http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2851
By News Team ⋅
Muslim groups, the Lib-Dems and the Tories have all rejected the claims made by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali that Islamic radicals had turned parts of Britain into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims.
Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, said: “Mr Nazir-Ali is promoting hatred towards Muslims and should resign.”
Ajmal Masroor, of the Islamic Society of Great Britain, said: “If the Church of England had an iota of fairness they would take serious action.”
William Hague, failed Tory ex-leader and shadow foreign secretary, said: “I don’t think that view is factually correct. I’m not sure where these no-go areas are, I don’t recognise that description.”
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg who called the idea of no-go areas “a gross caricature of reality”.
Oxford’s Central Mosque – which has applied for permission to broadcast calls to calls to prayer (Adhan) over that city from its minarets — has also attacked the suggestion. Sardar Rana, spokesman for the mosque, suggested the bishop should be more “broad-minded”. Rana said: “I cannot understand how a personality like him, as a religious leader, can say no-go area’. People will not pay any attention to what the bishop is saying. Nobody can make any area a no-go area. He is wrong. He should be very broad-minded and open-hearted.”The Muslim Council of Britain said the Bishop was “talking nonsense.” Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Bishop Nazir-Ali appears to be exercised by what he perceives as the decline in the influence of Christianity upon this country, but trying to frantically scaremonger about Islam and Muslims seems to us to be a rather unethical way of trying to reverse this.”
The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, said that Christians, who are outnumbered in many parts of Blackburn, were frightened that their ideas could be misinterpreted by other faiths and seen as a form of oppression.
“When you engage in proclaiming the Christian faith in an area dominated by another religion, I and others tread very carefully so that the message is heard and not seen as some sort of oppression.”
Bishop Goddard said Christians in northern towns such as Blackburn and Burnley, where 95 per cent of the Asian population is Muslim, could find life difficult.
“I think they sometimes feel as though they are strangers,” he said.
The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, said it was becoming difficult for Christians to share their faith in areas where there was a high proportion of other faiths.