News

This will be my last article for Operation Black vote, and I would like to thank everyone at OBV for nurturing me and giving me a home to work from. I would also like to thank the readers and supporters of OBV for reading my articles and supporting me through this process.

What a pleasure it was on Friday afternoon when I received a call from Jasvinder Sanghera the founder of Karma Nirvana, and long time activist against forced marriages and honour based violence. She telephoned to inform me that:

“Simon, I have some good news for you”, she said, “although the news is embargoed until Saturday I can tell you that as part of the Queens Birthday Honors list, I’ll be awarded a CBE."

The recent killing of drummer Lee Rigby horrified the country. Furthermore,  his murderers shameful justification of their actions based on their Islamic faith sickened people of all faiths.

Operation Black Vote graduate Zena Agha, a British Muslim, powerfully articulates her response to the shocking incident and clearly explains why his actions are not in my name.

Francine Fernandes

For many people, entering the world of journalism may be quite a daunting task, for others a career in the civil service would be just as hard to achieve, but for one woman, working in both has been the result of hard work and perseverance.

Deepa Shah has worked in some of the busiest newsrooms in the country, and has gone on to use her experience to work in government press offices, and is currently a speechwriter in the Department of Education.

Since May 20, the media, both in and out of Sweden, has been dominated by the riots in certain suburbs of Stockholm. Reports have focused on outbursts of violence which include large-scale vandalism and damage to cars and shops in the poorer areas of Greater Stockholm with large concentrations of ethnic minorities. Following the fatal shooting on May 12 of an elderly man by the police in the northwest neighborhood of Husby, Greater Stockholm, violence erupted with the burning of cars, arson, and attacks on police on May 19.

It’s Usman’s last day today. Every Tuesday and Thursday for the past six months Usman Butt has travelled an hour each way to come and volunteer for OBV. He started by just tidying the office after our office down-size, and answering the phone to take messages. During his interview he’d indicated that he would like to try his hand at writing. Six months later Usman is a confident political writer. His articles regularly reach the 10,000 readership mark and the numerous Facebook likes are an indication that his readers like what they read.

Walking into the Council House in Birmingham was ever so slightly daunting. As well as being a beautiful structure, atypical of 19th Century grandeur, there is the accompanying feeling of the sense of awe experienced as it registers that decisions of great and historical significance are made in this very building. This is where twenty programme members from OBV’s Birmingham Civic Leadership Programme congregated for their inaugural day of councillor training.

It’s 50 years this year since Dr Martin Luther King gave what is without doubt, probably the most famous speech ever recorded in human history. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC August 28th1963 during mass march and rally for Jobs and Justice King delivered his “I have a dream” speech and laid out his prophetic vision of a world without racism.

Ever desperate to be in the spotlight and sow his seeds of hatred, BNP leader Nick Griffin is on a ‘fact-finding’ mission in the Syrian capital, Damascus. According to the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express, Mr Griffin is part of a European delegation, invited by President Assad, to inspect the-war-torn country in which an estimated 80,000-100, 000 people have been killed according to the UN.

The deniers keep denying, some even waging one-man campaigns against those who raise the issue of the Muslim back-lash that has occurred since the dreadful murder of Lieutenant Lee Rigby in Woolwich.