EqualTadpole

As the conflict rages on & on, perhaps this gentle, heartfelt plea should be on every lip youtu.be/PzmvagnGTYY?si…

When the Truth Becomes a Disciplinary Matter Steve Reed stood at the despatch box this week and announced a definition of anti-Muslim hostility. Britain already has laws against stirring up religious hatred, discrimination law, hate crime legislation and a Prevent programme that refers people for deradicalisation. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says the new definition is unnecessary and risks a chilling effect on free speech. Even the government's own appointed working group chair, Dominic Grieve, acknowledged that defining Islamophobia was extremely difficult for perfectly valid reasons relating to freedom of expression. Reed announced it anyway. The question is why? Look at what is happening on British campuses this week and the answer begins to take shape. Students at twenty-seven universities, including Cambridge and UCL, have been mourning Ali Khamenei, the man who oversaw the killing of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, backed Hamas and Hezbollah, and ran assassination plots on British soil. Cambridge's Islamic society described him as a martyr. Leeds posted illustrations honouring him. Other universities offered guidance on navigating collective grief. All of it legal. All of it tolerated. Now consider what the new monitoring framework will do to a teacher who raises concerns in a staffroom about honour killings, grooming gangs or gender segregation. Under the definition being disseminated to schools, councils, universities, the NHS and broadcasters, raising such concerns risks triggering an anti-Muslim hostility report. Not a criminal prosecution. Something quieter and more effective: a record, a conversation, a consequence. The kind of thing that doesn't make the news but teaches everyone watching exactly what they are no longer permitted to say. The APPG definition, which shaped the framework now being rolled out, is worth reading carefully. It explicitly states that claiming Muslims have a unique propensity for terrorism constitutes anti-Muslim hostility. MI5's own published figures show that three quarters of counter-terrorism work concerns Islamist extremism and that ninety-four percent of all terrorist deaths in Britain over the past twenty-five years were carried out in the name of Islamist ideology. Describing that accurately, using the government's own security service data, could under this framework be classified as prejudicial stereotyping. The state is building an apparatus that makes its own security assessments unsayable. Lord Walney, a former government anti-extremism tsar, has already warned that extremists will use the definition to deflect scrutiny from their efforts to undermine British values and intimidate fellow Muslims. Lord Young of the Free Speech Union has said it will cause people to self-censor on issues such as honour killings for fear of the consequences. The shadow communities minister has called it a backdoor blasphemy law. Religious leaders from Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities have written jointly to Reed urging him to abandon it. He announced it anyway. This is the pattern. Khamenei mourned at Cambridge. Iranian agents arrested for surveilling British Jews. Islamists responsible for three quarters of the counter-terrorism workload. And the government's response is to build a monitoring framework disseminated through every school, hospital, broadcaster and public body in the country, ensuring that the people most likely to notice what is happening are the least able to say so without consequence. You cannot tackle a problem you cannot describe. Reed is right about that. The problem is that his government is making the description a disciplinary matter. Why? Because this is what pandering to a bloc looks like when it is dressed up as principle. The majority pays the price. The minority gets the protection. And the government calls it cohesion. "The state is building an apparatus that makes its own security assessments unsayable."

A week after the Government published its official definition of Islamophobia — now repackaged as “anti-Muslim hostility” — a Labour MP is trying to silence the Shadow Justice Secretary. Labour MP Afzal Khan has coordinated a letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards accusing @NJTimothy of Islamophobia, following a post on X criticising an Iftar event in Trafalgar Square. So much for your assurances that this definition would not restrict free speech or our ability to criticise religion, @SteveReedMP. This is a blasphemy law by the back door.

@DavidPoulden @Rocky219836 If ever a face betrayed a wrong'un...

Zack Polanski will never be Prime Minister. Drop a ❤️, retweet, and follow me if you agree.

"BRITAIN HAS FAILED WHITE WORKING-CLASS BOYS!" STARMER WARNED IN BRUTAL BOMBSHELL Tory peer Lord Sewell , who chaired the landmark race commission report, is set to tell Keir Starmer that white working-class boys from the poorest homes are still stuck at the bottom of the class five years later. Official data shows only 33% of white pupils on free school meals achieve basic GCSE English and Maths passes, the lowest of any group, trailing Chinese (80%), Indian and Bangladeshi pupils by miles. Sewell will slam the government for ignoring family breakdown, deprivation and low expectations while obsessing over identity politics. White working-class lads, the most neglected underclass in Britain. There we have it, and the fact this is from a black man the left cant play the race card here!

Trafalgar Square, London. Small Heath Park, Birmingham. Times Square, New York. Tremblay, France. Western countries should make sure that this act of domination doesn’t become normal. It’s a slippery slope to allow it to get this far.

We are appealing for help to trace Tyrone Nicholson, 54, who has been reported missing from Edinburgh. Tyrone was last seen in the Restalrig area around 2.30pm on Friday, 20 March. Any info, call 101 quoting ref 0906 of 21 March. More: orlo.uk/vesY7

#MISSINGCHILD 12-year-old Tianna was last seen in Croydon on Friday 20 March. She has a slim build and medium-dark skin tone. If you have any information regarding her disappearance please contact 999 or the number below: 07391107450 Please share and repost!

HE IS 16. His name is Mohammad Hossein Shokri. Not a criminal. Not a threat. A child. Arrested while working, selling corn cobs. Sentenced to death. Let that sink in: A 16-year-old facing execution. Don’t scroll. Don’t stay silent. Say his name. Share it everywhere.

🚨 URGENT: 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL ON DEATH ROW! #Diana_Taherabadi, only 16, has been sentenced to death in Karaj, Iran. A child who belongs in school is now facing the gallows in Kachouyi Prison. Executing a minor is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY and a flagrant violation of international law. The world cannot stay silent while the Islamic Republic kills children. BE HER VOICE! @UNICEF @UNHumanRights @amnesty @hrw @JustinTrudeau @Europarl_EN @CNN @BBCWorld @nytimes @Reuters @AP @FoxNews @guardian #IranMassacre‌ #FreePoliticalPrisonersinIran #StopExecution

While the world watches the war, the Islamic Republic has silenced 90M Iranians with an internet blackout. We don't want this regime , Don’t let our silence be our end. #KingRezaPahlavi‌ #RezaPahlavi‌ForIran #DigitalBlackoutIran

@ThomasSirianni2 @helgy2 @RockySarni8180 @Davidmetroland @TIMGOLDFINCH @NaomiLWood @PerKurowski @jbhearn @barfydee @grok @TiraDeUrgue @Ellis_Greenwood @OakWoodMM @CarolyneMas @EmmetCohen @bbjazziii @GigiDeLana @ErikPlum @lmoh000 @Keir_Starmer @jacquidankworth @daveguitarjones That joke will simply bomb..........

@helgy2 @RockySarni8180 @Davidmetroland @ETadpole @TIMGOLDFINCH @NaomiLWood @PerKurowski @jbhearn @barfydee @grok @TiraDeUrgue @Ellis_Greenwood @OakWoodMM @CarolyneMas @EmmetCohen @bbjazziii @GigiDeLana @ErikPlum @lmoh000 @Keir_Starmer @jacquidankworth @daveguitarjones Trying to find some humor in a dangerous world

Crazy brilliant #piano track, Frank Dupree by Genius composer Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin #Ukrainian en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_K… #jazz @ThomasSirianni2 @RockySarni8180 @NaomiLWood @Ellis_Greenwood @PerKurowski @OakWoodMM @CarolyneMas @EmmetCohen @bbjazziii youtube.com/watch?v=EH_Ioj…

@daveguitarjones She laughed the first 300 times she heard it

The Tibetan Sand Fox carries the same resting expression as a wife who's just heard her husband's latest joke. *Not a lot of people know that*

@daveguitarjones Go to the laundry, they use a lot of irony there

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere in life." my boss told me. "It got me to the 'International Sarcasm' finals in Chile in 2015." "Really?" "No"

@daveguitarjones I hope it's not a hot day, wouldn't want stick insects there.......

When the inventor of the USB stick dies they will gently lower the coffin, then pull it back up, turn it the other way, then lower it again.

@daveguitarjones If you watch the screen in the cinema you won't need a ringtone

I don't have to turn off my mobile in the cinema anymore. I've downloaded a 'hacking cough' as my ringtone.

@daveguitarjones It's obvious he never met "Capability" Brown

Dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner..……….

@daveguitarjones Lovin' Spoonful is my favourite

Vegetarian music fans. Robert Plant makes an ideal alternative to Meat Loaf.

@daveguitarjones I have tried in practical ways to understand the meaning of "vice".

Don't you just hate it when people use Latin words they don't understand and vice-versa?

🚨RUPERT LOWE EXPOSES UK GOVERNMENT HIDING MIGRANT STATISTICS "Let me be abundantly clear. It's a COVER UP" "Information is being hidden from the public on crime, welfare claims, tax contributions, size of illegal population, public service usage and so muck more"

🇬🇧 Meanwhile today over Worcestershire, UK Sprayed Metal Particulates ✅ Obvious Frequency Manipulation ✅ Artificial Cloud Layer ✅ Obscuration of The Sun ✅ Its not a Conspiracy when you can go outside yourself and look up - or just keep pretending this has always happened..