UK bishop under police protection following death threats

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

London, Feb.2 : Security has been provided to the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, after his family and he received death threats over his claim that parts of Britain have become "no-go areas" for non-Muslims.

Dr Nazir-Ali was in India when staff at his home in Rochester took a number of phone calls threatening his family and warning him that he would not "live long" if he continued to criticise Islam.

He has been given an emergency number at Kent Police, along with other undisclosed protection measures, and said that the threats were being taken "seriously".

The Bishop has also angered the Church of England hierarchy for his comments on Islam.

According to The Times, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has made Islam a priority of his archiepiscopate and set up a Muslim-Christian forum to promote relations between the faiths in 2006.

"The Bishop of Rochester is in effect threatening to undo everything we have done," the paper quoted a senior cleric of the church, as saying.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who is Britain's only Asian bishop, said: "The irony is that I had similar threats when I was a bishop in Pakistan, but I never thought I would have them here. My point in saying what I did was that Britain had lost its Christian vision, which would have provided the resources to offer hospitality to others."

He said that this absence of a Christian vision had led to multiculturalism.

"Everyone agrees that multiculturalism has had disastrous consequences, and that segregation and extremism have arisen from this," he added.

The Bishop said in an article in The Sunday Telegraph that Islamic extremists had created no-go areas across Britain where it was too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter. He said that people of a different race or faith faced physical attack if they lived or worked in communities that were dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.

"I have had 1,000 letters, and 95 per cent have been supportive. There is no point in being in denial. We have to face the consequences," he told The Times.

ANI

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