Sex Segregation in Islamic-Faith School Ruled Unlawful by UK Court

This will be interesting to watch

FILE PHOTO: © Ben Stansall / AFP

The policy of segregating girls and boys at an Islamic-faith school has been deemed unlawful in a landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal in the UK.

Judges ruled on Friday that the separation of boys from girls constituted sex discrimination. The decision could have huge ramifications across the country.

Al-Hijrah School in Birmingham had challenged a critical report by schools watchdog, Ofsted. However, the High Court upheld the regulator’s findings.

Last year, Justice Robert Jay ruled that the Ofsted inspectors were wrong to penalize the mixed-sex school, which orders complete segregation of pupils from year five.

But three Court of Appeal judges in London have now overturned that decision.

At the school, all breaks, school trips and clubs are held separately for all children aged over nine. The findings from Ofsted said the children were separated to the point that they used separate corridors. Inspectors insisted the practice left them “unprepared for life in modern Britain.”

Books in the library advocated husbands beating their wives and forced sex, the report said.

Ofsted will now be able to give schools that separate children based on their gender a lower rating.

That's it? A lower rating? Wow, that will really teach them. They will wear that like a badge of honour!

Sir Terence Etherton, Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justice Beatson unanimously found that the actions of the school had contravened the 2010 Equality Act.

“It is common ground that the school is not the only Islamic school which operates such a policy and that a number of Jewish schools with a particular Orthodox ethos and some Christian faith schools have similar practices,” the appeal judges said.

“The relevant central government authorities should not pivot in the way they have gone about this without recognising the real difficulties those affected will face as a consequence.”

Ofsted's Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman said the watchdog’s job is to make sure that all schools “properly prepare children for life in modern Britain.”

“Educational institutions should never treat pupils less favorably because of their sex, or for any other reason,” she said.

“The school is teaching boys and girls entirely separately, making them walk down separate corridors, and keeping them apart at all times.

“This is discrimination and is wrong. It places these boys and girls at a disadvantage for life beyond the classroom and the workplace, and fails to prepare them for life in modern Britain.

“This case involves issues of real public interest, and has significant implications for gender equality, Ofsted, government, and the wider education sector. We will be considering the ruling carefully to understand how this will affect future inspections.”

A number of schools may now have to stop segregating pupils, or split into single sex schools.

Multiple People Injured in Shooting at Swedish Market

The New Normal - Swedish style

No indication yet whether this is terror related or not, but Swedish police will not confirm terror incidents until they absolutely have to

At least four have been seriously injured after at least one gunman reportedly opened fire at a market in Trelleborg, Sweden, according to local authorities, who launched a “major police operation” in response to the incident.

At least four people have been taken to hospital, local media report. The police initially said that the four victims suffered gunshot wounds, but have later clarified their statement.

"At least two have [suffered] shot injuries, but some of them have other types of injuries," police spokesman Fredrik Bratt told reported, specifying that the types of wounds have not been confirmed yet. The four people injured are men, according to the police.

The area of the incident is a central neighborhood full of multiple occupancy houses and shops. There is also a church and a number of open green spaces.

“We have received several reports of a shooting in Trelleborg,” the police spokesman had explained earlier, according to British daily the Express. “When we arrived at the scene, several people with gunshot injuries were found.”

“There were many shots. We saw someone running outside,” an eyewitness told the Swedish publication Expressen.

“I was at home at the computer when I heard a loud bang,” Aron Tydén – another person in the area – told the publication, claiming that he heard people running.

Another eyewitness heard at least six shots from his apartment, saying that the shooting took place on a lawn near the church of Saint Nicholas.

“I saw a lot of people running... It was chaotic. Immediately after that the police appeared, and the ambulance,” the witness was quoted as saying by Sweden’s GP publication.

Police have cordoned off the area, allowing ambulances through. The victims were reportedly rushed to hospitals in Malmö and Lund. Forensics team and a canine unit have also been dispatched to the scene of the incident.

Non-Consensual Sects: Senators Prepare Bill to Protect Russians from Destructive Cults

A sectarian prayer house in the village of Nikolskoe, the Penza Region, Russia © Sputnik

A group of Russian senators are preparing a bill to protect the population from destructive sects, including those of foreign origin and those that mask themselves as ‘schools of leadership’, the principal sponsor of the motion told the press.

“Sects are a very dangerous environment. The legislation on this subject needs to be corrected. We are now preparing proposals how to protect our citizens. Unfortunately, at present moment not a single region in the country is without such sects,” RIA Novosti quoted Senator Elena Mizulina as saying on Thursday.

She said that the bill would be prepared in cooperation with government experts and presented to the lower house before November 30.

Mizulina noted that many of the destructive sects arrived in Russia from foreign countries and that not all of them presented themselves as religious groups – some acted as various leadership courses and the like.

“By using various psycho-techniques these sects are defrauding our citizens of their property. In very widespread cases the sects attempt to manipulate the people’s conscience,” she said.

According to the upper house’s working group for countering the threat of destructive sects, about 500 such groups are currently active in Russia.

In 2012, President Vladimir Putin urged the government to toughen the laws governing the activities of the totalitarian cults cropping up across the country. Totalitarian religious groups pose a threat to the society and people, he said: “It’s a hunt not only for souls, but also people’s property.”

Shortly before this, a reclusive Muslim sect had been discovered in Russia’s Tatarstan. Over 70 people, including 27 children, spent a decade in an eight-level catacomb without access to education, healthcare or daylight. In 2007, a similar story was uncovered in Russia’s Penza region, shocking the entire country: Nearly 30 cultists dug a shelter, stocked it with food and spent several months waiting for the apocalypse, which they expected to happen in May 2008.

In February 2016, the State Duma announced that its members had started preparing a bill to protect citizens from destructive sects, but this initiative has not taken the form of a concrete legislative draft.

In June, 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that severely restricts freedom of religion by prohibiting any religious speech or evangelization outside of places of worship.

In June, 2017, Russian security forces raided the offices of the Church of Scientology.

In August this year, the Justice Ministry listed the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious group as a banned extremist organization. This happened after a lengthy court process that had been started because some members of this group had endangered the life of their children by refusing to allow blood transfusions – which is in line with Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs.

Russian law currently allows religious groups to form, including both those that require no official registration and legal formation and ones that should be officially registered. The sects are allowed to stage any activities if they don’t violate existing laws.

It will be very interesting to watch the development of this bill. How far will Russia go in restricting 'foreign' religions? Will only certain Muslim sects like Sunni or Shia be permitted. Will Salafism and Wahabism be outlawed? Will evangelical Christianity be driven out and only Russian Orthodoxy survive? 

Radicalized French Prisoners Suspected of Plotting Attacks Days Before Release

The New Normal - French style

Apparently, both men were radicalized in prison. It makes a good case for segregating radicalized Muslims from the rest of the prison population.

The entrance of the prison of Fresnes, near Paris. © Patrick Kovarik / AFP

French police have charged two radicalized prison inmates with plotting terrorist attacks – within days of their scheduled release.

In the first such case in the history of French anti-terrorism the men, who were radicalized behind bars while serving time for non-terrorist crimes, are due to be released from Fresnes prison, just south of Paris, next week.

French TV news station LCI report that the men had plotted attacks against numerous targets including prison guards while they were in prison and police officers at a police station after they were released.

French intelligence services had been watching the two men for several months.

Cameroonian Charles-Henri M. was reportedly the mastermind behind the potential attacks. The 28 year old was an Islamic State sympathizer. His accomplice was 22-year-old Frenchman Maxime O, who is also a radical Islamist.

France 24 reports that the pair were also planning to use methods including hostage-taking and gun attacks.

The investigation began last December after a phone containing details of a plot to murder “disbelievers” was found in Charles-Henri’s cell.  

Charles-Henri M. was incarcerated for robbery in 2013 and was due to be released on Tuesday. Maxime O. was jailed for attempted murder in 2014, he was due to get out next week.

While being questioned by police LCI report that Charles-Henri praised his “brothers” who carried out the terrorist attack in the Bataclan theatre in November 2015. He also admitted to plotting attacks.

France has been in a state of emergency since 130 people were killed in terrorist attacks, one of which targeted the Bataclan, in Paris in November 2015. The country has suffered several smaller attacks since then.

Fresnes, FR

‘Christian Duty to Fight Satan’s Soros Plan to Bring Migrants into Europe’ – Hungarian MP

FILE PHOTO: Migrants wait in the transit zone where their asylum claims are processed in Tompa, Hungary, June 14, 2017. © Laszlo Balogh / Reuters

A Hungarian MP slammed billionaire George Soros and supporters for attempting to dilute the spirit of Europe with “the forced settlement of tens of millions of migrants.” He claimed there is a Christian duty to fight what he called “Satan’s Soros” plan.

The lawmaker in question, Andras Aradszki, who represents the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP), claimed that “Soros and his comrades want to destroy the independence and values of nation states,” as cited by the Budapest Beacon.

According to Aradszki this is happening “for the purpose of watering down the Christian spirit of Europe with the forced settlement of tens of millions of migrants.”

“But the fight against Satan is a Christian duty. Yes, I speak of an attack by Satan, who is also the angel of denial, because they are denying what they are preparing to do — even when it is completely obvious. They frantically try to prove that there is no [refugee] quota, there is no compulsory settlement, and the Soros Plan does not exist,” Aradszki noted.

“The national consultation is an outstanding opportunity for us to make our opinions known about Satan’s Soros Plan,” he concluded. On Sunday, the Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Gyorgy Bakondi, warned of the implications of the “Soros Plan.”

“This may have serious consequences for the sovereignty of member states, for the nations themselves, and also with regard to the security of European citizens,” he pointed out.

The Soros Plan

Soros stated in 2015 that the “EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future. And, to do that, it must share the burden fairly.”

“Adequate financing is critical,” the billionaire wrote. “The EU should provide £10,000 (€15,000) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states.”

So, €15,000 per person; 1 million people; 2 years; that works out to €15bn the first year and €30bn each subsequent year. A high price to pay for cultural suicide.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has repeatedly blamed Hungarian-born Soros of fueling the refugee crisis in Europe, said that “Brussels has come under George Soros’s influence.”

“We have revealed the existence of the Soros plan, and the drafter himself admitted that it exists. We have placed it in the focus of politics,” the prime minister said in an interview to public radio on Friday.

In July, Orban accused Soros of using the EU in order to create a "new, mixed, Muslimized Europe,” according to AP. The prime minister said that Soros is now more powerful in Brussels than in Washington or Tel Aviv and he argued that European institutions should fight to limit his influence.

It's odd, Soros, who is extremely anti-communist and still very much anti-Russian, would appear to be trying to destroy Christianity by replacing it with Islam. But, no matter what you think of Christianity, it is vastly better than Islam. The irony is that communism is godless, Christianity is Christ, the Son of God, and Islam is about a false prophet, but it is Islam that Soros is promoting.

He noted that reforming Europe can only begin by stopping illegal migration into the EU and that Hungary’s border defenses will help with that effort.

Late last month Orban called on Hungarians to participate in the government’s public survey on the “Soros plan,” noting that it will help the country shield itself from migration. The survey dubbed “national consultation” will ask Hungarians for their view on whether or not Hungary should become an immigrant country.

“We want a Hungarian Hungary and a European Europe,” Orban said on the first day of parliament’s autumn session.

Last week Goran Buldioski, director of Soros’ Open Society Initiatives in Europe, told AP that Soros and his foundations support “more coherent and humane policies for helping to resettle migrants fleeing oppression and violence in their homelands” but that “there is no such thing as a global conspiracy against Hungary.”

Unless something is missing from this report, no-one said there was a global conspiracy against Hungary, but against Europe.

Hungary is engaged in a bitter row with the EU over the refugee relocation quotas, together with Poland and Slovakia. The issue dates back to the EU decision made in 2015 to rehouse some 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over a period of two years, only around 27,700 of whom have been settled so far.

Hungary claimed in September that its fences on the borders with Croatia and Serbia had helped to cut the inflow of migrants by 99.7 percent since 2015. The small inland nation now has one quarter of the length of its borders protected by a fence. The Hungarian border fence has been repeatedly criticized by other European countries, as well as by EU politicians, but Budapest has resisted pressure to remove it.

‘Shockingly Badly Integrated’ Pakistani Women Live in ‘Entirely Different Society’ in Britain

© justin Tallis / AFP

Pakistani women living in Britain are part of an ‘entirely different’ society and are ‘shockingly badly integrated’ according to a new survey.

The nation’s first disparity audit will reveal entire communities are segregated from their neighbors.

The Cabinet Office study, which will be published on Tuesday, was designed to better understand how people in the UK access healthcare, education, employment and the criminal justice system.

Pakistani women living in the UK, especially those who are not working, and do not speak English, have not integrated into society.

“Other communities have integrated very well, but the audit shows that Pakistani women who don’t speak English or go out to work are living in an entirely different society and are shockingly badly integrated,” a Cabinet Office staffer told the Sunday Times.

While many will be shocked by the report, others may not be surprised.

Teachers in Britain have previously reported some of their pupils have to translate information for their mothers, who cannot communicate with school staff.

Britain must set out rules for immigrants

In December 2016 a major review on community integration by Dame Louise Casey said Britain must set out rules for immigrants.

Casey criticized the government, saying there had been a “saris, samosas and steel drums” policy, rather than real leadership.

She suggested mandatory English lessons and even an oath of allegiance to Britain.

An independent report will be published this week, which will show cuts to benefits and public services are likely to hit Asian families.

Prime Minister Theresa May called for a major audit into societal injustice in the UK.

The Women’s Budget Group and the Runnymede Trust found Asian households will be £11,678 (US$15,390) worse off overall by 2020. At the same time, white families will be £6,199 worse off over 10 years.

“It is only by doing so we can make this country work for everyone, not just a privileged few,” the PM said as she announced the audit.

An “unprecedented” audit on employment showed huge social disparities between white Britons, and black and ethnic minority groups.

A new website, Ethnicity Facts and Figures, will show white Britons are more likely to own their home and have a job than minorities.

They are however, less likely to attend university if they went to a state school.

Currently, the unemployment rate for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people is 8 percent, yet it is 4.6 percent for white British adults.

I'm a little concerned that the focus may be skewed toward women. Yes they need to learn English and make an effort to fit into British society. They might even learn that it is OK to not be invisible. 

But I am more concerned about teaching Pakistani men that it is not OK to use British children like they are sex toys. That will conflict with their interpretation of the Quran by which they are justified to treat a girl as a sex slave if she merely gets into their car or enters a room with them (in their right-hand - or under their control). Mohammed gives men authority to do 'as they wish' with such girls as long as they are not Muslim.

Americans Pushed into Pro-War Frenzy by Elite-Controlled MSM & NATO – Max Blumenthal

Just when I start to think that maybe my Deep State theories are a bit paranoid, someone credible comes along and agrees with them

Max Blumenthal is a New York Times bestseller political writer. His father was an aide to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is worth reading.

U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for U.S.-led NATO troops at polygon near Orzysz, Poland, April 13, 2017.

© Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Years of Russia hysteria and North Korea fear-mongering led by the US mainstream media and NATO propaganda have built support for war among Americans, making them ready to “fight and die” in overseas lands, author and journalist Max Blumenthal told RT.

A recent study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has pointed at a shift in the collective thinking and feeling of Americans, when it comes how they view global conflict.

The study was conducted over the last two years leading up to the elections in 2016 and found that Americans seem to have found a new appetite for war. 

Blumenthal, who co-hosts the “Moderate Rebels” podcast focused on US interventions and is the Senior Editor of AlterNet’s Grayzone Project, spoke to RT America’s Manila Chan about these developments.

RT: What do you make of this Chicago Council study?

Max Blumenthal: The Washington Post in a commentary framed these numbers as kind of the failure of Donald Trump’s America First policy. And I think Trump has done a pretty horrible job selling his policy. There was a non-interventionist component that he campaigned on, which proved pretty popular, particularly in places like the Rust Belt.

However, I really think that if you look at these numbers, you should look at the internals, and look at when the poll was taken, and when the numbers started to shift. They started to shift when the election campaign began. They reflect a concerted campaign by the mainstream media and by the national security state, which has unprecedented access and control over mainstream media – particularly CNN and MSNBC – to bring the American public’s views in line with the elites’ [views] of our interventionist bipartisan foreign policy consensus in Washington. Two years of non-stop red-baiting, Russia hysteria, and fear-mongering over North Korea have done the trick, particularly among Democrats.

RT: Speaking of the mainstream media, why do liberals tend to support interventionist policies at higher rates than even Republicans? It’s unusual, isn’t it?

MB: Yes, it is unusual. We should just talk about some of the numbers first. From 2015 to this summer we saw a 20 percent surge in the number of Americans who would support sending troops to defend South Korea. We also see, for the first time in history, a majority of Americans willing to send US troops to fight and die for Latvia against Russia, and that is a reflection of their support for NATO. 

Liberals disproportionately support these militaristic policies, which seem to suggest support for a hot war with Russia, and even hot war with China. It would be disastrous if they took place. So why didn’t that take place? Because of the partisan war against Trump, who has been portrayed as an enemy of NATO – even though he is now as supportive of NATO as ever; as someone who is a Manchurian candidate of Russia, who is controlled by Putin’s nine-dimensional chess and has colluded with Russia. So, Democrats tend to see Russia in a negative light, and they support interventionist policies.

But if you also look at CNN and MSNBC versus Fox News, which is the de-facto channel of the Republican Party and Trump, you see non-stop contributors from the national security state – like James Clapper, Michael Hayden, the former CIA director – pushing these kinds of militaristic policies. So, these are the channels that Democrats watch. Their media, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, has really stepped up the fear-mongering and militarism.

So, you see a total reversal from the Bush period, the Bush era – when Democrats were staunchly against the Iraq war, because it was Bush’s war. And now you see the people that are against guns that are against mass shooting – favoring pointing guns and committing mass shootings abroad. 

RT: How do you view the posture of the American people on defending eastern European countries like Lithuania and Latvia, who are members of NATO?

MB: In 2014, Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State, wife of the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, said that Americans were ready to fight and die for Latvia. That wasn’t true at the time. Now it is. These attitudes have been manufactured.

They’ve been partly manufactured by NATO propaganda. We heard at lot – especially on CNN from figures like Jake Tapper, “Deep State Jake,” who almost every show is pushing regime change in one of the non-compliant states. We heard a lot about the Zapad [West] military exercises, thinking Romania, where Russia was said to have amassed 100,000 troops on NATO borders – even “Democracy Now!” reported that.

It turns out that Jens Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, was pushing this lie – that there will be 100,000 troops. I think less than 10,000 troops in the end appeared for these military exercises. This was supposed to terrify the states. It was absolute blaster and pro-war propaganda. We’ve seen that reflected in these attitudes.