The inquiry, set up by the party in 2019 to investigate all forms of discrimination, said “anti-Muslim sentiment remains a problem” within the Conservative Party at local and individual levels. But it didn’t find that the party was institutionally racist or failed to take complaints seriously.

“While the party leadership claims a ‘zero tolerance approach’ to all forms of discrimination, our findings show that discriminatory behaviors occur, especially in relation to people of Islamic faith,” said the committee, led by Srawan Singh, an academic and former member of Britain’s equalities commission.

Johnson has a long history of making provocative and offensive comments in a career that has combined politics and journalism. He has called Papua New Guineans cannibals, claimed that “part-Kenyan” Barack Obama had an ancestral dislike of Britain and, in a 2018 newspaper column, compared Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letter boxes” and “bank robbers.”

The inquiry committee cleared Johnson of breaking the party’s code of conduct, but said Conservative leaders “ought to set a good example for appropriate behaviors and language.”

Source: The Associated Press (AP)

The incident took place in Batley Grammar School, West Yorkshire, and leading Muslims have insisted on respect for Islam and demanded that the teacher be dismissed.

As part of the growing backlash, several Muslim parents have threatened to transfer their children to Islamic schools if the teacher at the center of the controversy remains in his position.

Muslim campaigners have vowed to continue protesting outside the school until the teacher is sacked.

The teacher who showed the image, reportedly a cartoon from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, is a father of four.

He has been placed under police protection and neighbors say that his family have “not been seen since Thursday,” when protests began.

Continue reading at: Arab News

Mr Johnson also received a considerable degree of criticism for comparing Muslim women to ‘letterboxes and bank robbers’ in a column for the Telegraph last year. The prime minister has insisted his comments were taken out of context and he was defending the right of Muslim women to wear what they like. During the election campaign he also apologized for Islamophobia in the Conservative party, after a number of candidates shared posts by Tommy Robinson, referring to Muslims as scum.

However, after Mr Johnson’s Conservatives won a landslide in the election on December 12, Manzoor Ali, who runs the Barakah Food Aid charity in Greater Manchester, said that his family have given him their blessing to move to a place that would be safe and secure for them.

Source: Metro.co.uk

Almost half of Tory party members (40%) believe the Government should “lower the number of Muslims entering Britain,” according to the survey. The results of the YouGov poll for Hope Not Hate also show more than two thirds of those questioned (67%) believe the lie that parts of Britain operate under Sharia law.

The poll shows 45% also believe the falsehood, bolstered by Donald Trump, that there are “no go” areas for non-Muslims in the UK. And it shows 39% believe “Islamist terrorists reflect a widespread hostility to Britain amongst the Muslim community”. The 160,000 Tory members are the sole electorate who’ll decide between Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson to choose the next Prime Minister.

Matthew McGregor, Hope Not Hate’s campaigns director said: “From the grassroots to the great offices of state, Conservative members buy into racist myths, with almost half unwilling to have a Muslim Prime Minister – and only 8% being proud to have one – and most denying that there’s even an issue to confront.”

Source: Mirror Online