About 5,200 people in UK adopted faith last year alone

The number of Muslim converts in Britain has passed 100,000, fuelled by a surge in young white women adopting the Islamic faith.

The figure has almost doubled in ten years – with the average convert now a 27-year-old white woman fed up with British consumerism and immorality.

The numbers, revealed in a study by multi-faith group Faith Matters, have led to claims that the country is undergoing a process of ‘Islamification’.

The survey of converts revealed nearly two thirds were women, more than 70 per cent were white and the average age at conversion was just 27.

But the organisation’s report argued that most converts saw their religion as ‘perfectly compatible’ with living in Britain.

It said: ‘Converts do not represent a devious fifth column determined to undermine the Western way of life – this is a group of normal people united in their adherence to a religion which they, for the most part, see as perfectly compatible with Western life.’

Convert: Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, attracted a lot of publicity when she announced she had adopted the Islamic faith last year

The report estimated around 5,200 men and women have adopted Islam over the past 12 months, including 1,400 in London. Nearly two-thirds were women, more than 70 per cent were white and the average age at conversion was 27.

In 2001, there were an estimated 60,000 Muslim converts in Britain.

The survey, conducted by Kevin Brice from Swansea University, asked converts for their views on the negative aspects of British culture.

They identified alcohol and drunkenness, a ‘lack of morality and sexual permissiveness’, and ‘unrestrained consumerism’.

More than one in four accepted there was a ‘natural conflict’ between being a devout Muslim and living in the UK. Nine out of ten women converts said their change of religion had led to them dressing more conservatively. More than half started wearing a head scarf and 5 per cent had worn the burka.

More than half also said they experienced difficulties after converting because of negative attitudes among their family.

Last year Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former prime minister Tony Blair, attracted widespread publicity when she announced that she had converted to Islam.

Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters, said: ‘Conversion to Islam has been stigmatised by the media and wrongly associated with extremist ideologies and discriminatory cultural practices.’

There are 1.57billion Muslims around the world, meaning that nearly one in four people practises Islam, according to a report published yesterday.

The size of the Muslim population has long been the subject of guesswork, with estimates ranging anywhere from one billion to 1.8billion.

But the report, by the Pew Research Centre's Forum on Religion and Public Life, is billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.

The project, which has taken three years, presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some. For example, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more than Syria, and Russia has more than Jordan and Libya combined.

One commentator, Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University in the U.S., said: 'This idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is obliterated by this report.'

Britain has 1,647,000 Muslims - 2.7 per cent of the UK population, and 0.1 per cent of the global Muslim population, the report said.

Islam is the world's second largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1billion to 2.2billion followers.

The Pew centre, an American think-tank, calls the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of Muslims.

The task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analysing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys.

The report provides further evidence that while the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia - more than 60 per cent of the world's Muslims live in Asia. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population - 203million, or 13 per cent of the world's total.

Global religion: The report showed that nearly one in four people in the world are Muslim

About 20 per cent of Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 per cent in Europe and 0.3 per cent in the Americas. Europe is home to about 38million.

The report made no reference to whether the Muslim population is on the increase. A Pew centre project next year will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations and project future trends.

The report also revealed that:

Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about five per cent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims - almost as many as North and South America combined. In France, where tensions have run high over an influx of Muslim immigrant laborers, the overall numbers were lower but a larger percentage of the population is Muslim.

Two-thirds of all Muslims live in 10 countries. Six are in Asia (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey), three are in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco) and one is in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria).

Indonesia, which has a tradition of a more tolerant Islam, has the world's largest Muslim population (203 million, or 13 per cent of the world's total). Religious extremists have been involved in several high-profile bombings there in recent years.

In China, the highest concentrations of Muslims were in western provinces. The country experienced its worst outbreak of ethnic violence in decades when rioting broke out this summer between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese.

Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States although they only make up 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim, or about two percent of the total population

Gunmen opened fire during a Mother’s Day neighborhood parade in New Orleans, injuring at least 19 people. Two children were among the victims.

Marchers in a second-line parade, a loose procession of people following a brass band, had their Mother’s Day celebrations disrupted on Sunday by gunfire in New Orleans.

None of the victims reportedly sustained life-threatening injuries, but New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ronal Serpas said three or four were undergoing surgery.

“At this time, we have no indication that anyone will perish from today’s events,” Serpas said.

Two ten year olds were reportedly injured during the shooting.

Motive in question

According to police, three suspects were witnessed as they fled the scene, but no arrests had yet been made.

Police were searching for the motive behind Sunday’s violence.

“It appears that these two or three people just for a reason unknown to us, started shooting at, toward or in the crowd,” Serpas said. “It was over in just a couple seconds.”

The area of New Orleans where the shooting took place has both low-income and middle-class row homes, some boarded up, lining its streets.

Serpas assured the public and the victims that authorities would react swiftly to the violence and make arrests.

“We’ll get them. We have good resources in this neighborhood,” Serpas added.

tm/jm (AP, AFP)

http://www.dw.de/shots-ring-out-at-mothers-day-parade-in-new-orleans/a-16808154

International donors have pledged more than 3.25 billion euros in aid to help convert the West African state of Mali into a viable nation rather than a terrorist haven.

International donors meeting in Brussels have raised a higher-than-expected 3.25-billion-euros ($4.1 billion) to help aid reconstruction and development in Mali.

“It has been confirmed to me that more than 3.25 billion euros have been mobilized at this conference,” Hollande told donors at the conference co-hosted by the European Union and Mali’s former colonial power, France.

The money pledged well exceeds the 2 billion euros requested by Mali over the next two years which will go towards covering about half the cost of a 2013-14 economic and political reconstruction program agreed to in conjunction with the international community.

The 4.3-billion-euro rebuilding plan, billed by Brussels prior to the conference as “a total relaunch of the country,” includes various initiatives, such as organizing elections currently set down for July.

Preconditions would be tied to the aid, ensuring an open and transparent Mali, with political reconciliation and democracy pivotal in stabilizing the country and the wider Sahel region.

“That is why the elections must take place on the date indicated” of July 28, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told attendees. “You cannot separate [the country's development] from the democratic process.”

The crisis, he added, reflected Mali’s economic and political failings which need to be resolved.

Malian President Dioncounda Traore announced on Tuesday that the July poll would go ahead as planned, but warned the country’s electoral commission had cautioned that it might be too soon.

The contributions reflect “solidarity and support to the Malian people,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told donors, stressing that the country needs stability and peace “for its future and that of the Africans.”

jlw/jm (dpa, AP, AFP, Reuters)

Ha-Meem Group, one of the major garment makers of the country, suspended production for Monday after garment workers clashed with police in Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital, leaving 30 injured.

At least 7,000 workers of Ha-Meem Group and 20 other factories started the demonstration at Narasinghapur around 8:00am demanding a hike in their salaries, said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, deputy director of Industrial Police.

Police had to charge batons and fire rubber bullets and teargas shells to bring the situation under control, he said.

Transport movement on the Dhaka-Tangail highway came to a halt immediately due to the clash.

A delegation of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) will hold a meeting with Labour and Employment Minister Rajiudin Ahmed Raju Monday to finding out a solution, former BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy told The Daily Star.

“Production in Ha-Meem Group is suspended only for today (Monday) due to labour unrest,” said AK Azad, managing director of Ha-Meem Group.

“Though I have accepted almost all the demands of the workers, unrest is still going on,” he said.

The group has already increased the attendance bonus to Tk 350 from its previous Tk 300, he mentioned.

Although the government announced new wage board for the workers last week, they are demanding increase in their salaries, he said.

“We will follow whatever the decision the wage board gives us,” he said.

It will take a few months more to hike their salaries according to the new wage board, Azad added.

The workers are now also demanding payment for three days from May 13 to 15 when all the Ashulia-based garment factories remained closed following a labour unrest, Azad claimed.

According to the rules, the workers cannot demand payment for those days as the factories were closed on the basis of ‘no work no pay’, former BGMEA president Murshedy said.

“The problems in Ashulia-based garment factories are deepening day by day, although everybody is trying to solve the problems,” he said.

According to the Industrial Police, workers of Ha-Meem Group and 20 other factories took to the streets at Narasinghapur Monday morning, halting transport movement on Dhaka-Tangail highway.

As police tried to resist them, the workers pelted brick chips targeting the law enforcers that triggered the clash.

Police charged batons and fired rubber bullets and teargas shells and dispersed the agitating workers.

At least 30 people were injured during the clash, witnesses said.

Vehicular movement resumed on the highway around 10:30am.

http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/30-hurt-as-rmg-workers-clash-with-cops-in-ashulia/

Dutch News: A tip-off from the Dutch security service AIVD led police to stop a 16-year-old would-be jihadist leaving the country to fight in Syria, the NRC reports on Friday.

Police spokeswoman Nicole Bogers told the NRC the teenager had been stopped in connection with an investigation into people actively recruiting youngsters to join the armed struggle in Syria.

Sources told the paper the 16-year-old was a girl who wanted to join the fight against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Police have confirmed they have had four complaints about three recruiters.

100 fighters

The national counter-terrorism office said earlier this year that some 100 Dutch youngsters have left the country to take part in jihadist missions.

However, Bogers told the NRC: ‘the rumours speak of 100 people in The Hague region but we only know of six who are definitely in Syria. There are strong indications a further 24 have gone.’ Two of them are female and nine are juveniles, the NRC reported.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/05/police_stop_16-year-old_girl_h.php