Sweden: One on three young immigrant jobless

Sweden: One on three young immigrant jobless

Via SR:
The public employment office reports a record number of available jobs, but the unemployment among young immigrants is still increasing rapidly. More than one in three 19 to 24 year old born abroad are without a job today, the news agency TT reports.

Two years earlier, approximately one in five in the same group was jobless. Over the past few years, unemployment among young people born abroad has increased by 3 per cent, while Swedish born youngsters have seen unemployment go down by 10 %.

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Lancashire: Mosque leader criticises 'impractical' equality call

Lancashire: Mosque leader criticises 'impractical' equality call

Via the Lancashire Telegraph:
OFFICIAL guidelines that women should have more influence in running mosques have been criticised by local leaders.

The Mosque and Imams Advisory Board, MINAB, wants to reform and regulate Islamic places of worship and has also asked for sermons to be held in English.

Salim Mulla, the chair of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said the advice was ‘unhelpful, impractical and an interference’.

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Belgium: Burqa ban set to become law

Belgium: Burqa ban set to become law

Via M&C:
Belgium was set Wednesday to become the second European Union country to enforce a ban on public wearing of Islamic face veils, as its senate failed to raise objections against the provision passed last month by the lower chamber of parliament.

The Chamber of Deputies approved the so-called burqa ban law on April 28. The senate had 15 days to interfere with it, but declined to do so, the Belga news agency said, quoting sources from the Belgian Parliament.

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Spain: Moroccan man on trial for 'total control' of his wife

Spain: Moroccan man on trial for 'total control' of his wife

Via ThinkSpain:
A MUSLIM woman has reported her husband for forcing her to wear a veil in public in a landmark case which could encourage more oppressed Arab women to fight back.

The Moroccan national, who lives in La Seu d'Urgell (Lleida) says her husband forced her to cover her face in public, and forbade her from speaking Spanish to anyone or looking them directly in the face.

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UK: Asian people 42 times more likely to be held under terror law

UK: Asian people 42 times more likely to be held under terror law

Via the Guardian:
People from ethnic minorities are up to 42 times more likely than white people to be the target of a counter-terrorism power which allows the stopping and searching of the innocent yet grants them fewer rights than suspected criminals, official figures seen by the Guardian show.

The power is contained in schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to stop people at ports and airports for up to nine hours without the need for reasonable suspicion that they are involved in any crime.

The figures have led to accusations that police have resorted to "ethnic profiling", which they deny.

British Muslims have given written statements to the Guardian alleging that the police and the security service MI5 are abusing the power by holding people and pressing them into becoming spies.

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Sofia: Mayor promises probe into mosque noise emission levels

Sofia: Mayor promises probe into mosque noise emission levels

Via the Sofia Echo:
Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova has said that she will launch an investigation to establish whether indeed, the loudspeakers at the mosque are too loud, and are causing obstruction to people who live or work in the area.

"Bulgaria is a legal state with laws and regulations, and my commitment is to do everything possible for them to be upheld," Fandukova told the bTV.

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Sweden: Forced deportations expected to increase

Sweden: Forced deportations expected to increase

Via the Local:
Forced deportations of rejected asylum seekers are expected to increase by 30 percent compared to last year due in part to Sweden's new asylum policies.

Earlier this year, the centre-right Alliance government and the Green Party reached an agreement to overhaul Sweden's immigration and asylum policies.

One of the key elements of the agreement was a promise to ensure that asylum seekers who had their applications rejected would leave the country quickly.

In an effort to come up with new ways to carry out deportation orders more quickly, police in Skåne have implemented a special surveillance team to track down rejected asylum seekers, the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reports.

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