The Sunday Telegraph published a letter yesterday signed by over 450 British Muslim scholars and leaders expressing ‘serious misgivings’ over the Coalition’s Marriage Bill legalizing same sex marriage. The Marriage Bill returns to the Report Stage in Parliament today.

In the letter, signed by a plethora of imams and Muslim leaders, they assert their “responsibility to fulfil our sacred trust to God and present our view on these proposals on behalf of the Muslim communities we serve.”

The letter reinforces interventions by other religious leaders and states:

“We support the numerous calls from other faith leaders and communities who have stood firmly against gay marriage and instead support marriage as it should be, between a man and a woman.”

You can read the letter and the full list of signatories here.

The Asian Image newspaper reports on the fundraising efforts of schoolgirls at Preston Muslim Girls High School and Abrar Academy who have jointly raised £8000 for charity.

The paper reports that the money will be distributed to two causes, “£3500 will be sent to Gaza through Interpal and £4500 will be sent to Syria through Islamic relief.”

A Preston Muslim Girls’ School spokesperson said, “Our Beloved Prophet PBUH never turned the beggar away empty handed and we too should consider charity to be a blessing that increases our capital rather than one that decreases it as mentioned in the Holy Quran."

At ENGAGE, we regularly monitor print, broadcast and social media to record and challengemisrepresentations and inaccurate reporting of Islam and Muslims in the UK.We have in our parliamentary briefing paper on Islamophobia, enclosed herewith, argued for closerscrutiny and better self-regulation of the UK media in order to make it more responsive to badpractices, journalistic bias and the prevalent practice of exaggerating the influence of fringe Muslimgroups to demonise the wider British Muslim population.We have approached the PCC on a number of occasions to lodge complaints on coverage we havedeemed to be inaccurate, unfair or discriminatory. A summary of these complaints is elaborated on insection one below providing details for the complaint (inaccuracy, misrepresentation, discriminatoryreportage) together with the responses from the respective newspaper or the PCC to our complaint.Section two elaborates on cases lodged by third parties which reflect inaccuracy, poor reporting ordiscrimination. Section three concludes with our ongoing concerns on the modus operandi of theEditors’ Code of Practice and its limitations with specific reference to media reporting of Islam andBritish Muslims.

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 Executive summary:

• On 20th September 2011 the Palestinian Authority will unilaterally declare independence at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York and seek recognition as a sovereign state and 194th Member of the international community of states embodied in the United Nations.
• The PA will seek recognition from the Member-States of the UN and the UN Security Council of the state of Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
• This move has been a long time coming and has its foundation in a broad body of international law. These include UNSCR 242 and 1397, regarding the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Occupied Palestinian Territories; UNGAR 181, 2253 and 2254 and also UNSCR 267, 298, 476 and 478 regarding the status of Jerusalem and its occupation by Israel; UNSCR 446, 452, 465, 471 regarding the illegality of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
• The ongoing, illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the introduction of new obstacles to peace, in the form of the blockade on Gaza, the illegal wall constructed in the occupied West Bank , and the expansion of illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, have all contributed to the loss of Palestinian confidence in the peace process and its oftpromised outcomes.
• The vote in the General Assembly must be backed by a majority in the Security Council for the vote to materially deliver a seat for Palestine in the UN as a sovereign state and international recognition as a member of the community of states. The Palestinian Authority is confident of securing the two-thirds majority it requires in the General Assembly, 129 votes out of the total 193.
• The US Government has threatened to exercise its veto power to obstruct passage through the UN Security Council
• The unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood finds its culmination in the two-year program of the 13th Government of the Palestinian National Authority, ‘Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State,’ adopted in August 2009.
• International bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank and the UN accept that Palestinian institutions are ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood.
• The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has previously spoken of the need for “decisive leadership” in resolving this protracted conflict. To act otherwise, he said, would only foment “decades of potential conflict and even deeper difficulties in the Middle East.”
• The Palestinian Authority has taken the initiative and shown “decisive leadership” in declaring its intent to push a vote for recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN in September 2011. We would urge the British Government to match this with a display of “decisive leadership” of its own and vote in favour of recognition in order to rescue the peace process and to make progress towards a fully negotiated settlement by establishing its long-overdue and principal outcome: a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

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