Telegraph:

The gunman approached Father Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in his small wooden church in Moscow on Thursday night, checked his name and then shot the priest in the head and chest, police said.

The priest died on the way to hospital, Interfax news agency quoted investigators as saying. A choirmaster was injured in the attack, and is in hospital under armed guard.

Father Daniil, who claimed to have christened 80 Muslims, had repeatedly received death threats.

“I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)“, Father Daniil stated on a television programme in February 2008, according to Interfax. “As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims“.

The killing could increase tensions between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country’s growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.

“The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime,” a spokesman for the prosecutor-general’s office said.

Father Daniil had written books including “An Orthodox Response to Islam” and “Marrying a Muslim”, in which he advised Russian women against taking a Muslim partner.
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Legislation championed by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister and deputy Labour leader, risks having a “chilling effect” on religious expression, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

In evidence presented to the parliamentary committee scrutinising the bill, the conference said that local authorities may clamp down on Christmas decorations in a misguided attempt to comply with the “complex” regulations.

The bill obliges all public bodies to promote equality and fight discrimination, raising the prospect of campaign groups bringing legal action against councils for policies perceived as “offensive” to minorities.

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Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang are charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act – causing harassment, alarm or distress. If convicted, they face fines of £2,500 each and a criminal record.

The Muslim woman was staying at the Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool, which is run by the Vogelenzangs, when a conversation arose between the hoteliers and their guest about her faith.

It is understood that among the topics debated was whether Jesus was a minor prophet, as Islam teaches, or whether he was the Son of God, as Christianity teaches.

Among the things Mr Vogelenzang, 53, is alleged to have said is that Mohammad was a warlord. His wife, 54, is said to have stated that Muslim dress is a form of bondage for women.

The conversation, on March 20, was reported by the woman to Merseyside Police. Officers told the couple that they wanted to interview them over the incident.

After being questioned on April 20, they were interrogated again three months later before being charged on July 29 with a religiously-aggravated public order offence. They appeared in court on August 14 and are now awaiting trial.

Mr and Mrs Vogelenzang do not accept that they were threatening or abusive in any way. David White, who is representing them, said that they believe they have the right to defend their religious beliefs.

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Telegraph: Home Office staff have been warned not to eat in front of their Muslim colleagues during the month of Ramadan.

A five-page advice booklet tells civil servants that eating lunch near a colleague who is fasting can make them feel hungry.

The Home Office Islamic Network produced the advice which said: “In practical terms, please be sensitive when eating lunch near a Muslim colleague who is fasting.

“This can make an individual feel hungrier and make it more challenging to observe the fast.”

It also urged Home Office managers to be flexible over working hours because Muslims may be following a different routine during Ramadan, which finished this weekend.

“The most likely need Muslim staff may present to managers during this period is for flexibility around working hours and break times as those fasting will have a slightly different routine from usual. Managers and Muslim staff should discuss what their needs are and be responsive and sensitive,” the document said.

Managers were also told: “Muslim staff who are fasting and whose environment allows it may wish to set out for work earlier than usual and finish their working day correspondingly early…in line with flexi-time arrangements.”

During the holy month devout Muslims do not drink or eat from dawn until sunset and, according to the document, must avoid ‘all obscene and irreligious sights and sounds’.

The Islamic Network is one of a number of staff faith and equality groups within the Home Office and paid for by the taxpayer.

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Telegraph: A Christian nurse will meet hospital bosses tomorrow to find out whether she will be forced out of her job for insisting on wearing a cross while on duty.

Shirley Chaplin has been taken off the wards at The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital after refusing to remove her necklace.

As first disclosed in The Sunday Telegraph, the 54-year-old grandmother has been told she cannot wear the one inch silver symbol openly because it breaches uniform policy and could prove a risk to patients.

She has been warned she could be suspended if she does not co-operate or accept accept an administrative role at the hospital, prompting fears that she could be dismissed after nearly 30 years.

The trust insisted its policy was not about the symbol of the crucifix, but motivated by health and safety concerns about patients grabbing necklaces.

But Mrs Chaplin, who is eight months from retirement, is taking them to an employment tribunal claiming she has been targeted because of her faith.

“Everyone I have ever worked with has clearly known I am a Christian: it is what motivates me to care for others,” she said.

“For about 30 years I have worked in the NHS and nursed patients day and night and on no occasion has my cross caused me or anyone else, any injury – and to my knowledge, no patient has ever complained about me wearing it.

“I feel that I’m being bullied and victimised because of my faith.”

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The Islamic name overtook traditional choices like Jack, Thomas and Daniel to become the number one name in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the North West, as well as in the capital, in 2008.

The figures emerged in a detailed regional breakdown of figures published last week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It is the first time that the Muslim name has been shown to the top choice for parents in any part of the UK. In previous years no regional figures were disclosed, only nationwide totals.

When various spellings of the Islamic prophet are added together – including Muhammad, Mohammad, Mohamed and Muhammed – the name is now more than twice as popular in London as the capital’s second-ranked boys name, Daniel. There were 1,828 baby boys given the name Mohammed, including varients, in 2008, compared with only 844 who were called Daniel.

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The Times:

Groups of youths, in ski masks and motorcycle helmets, threw bottles and set off fireworks in front of riot police, who used kettling tactics to contain a crowd of up to 2,000 outside Harrow central mosque. Seven people were arrested for possession of offensive weapons including a hammer, chisel and a bottle of bleach. Another man was arrested “to prevent a breach of the peace”, police said.

Hundreds of Muslim youths and anti-fascist campaigners gathered to confront a fringe right-wing group calling itself Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE). The group had threatened to hold a rally at the site, where a new five-storey mosque is under construction, but organisers said that they had called off the march at the request of police.

Despite pleas by imams for the crowds to go home, the streets remained packed for several hours. About 20 anti-Islamic protesters, some wearing football jerseys, attempted to enter the area but were blocked by some of the 500 police.

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Youngsters with a different mother tongue form a majority in primaries in 13 out of 33 London boroughs and in nearby Slough.

In inner London, 54 per cent of primary pupils and 48.5 per cent in secondary institutions do not speak English as their first language. This amounts to an astonishing 159,340 children.

Across the country, English is a foreign language to more than one in seven primary youngsters – almost half a million.

The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families point to the major demographic changes over the past few decades. Around a fifth of pupils are from ethnic minorities – up from 11 per cent in 1997.

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A survey has found 24 Catholic primary schools in the North West and the Midlands teach a minority of churchgoing children.

Fewer than one in 10 children are Catholic at one school in Birmingham, while the Church is ending its involvement with a similar establishment in Blackburn.

Overall, Catholics make up 73.34 per cent of pupils at the 2,300 schools linked to the denomination across England and Wales.

But The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine, found that in Oldham, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Birmingham there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Catholics being educated in local faith schools.

At English Martyrs in Sparkhill, Birmingham, just 36 of the 410 pupils are Catholic while the vast majority are Muslim.

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