This is a press release by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC)
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In today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative Party Leader David Cameron challenged Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the findings of the Centre for Social Cohesion’s (CSC) latest report, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy.
Cameron, who has promised to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), asked the Prime Minister why the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF), a charity run by HT members that manages two primary schools and a nursery in London, has received over £113,000 in government grants – a fact revealed by the CSC in the last month. Following the revelations, Haringey Council suspended ISF’s funding.
As the CSC report shows, HT is a revolutionary Islamist group that supports violent jihad and is using front groups to embed its divisive ideology into local communities. Cameron stated today that HT is a group that says
“Jews should be killed wherever you find them.”
Cameron added that the Opposition has been voicing its concern over the ISF to the Prime Minister for the past month and demanded to know again why HT has still not been banned. Furthermore, since the CSC’s publication the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Michael Gove MP, has written to Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), asking why the ISF had received public money.
In response, the Prime Minister stated that the two schools have been subject to Ofsted inspections. However, the CSC can confirm that only the ISF school in Slough, Berkshire, has been inspected. Its school in Haringey – the Council providing government funding – has never been inspected.
On 9 November 2009, Vernon Coaker MP, Minister of State (Schools and Learners), stated that schools or nurseries can only receive public funding once they have been registered with the DCSF. However, neither the ISF nursery nor school in Haringey have a DCSF registration number.
The Prime Minister promised that Cameron’s concerns will be investigated. The CSC as well as the report’s authors, Houriya Ahmed and Hannah Stuart, welcome these timely and important questions by David Cameron and look forward to the results of the Prime Minister’s inquiry into the matter.
Notes to editors:
- For more details of the CSC’s report, an executive summary can be read here and the full report here. The ISF Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements (2007/08) revealed that the organisation received £113,411 in government grants that year. ISF confirmed that the money came from the government’s ‘Free Entitlement’ and ‘Pathfinder’ programmes. – In 2005, HT members set up the ISF, a registered charity which runs two primary schools; one in Slough, Berkshire and one in Haringey, North London. Two of the ISF’s four trustees are HT members: Yusra Hamilton is a member of HT and the wife of Taji Mustafa, Media Representative; Farah Ahmed, an ISF trustee and author of the ISF religious curriculum, is also a member of HT. A 2009 Ofsted inspection of the ISF Slough school lists Yusra Hamilton as the school’s proprietor and Farah Ahmed the Head teacher.
20 Comments
Is there any connection between the Centre for Community Cohesion and the Centre for Social Cohesion?
Duly corrected. Thanks and gawd bless.
Is this the same Centre for Social Cohesion whose Director Douglas Murray said:
“Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe—after all—no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. ”
What, pray tell, is the difference between this outfit and Hizb-ut-Tahrir?
“What, pray tell, is the difference between this outfit and Hizb-ut-Tahrir?”
The Hizb-ut-Tahrir is funded by the government and gets to preach it’s ideology in schools funded by Slough and Haringey Councils.
If you are going to complain about British state funding of religious schools, what about Yusuf Islam and his Islamia primary School in Brent, London:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/muslim-schools-win-historic-fight-for-state-funding-1137679.html
and certain elements in the U.S. govt. do think he is also an extremist (due to past statements and actions) which is why he was denied entry to the U.S.:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/2759/no-peace-train-why-is-america-embracing-extremist-yusuf-islam-cat-stevens/
I may not be a fan of HT but if you support action against one and not the other, it looks pretty petty and hypocritical.
Ed Balls’ letter, responding to Michael Gove, is here:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/news/content.cfm?landing=ed_balls_responds_to_michael_gove_regarding_the_islamic_shakhsiyah_foundation_schools_in_slough_and_haringey&type=1
To confirm, this is in error. The ISF school in Slough was inspected by OFSTED in 2005 and again in 2009. There is no record of the Haringey school having ever been inspected. All published OFSTED reports are reported (in full) on this site:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk
No OFSTED reports have been filed on this site for the school in Haringey.
Here is, however, the link for the report on the ISF school in Slough:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxedu_providers/full/%28urn%29/134085/%28type%29/16384,32768/%28typename%29/Independent%20education
Balls attempts an evasion:
This is mistaken. The ISF School was first inspected in 2005, with the report being published in 2006. Supposedly when initial inspections were not published due to a settling-in of new schools.
A tacit agreement that both organisations are cut from the same cloth.
They are fundamentally different:
1) HT advocates the killing of Jews. CSC does not favour the murder of any religious group.
2) You have to be a Muslim to be a member of HT. There is no such racial or political constraint in CSC.
3) CSC says that no one religion should be made superior over others nor granted special privileges, distinctions or supra-constitutional powers. HT says that their ideology of political Islam should be the granted supreme privileges and powers over all religions which they regard as false religions.
4) HT is a religio-political, fascist, totalitarian ideological political party with a party constitution to which all its members must adhere to. CSC is a think tank in a small group of people in which a diverse political outlooks work in.
5) HT is banned in a number of Muslim countries because of it’s religious supremacism. CSC is not banned anywhere and would be welcome in many Muslim countries.
“I may not be a fan of HT but if you support action against one and not the other, it looks pretty petty and hypocritical.”
Because Islamia is a Muslim school, nothing to do with Hizb-ut-Tahrir specifically, and it’s curriculum is in line with the National Curriculum under which all religious schools operate. If you are saying you want to ban Muslim schools then you need to answer the question why only Muslim schools and not all other religious schools. Because that would *really* be petty and hypocritical.
Correction:
My earlier comment was confusing. I wrote:
This should read:
The point being that if school’s initial reports in 2007/8 academic year were not published if they were new schools, then how was an initial report for 2005/6 published for the then new school in Slough?
Further, reporting regulations were not altered (as far as I am aware, having been involved in such matters) between 2005/6 and 2006/7.
As such, if Balls was correct, the Slough report should also not have been published by OFSTED for similar reasons; but it was.
Writes a curriculum geek:
Looking at the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Curriculum, the following subjects would require either dramatic adjustments to their content, or complete exclusion by a school dedicated to promoting HT’s dismal and grim Islamism:
Literacy – the renewed framework’s requirements would require adjustment to probably exclude all poetry units and all use of drama.
Science – exclusion of units of work concerning life processes, especially reproduction, adaptation and other evolutionary processes.
Music – Oh deary no!
RE – replace entirely with Islamiyat (of an Islamist bent, of course) – no discussion of other faiths (except in a negative manner); certainly no visits to other faith places of worship.
PE – segregate all lessons by gender and remove entirely dance units of work.
Art – probably would have to entirely go…
Humanities – reduced to a discussion of the history and geography of the Caliphate (from an HT perspective); thus all units of work in the present Schemes of Work would have to be cut or drastically edited in order to match objectives to new teaching activities.
Modern Foreign Languages – none – the Arabic being taught is Qur’anic, not Modern Standard Arabic. A pity – there is a very good MSA program of study available that can be matched to the objectives of the KS2 MFL scheme of work.
Design Technology – possibly uncontroversial – although doubtless HT will object to certain sections in KS1 scheme of work that involve making (figurative) finger puppets…
PHSE/Citizenship – Of course not! This is an evil kufur country, run on the basis of a permissive, democratic Satanic constitution – what are you thinking of?!?!?!
Such a “school” is not the sort of place I would send my little ones.
What is wrong with OFSTED?
Barshad – The CSC does not want to throw Gays off high buildings either nor does it promote the hijacking of aircraft.
Ed Balls should consider resignation…
Private R
I would agree.
Hey, just wanted to point out try and find out the truth before you talk!! Cameron is nothing but a liar!
“Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic political party. We do not run the Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation or any other school, and have never run any school.”
further more:
“Cameron lied in parliament when he said Hizb ut-Tahrir took Prevent (PVE) money from the government, and that schools act as a front for our party, but what we hope to expose includes how this story was originally concocted by a right-wing think tank with links to neoconservatives in the UK”.
They are holding a press conference tomorrow (27-11-09) ask them yourselves haters! its funny how the words “kill a jew where you find one” is highlighted isnt it obvious that this is a war on islam and everyone who wants to be a true muslim automatically gets called a terrorist! full of hypocracy, I tell you if there were to be an islamic state based on true islamic laws, everyone including non-muslims would migrate to that land, just for the simple fact that it is very fair and everyone would be able to see it, thats what America and western europe fear!!
dont get a rush of blood! be open minded what has a muslim really ever done to you? Have you read the Talmud! talk about hatred!
the links are not working but the original can be found at http://hizb.org.uk
Mr Cameron said: “This organisation [Hizb ut-Tahrir] says, ‘Jews should be killed wherever they are found’.” Utter nonsense! Mr Cameron has either not done his research properly, or deliberately misled the House of Commons. He has selectively misquoted a Qur’anic verse which defines rules of engagement. The verse addresses the repelling of invasion or occupation of land, and explicitly addresses that and nothing else: “Kill them [meaning invading forces - NOT Jews] wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drive you out; for persecution (oppression or sedition) is worse than killing.” The same verse then clearly goes on to say: “But if they desist, then, verily, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” Read in its entirety it addresses those resisting occupation to not only fight, but to cease fighting when the invader ceases fighting – ie not to transgress limits and take wanton revenge: the motivation in war that led Salahuddin to liberate Jerusalem, but not to be vindictive to his enemy.
t is rich of Mr Cameron, who supported the war that has killed more than 650,000 civilians in Iraq, as well as backing the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon last summer, to lecture others on the sanctity of life.
Cameron has selectively misquoted a phrase from a leaflet that was written in Palestine, for Palestine and in the context of the massacre in Jenin. However, there are other problems – outside of culture, language and religion – in the context of the on-going occupation of Palestine, that confuse the matter further, which allow people such as David Cameron to make false accusations of anti-semitism to silence criticisms of Israel.
Islam’s history in the region – and what Hizb ut-Tahrir argues for as a model of governance in the Muslim world – has an excellent and proud track record of unifying diverse people as citizens. Jews, Muslims and Christians lived largely in peace and security for much of the last 14 centuries in Palestine, in Islamic Spain and under the Ottoman Caliphate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/09/whatcamerongotwrong
Oh my. The woodwork is sprouting.
Yeah the Jews had to live in peace in Ottoman Turkey because they had restricted rights.
why’s it funny? are you suggesting that particular bit is in some way unimportant or incidental?
i study talmud every day. do you? or are you simply regurgitating the poisonous propaganda found on white supremacist websites regarding it?
come on, let’s have a specific accusation, then i can show you up to be the racist you are.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Typical shallow analysis by the CSC and Spittoon.
You have shown no evidence what so ever that HT has recieved government money, directly or indirectly.
You are cowards, who sit anonymously behind a PC and spread lies to please the followers of Shaitaan.
Shame on you all.