#Religion: JULY 2016

July 1. A Muslim taxi driver in Leicester refused to pick up a blind couple because they had a guide dog. "Me, I not take the dog," the driver said. "For me, it's about my religion."

July 1. A judge in London ordered the deportation of Saliman Barci, a 41-year-old Albanian man who posed as a refugee from Kosovo and collected the full range of welfare payments in Britain for 14 years. It was discovered that in 2009, a court in Albania sentenced Barci in absentia to 25 years in prison for murdering two people.

July 2. Dahir Ibrahim, a 31-year-old Somali migrant, was sentenced to ten years in prison for raping two women in Birmingham. He had previously been sentenced to ten years in 2005 for raping a woman in Edgbaston. A judge had ordered his deportation after he served his first sentence, but he appealed and was allowed to remain in Britain. Ibrahim's attorney, Jabeen Akhtar, successfully argued that he had a lack of understanding of what is acceptable in the United Kingdom.

July 3. Azad Chaiwala, a Muslim entrepreneur in Manchester, launched a campaign to "remove the taboo" behind polygamy, illegal in Britain, by starting two polygamy matchmaking sites.

July 4. A Muslim man was ordered to bring his nine-year-old daughter back to Britain after taking her to Algeria and leaving her there with his relatives. The man said he did not approve of his estranged wife's new partner, a Christian.

July 5. The Labour Party reinstated Naz Shah, a Muslim MP from Bradford who was suspended over anti-Semitic Facebook posts that called on Israelis be deported to the United States.

July 6. Abdelhadi Ahmed, 39, appeared at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court on charges of forcing his wife to wear a headscarf outside her bedroom, banning her from speaking to other men and beating her.

July 7. Sana Khan, 24, who plotted a jihadist attack on a shopping center in Westfield had her sentence reduced for "good behavior."

July 8. Mohammed Habibullah, a 69-year-old imam who leads prayers at a mosque in Dudley, was given a suspended sentence after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman. In determining the sentence, Judge Amjad Nawaz, a fellow Muslim, said that Habibullah was a man of "positive good character."

July 8. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of the school inspection service Ofsted, warned that the "Trojan Horse" campaign to impose radical Islamic ideas on Birmingham schools has "gone underground." He warned that Birmingham was failing to ensure that "children are not being exposed to harm, exploitation or the risk of falling under the influence of extremist views."

July 10. More than 1,500 children — including 257 under the age of 10 — were referred to the Channel program, the government's deradicalization scheme, during the first six months of 2015.

July 11. A Pew Research Center survey found that more than half (52%) of Britons surveyed said they believe that incoming refugees and migrants will increase the threat of terrorism in the UK. More than half (54%) of Britons also said that Muslims in the UK "want to be distinct from the larger society." Nearly half (46%) said that migrants are an economic burden on the UK.

July 12. Residents in Manchester received leaflets in their mail boxes calling for a public ban on dogs. The leaflets, distributed by a group called "Public Purity," stated: "This area is home to a large Muslim community. Please have respect for us and for our children and limit the presence of dogs in the public sphere. As citizens of a multicultural nation, those who live in the UK must learn to understand and respect the legacy and lifestyle of Muslims who live alongside them."

July 12. Gavin Rae, 36, a former soldier with the British Army and a convert to Islam, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for trying to buy weapons for the Islamic State.

July 13. Ian Acheson, the head of a review into extremism in British prisons, warned that there is a hardcore group of jihadi prisoners whose "proselytizing behavior" among the Muslim inmates in England and Wales is so dangerous that they should be separated from the rest of the prison population.

July 18. Kelvin Mackenzie, a columnist for The Sun, wrote that Fatima Manji, a presenter for Channel 4 television, should not have been allowed to anchor new reports on the jihadist attack in Nice, France, because she is a Muslim and wears the hijab. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the press regulator, said it had received more than 300 complaints about Mackenzie's column.

July 18. The Independent Press Standards Organisation, the press regulator, ruled that the Mail Online was wrong to use the words "Islamic honor killing" in a headline because it wrongly suggested that the crime had been motivated by Islam.

July 20. Abdi Waise, 28, an illegal immigrant from Somalia, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for kidnapping a schoolgirl and attempting to abduct four others aged between 11 and 14 in North London over the space of two-and-half hours. The crimes occurred just three weeks after Waise was released early from an eight-year prison sentence for rape. He was not deported because, according to the British government, Somalia is too dangerous.

July 21. The government reported 5,700 new cases of female genital mutilation in England between April 2015 and March 2016. The statistics, the first to be published since the government introduced compulsory reporting for public hospitals. The most frequent age at which FGM was carried out was between five and nine. More than half of all cases relate to women and girls from London.

July 23. The Home Office confirmed that 550,000 teachers, nurses, child care providers and other public sector workers have been trained in the Prevent strategy, a counter-terrorism training program, to help them spot and report potential extremists in their workplaces.

July 25. Syrian refugees sent to the remote Scottish island of Bute complained that the area is "full of old people waiting to die" and they would rather be in Glasgow or Manchester "where there are more Arabic people."

July 26. The makers of Fireman Sam, an animated television series for children, apologized after an episode which allegedly showed a character stepping on a page of the Koran. Muslim viewers claimed the episode "Troubled Waters" was Islamophobic because it showed a bumbling character named Elvis failing to respect the Muslim holy book.

July 26. The Home Office announced a £2.4 million ($3.2 million) "Hate Crime Action Fund" to "provide security measures and equipment for vulnerable places of worship that need increased protection." The plan promises extra data collection and training to identify "anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist and other bullying in schools."

July 26. Two men of "Middle Eastern appearance" tried to abduct a serviceman at knifepoint at RAF Marham in Norfolk. The serviceman managed to fight off his attackers. Air Force personnel were warned to "keep a low profile" and told not wear their uniforms in public.

July 28. The BBC reported that five books regarded as "extremist" remained in jails in England and Wales after a review called for their removal. The banned titles were The Way of Jihad by Hassan Al-Banna; Milestones by Sayyid Qutb; The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi; Towards Understanding Islam by Syed Abul Ala Maududi; and Fundamentals of Tauheed by Bilal Philips.

July 29. A Muslim street preacher in Birmingham was charged with public order offenses after he tried to enforce Sharia law on female passersby. Krissoni Henderson, 31, was arrested for allegedly shouting verbal abuse at a 38-year-old woman "for wearing tight jeans."