I recently visited Turkey on a fact finding visitwith my colleague, Cllr John Oakes. The visit took in civil society organisations, key AK Party members, Members of Parliament within Turkey, newspapers like Zamaan and religious leaders who are creating and shaping the landscape of Turkey. What I have found is a country of such vibrancy Read More
Last week, I had the pleasure of bringing new members to the Liberal Democrats, all three of whom who would add value to their local Liberal Democrat associations and to the Party as a whole. Mike Penrose (an international development consultant), Rabbi Deborah Kahn Harris and Dilek Aygun (a Haringey Turkish community activist – pictured), Read More
Running up to the next election, Labour are going to lay a number of charges against us, some of which will attempt to paint our Party as being ‘soft’ on issues of safety and security. They have consistently tried to push this and at the forefront of their strategy will be the charge that our Read More
Today, I had the pleasure of speaking at the IMAAN (www.imaan.org.uk) annual conference in Euston. Imaan is a group that focuses on informing and campaigning on issues affecting gay and lesbian practising Muslims and I was invited on the basis of my interfaith work and as an elected politician who happens to be Muslim. I Read More
Can I firstly congratulate and thank the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, on his bold vision to appoint Cllr Meral Ece and I as advisors. My new role as of this week is to advise the Leader on issues related to the fields of interfaith and preventing extremism and radicalism. Over the Read More
So what is happening to the country of my father’s birth? (Well actually, he was born in pre-partition India and his father and him saw the effects of the colonial partition of India. The mass killings and the trails of human misery who were uprooted and who moved from one country to another were the Read More
The politics of fear has been something that has been constantly present within the Middle East and rarely does the politics of bridge building get a chance whether it is through the press that hungrily looks for the ‘negative angle’ or whether it is through politicians who want to keep the status quo in place. Read More
I have just spent 5 days on the road on a project that is being run by Faith Matters, an interfaith and conflict resolution organisation that I founded in 2005. Faith Matters also runs Faith and Finance social regeneration projects. The project entitled ‘Living Islam Out Loud,’ brought 4 American Muslim women to the UK Read More
The recent announcements that seven local post offices will be closing in the restructuring of Post Offices throughout the Capital will have a devastating impact on local communities. Those that affect Haringey include Highgate High Street, 100 Alexandra Park Road (N10), Ferme Park Road (N4), Salisbury Road (N22), 89 Weston Park (N8), Page Green (N15) Read More
Within 48 hours of the Archbishop making comments around religious inclusion and Shariah, there were press calls, comments and rabid responses for his resignation. This strain of fear is disproportionate and based on conjecture, myths and in some instances, xenophobia. But before I lay out these facts, there is something that I must clear up. Read More