Demands for MP to resign after Moslem inbreeding statement

First cousin marriages not illegal in the UK. Who knew?

Demands were growing yesterday for the sacking of a government minister after he warned about the problems of marriage between Pakistani first cousins.

Phil Woolas claimed that this had caused a surge in birth defects in the UK. The Environment Minister also suggested the issue was being ignored by Muslim leaders, declaring it was the "elephant in the room" which urgently needed to be addressed.

It set off another heated debate about Muslims in Britain, following the outcry over the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks on sharia law.
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MPs said Mr Woolas's comments were insensitive and wrong, while the Muslim Public Affairs Council said they were "racist" and "Islamaphobic".

But the MP's supporters insisted he was calling for a debate about the prevalence of marriage of blood relations within families originating from rural Pakistan - and not the entire Muslim world.
Medical evidence also shows that marriage among blood relations carries a higher risk of children with birth defects. Mr Woolas, a former race relations minister, told the Sunday Times: "If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there'll be a genetic problem.

"The issue we need to debate is first-cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]."

Mr Woolas insisted the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities, but was prevalent among families from rural Pakistan. Research has suggested that up to half of all marriages within these communities involve first cousins.

The minister added: "If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it's caused by first-cousin marriage.

"That's a cultural thing rather than a religious thing. It is not illegal in this country.
"The problem is that many of the parents themselves and many of the public spokespeople are themselves products of first-cousin marriages.

"It's very difficult for people to say, 'You can't do that' because it's a very sensitive, human thing."

Warning that the issue was not being talked about, the MP for Oldham East and Saddle
worth added: "Most health workers and primary care trusts in areas like mine are very aware of it. But it's a very sensitive issue.

"That's why it's not even a debate and people outside of these areas don't really know it exists."

It is not the first time Mr Woolas, whose constituency has an above average Muslim population of 8.5 per cent, has upset the community.

In 2006 he warned that Muslim women who wear the veil cause "fear and resentment".

First-cousin marriage is legal in the UK, but is regarded by many as taboo.

A BBC2 Newsnight investigation in 2005 found that among Pakistanis in Britain, 55 per cent marry a first cousin, and are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders.

It found that one in ten children of cousin marriages either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability.

While British Pakistanis are responsible for just 3 per cent of all births in the UK, they account for one in three children born with genetic illnesses.

Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee said Mr Woolas's comments "verged on Islamophobia". He said it was "bizarre" that Mr Woolas had spoken about a sensitive health issue which has no relation to his environment brief, and accused him of ignoring links between pollution and birth defects.

A spokesman for MPAC added: "These comments are racist and typical of the Islamaphobia that we have witnessed in large parts of the media recently. Gordon Brown should sack him."

But Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain would say only: "Islam encourages people to marry outside of their immediate families to avoid having 'weak offspring'."

Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne said: "Phil Woolas has gone in with two big feet when tiptoeing would have been more appropriate. If there is now clear evidence that marrying your first cousin leads to unacceptably high risks of birth defects, then we should look again at the law as it applies to all of us, and not seek to single out one community."

But Mr Woolas was backed by Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley in West Yorkshire, who said the NHS needed to do more to warn parents of the dangers.

She added: "This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family.
"If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community.

"Since Asians only represent 20 to 30 per cent of the population, you can see that they are over-represented."

"I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck. The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition."

Downing Street refused to comment.

You're wrong, says MP who wed his first cousin

A Labour MP who married his cousin criticised Mr Woolas for singling out the Muslim community over the practice. Khalid Mahmood, one of four Muslim MPs, called for better education about marriages between blood relatives. Mr Mahmood, now 46, married his first wife, believed to be named Rifat, when he was in his twenties.

The marriage ended in 1992, but the couple had a child, who is now a teenager.

The MP for Birmingham Perry Barr told the Mail last night that he knew they were first cousins before the wedding. But he suggested that those who believed they could be related should have DNA blood tests before marriage. Mr Mahmood declined to discuss the details of his first marriage, saying only: "I have personal experience of this." He added: "Phil is trying to be helpful, but I don't think it came across in the way it should have done."

He insisted that young people were "very much aware" of the problems. "They want to move away from that, they don't want to marry their cousins at all." Mr Mahmood left his first wife to marry bank clerk Naseem Akhtar, with whom he has a 13-year-old daughter, Zara. In 2004 he left her for a failed Conservative parliamentary candidate, Elaina Cohen, who is Jewish. They are no longer together.