompson said: ‘Without question, “I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’(source)
Education Minister Van Bijsterveldt says all imams in the Netherlands should jointly speak against homophobic violence and support respecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.
"I would really appreciate it if they do that, just like Christian churches did not so long ago," she said yesterday during a meeting of SMN (Alliance of Moroccan-Dutch) in Utrecht. The minister said it would be a strong signal that everyone can be part of the Muslim community, regardless of sexual orientation, origin or culture.
