The Exeter Express and Echo has reported on the sentencing of a man convicted for committing religiously aggravated criminal damage after he attacked a mosque. The man had watched news reports on the desecration of Commonwealth graves in Libya before committing the offence.
From the local paper:
“A man launched a drunken attack on a mosque after watching a news report about the desecration of Commonwealth graves in Libya.
“Barry Stanbury, 42, was caught on CCTV cameras at shortly before 2.30am on March 5, wandering around the Exeter Mosque before a window was smashed, Exeter magistrates heard.
“The court was told Stanbury was wearing "a distinctive hoodie" with a logo of a large cross on it, and a police officer recognised the defendant.
“When interviewed Stanbury said he was "so drunk he did not remember doing it".
The judge prosecuting told the court that Stanbury’s motive for the attack “was seeing on the news that Commonwealth graves had been desecrated in Libya.”
The article continues, “Stanbury… denied racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage at the mosque but was convicted after a trial.
“Magistrates sentenced him to 80 hours unpaid work, £100 compensation and pay £150 costs.”
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Comments
Muslim community not only needs Mosques but also state funded Muslim schools for their bilingual children.
Multiculturalism involves a level of complexity which cannot be understood from the prospective of any single discipline. Instead, historical, cultural, linguistic, political, economic, educational, sociological and psychological factors and processes all play critical role.
Multiculturalism is not about integration but about cultural plurality. It is not about separation but about respect and the deepening awareness of Unity in Diversity. Each culture will maintain its own intrinsic value and at the same time would be expected to contribute to the benefit of the whole society. Multiculturalism can accommodate diversity of all kinds – cultural, philosophical and religious – so that we can create a world without conflict and strife. Britain can assume the role of accommodation and concern for all peoples, for our planet and indeed for our survival. We live in a rapidly changing world.
Muslim families are as entitled as any other religious group to schools that nurture their children's faith. Muslim pupils should be educated in Muslim schools because the current system is marginalising them. Teaching Muslim children in a Muslim school would remove the "problem of them being exposed" to values that conflict with Islamic faith. Muslim pupils are disadvantaged and marginalised in the city's state schools because the cultural heritage of the curriculum is "European and Christian".
Muslim schools provide an education in accordance with the Muslim beliefs and values, such as providing single-sex schooling after puberty. They are thus a response to the danger of absorption into the dominant culture. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental period. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school. There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be opted out as Muslim Academies.
Iftikhar Ahmad
London School of Islamics Trust
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
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