Britons asked to be nicer to Muslims

London, July 26 : Britishers have been asked to be nicer to Muslims, despite having one of the most tolerant attitudes towards Islam in the world.

In many European countries, including France, wearing full Muslim dress or even headscarves in public is often frowned upon.

But a United Nations committee said it was concerned that "negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society" were developing in the UK.

The committee also voiced its concern over Government plans to extend the detention of terror suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 days.

"Funnily enough, they didn't seem to mention the treatment of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Iran," a source said.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said: "Comments of this kind from a UN committee are most unlikely to have a positive effect on public opinion in Britain."

The row comes, as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers whose cases were lost or overlooked are set to be given "effective amnesty", critics said.

Human rights laws mean many asylum seekers have been here so long they probably will not even have to prove their case to stay in the UK, the Daily Star reported.

Two years ago the Home Office discovered it had a backlog of 450,000 cases. So far only 90,000 of them have been processed, with half staying.

ANI