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NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
Muslims held to a double standard
The Kouachi brothers did not speak for Muslims any more than self-professed Christian Anders Breivik spoke for Christians, says John Haylett

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles is rarely less than smug, and his smugness will have been enhanced by the Prime Minister’s enthusiastic description of his letter to Muslim clerics as “reasonable, sensitive and moderate.”

The main offence in the Pickles letter lay not in its wording but in the assumption that Muslim communities in Britain bear responsibility for actions taken by individuals.

Pickles wrote that imams could show their congregations “how faith in Islam can be part of British identity,” with the implication, through use of the word “can,” that Islam at present does not form part of that collective identity.

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