You'll never get an apology out of the Express or their journalists for putting out sensational headlines, stirring things up.

I think we're all losing patience with the extremist elements in Islam, and their intolerence, including the Media. Gagging any comment on Islam and its unacceptable practices is simply not on.
But the question of halal meat is a fair one. The religious ritual killing in the hands of an expert is an acceptable one.
Trouble is people have lost their connection with the land and the food they eat. Killing animals is a necessity before the product appears on your plate.

There are few points actually.

1. Mehdi has not yet published the interview, so we will wait for it. 2. Mehdi has mostly extracted very selectively a line or a para from here, there and everywhere. 3. Critisizm of Islam cannot be equated as Islamophobia. There is an attempt through UN and other agencies to equate this; which I hope does not go through. If you can critisize any religion and call idol worship as worshipping false gods, I would then have the right to critisize the God of Islam. 4.Any comparison with Jews is patently false. Jews were never 1/4 of Humanity. Never had any country which was theologically Jew...compare that with Islam....all of Middle East is Muslim. Even Malaysia in Asia. There is tendency even in Turkey and Indonasia. And Jews never bombed any other country, never had a concept of Caliphate. So this invocation of Jew comparison is completely false.
5. Rather Muslim world was aligned with Hitler.

The problem as it is related to critisism of Islam is concerned is false and bogus.

Having said all this, Islamophobia is real and dangerous in terms of threat it poses to ordinary Muslims and which surely is a different angle. Infact it is a threat to any coloured person even from India because the yobs, mostly a creation of Labour, can and do attack people with that particular tan believing them to be Muslims / Pakistanies. Something true as most would attest, including yours faithfully as real experience. I have so many time avoided being thrashed from yobs who take me to be a Pakistani....only after I tell AND Convince them that I am an Indian and not Pakistani have they let me go.

PS: Never argue with a yob or a drug Addict. Golden Rule.

Hiova - calm down, will you? Dont be so hysterical, it's bad for your blood pressure...now take a few deep breaths, and I will calmly explain to you why increasing numbers of secular people like me are becoming more - as the disgusting Tory bigot Baroness Warsi says - anti Islam.

First Muslims are Not a persecuted minority - they claim to be over a billion strong! And in countries where they are a majority, minorities are often ruthlessly oppressed , or excluded, or sometimes forcibly converted.

Second, how can any thinking person NOT be anti-Islamic? This religion tells its followers that apostates deserve death; that gay and lesbian people are to be exterminated; that noone should dare to criticise or even laugh at its prophet, and if they do, they will face threats or actual reality of murder - their own murder. Lovely stuff, eh, Hova? The poor victimised dears...

So when I read that halal meat is being served to even one unwitting non Muslim, I get very angry too...

When I read surveys that say that over a third of British Muslims want Sharia Law in Britain, then I get very angry too..

When you say that only a few "extremists" exist in Islam, when it is obvious that terrorism, fundamentalism and extremism have hundreds of thousands of adherenets in Britain, and tens of millions worldwide, then I get very angry..

Muslims believe that they will get to Heaven eternal, and the rest of us will burn in the flames of hell forever more..that means Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu,Peter Tatchell, etc in Hell, and Anjem Chaudhury, Abu Hamza, Baroness Warsi in Heaven. Lovely stuff, eh, Hova?

The very nature of Islam is oppression. In all honesty, what has Islam brought to the western world, apart from a silly ridicules dress code and intolerance. European socialism has nothing in common with the teachings of a failed Arab, businessman.

Critisism of Halal Meat, Kosher, Vegan or anything else....identified as Islamophobia or something is rubbish and silly.

Unless they mean to suggest that because Muslims do this, therefore they would have certain characteristics.

Didn't quiet a lot of mathematics/algebra come from the Arab/Muslim world. Not to mention Arabic numerals....

Mehdi - appeals for fair coverage of religions are a little more convincing when they're not coming from magazines that have recently given the impression of being under the editorial control of Titus Oates. If you want a climate of respect for religions, start by not engaging in mendacious hyperbole about other religions (e.g. your QT remarks about the Catholic Church).

RE "anti-Islamic sentiment is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in Britain today"

What utter bollocks! If you are white, male, British and atheist then you are in the most discriminated against groups in this country where the bigotry against you is enshrined in law.

Until equality is applied equally then you will have bigotry!

Tom Paine. Stop using that name, you are no Tom Paine. Most you sight, predates Islam, or have you over looked the Greek's, Persians, and before that, the Egyptians.