Day: September 25, 2017

    Girls as young as four are being forced to wear the hijab as uniform at state funded Islamic schools, new research has found. More than two in five Islamic schools in England that accept girls require them to wear a hijab as school uniform, according to the research. Some 59 of 142 (42 per cent) of Islamic schools, including 27 primary schools, have a uniform policy which states a head covering is compulsory, the National Secular Society (NSS) said. The body has written to Education Secretary Justine Greening to express its concern over the figures, which also showed eight of the secondary schools and three of the primary schools were state-funded. The research was first reported in the Sunday Times. In the letter, the NSS asks for Muslim girls to be given free choices and...

  Bank of England says banking system requires a contingency plan of £10bn to ward off the threat of bad debt. Banking system needs £10bn contingency plan to ward off the risk of bad debt. Britain’s banks could incur £30bn of losses on their lending on credit cards, personal loans and for car finance if interest rates and unemployment rise sharply, the Bank of England warned on Monday. After assessing the fast growth in the consumer credit market, Threadneedle Street is requiring the banking system to hold an extra £10bn of capital as protection against any future losses after finding that lenders are underestimating their exposure to bad debts in an economic downturn. Publishing its latest assessment of risks to the financial system, the Bank of England also spelt out specific conc...

    Dr Nasser Kurdy suffers stab wound in neck while arriving for evening prayers at Altrincham mosque. Altrincham’s Islamic centre Police said they are treating the attack as a hate crime and confirmed they have arrested two men, aged 54 and 32. Sunday 24 September 2017 22.53 BST Last modified on Sunday 24 September 2017 23.54 BST A man has been stabbed outside a mosque in Greater Manchester in an incident that police are treating as a hate crime. The victim, named locally as Dr Nasser Kurdy, an orthopaedic surgeon and imam, was reportedly arriving at the Altrincham Islamic centre, Grove Lane, for evening prayers at 6pm when someone stabbed him in the neck from behind. A friend of the victim told the Manchester Evening News that he had suffered a non-critical 3cm stab wound w...