Immigration and Children- a new low for the British Government

Leaked cabinet letters suggest that the Home Office – when it was being run by Theresa May – wanted the children of illegal immigrants to go to the bottom of the list for school places.

Her department suggested schools could withdraw places offered to children if their families were found to be living in the country illegally.

The Home Office also wanted schools to carry out immigration checks.

One source says every department was to have its hands “dipped in blood”. But the letters reveal there was a “disquiet among our own ministers about the potential for inflammatory comparisons” by using schools as part of the immigration system, punishing the children of illegal immigrants by putting them to the bottom of the list for school places.

Indeed the British Government is no stranger in dipping it’s hands in blood.  A snapshot of the British Empire and the last 10 years confirms that. However preventing education to so called ‘illegal immigrants’ is a new low and brings further disgrace to the British approach to immigration.

Using Children and Education as another tool for border control is indicative of how the Government views so called British values like education for all.

Children have become useful to Theresa May for political leverage- the failed Prevent strategy is testament to this.

If the Government has struggled with abiding by its commitments, this is the fault of the Government, not innocent children.

However there are other fundamental questions that need to be asked to the British Government about immigration. The reality is that ruthless capitalist economic policies have made their lands unfit to provide for themselves and their families. Education has been replaced in their lands for the need of children and young people to pursue labour instead of seeking basic and higher learning. 

So whose fault is immigration into Britain?

Western and British support for dictators and unjust wars are the causes for why so many people are being displaced from their homelands.

Again, whose fault is immigration into Britain?

Immigrants since the 1950s are the product of British colonisation.

Unless and until these underlying causes for immigration are debated and addressed, the truth about immigration will remain untold.

However the Government is likely to continue its policy of dipping it’s hands in blood- even at the expense of Children’s education.

“Lo! Allah (swt) is that who gives livelihood, the Lord of unbreakable might.” [TMQ Surah Az-Zariyat:58]

US Admits Airstrike in Syria

On the 29th November 2016, the US admitted carrying out an attack in eastern Syria that killed dozens of Syrian forces fighting so-called Islamic State (IS).

The US-led coalition said the “mistake” on 17 September was intended to target IS positions.

Coalition aircraft from the UK, US, Denmark and Australia were involved in the attack near Deir al-Zour.

The attack, which the Russian army says killed at least 62 Syrian troops, were halted when Russia informed the US it was hitting Syrian forces.

“In this instance, we did not rise to the high standard we hold ourselves to, and we must do better than this,” said US Lieutenant-General Jeff Harrigian.

A spokesman for US Central Command (Centcom), the wing of the American military in charge of all its Middle East forces, said the mistake was “regrettable”, adding that it was not the intent to target Syrian troops.

Even though the Syrian army has committed many atrocities throughout Syria, there is a wider point which needs to be understood by the US usage of terms such as an ‘accident’ or ‘mistake’.  Accidents seem to be common with the American force- especially in the Muslim world.

Language such as accidents and collateral damage are liberally used to almost show a sympathy to the perpetrator.

The use of the pervese term ‘collateral damage’ has been often used. The purpose of such terminology is to desensitize people from the actual incident and think about the loss of human life as an accident, an abnormally, not worth considering seriously.

The USAF Intelligence Targeting Guide defines collateral damage as “[the] unintentional damage or incidental damage affecting facilities, equipment, or personnel, occurring as a result of military actions directed against targeted enemy forces or facilities. Such damage can occur to friendly, neutral, and even enemy forces”.

Another US Department of Defence document uses “[u]nintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.” http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf

These terms that are used by western forces can be translated as :

*Collateral damage (dead or wounded civilians),

*Kinetic activity (shooting and bombing),

Compounds (homes)

*Extraordinary rendition (kidnapping and torture by states)

The Muslim world is well versed with terms that remove emotion from incidents and mass death.

Israeli military commanders described the massacre of 2,100 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians (including 500 children), in Gaza the Summer 2014 as “mowing the lawn”.

Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser Bruce Riedel explained the approach to the drone war which the US initiated in Pakistan. He said that “you’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.” The director of the CIA, John Brennan, claimed that with “surgical precision” his drones “eliminate the cancerous tumour called an al-Qaida terrorist while limiting damage to the tissue around it”.

Those who operate the drones describe their victims as “bug splats.”

During its attack on the Iraqi city of Falluja in November 2004, the US army used white phosphorus to kill or maim people taking shelter in houses or trenches. White phosphorus is fat-soluble. Even small crumbs of it bore through living tissue on contact. It destroys mucous membranes, blinding people and ripping up their lungs. The army has developed a technique it calls ‘Shake ‘n Bake’: flush people out with phosphorus, then kill them with high explosives. Shake ‘n Bake is a product made for coating meat with breadcrumbs before cooking it.

The usage of terms such as bug splats and techniques such as ‘Shake n Bake’ reduce human life to the animal kingdom and cooking products.

Their life is worthless and is there to be consumed. There is no consideration that they have a family, they have goals, and they have ambitions and everything else which human beings strive for.

Therefore what severely disturbs many Muslims, is the practice of the west and America of preaching to the world about the sanctity of human life.

How can they point to the cruelty of others when they have perpetrated immeasurable amount of death and destruction upon others?

إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَعِبْرَةً لِّأُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ

“Verily in that is a lesson for those who possess vision.” (QS: An-Nur (24): 44)

Tottenham hijab attack: police e-fit of man hunted after woman’s headscarf is ‘pulled off’

Police have released an image of a man they are hunting over a “sickening” racist attack when a woman’s hijab was torn from her face on a busy London street.

The Goldsmiths University student was walking with a friend when the two men grabbed her from behind before one ripped off the veil.

Scotland Yard have today released an e-fit of a man believed to be involved the incident in Tottenham High Road at 7.30pm on September 28.

The 21-year-old British-born woman, who the Standard has agreed not to name, described how the pair flanked her on either side as she waited to cross the busy road outside the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (Chenel).

She said: “I started feeling trapped and knew something was wrong so I asked him ‘what’s going on?’ and he started pointing at my hijab.

“The other guy, who I couldn’t see, came from behind and grabbed it shouting in broken English ‘you look more beautiful without it’.

“I was so shocked and distressed that it took me a while to realise it was happening. I couldn’t believe someone would attack me like that. He didn’t physically harm me but I didn’t feel safe at all.”

Following the attack, the pair fled towards Pelham Road.

The first suspect – featured in the image – is said to be aged in his late 20s or early 30s, with blond or ginger shaved hair and stubble.

He was described as being 5ft 6is tall and wearing a burgundy hooded top.

At the time of the attack he was carrying a Tesco bag in his right hand.

The second man is believed to be aged in his late 20s or early 30s and clean shaven with spiky hair.

He was described as wearing a grey hooded top.

Detective Constable Ben Cousin of Haringey Community Safety Unit said: “This was a shocking attack in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street.

“Racially and religiously motivated crimes will not be tolerated I would appeal to anyone who witnessed this attack to contact police.”

Revealed: Chilcot inquiry was set up ‘to avoid blame’

The Chilcot Report is perhaps the greatest whitewash of state crimes in modern history. It’s now been revealed as we said in the past that the Chilcot Inquiry was designed to prevent true accountability.

Regardless of the 2.5MN words, the political narrative goes as follows;

“We need to take greater care bombing Muslims in the future”

“We didn’t have adequate equipment so we need higher defense budgets”

“We only voted based on the information we had”

“This report is not legal evidence, it’s just an inquiry”

“We can never foresee the full implications of our actions”

“America remains the greatest friend and ally of Britain”

“We have to wait until we read the 2.5MN words before we can make any reasonable judgements”

The heinous crimes of the British Government have been completely whitewashed. At the end of a decade long struggle for justice, all the families of soldiers received was a non-legally binding report!

The reality is that, Capitalism can never provide true accountability and justice for people due to its inherent design in safeguarding the interests of the capitalist elites and ideologues. Unlike Capitalism, Islam offers a unique ruling system that puts no one above the law and achieves this through the institution of the Qadhi Al-Mazhalim (Court of Unjust Acts) that has the power to remove any ruler including the Khaleefah immediately upon violating the states constitution.

ما من وال يلي رعية من المسلمين فيموت وهو غاش لهم إلا حرم الله عليه الجنة

“There is no governor/wali who takes charge of governing the Muslims, and then dies, and he had been cheating them, except that Allah prohibits him from Paradise” (Bukhari/ Muslim) 

The world needs the Islamic civilisation led by a Caliphate (Khilafah Rashidah), that can challenge Britain and account it for such heinous crimes. Until then we will continue to witness capitalist driven wars, as we are witnessing in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya.

---

News

Secret cabinet documents show Iraq hearings were set up to stop individuals being held accountable

The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war was designed to “avoid blame” and reduce the risk that individuals and the government could face legal proceedings, newly released documents reveal.

The papers show the thinking and advice at “the highest level of government” prior to Gordon Brown’s announcement of an inquiry. They were disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, after the Cabinet Office lost a two-year battle during which it stated that disclosure threatened to “undermine the inquiry”. They confirm that many officials who took part in the events that the inquiry investigated, including former spy chief Sir John Scarlett, were involved in setting it up.

And they reveal that Sir (now Lord) Gus O’Donnell, cabinet secretary under Brown, went against Whitehall protocol when he appointed a civil servant with significant involvement in Iraq policy during the period covered by the inquiry to the key role of inquiry secretary.

The documents, a series of memos by Whitehall officials, cover a four-week period in May and June 2009. They show the officials favoured from the outset a secret inquiry to be conducted by privy counsellors, based on the Franks inquiry into the Falklands war. In a memo to O’Donnell, Cabinet Office official Ben Lyon advised that the format, scope and membership of the inquiry could be designed to “focus on lessons and avoid blame”. He noted that politicians and campaigners, including Plaid Cymru and the SNP, were seeking other types of inquiry with some advocating “a full public inquiry that would place blame on individuals”.

Chris Lamb, a freedom of information campaigner from Bristol who won an information tribunal ruling in May requiring the Cabinet Office to disclose the papers, told the Observer: “Avoiding blame is civil service code for not holding people accountable.” Despite the inquiry being designed to “avoid blame”, the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, subsequently claimed it could blame “whoever it likes”.

Lyon noted that former foreign secretary Lord Hurd had suggested a parliamentary inquiry. But Lyon warned that would “attract a daily running commentary”, like the 2003 Hutton inquiry into the death of Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly. In a subsequent note to Brown, O’Donnell repeated the “daily commentary” warning and advised against a full public inquiry for other reasons, including cost, that it would “threaten legal liability for individuals” and, ironically, “take a long time”. “The deliberate lack of transparency and attempts to use price to justify further secrecy is deeply concerning,” said Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.

O’Donnell also advised against appointing judges or lawyers who would adopt a “legalistic” focus. He recommended using the inquiry’s terms of reference to prevent it reaching “any conclusion on questions of law or fact, which create circumstances which expose organisations, departments and/or individuals to criminal or civil proceedings or judicial review”. No such instruction to the inquiry was ever made public.

Lamb told the Observer: “This shows the inquiry was hobbled before it even started, with tight restrictions on what it could do that were not fully made public.” In June 2009, Brown announced a secret Privy Council “lessons learned” inquiry, as officials had recommended. However, a public and political backlash forced him to agree to some hearings being held in public.

In another memo to O’Donnell, Lyon advised that the inquiry’s secretariat, though drawn from the civil service “should not have been involved in Iraq policy since 2002”. However, he conceded that appointing staff with “understanding of the nature of the business to be addressed” had advantages. This concession paved the way for appointment of Margaret Aldred, a Whitehall official who had chaired the Iraq senior officials group during the period Chilcot was investigating, as the inquiry’s secretary.

Many others who helped design the inquiry had also been closely involved in the issues it would investigate. They included current cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, who was Tony Blair’s parliamentary private secretary until 2003, and Scarlett, former chairman of the joint intelligence committee who had become chief of MI6 in spite of his central role in producing the notorious dossier on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

UK courts more likely to jail black than white people for same crimes

Britain’s courts are more likely to send people from ethnic minorities to prison for certain types of crime than white people convicted of the same offences, a government-commissioned review into race and the criminal justice system has found.

Lawmaker David Lammy, who is heading the review, wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday that most people from minorities who were born in Britain believed there was discrimination in the system.

“Our criminal justice system has a trust deficit,” he wrote.

May has expressed concern about the issue in the past. In her first address as prime minister, in July, she said: “If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you are white.”

In preliminary findings, the Lammy review reported that for every 100 white women sent to prison by Crown Courts for drug offences, 227 black women were jailed. For every 100 white men, 141 black men were imprisoned.

The exact level of disproportionality varied depending on types of offences and categories of courts, but the overall pattern was that the outcomes were worse for people from minorities.

“These emerging findings raise difficult questions about whether ethnic minority communities are getting a fair deal in our justice system,” Lammy said in a statement.

He did not give an explanation for the disproportionality, saying he would dig deeper to understand the issue and whether bias played a part. The review is due to produce a final report with recommendations next Spring.

The scope of the review has been extended by Justice Secretary Liz Truss to include the issue of lack of diversity among the ranks of the judiciary. Only 6 percent of court judges are from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared with 13 percent of the wider population.

Lammy is a member of the opposition Labour Party who is black and a qualified lawyer. He was widely praised for his sensitive response to the outbreak of riots in 2011 in his electoral district of Tottenham, north London, which were partly linked to distrust between black residents and the police.

His review into race and the criminal justice system was commissioned by May’s predecessor, David Cameron, in January.