The Mail on Sunday retracted that British Muslims "see the UK as 75 per cent Islamic"

On Tuesday, Angela Merkel became the most recent leader to call for a burqa ban “wherever legally possible” in Germany, a little out of step with many of her previous attitudes to religious minorities.

Research conducted by the University of Cambridge in 2015 discussed an atmosphere of “rising hostility” towards Britain’s Muslim population.

The Mail on Sunday ran a story last week with the following headline:

Isolated British Muslims are so cut off from the rest of society that they see the UK as 75 per cent Islamic, shock report reveals.

The article went on to claim that Muslims in some parts of the country are so isolated from society that they believe “the majority of Britons share their faith”.

However, in this week’s Mail on Sunday, the newspaper issued a correction:

A news story last Sunday said the Casey review into ethnic integration would say that some British Muslims are so isolated they believe up to 75 per cent of the country is also Islamic.

In fact the review refers to a survey in one school with Asian pupils who believed that 50 to 90 per cent of the total British population was Asian.

Picture: Mail on Sunday

The headline for the story, which argued that most Muslims saw the rest of British society as largely Islamic, therefore was incorrect.

A closer look at The Casey Reviewabout integration and opportunity by Dame Louise Casey confirms this.

The Mail on Sunday appears to have used the following passage, which doesn't refer to Muslims at all, as the basis for its conclusion:

We were particularly struck by the results of a survey of pupils in a non-faith secondary school with a high Asian population which we were told about on a review visit. Pupils had been asked to identify the percentage Asian population of Britain and their estimates ranged from 50% to 90% (the actual figure is 7%), presumably reflecting their experience in the local community, and a relative lack of knowledge about the country as a whole.

The report, which was commissioned by the government faces criticism from campaigners, including Stand Up to Racism, for “adding to the politics of racism and scapegoating” following the call for immigrants to swear an ‘Oath of Integration’.

As of this article's publication, the original Mail on Sunday headline online remains unchanged in the Mail Online version of th story, despite the correction issued in this Sunday's paper.

HT Miqdaad Versi

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