A new generation of Muslims is being radicalised using the very Government funds that are supposed to be fighting the problem, a new report by the Policy Exchange think-tank says.
The report can be read (pdf) here.
Update: Melanie Phillips enthusiastically endorses the Policy Exchange report. PVE stands for “Persistently Validating Extremism”, according to Mel, who is herself of course the voice of moderation.
One of the UK’s most influential Islamic leaders, who has helped counter extremism in the country’s mosques, is accused of advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.
Dr Daud Abdullah, deputy director-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, is facing calls for his resignation, after it emerged that he is one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who have signed a public declaration in support of Hamas and military action.
Abdullah, who led the MCB’s boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, was a member of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the body endorsed by the government that trains imams and was set up to curtail the activities of extremist clerics. In January, he briefed the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and communities secretary Hazel Blears on the situation in Gaza and its likely impact on social cohesion in the UK.
There were calls last night for the government and the MCB to condemn Abdullah’s actions. “The British government should stop funding organisations such as the MCB and supporting events such as Islam Expo, which hosts scholars from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who hold extremist views,” said Irfan Al Alawi, international director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism.
“If the MCB is serious about tackling extremism, it should immediately expel extremists such as Daud Abdullah from its own ranks,” said Ed Husain, co-director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank. “The man is a fanatic.” He added: “As well as potentially endorsing terrorism against British troops, Abdullah shows total disregard for human life.”
Update: See Islamic Forum of Europe media release, 9 March 2009
Campaigners from the Centre for Social Cohesion have pledged to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Ibrahim Moussawi, an Islamic extremist, who is due to visit Britain this March.
The think-tank said the Home Office would be “beyond hypocrisy” if it allowed Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain just weeks after barring Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, because of his alleged anti-Muslim views. Dr Moussawi is a spokesman for the Lebanese-based militant group Hizbollah, the military arm of which is banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation.
Douglas Murray, director of the CSC, has written to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, warning her that he will instruct lawyers to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Moussawi if he is allowed into the country. The think-tank has already sought advice from barrister Paul Diamond, an expert in religious affairs law, on using war crimes legislation and a legal precedent from 2004 to seek, independently, an arrest warrant from a magistrate.
Mr Murray said: “This is the deepest hypocrisy, in fact, it is worse than hypocrisy on behalf of the British government. The government clearly do not have a grip on this. Britain is still a place where terrorists and terrorist supporters can come to incite and recruit.”
Dr Moussawi is due to address a conference at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, on March 25, on the subject of political Islam.
In its letter to Ms Smith, the Centre for Social Cohesion said: “It is the position of the Home Office that individuals are banned from entry in the United Kingdom if ‘they stir up tension and provoke violence to others’. Dr Moussawi would threaten community harmony and clearly breach this condition. If Dr Moussawi arrives in the UK we will instruct counsel to seek a warrant for his arrest.”
Sunday Telegraph, 8 March 2009
Well, Douglas Murray would know all about threatening community harmony, wouldn’t he? This is the man who in 2006 told the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in the Netherlands:
“It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.”
If Ibrahim Moussawi was intending to visit the UK to make a similar speech directed against the Jewish community (“conditions for Jews in Europe must be made harder across the board”) it would be quite right to ban him. But of course he’s not.
The leader of the British First Party who set up a stall with the Union flag and launched a tirade of offensive racist abuse has been convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence.
Police were called to the shopping precinct in St Andrews Road, South Oxhey, when leader of the far right party Kevin Quinn, 44, began using offensive language during a “demonstration” about the arrest in Sudan of schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons.
The jury of six men and six women took five-and-a-half hours to find Quinn guilty. Judge Warner adjourned sentence for reports on Friday, April 3.
“Reading the script had not prepared me for the sea of white, middle-class people falling about in laughter at silly jokes about minority communities.”
In a letter to the Guardian Rabina Khan explains why she has withdrawn from a National Theatre discussion on Immigration in Literature, which is part of series of platforms on the play England People Very Nice.
Britain overturned its policy on a key Middle East issue yesterday by agreeing to talk to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement which fights Israel and is banned as a terrorist organisation by the US.
Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, told MPs the government would authorise “carefully selected” contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah, which is represented in the Lebanese parliament. Other EU countries, including France, already deal with the group.
The move, urged privately by British diplomats for some time, may be partially intended to encourage the US to follow suit as Barack Obama’s administration pursues a fresh approach of engagement with parties shunned by George Bush.
“We have reconsidered our position on no contact with Hezbollah,” the Foreign Office said, “in light of more positive recent political developments in Lebanon, including the formation of the national unity government in which Hezbollah are participating. We are exploring certain contacts at an official level with Hezbollah’s political wing, including MPs.”
Presumably no ban on Ibrahim Moussawi, then – Pauline Neville-Jones won’t be happy.
Update: Then again, the Jewish Chronicle claims that Jacqui Smith hasn’t yet made up her mind. Though David Toube ofHarry’s Place thinks it’s a done deal.
Over at Indigo Jo Blogs Yusuf Smith calls for Muslims to protest against the anti-Sharia demonstration in Trafalgar Square this Saturday – a stunt organised by the Worker Communist Party of Iran. Personally, I think there’s just as good a case for communists to protest against it, given that the sectarian idiocies committed by the nutters of the WPI are a total embarrassment to any real Marxist. The question is – is it really worth organising against an event which in all probability will make the tiny March for Free Expression of 2006, in which the WPI shared a platform with hard-right racists, look like a mass mobilisation?
A government-funded group has called on police and council bosses to ban a public meeting which is being held in Queens Park on Tuesday night.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir political party has scheduled a public meeting at 7.30pm at Queens Park Community Centre, in Westbourne Road, about a perceived bias by Western governments against Muslims. The meeting is entitled “The Campaign To Destroy Islam”. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s website says the group wants to unite all Muslim nations in a unitary Islamic state, or “caliphate”, headed by an elected caliph. This would be established using political methods.
But the Quilliam Foundation, a Government-funded think tank, has described the group as “extremists”. James Brandon, spokesman for the Quilliam Foundation, said: “Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the more extreme British Islamic groups. The Government has considered banning it in the past. It has got a confrontational, aggressive agenda. The agenda is to radicalise Muslims to take over the world.”
Mr Brandon said his group had contacted Bedfordshire Police, Bedford Borough Council and Queens Park Community Centre to try to have the meeting cancelled.
Yes, that’s the same Quilliam Foundation who defended Geert Wilders’ right to speak at a meeting in the UK, on the grounds that banning him offended the principle of free speech. Maajid Nawaz stated piously:
“Banning Geert Wilders from the UK is not the solution. Just as the ideas of non-violent Islamist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir should be tackled through debate and argument, so should those of Wilders and others. Freedom of speech should be protected – so long as people do not use this freedom to call for violence against others.”
So, at least we know what a load of nonsense that was. The reality is that the Quilliam Foundation opposes freedom of expression for Islamist sectarians but defends it for far-right racists.
The Roman Catholic Church has severely criticised a proposed new code of conduct for teachers which it says will force Christian schools to actively promote Islam and gay rights. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has warned the General Teaching Council, by the professional regulatory body, that many teachers will quit the profession because they will not be able to accept the revised code of conduct in good conscience.
The legally-binding code would discriminate against Christian teachers in recruitment and in the classroom, they say. Principle 4 of the code demands that teachers “proactively challenge discrimination” and “promote equality and value diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions” before they can be registered.
The Christian Institute, a charity that supports worshippers who feel discriminated against in the workplace, claims the GTC code could be used by educational establishments to insist that staff promote homosexual rights or other religions such as Islam, going against the beliefs of many Christians.
It fears teachers could be turned down for jobs unless they agreed to use materials designed by homosexual rights groups in the classroom, and would face disciplinary action if they tell pupils in RE lessons that Jesus Christ is the only means to salvation.
A demonstration against the play England People Very Nice was held outside the National Theatre on Friday. At one point a large banner was displayed from a balcony.
The controversial play by Richard Bean looks at immigration in London’s East End. It is directed by the National’s artistic director Nicholas Hytner who says that the play “lampoons all forms of stereotyping: it is a boisterous satire of stereotypes of French, Irish, Jews, Bangladeshis, white East End cockneys, Hampstead liberals and many others. Every stereotype is placed in the context of its opposite and it clearly sets out to demonstrate that all forms of racism are equally ridiculous.”
The outdoor demonstration preceded a Platform event during which the play’s writer Richard Bean was due to discuss his work. The protest, under the banner “Love Theatre Hate Racism”, was organised by Bethnal Green playwright Hussain Ismail. Cllr Abjol Miah, leader of the Respect group on Tower Hamlets Council, was present with several objectors from the East End.
“I am passionate about theatre and I don’t think theatre should be used to peddle racist filth under the guise of comedy and serious theatre.” Hussain Ismail told the small crowd of passers-by on the riverside who stopped to listen to speeches. “We don’t need to be told about multi-culturalism by an elitist institution that does not represent multi-cultural London. What we need to do is to challenge the racist rubbish.”
See also Daily Telegraph, 28 February 2009