New German government to allow more dual citizens
Published on Dec 6, 2013
The children of German immigrants are set to benefit from an important advancement made by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new coalition to liberalise Germany’s citizenship law. At present Germany does not permit most immigrants who become German citizens to hold onto their old passports.
Britain talks to Syrian jihadis: UK hold face-to-face talks with al-Qaeda-linked Islamist factions
Published on Dec 6, 2013
Britain has joined with their western allies to hold their first face-to-face talks with Islamists factions fighting against Syrian President, Bashir al-Assad, in the hope they can establish some common ground. The meeting comes amid growing concerns about jihadist joining al-Qaeda-linked factions who now dominate many parts of rebel-held territory.
‘Muslim Patrol’ jailed for harassing couple holding hands and men drinking in a bid to enforce Sharia law in East London
- Jordan Horner, Ricardo Macfarlane and another man sentenced to jail for 68 weeks, 12 months and 24 weeks respectively
- Islamic extremists forced couples to stop holding hands in East London
- They also began a fight with men who were drinking on the street
- Old Bailey hears that Horner, 19, was a drug user before finding Islam
By HUGO GYE
PUBLISHED: 17:54 GMT, 6 December 2013 | UPDATED: 19:49 GMT, 6 December 2013
Three members of a so-called ‘Muslim Patrol’ were today jailed at the Old Bailey for repeatedly trying to enforce Sharia law in East London.
Jordan Horner and another Islamic extremist told one couple they could not hold hands while walking down the street, because it was in a ‘Muslim area’.
The radicals also attacked a group of men drinking in the road, and told a woman she would face ‘hell fire’ because of the way she was dressed.
Horner, 19, Ricardo MacFarlane, 36, and a 23-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons were sentenced to 68 weeks, 12 months and 24 weeks in prison respectively.
Jailed: Jordan Horner, left, and Ricardo MacFarlane, right, have been sentenced to prison along with another man for their role in the self-styled ‘Muslim Patrol’
The court earlier heard that last December Horner and the 23-year-old man drove alongside Joshua Bilton and Anna Reddiford in Bethnal Green, and started yelling at them through a megaphone.
The teenage convert shouted: ‘Let go of each other’s hands. This is a Muslim area!’ – but the couple initially assumed it was a joke.
They stopped holding hands after the men repeated the message – and when they started again, the car blocked their way until they let go.
Women who accused Bikram yoga founder of rape speak out against the millionaire ‘guru’ after ‘he forced one victim into a yoga pose during an attack’
Bikram Choudhury leader of the Bikram hot yoga movement directs classes in his Bikram’s Yoga College of India in San Diego
- Bikram Choudhury, 67, runs an international ‘hot yoga’ chain based in LA with a stream of devoted celebrity followers
- Yoga teacher Sarah Baughn, 29, alleges Choudhury sexually harassed her and then sabotaged her career in a lawsuit filed in March
- Three other women have since come forward to say they were assaulted
By LOUISE BOYLE
PUBLISHED: 22:53 GMT, 6 December 2013 | UPDATED: 22:58 GMT, 6 December 2013
Women who claim the founder of wildly popular Bikram yoga raped and sexually assaulted them have revealed how they were attacked during intense retreats where they witnessed sordid massages, sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
Bikram Choudhury, 67, runs an international ‘hot yoga’ chain with a stream of devoted celebrity followers including George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow.
However in the past year, he has been accused of raping, assaulting or sexually harassing four women who attended his classes amid other claims including racism and threats of violence in multiple lawsuits.
Bikram yoga is based on regular yoga but performed in 100F heat and sweltering, 40 per cent humidity which Choudhury says mimics his native Calcutta. Devotees extol the virtues of the extreme workout and meditative, spiritual healing with a near religious zeal.
Sarah Baughn (pictured left) and Larissa Anderson (right) are among five women who have sued Bikram Choudhury amid allegations of rape and sexual harassment
Cousin ‘still proud’ of disposing of honour killing-victim’s body, judge says
Banaz Mahmod’s “crime” was to divorce her first husband from an arranged marriage and fall in love with another man
By News agencies
1:57PM GMT 06 Dec 2013
The cousin of honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod who helped to dispose of her body is “still proud of what he did”, a judge said on Friday as he sentenced him to eight years in prison.
Dana Amin, 29, helped Banaz’s father and two other men now convicted of murdering the 20-year-old bury her corpse in a Birmingham garden.
The Muslim’s body was shoved into a suitcase before being driven to the Midlands and dumped in a make-shift grave in January 2006, where it lay undiscovered for three months.
Judge Martin Beddoe told Amin: “[Banaz’s] death had been planned for about a month or so before it actually took place. There had even been an attempt on her life already.
“I am sure you were aware of all these matters and you knew not only of what had gone on but what was intended to happen.
Vicious rapist we can’t deport – because of his right to family life… even though he has no wife or children
- Mustafa Abdullahi was jailed for ten years after threatening to kill his victim
- The 31-year-old was set to be deported to Somalia on his release
- But immigration judges have ruled he cannot be kicked out because his mother and other family members live in the UK
- They claim deportation would breach his right to a private and family life
By JACK DOYLE, NICK FAGGE and RICHARD MARSDEN
PUBLISHED: 23:04 GMT, 6 December 2013 | UPDATED: 23:05 GMT, 6 December 2013
‘Mockery of justice’: Convicted rapist Mustafa Abdullahi cannot be deported to Somalia because it would breach his human rights
A Somali rapist who held a knife to a pregnant woman’s throat as he raped her has been allowed to stay in Britain to protect his human rights.
Mustafa Abdullahi, 31, was jailed for ten years after he threatened to kill his victim and repeatedly assaulted her.
He was set to be deported on release, but immigration judges have ruled he cannot be kicked out because his mother and other family members live in the UK.
They said he had been here so long, it would breach his right to a private and family life to force him to return to Somalia.
The judges also gave him credit for having ‘faced up to what he has done’ and having put his criminal behaviour ‘behind him’.
They also concluded he posed a ‘low risk’ of committing further offences, based on evidence from a psychiatrist who only saw him for a couple of hours.
The case is the latest in a series of human rights judgments in which judges favour the rights of criminals over those of victims and the wider public.
Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘This vicious man should be on the first plane back to Somalia. It makes a mockery of British justice and human rights to see such a dangerous thug dance rings around the UK system.’
Abdullahi came to Britain aged 11 in February 1993 to join his mother, brother and sister, who arrived three years earlier. They were all given indefinite leave to stay in 2000.
But in 2007 he was sentenced to ten years in prison for the horrific sex attack, in which he repeatedly raped a ‘vulnerable’ pregnant woman in her early twenties who had been sleeping at her home, after holding a knife to her throat and threatening to kill her.
