Salma Yaqoob

Birmingham city council has been under public scrunity again after the findings of the review into the death of seven year old Khyra Ishaq found it was 'preventable'. There was a litany of neglect. From her mother and stepfather, from her father as Deborah Orr rightly points out in an excellent article in yesterday's Guradian, from the family GP, and from Birmingham city council, in particular its Social Services and Education departments.

But rather than feel reassured that lessons have been learnt, I feel the opposite. The recent Ofstead report points out that "critical practice shortcomings, particularly within children's social care and health, mean that not all children are being safeguarded and protected." And with the city council planning hundreds of millions of pounds worth of cuts to services over the next four years, the words of Councillor Les Lawrence, cabinet member for children, young people and families, that the council will create "a children's social care service that better protects our young people from those who would harm them", rings hallow.

The planned cuts will put the most vulnerable children more at risk. Khyra' s memory deserves better than this.

When British Prime Ministers lambast Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians, you know something is in the air. Palestinian solidarity is reaching new heights as outrage over their suffering grows. Echoes of the anti-apartheid movement are strong and the lessons of that movement relevant.

In the 1970s and 1980s Soweto became a global watchword not simply for the murderous brutality of the racist Apartheid regime but also for the heroic resistance of the South African people. Solidarity with Soweto became a huge, popular international movement which helped isolate Apartheid.

Today, Gaza requires that same wave of support. To that end my friends in Philosophy Football have produced a delightfully simple T-shirt design on a non-profit making basis. They are actively supporting and raising funds for the September 2010 aid convoys to Gaza organised by Viva Palestina.

Not everybody can go on the convoy but we can all wear 'GAZA' on our chest and help spread the message of solidarity. The t-shirts are available in sizes S-XXL, plus womens' skinny-rib fit at JUST £9.99. They can be ordered here. Show your solidarity with the Palestinians and buy one today!

Concern about recent violence in Kashmir has been a hot topic of conversation among residents in Sparkbrook last weekend. On Friday, my colleague Councillor Shokat Ali joined a picket of the Indian consulate, and I attended a very large Kashmiri event in Anderton Road mosque on Sunday night. As Open Democracy point out there are real concerns that the Indian security services are operating a shoot-to-kill policy against stone throwers on the streets of Kashmir. Indeed, the authorities there have openly deemed stone throwing a criminal offence punishable with death or a lifetime in prison.’ Even the Israelis have not gone that far, at least not publicly. Investigations have been launched into shocking allegations that Indian soldiers are killing innocent Kashmiris under the pretext that they are ‘terrorists’ in order to claim combat bonuses.

Like the situations in Palestine and Northern Ireland, the roots of this conflict have their origins in the British Empire. Britain bequeathed Kashmir to India against the wishes of the Kashmiri people, when they partitioned the country in 1947. The result of that decision has been decades of brutal occupation and an armed resistance that has cost the lives of many thousands of people, and brought nuclear armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war on at least three occasions.

The ongoing conflict in Kashmir has huge implications for the security of all of South Asia. But when David Miliband, then the Foreign Secretary, spoke of the need for a resolution to the conflict, there was an outcry from the Indian government. They showed they were in no mood for compromise. This may not be surprising after the horror of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, but it is clearly in the long term interests of both Pakistan and India that this issue is resolved. And if there is to be a resolution then there will have to be some compromises. History awaits the emergence of an Indian Nelson Mandela who has the vision to try to bring peace to Kashmir.

Because of its historical connections Britain could play an important role in this, and has a moral responsibility to do so. As David Cameron embarks on a state visit to India today this could be a good opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, so far, he has chosen not to make any public comments, apparently keen not to antagonise the Indians; keen as he is to attract their cash while imposing immigration caps to keep Indian people out of the UK. India is an important economic power, but that should not prevent us speaking up for justice for Kashmir.

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According to a new survey four out of 10 Lib Dem voters feel cheated. They would not have voted Lib Dem at the General Election if they had known their votes were going to prop up the Tories. I am not surprised Lib Dem voters are angry. And Birmingham voters even more so. Lib Dem council candidates made no mention of the £230 million worth of cuts they are foisting on us when they were seeking votes in May. And they have  no mandate for them. With the Lib Dems already haemorrhaging support in the polls, the next round of local elections in May promises to be very interesting. 

Yesterday's Observer carried a disturbing report about female genital mutilation (FGM). According to medical professionals up to 2,000 British school girls could be subjected to it over the summer months. In the majority of the cases FGM is carried out abroad. The practice is common in parts of Africa and the Middle East. The young girls think they are just going to visit family relations unaware of what is in store for them.

Yesterday I went along to a protest in Victoria Square to highlight the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. She is the 43 year old mother of two who was facing death by stoning in Iran after being accused of having an 'illicit relationship' with two men. The threat of stoning has been lifted, but she is still facing execution.

I don't know whether there is any truth in the allegation about her 'crime'. It does not matter. What consenting adults do in private is their own business. It certainly should be of no concern to any state. Sakineh has already received 99 lashes. The flogging was barbaric enough. Execution, by whatever means, is even more so. I hope the international outcry about her plight will force the Iranian government to show her some mercy.

I can't stand double standards. Women the world over are on the receiving end of them much too often. I doubt very much if a hetrosexual man anywhere would face such extreme sanctions for actions in their private life.

But I also cannot stand double standards from those in the West who cry crocodile tears about the plight of Muslim women while cheerleading the awful brutality of wars that kill and widow them, supposedly in the name of their own 'liberation'.

No doubt, as with women of Afghanistan, there will be some who seek to exploit the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani for their own ugly ends. Regardless, what is happening to this woman is morally unjust. She should be freed immediately.

Council boss Stephen Hughes has given a glimpse of the future the 'progressive partnership' have in store for the people of Birmingham. In a revealing interview with BBC WM's Steve Dyson he says there are at least £230m cuts on the way over the next four years. There be less council staff, less council services, less funding for community organisations.

These cuts are in addition to a multitude of government cuts which, when they cascade down, will have a devastating impact on those communities most in need. Cuts to housing benefit alone are set to leave poorest £600 worse off.

This government's austerity package is unnecessary and driven by dogma. The Tories are exploiting an economic crisis caused by private sector greed as an excuse to slash public spending. But I expected no different from them. It is the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats that is especially shocking. They have sold their soul and no amount of libertarianism on personal freedoms can disguise it. They will have no role to play in protecting Birmingham's poorest from the coming storm. They should be made to pay the price for their craven ambition at the ballot box .

At lunchtime yesterday I attended a memorial on Broad Street for the murdered taxi driver Mohammed Arshad. It was one of a series of events held across Birmingham in which taxi drivers had a minutes silence on the first anniversary of his death.

Mr Arshad’s murder highlighted the risks for drivers in the private hire taxi business. Yet one year on there has been a lack of progress from the city council in minimising those risks. The production of a pocket size Drive Safety Pack with personal safety advice is to be welcomed, but it is not much of a deterrent to those who recognise that private hire drivers are vulnerable to attack.

Earlier this week I sent a short letter to the Birmingham Mail about the deaths of two Midlands soldiers in Afghanistan. Since then another two soldiers have been killed in what was hitherto regarded as the safer district of Lashkar Gah in Helmand.

The call for a dramatic change of strategy in Afghanistan is getting louder. The Guardian had a particularly strong editorial on Tuesday: 'While our armies continue to fight there, we provide the Taliban with a glue more binding on the disparate groups and clan loyalities comprising this insurgency, than Pashtun nationalism and supra-ethnic Islamism combined...The presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is their central rallying cause. Put more troops in, and their determination to fight becomes all the stronger.'

My letter to the Mail is below.

Remember Tony Blair's claims about the deadly threat posed by Saddam? Remember his denials of any link between 7/7 and our foreign policy? It now transpires that the person best placed to make an accurate assessment of both, gave him completely the opposite advice. In her testimony to the Chilcott Enquiry, Lady Manningham-Buller, the head of the security services at the time, said she told Blair that Saddam posed a 'very limited' threat, that the invasion of Iraq would 'substantially' increase the threat of 'terrorism', and that the impact of our foreign policy had radicalised 'a few among a generation' of British muslims.

'Blair lied, thousands died' was a chant on the anti-war demos at the time. Instead of parading around the world as an elder statesman, Tony Blair should be on trial facing war crime charges. Shame on him, and shame on all those Labour MP's and councillors too spineless or indifferent to both Iraqi and British lives to stand up and be counted at the time when they were most needed.

Good article from the Birmingham Mail. You can read it here here though for some reason the original link no longer seems to work. Full story below.

'ANGER was mounting today after it was revealed that the police officer chosen to head an independent review into a highly controversial camera surveillance scheme in Birmingham, also sits on the board which designed and financed the project.

The Muslim community were outraged when the cameras, some of them covert, appeared in April without consultation, claiming they were being used to spy on them, though the police said they were to help fight general crime.

I received a free university education, as did most of the politicians now pulling up the drawbridge behind them as they look for more ways to turn education into a privilege and not a right. For myself, and millions of others, a university education was made possible by a society that valued higher and continuing education, and was willing to invest in it.

Increasingly education is treated as little more than a commodity; to be snapped up by those most able to pay. Bit by bit, the principle of free education has been replaced by the notion that students are ‘consumers’ who should pay for the benefit they get from studying.

Immigration Minister Damien Green is to be congratulated for dismissing calls for a ban on the niqab. In response, Philipe Hollobone, the attention seeking MP behind the bill calling for a ban, has said he will not meet any constituent who wears a face veil. In acting in such an intolerant manner Hollobone undermines one of the fundamental principles of the 'British way of life' he claims he wants to protect: the right of every citizen to expect equal representation from their MP. Having crossed swords with Hollobone a lot over the last week in the media I can safely predict that the irony of his stance will be lost on him.

Like many Muslims I find this all depressing. But it also provokes feelings of bemusement. One European government after another apparently feels compelled to proscribe the clothing choice of a tiny percentage of their population. It would be funny if it was not so sinister. In Belgium, it is said that only 30 women in the entire country wear the niqab. In France, it is less than 2,000 out of a population of 64 million. With Europe in the middle of its greatest economic crisis in over half a century you might be forgiven for thinking there are more serious issues to address.

I am against the imposition of dress codes on women, whether they live in Saudi Arabia or Southampton. It is a woman’s right to choose how to dress and nobody else’s. It certainly is not the right of any religious authority, father, husband, brother or politician to impose a dress code. Everybody should have the right to freedom of expression as long as in so doing they do not infringe on the rights of others. It is a simple principle that does not mean we have to agree with each other. Incidentally, that is a principle that some Muslims should think about more deeply. We rightly demand that our rights to practice our faith are upheld. We rightly insist that we are treated equally and with the same respect as all other citizens. It seems to me that it is hypocritical to demand these rights for ourselves, but to object when gay people, for example, demand the same equality as citizens. It is a basic principle of pluralism and civility that we don't only defend the freedoms of people whose choices we happen to like. Indeed the real test of tolerance and freedom is defending the  rights of people whose choices we may actually dislike or disagree with - as long of course they do not harm or infringe the rights of others.

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Health Minister, has blown the trumpet call for the privatization of the National Health Service. Using the fear that has been well-stoked by the ConDem government, a major attack on the principles of free health care in the UK has been announced. Without an ounce of shame, Lansley declared a complete dismissal of the promises made by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats during the general election campaign. In other words, no-one voted for this but the government wishes to do it anyway.

After 13 years of New Labour changes in the NHS, including creeping privatization, the very last thing needed was a new re-organization. Lansley has confirmed that General Practitioner (GP) practices will be expected to take on planning and commissioning of health care over the next four years, thus removing the role of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in planning.

Dr Kay Phillips, a practicing GP and National Chair of the Respect Party, was not impressed by the changes. 'GPs are trained in clinical diagnosis not financial planning or management. Most GPs do not want to be finance managers; they just want to be left to treat patients. This re-organization will put GPs at the forefront of making cuts and bringing in private companies.'

Earlier this week I managed to pop into the Waterhall Gallery to see the Steve McCurry retrospective. It is a fantastic exhibition, literally teeming with colour and humanity. McCurry is most famous for a striking photograph he took of the Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula and there is an interesting documentary accompanying the exhibition about his attempts to track her down nearly two decades later. I was not surprised to read on his blog that McCurry is a critic of the war in Afghanistan. He has too much love for humanity, and seen the reality of war up close in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to be indifferent to its devastating consequences. This exhibition is really not to be missed. To get a taste of what delights await, check out the galleries section on Steve McCurry's website. Well done to the staff at the Waterhall for providing the opportunity to appreciate the work of a great photographer.