Zia Haider Rahman

In a speech on Monday, Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, said Islamists "were radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism"...

But what makes certain young Muslims so exploitable? Read here.

Last month Prince Charles withdrew from the royal film performance of Brick Lane, a movie based on Monica Ali's novel.

In October's issue of "Speaker's Corner", the on-line magazine of the new UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, I argue that liberal values are undermined by misguided attempts at neutrality. Read here.

The reasons for Muslim discontent and the resulting backlash are more complex than Seumas Milne would have us believe. Read here.

This week, I was the guest of Guardian journalist Riazat Butt on her weekly Islamophonic podcast.

You can download it or listen to it online here.

The message from the Commission on Integration and Cohesion is loud and clear. Multiculturalism has not worked. Read my article in today's Telegraph.

Yesterday, Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, said that the amount of official material being translated by bodies such as councils should be cut to encourage immigrants to learn English (read here).

Readers of this site may remember Mark Easton's excellent piece on this for Newsnight last December and my commentary in the Sunday Times.

Essential reading is Simon Jenkins' piece in the Guardian today on the destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage.

"British and American collusion in the pillaging of Iraq's heritage is a scandal that will outlive any passing conflict"

This week's Channel 4 News/NOP poll once again shows that conspiracy theories are rife in Muslim communities. In today's Telegraph, I argue for more conflict, of a healthy kind, to challenge these ideas. Read here.

If religious belief is innate then not even the reasoned arguments of antitheists like Richard Dawkins can succeed in talking us out of it, as I argue on the Guardian's Comment is Free site. Read here.

After Margaret Hodge's recent comments, how true is it to say that the working class are more prone to racism than the middle class? Here are my thoughts on the Guardian's comment is free site.

On Friday, I attended a debate with Trevor Philips, Sadiq Khan MP and Kenan Malik. It was a farce, as I explain on the Guardian's Comment is free site here.

There's an interesting discussion on Pickled Politics of my piece on the Guardian's Comment is free site.

See also comments by Peter Kenway, one of the co-authors of the JRF reports on ethnicity and poverty.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation this week published research into the links between poverty and ethnicity. But one taboo remains untouched. Do some immigrants bring with them cultural values that militate against their advancement in Britain? I discuss this, in the context of Britain's Bangladeshi immigrants, in a piece for the Guardian's Comment is free site.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's reports into ethnicity and poverty, published a couple of days ago, should have received wider press coverage but have been somewhat eclipsed by the terrorist convictions. Sunny Hundal has picked it up on pickledpolitics.com.

The reports make challenging reading and highlight the dire economic circumstances of some of Britain's immigrant and other communities.
JRF reports here

Read my commentary in the Daily Telegraph, April 30, 2007, here.

Daily Telegraph, Friday April 6, 2007
By Zia Haider Rahman
Yesterday saw three men charged with the July 7 bombings...Read on.

I gave an interview to BBC Asian Network on the subject of the many young women in the British Muslim community who are living in virtual slavery in Britain today. You can listen to the program here.

"Every year thousands of British Asian men choose to marry girls from 'back home', and some of these brides face abuse and cruelty from their new husbands and in-laws. Activist Sunny Hundal looks into the lives of these women and asks; where do you go for help when you can't speak English, your immigration status is unsure, and your community closes ranks against you."

Two letters published in the Daily Telegraph today from readers who seem to take a different view of my piece two days ago from Ken Livingstone's. Read them
here.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, isn't best pleased with my writing in the Telegraph yesterday. Here is what he writes in today's paper.

Daily Telegraph, January 30, 2007
Diversity will never unite us
By Zia Haider Rahman

Here is Saturday's Woman's Hour, which picks up the edited highlights of my lively discussion with Baroness Uddin. It's the first item. There's an interesting selection of listener's responses at the end of the piece. Worth hearing those.

You can listen here to my lively discussion on Radio 4's Woman's Hour with Baroness Uddin, who didn't seem at all happy.

"Local councils spend at least £25 million on translation services a year, with an estimated figure of £55 million across the UK as a whole. Do these services help women from ethnic minority communities to integrate into British society or do they acts as a determent to learning English - further isolating women and encouraging ghettoisation? Ritula discusses the issues with Bangladeshi human rights lawyer Zia Haider Rahman, and Baroness Uddin."

After my exchange on Newsnight with Phil Woolas, Local Government minister, over spending on translation services, I wrote this piece for the Sunday Times.

December 17, 2006
Hope of escape lost in translation