Crime and punishment and Mr Khan

Some sections of officialdom show common sense when it comes to appeasement, or lack of it, of unreasonable religious demands.

There’s this Muslim geezer in Birmingham, UK, who wants special dispensations on his community service – a punishment handed out after he was racist to an Irish policeman and harassed a judge – because Muslims are in the middle of their Ramadan season, during which they believe they can’t eat or drink during daylight hours.

This makes Gulfram Khan, from Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, feel a bit knackered and shagged out, apparently and he wanted a couple of hours’ break during his eight-hours-of-unpaid-work-every-Wednesday-till-December community service, suggesting that he pay back the two hours on other days.

The probation service told the Birmingham-born Tory to get stuffed. Now he says the service is “prejudiced against people of Islamic faith”.

“If someone has a religious observance, regardless of what religion it is, it should be respected,” Khan says. Oh, really? “This is an issue of religious tolerance,” he whines.

He then attempts to argue that people can’t do community service on Christmas Day, because the offices are shut, so why make an exception for Christmas Day and not for Muslims?

Well Christmas Day is our festival (celebrated by the religious and nonreligious alike), Mr Khan. If you want everything to be Muslim you can always leave.