Religion or an education? How British Muslims are forced to decide

Lord Sharkey slammed a “shameful” disregard for British Muslims, who are systematically deprived of university education because of a refusal to introduce a student loan system that Muslims can access he said. (Shutterstock/File Photo)
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Updated 12 March 2021
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Religion or an education? How British Muslims are forced to decide

  • Politicians, campaigners concerned that the British approach to student finance systematically excludes Muslims
  • Thousands of Muslim students are forced to either pay upfront for university, or take interest-bearing loans, considered non-permissible in Islam

LONDON: A member of the UK’s House of Lords has challenged the government over its “shameful” disregard for British Muslims, who he said are being systematically deprived of a university education because of a refusal to introduce a student loan system that Muslims can access. 

In a debate this week, Lord Sharkey highlighted a seven-year-old promise made by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “Never again should a Muslim in Britain feel unable to go to university because they cannot get a student loan — simply because of their religion,” which he told a World Economic Forum conference in Davos in 2013.

But Lord Sharkey said this promise has gone unfulfilled, and the government’s failure to act is excluding British Muslims.

“Lords will know that Islam forbids interest-bearing loans. This prohibition can be and is a barrier to Muslim students going on to attend our universities,” Lord Sharkey said.

The UK provides interest-bearing loans to help students pay for university. In 2014, the government committed to providing an alternative that would allow Muslims to take loans that do not compromise their religion. Specifically, they pledged “the introduction of a Sharia-compliant Takaful Alternative Finance product” available to everyone.

“That was six years ago … there is still no Sharia compliant student product available,” Lord Sharkey said.

“It is shameful that the government have allowed so much time to elapse and that they display such a casual neglect of and disregard for our Muslim community.” 

A senior British politician with direct knowledge of the issue told Arab News that the government’s failure to introduce an alternative financing system was, in his view, inexplicable. 

“I genuinely do not understand why the government has taken seven years to do something about this. Six years ago the government not only recognized a problem, but recognized a solution: Takaful,” they said.

Takaful is a common Islamic finance mechanism that allows lenders to provide credit in a Sharia-compliant manner. 

The government, the politician told Arab News, has already introduced a Takaful system to assist with buying houses — and that was rolled out in under a year. 

“I have no idea how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place — it’s obviously discrimination. I remain very unhappy, but also completely bewildered as to why they would choose to treat the Muslim communtiy in this way.”

Estelle Clarke, a student finance campaigner, told Arab News that she attributes the government’s failure to it being “indifferent” to the plight of students.

“Further, and unfortunately, their inaction does suggest a systemic discrimination against certain students on the grounds of their religion, and that the government is indifferent to this discrimination,” she added.

As it stands, Clarke explained, the astronomical price of university education in the UK means that British Muslims have no good options when it comes to deciding their future after finishing school. 

“When you look at the cost of a university education, as a rough figure, every year costs you around £20,000 ($27,800) — which student can afford to come up with £60,000 upfront to pay for their degree without taking loans?  

“On the assumption that you will not compromise your religion — and nobody should be forced to — a Muslim student has the choice between paying for the entirety of their education up front, or not going to university.” 

She added: “That’s no choice at all.”

This is the predicament that thousands of young and ambitious Muslims have suddenly been confronted with, with teenagers across the UK preparing their university applications,.

Four years ago Ayesha Dar was one of those students. She told Arab News: “I knew I had to fund university in some way, and that the standard method is to take a loan.

“For our non-Muslim peers there’s no other implications of taking those loans for them,” Dar said. “That was a big eye-opener as to how stark the difference might be for me growing up in the UK, as opposed to a Muslim country. That was a turning point for me.

“I knew that in order to succeed in this country I needed a degree — but the loan presented a huge obstacle to my progress if I didn’t go for it.” 

In the end Dar decided to take the loan, but explained that she is now committed to paying it off in full as soon as possible.

“For myself and most of my Muslim friends, getting rid of that debt is the number one priority — we want to get rid of it as quickly as we can,” she said. “We’re very focused on getting rid of that debt, put simply: We find it sinful. It’s horrible, to be honest.”


Vietnamese tycoon’s jail term reduced in $146 million stock fraud

Updated 6 sec ago
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Vietnamese tycoon’s jail term reduced in $146 million stock fraud

  • Trinh Van Quyet, who owned the FLC empire of luxury resorts, golf courses and budget carrier Bamboo Airways, was given the lengthy jail term in August after a trial
HANOI: A Vietnamese appeal court on Thursday slashed a former property and aviation tycoon’s jail sentence in a $146 million fraud and stock market manipulation case from 21 years to seven.
Trinh Van Quyet, who owned the FLC empire of luxury resorts, golf courses and budget carrier Bamboo Airways, was given the lengthy jail term in August after a trial.
Quyet and 49 others including his two sisters and four stock exchange officials were punished for fraud, stock market manipulation, abuse of power and publishing incorrect stock market information.
After a 10-day hearing in Hanoi, the appeal court dropped Quyet’s three-year term for market manipulation and cut his 18-year sentence for fraud to seven years.
The appeal court gave several other defendants reduced jail terms on Thursday.
Its ruling comes after the tycoon’s family paid nearly $96 million in compensation for the losses.
According to the indictment in August, Quyet set up several stock market brokerages and registered dozens of family members, ostensibly to trade shares.
Police said while orders to buy shares were placed in hundreds of trading sessions — pushing up the value of the stock – they were canceled before being matched.
The court said there were 25,000 victims of the fraud as Quyet illegally pocketed more than $146 million between 2017 and 2022.
The appeal court said it had received 5,000 letters asking for a reduction of punishment for Quyet “from the victims, FLC staff, some associations and local authorities.”
The case is part of a national corruption crackdown that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.

Ecuador’s most-wanted gang leader ‘Fito’ captured

Updated 8 min 50 sec ago
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Ecuador’s most-wanted gang leader ‘Fito’ captured

  • Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as Fito, escaped custody in Ecuador in early 2024
  • American prosecutors charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes

QUITO: Ecuador’s president announced Wednesday that the country’s most-wanted fugitive, Los Choneros gang leader “Fito,” had been recaptured over a year after his escape from prison triggered a wave of violence.

“We have done our part to proceed with Fito’s extradition to the United States, we are awaiting their response,” Daniel Noboa wrote on X.

Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as Fito, escaped custody in Ecuador in early 2024 and American prosecutors charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.

Macias Villamar’s January 2024 escape resulted in a surge of gang-related violence in Ecuador that lasted days and left about 20 people dead.

Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency in nearly a third of its provinces to quell the violence, but the drug lord was at-large until Wednesday’s announcement.

The months-long manhunt ended with the president stating Fito was in the custody of special military forces fighting narcotics trafficking.

The army and police reported that he was captured during a 10-hour operation in Manta, a fishing port in western Ecuador considered a stronghold for his gang.

Fito’s hideout evoked scenes from a movie thriller — local media reported that officers lifted a trap door in floor tiles of a luxury home to discover the outlaw hiding in a bunker.

The US Embassy congratulated Quito on the arrest, posting in Spanish on its X account that Washington “supports Ecuador in its efforts to combat transnational crime for the security of the region.”

Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs vie for control and establish ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels.

Macias Villamar is the leader of Los Choneros, the leading criminal gang in a country plagued by organized crime.

Gang wars largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where Macias Villamar wielded immense control.

He had been held since 2011, serving a 34-year sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.

When he escaped, Macias Villamar was also considered a suspect in ordering the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio.

In the hours after the drug lord’s escape, prison riots broke out and four police officers were taken hostage, where one was forced to read a threatening message to Noboa.

Armed men wearing balaclavas also took over a television station during a live broadcast, forcing the terrified crew to the ground and firing shots.

Soon after, Noboa announced the country was in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs.

US prosecutors allege his gang worked with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to control key drug trafficking routes between South America and the United States.

Ecuador’s government had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

If convicted, Fito faces life in prison.


Trump officials to give first classified briefing to Congress on Iran strikes

Updated 8 min 11 sec ago
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Trump officials to give first classified briefing to Congress on Iran strikes

  • The classified briefing comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval if Trump decides to strike Iran again
  • Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress

WASHINGTON: Senators are set to meet with top national security officials Thursday as many question President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites — and whether those strikes were ultimately successful.

The classified briefing, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday and was delayed, also comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval if Trump decides to strike Iran again. Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress and they want to know more about the intelligence that Trump relied on when he authorized the attacks.

“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who said Tuesday that it was “outrageous” that the Senate and House briefings were postponed. A similar briefing for House members was pushed to Friday.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are expected to brief the senators on Thursday. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was scheduled to be at the Tuesday briefing, but will not be attending, according to a person familiar with the schedule.

The briefing could be contentious as questions have swirled around Trump’s decision to strike Iran and whether the attacks were successful. A preliminary US intelligence report found this week that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months, contradicting statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to two people familiar with the report. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Wednesday, Gabbard and Ratcliffe sent out statements backing Trump’s claims that the facilities were “completely and fully obliterated.” Gabbard posted on social media that “new intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”

She said that if the Iranians choose to rebuild the three facilities, it would “likely take years to do.”

Ratcliffe said in a statement from the CIA that Iran’s nuclear program has been “severely damaged” and cited new intelligence “from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”

Most Republicans have staunchly defended Trump and hailed the tentative ceasefire he brokered in the Israel-Iran war. House Speaker Mike Johnson even went as far as to question the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, which is intended to give Congress a say in military action.

“The bottom line is the commander in chief is the president, the military reports to the president, and the person empowered to act on the nation’s behalf is the president,” Johnson told reporters.

But some Republicans – including some of Trump’s staunchest supporters – are uncomfortable with the strikes and the potential for US involvement in an extended Middle East conflict.

“I think the speaker needs to review the Constitution,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky “And I think there’s a lot of evidence that our Founding Fathers did not want presidents to unilaterally go to war.”

Paul would not say if he is voting for the resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, that would require congressional approval for specific military action in Iran. The resolution is likely to fail as 60 votes would be needed to pass it and Republicans have a 53-47 majority. But Kaine says it’s important to put the Senate on the record.

“You have a debate like this so that the entire American public, whose sons and daughters are in the military and whose lives will be at risk in war, get to see the debate and reach their own conclusion together with the elected officials about whether the mission is worth it or not,” Kaine said.

While he did not seek approval, Trump sent congressional leaders a short letter Monday serving as his official notice of the strikes, two days after the bombs fell.

The letter said that the strike was taken “to advance vital United States national interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel, by eliminating Iran’s nuclear program.”


Mississippi executes the longest-serving man on the state’s death row for 1976 killing

Updated 26 June 2025
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Mississippi executes the longest-serving man on the state’s death row for 1976 killing

  • Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane

PARCHMAN, Mississippi: The longest-serving man on Mississippi’s death row was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.
Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The time of death was 6:16 p.m.
Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane.
The execution was the third in the state in the last 10 years; previously the most recent one was carried out in December 2022.
Jordan’s execution came a day after a man was put to death in Florida, in what is shaping up to be a year with the most executions since 2015.
Jordan, whose final appeals were denied without comment Wednesday afternoon by the US Supreme Court, was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter.
Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January of that year, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told that Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter.
According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.
Edwina Marter’s husband and two sons had not planned to attend the execution. Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said beforehand that other family members would attend.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” Eric Marter told The Associated Press before the execution. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He needs to be punished,” Marter said.
As of the beginning of the year, Jordan was one of 22 people sentenced in the 1970s who were still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
His execution ended a decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday the Supreme Court rejected a petition that argued he was denied due process rights.
“He was never given what for a long time the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,” said lawyer Krissy Nobile, director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. “Because of that his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.”
A recent petition asking Gov. Tate Reeves for clemency echoed Nobile’s claim. It said Jordan suffered severe PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours, which could have been a factor in his crime.
“His war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,” said Franklin Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan’s behalf. “We just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.”
Marter said he does not buy that argument: “I know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn’t take her with him. And he — so he did what he did.”


Ukraine, European rights body sign accord for tribunal on Russian aggression

Updated 26 June 2025
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Ukraine, European rights body sign accord for tribunal on Russian aggression

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters

Ukraine and the Council of Europe human rights body signed an agreement on Wednesday forming the basis for a special tribunal intended to bring to justice senior Russian officials for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters.
“This is truly a very important step. Every war criminal must know there will be justice and that includes Russia. We are now boosting the legal work in a serious way,” Zelensky told the ceremony.
“There is still a long road ahead. Today’s agreement is just the beginning. We must take real steps to make it work. It will take strong political and legal cooperation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice, including (President Vladimir) Putin.”
Ukraine has demanded the creation of such a body since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, accusing Russian troops of committing thousands of war crimes. It is also intent on prosecuting Russians for orchestrating the invasion.
The 46-member Council of Europe, set up after World War Two to uphold human rights and the rule of law, approved the tribunal in May, saying it was intended to be complementary to the International Criminal Court and fill legal gaps in prosecutions.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.