David Cameron has made a strong defence of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles who has come under fire from Britain’s Muslim leaders after calling for mosques and imams to work harder to fight Islamist radicalisation.

Cameron said everyone had a responsibility to fight extremism. He said the letter was the most “reasonable, sensible, moderate” letter that Mr Pickles could possibly have written.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Pickles and communities minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon wrote: “You, as faith leaders, are in a unique position in our society. You have a precious opportunity, and an important responsibility, in explaining and demonstrating how faith in Islam can be part of British identity,” the ministers wrote.

“We believe together we have an opportunity to demonstrate the true nature of British Islam today. There is a need to lay out more clearly than ever before what being a British Muslim means today: proud of your faith and proud of your country. We know that acts of extremism are not representative of Islam, but we need to show what is.”

The letter led to protests from Muslim leaders. Harun Khan of the Muslim Council of Britain said: “We will be writing to Mr Eric Pickles to ask that he clarifies his request to Muslims to ‘explain and demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of British identity’.

“Is Mr Pickles seriously suggesting, as do members of the far right, that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society?”

Mr Cameron said: “I think it is absolutely right to write this letter, to say that we all have a responsibility to fight extremism.”

Answering questions after a speech today on employment in Ipswich, the Prime Minister said: “Anyone who reads this letter, and I’ve read the letter, will see that what he’s saying is that British Muslims make a great contribution to our country, that what is happening, in terms of extremist terror, has nothing to do with the true religion of Islam.

“It’s being perverted by a minority who have been radicalised.

“But everyone needs to help dealing with this problem of radicalisation.

“And anyone, frankly, reading this letter who has a problem with it, I think really has a problem. Because I think it’s the most reasonable, sensible, moderate letter that Eric could possibly have written. And, frankly, all of us have a responsibility to try and confront this radicalisation and make sure we stop young people being drawn into this poisonous, fanatical death cult that a very small minority of people have created.”

In the letter, Pickles and Ahmad wrote: “We have recently seen terrible atrocities committed in Paris. Finding the right response to these events is a challenge for everyone. The hijacking of a great faith to justify such heinous crimes sickens us all. As Muslims around the world have made clear, such actions are an affront to Islam.

“And yet, amid the carnage, came a sign of hope – over three million people of all backgrounds marching to defeat the gunmen and to protect our values: free speech, the rule of law, and democracy.

“We are proud of the reaction of British communities to this attack. Muslims from across the country have spoken out to say: not in our name.

“But there is more work to do. We must show our young people, who may be targeted, that extremists have nothing to offer them. We must show them that there are other ways to express disagreement: that their right to do so is dependent on the very freedoms that extremists seek to destroy.

“We must show them the multitude of statements of condemnation from British Muslims; show them these men of hate have no place in our mosques or any place of worship, and that they do not speak for Muslims in Britain or anywhere in the world.

“Let us assure you that the Government will do all we can to defeat the voices of division, but ultimately the challenges of integration and radicalisation cannot be solved from Whitehall alone. Strong community-based leadership at a local level is needed.”

Source: Christian Today

A damning report claims that “staggering” global inequality means the combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent of the world is set to overtake the rest of the population in 2016.

Released just before the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, the report by Oxfam warns that “Global wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated among a small wealthy elite”, while a billion people are forced to live on less than $1.25 a day.

Titled “Wealth: Having it all and wanting more”, the report claims that the wealthiest 1 per cent, a list of 80 people including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, saw their share of global wealth increase from 44 per cent in 2009 to 48 per cent in 2013. If this trend continues at the current rate, it will exceed 50 per cent next year.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said in a statement released ahead of the conference: “Do we really want to live in a world where the one per cent own more than the rest of us combined? The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.”

Byanyima criticised world leaders for promising to tackle extreme inequality, but failing to “walk the walk”.

“It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world,” she said.

“Business as usual for the elite isn’t a cost free option – failure to tackle inequality will set the fight against poverty back decades. The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality – they get a smaller share of the economic pie and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around.”

Byanyima will co-chair the forum in Davos, and has pledged to use Oxfam’s high-profile to further its agenda. It is calling on governments to reduce tax dodging, invest in health and education and promote gender-equality through economic policies, among other goals.

Source: Christian Today

Adeba Shaker, a 14-year-old from Iraq’s minority Yazidi sect, recalled the day when she smiled again for the first time since her abduction by Islamic State militants.

It was October 28, 2014, when she was reunited with her younger sister who had also been kidnapped and sold in a market.

Shaker and 13-year-old Chenar found each other at a camp for internally displaced people just outside Dohuk, in northern Iraq, where Chenar came after being freed by a Sunni Muslim family who paid to save her from Islamist fighters.

“I can’t describe how I felt, I was so happy,” Shaker told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the camp. “Now we need to find everybody else.”

Sixteen of Shaker’s relatives are still being held by Islamic State fighters who control large swathes of Iraq and Syria. They were abducted from their village in the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq, and separated.

Islamic State has hounded ethnic and religious minorities in northern Iraq since seizing the city of Mosul in June, killing and displacing thousands of Christians, Shi’ite Shabaks and Turkmen who lived for centuries in one of the most diverse parts of the Middle East.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have been captured, raped and tortured, and forced to convert to Islam and marry Islamic State followers, according to rights groups.

Shaker was trafficked to the Syrian border and was given as a “gift” to fighters on the frontline. She was converted to Islam and forcibly married to one of them.

Young Chenar was sold at the local market. Just hours before the bidding started, a Sunni man noticed her. “He said I was too young,” Chenar said.

He paid $1,500 for her and brought her to his home. “As soon as I stepped in the house, he allowed me to call my family.”

Although she was told she would be released, the man told her to be patient.

“The Daesh (an Arabic acronym used for the Islamist group) were watching all our moves, it was a very dangerous situation for everybody,” she said.

Chenar was held in the man’s house for 55 days.

“I wasn’t asked to do anything in the house. I would just eat and sleep. They were kind to me, although I was not permitted to go out.”

The sisters told their story while sitting in their tent in the Shariya refugee camp that opened in mid-November. They live with two brothers, two cousins and an uncle.

“We know other members of our family are still alive, some of them called us, but they have not been able to escape,” said Sal, one of the brothers.

The Yazidi are a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Tens of thousands have fled Islamic State fighters, who say the Yazidi must embrace their radical version of Islam or die.

Shaker escaped from a house in Raabia, Iraq, in late August when her Islamic State captors received a phone call and stormed out. She took the chance to escape, running towards the Syrian border and to safety with Kurdish fighters.

She is now focused on finding her mother and sisters and leaving Iraq for good.

“Nowhere is safe here for us. I want to go away. I want to go to America.”

In the meantime, the family faces harsh, wintry conditions in the camp, where water seeps into tents when it rains. And fear remains.

Some of the nearly 3,000 families sheltering at Shariya are Sunni, the branch of Islam followed by Islamic State, and Shaker, like many others, fear further violence.

“They are scared to be harmed again and, as a result, there is constant tension,” said Stefano Nanni, who works at the camp for Italian aid group Un Ponte Per.

Nanni said the two groups were housed in separate sectors of the camp, but he thought they would have to be moved to different camps.

There are 21 camps in the Dohuk area – five still under construction – where 700,000 people live, most of them Yazidis.

Source: Christian Today