Muslims in the UK must do more to integrate: Poll

LONDON: A majority of Britons believe that Muslims need to do more to integrate into society and want tighter restrictions on immigration, an opinion poll indicated on Sunday.
    
However, the population is divided about whether the breakdown between communities had reached such a level that there are "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, the poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph said.
    
The poll comes at the end of a week in which Muslim integration has been pushed to the top of the political agenda following an article in the newspaper by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who claimed that Islamic extremism in Britain had created "no-go areas".
    
Nazir-Ali was supported by church leaders in majority Muslim areas who have disclosed that their congregations have been targeted by militant Islamists in a campaign of intimidation which has seen churches vandalised and converts to Christianity attacked.
    
They say that extremists are determined to make non-Muslim residents feel unwelcome, with the ultimate aim of driving them out.
    
The ICM poll was divided on the issue, with 35 per cent agreeing with the bishop, 38 per cent disagreeing and the rest unsure.
    
More than half - 56 per cent - were critical of the failure of Islamic communities to integrate into society. Only one in four felt that they had been successful.
    
Bishop Nazir-Ali, who originally hailed from Pakistan, expressed concern that attempts had been made in some areas to impose an Islamic character, for example by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques.    

The report quoted a priest in the Manchester district saying that he knew of "dozens of cases" in which Muslim converts to Christianity had been attacked.
   
Another church leader said that Asian Christians in Leicester feared being identified when leaving churches.
  
"They are scared of being stopped and beaten up if they are found carrying Bibles," he was quoted as saying by the Sunday Telegraph.
    
None of the church leaders interviewed wished to be identified for fear of retaliation, but Don Horrocks, of the Evangelical Alliance, said: "It's increasingly difficult for non-Muslims to live in areas of high Muslim density."
    
Some commentators feared that the aim of Islamist groups such as Tablighi Jamaat, Hizb-ut-Tahir and the Deobandi sect is to drive non-Muslims out of areas such as Dewsby, in West Yorkshire, and Oldham along with neighbourhoods in Luton, Leicester, Birmingham and Leyton, in east London.
   
The ultra-conservative Deobandi movement, which produced the Taliban and some of whose British followers preach hatred of Christians, Hindus and Jews, is thought to be in control of almost half of UK's 1,350 mosques, the paper said.
    
Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, said: "Muslims are being told not to integrate into British society, but to set up separate enclaves where they can operate according to sharia law."
    
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local government, however, said that research showed that 81 per cent of people say that they feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local areas.
   
"People of all faiths make a huge contribution to British life. Community cohesion is key to maintaining harmonious communities. That is why our strategy puts an emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values," he added.