Far from being a sop to the English Defence League, this speech was ultimately about the future of Prevent: that the government will stop working with, and giving money to, organizations that are ‘non-violent extremists’ in the hope that they might help us beat the ‘violent extremists’. As a think-tank, Demos has been associated with that position, through a 2005 pamphlet – hence this blog.

Our position has since changed subtly since to a more muscular liberal one. I agree entirely that the government – and the rest of us – should be more aggressive in promoting the best set of values anyone anywhere has yet come up with: democracy, liberty, freedom, justice, tolerance. I’ve argued that wherever I’ve been, including last night on the Islam Channel where I defended the speech.

But if this means Prevent should never work with non-violent extremists, I disagree. Bear with me on this. Prevent will probably be refocused when the review of it is released shortly. Instead of being a tangled mess of counter-terrorism, integration and cohesion, it will become more targeted on counter-terrorism/public safety. This means the police will sometimes have to work with non-violent extremists if they think it can help achieve this goal. And sometimes it can. There are numerous examples of non-violent extremists pulling people back from the brink of terrorism, and of providing the police with valuable information and intelligence. I accept some of these non-violent extremists – Islamists or Salafis or whatever – are not representative of all Muslims, and I wouldn’t want them given money to develop Madrassah classes. But that is not what Prevent is about. If non-violent extremitst can help stop terrorism in specific instances, we’d be foolish not to use that. It is tactical, not strategic.

Other forms of extremism – not the political pro-Palestine movements, but the most odious anti-democratic and anti-human rights extremism – deserve to be tackled on their own (de)merits, and not because of any relationship to terrorism.

The other concern I have is about platform sharing. Non-violent forms of extremism are part of living in a free society. Any true liberal believes that extreme and intolerant ideas should given a hearing, so that they can be dissected and demolished. Indeed, banning often adds to the appeal of radical ideas, especially those of groups like al-Qaeda that trade on notoriety, glamour, and anti-establishment status.

This means the onus is on us to expose them, because a liberal approach to debate and freedom of speech requires strong counter-arguments. It would have been far better had Baroness Warsi to attended the Global Peace and Unity conference last year, and proceeded to roundly denounce extremism. After all, freedom is not the same as agreement, and we don’t honour the dishonourable when we open the public forum to their voices. To be a true muscular liberal, you need to take the arguments into the lion’s den.

In last week’s issue of the Spectator, Peter Oborne threw his weight behind a faction within the coalition government, headed by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who are urging David Cameron and some of his closest allies to re-asses their current stance on the role Islamist groups should play both in the direction of British Islam and in the government’s counter-radicalisation efforts. He believes that Cameron’s Neoconservative cabal in Whitehall has fundamentally misunderstood what constitutes extremist Islam, and is mistaken in its rejection of a wide array of British Islamist organisations. Instead, he thinks Cameron and his close allies must understand that non-violent Islamist groups can act as a useful bulwark against violent extremism. As well as being flawed, his argument also reveals a surprisingly low opinion of Britain’s Muslims.

Oborne rightly identifies the ‘defining occasion’ of this split as last year’s Global Peace and Unity (GPU) event at London’s Excel Centre. Warsi was prevented from attending by the Conservative party hierarchy due to their concerns about a strong Islamist influence over the event, apparently based on information in a briefing paper provided by Quilliam, a counter-extremism think. Describing the event as ‘cheerful’, he clearly believes that this decision exemplifies a supposed neocon narrow mindedness toward Islam.

It is not clear from his piece if Mr. Oborne in fact attended the GPU event, but his analysis of it suggests no more than a brief glance at their website and a few Youtube videos. I have been to the last two, and while the most recent one was a big improvement upon the last (largely due to heavy behind the scenes criticism from groups like Policy Exchange and Quilliam), I would characterise it rather differently. Although populated with a wide variety of Islamic groups, including the Minhaj ul-Quran, a group well known for its impassioned stance against suicide bombing and jihadism, the event was still dominated by a number of less than cheerful organisations.

At the stall for the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), one of the UK bases for Pakistan’s Jamaat e-Islami (JI), visitors were given free copies of texts written by two of the godfathers of Islamist thought, Sayyid Qutb and founder of the JI, Abu ala Maududi. Indeed, JI supporters had a strong presence at the GPU, and in the event’s official brochure, two leading members of the Pakistani JI, Qazi Hussein Ahmed and Abdul Rashid Turabi, were listed as confirmed speakers, though they were unable to attend after being refused visas by the Home Office. One of the event’s main sponsors was the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), a London-based Islamic centre which trains its members in the works of Maududi, and another one of the the organisations which Oborne claims is unfairly stigmatised by Cameron and his allies. One of its most senior members, Azad Ali, was filmed by Channel 4 last year telling his class that ‘Democracy, if it means that, you know, at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no one agrees with that.’ It is worth noting at this point, that as well as being a totalitarian, Islamic supremacist political party, the JI was one of the main forces behind the marches in support of Mumtaz Qadri, who murdered Salman Taseer after the former Punjab Governor came out against the country’s blasphemy laws. The JI is also one of the main instigators of such acts in the country, repeatedly calling for the murder of those who ‘insult Islam’. During an interview in which Qazi Hussein Ahmed gave his unequivocal support to the killer, he said: ‘he [Qadri] has done what the people wanted to do regarding a person like Salman Taseer.’

The vast majority of the attendees of the GPU were, as Oborne describes, law-abiding and well integrated British Muslims, and here he inadvertently makes Quilliam’s arguments for them. The organisers of the GPU have a long record of Islamist activism, and the CEO of the event, Mohammed Ali Harrath, runs the Islam channel, a satellite channel populated mainly by hard-line Salafi preachers, with a generous sprinking of the hard-core Islamists of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Last year, OFCOM ruled that the channel broke broadcasting regulations after its presenters advocated marital rape and violence against women. Harrath, like other Islamist inspired organisations mentioned in the Quilliam briefing, seeks to gain legitimacy among Muslims and steer the direction of British Islam to suit a political-religious agenda. On their own, the sectarian, divisive and often violent ideological precepts of Islamism would be unpalatable to most British Muslims, but backed with government support, funding, and lavish events, the essence of their social engineering project becomes clouded and affords Islamists further influence within communities.

The GPU therefore offers a useful case study in the debate on the role of Islamism in British society. Cameron’s position is quite clear; though by no means seeking to ban or criminalise Islamists, he and his supporters have made it quite clear what kind of views the British government wishes to endorse and lend legitimacy to. Organisations which support or promote the views of groups like the JI are, as far as Cameron is concerned, inappropriate partners for a secular, liberal government.

There is also a second, and perhaps more revealing, element to Oborne’s argument. If we are to believe what he suggests about the role of non-violent Islamists in preventing Muslims from violently expressing grievances, acting instead as a way to channel this anger into political activism, then we must also admit that we have far lower expectations of Muslims than we do of any other religious or ethnic group in the country. Under no other circumstances would supporters of extremist political groups be so highly touted due primarily to their rejection of violence; just imagine for a second if someone suggested to you that the best way to stop violent neo-Nazis from Combat 18 was to partner with the British National Party, an ostensibly non-violent political party. British Muslims are not, as Oborne seems to think, a single bloc of people waiting to turn to violence at the drop of a hat, and it is insulting to suggest that their best representatives are the Islamic equivalent of the BNP. In passing off the extreme and illiberal politics of Islamism as unproblematic, or as a vent for Muslim anger, Oborne unwittingly reinforces the essentialist stereotyping of Muslims that we are more used to seeing from far-right organisations like the BNP and English Defence League.

This attitude is perhaps best exemplified in Oborne’s defence of the East London Mosque (ELM), an institution described by a recent government report as ‘the key institution for the Bangladeshi wing of JI in the UK.’ Exposed repeatedly as a veritable cornucopia of homophobic, anti-semitic, pro-jihad and sectarian preachers (including Anwar al-Awlaki, now of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), the ELM remains one of the most influential Islamic institutes in the country. It has successfully embedded itself into the local community and become an integral part of it, thus achieving precisely what many other Islamist organisations aspire to. Seemingly acknowledging that that the ELM has played host to a number of unpalatable people, Oborne argues: ‘Certainly unorthodox views are expressed, but this is because it plays an important role in enabling Muslims to vent their anger and frustrations.’ It should first be pointed out that these ‘unorthodox views’ (from the permissibility of killing homosexuals and adulterers, to the primacy of sharia law and a theocratic state) are more often than not coming from the individuals promoted by the mosque, and not the congregants. This also illustrates the inherent problem with Oborne’s position, as he assumes that the only thing stopping Muslims from blowing themselves up is a group of religious fundamentalists who are pushing a utopianist, political-religious ideology. In the same way an exasperated parent may park their unruly child in front of the television, Oborne patronisingly assumes that Muslims can somehow be distracted into behaving themselves by a succession of hard-line preachers and ideologues. Not for the Muslims, then, the intellectual pursuits of debate, discussion or critical thinking we would expect of any other member of a secular society, just give more power to the clerical fascist political movements and they’ll keep them quiet. Surely Britain’s Muslims deserve better than this?

Oborne’s implicit suggestion is that excluding and criticising organisations such as GPU, IFE and ELM should be categorised as ‘Islamophobic’. I would urge him to re-asses his definition of this amorphous concept, as the supposed Neocons are quite plainly exhibiting the polar opposite to an irrational fear of Muslims – they, very rightly, are holding British Muslims up to the same high standards as everyone else.

Dispatches Islamophobic documentary

Channel 4’s Dispatches is due to broadcast a damaging and misleading programme on Monday 1st March at 8pm. For nearly a year the programme had undercover reporters attending events (including private meetings) of Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) and passing themselves off as Muslims and friends, but acting as agents provocateurs to solicit replies to use against IFE.

IFE is a mainstream community organisation with members hailing from different walks of life. Its activities and events are open to the public and publicised widely. No request was made by Dispatches to gain access to IFE’s activities or projects. Instead by using undercover reporters and ‘covert filming’, Dispatches has portrayed IFE as a secretive organisation, arousing much suspicion.

The Dispatches programme on 1st March is set to falsely portray IFE as an extremist and sinister organisation, and undo the years of good work in the community. The programme wrote to IFE few days ago asking for their response/comment on around 23 different issues and allegations, including links to Al-Qaeda  and engaging in “entryism” in an attempt to bring about an Islamic ‘coup’ within mainstream British politics, or achieve political domination.

As concerned citizens of this country, we strongly condemn this demonization of an organisation with a track record of transparency, integration and engagement. Moreover this programme is not only politically-motivated due to the upcoming elections, it is also Islamophobic in nature – preying on public fears about extremism.

Please protest against this divisive programme by registering your complaints to the producers of Dispatches, Channel 4, Ofcom (regulatory body) and John Fitzptrick MP who has been feeding drivel to Dispatches.

following the links to register complaints appears the template letter to register a complaint:

TEMPLATE LETTER AND POINTS

Please use the letter below as a template to register your complaint to Channel 4’s Dispatches:                                     

Date…

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to express my utter disgust and disappointment at Channel 4’s Dispatches “Britain’s Islamic Republic”, which levels wholly inaccurate and defamatory accusations on the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE).

The documentary is not only Islamophobic in nature but it preys on public fears about extremism. The programme utilises emotive and provocative language and misleading information to create an impression that IFE is a sinister, secretive and anti-democratic organisation which condones and promotes violent extremism.

At a time of rising far right activism and an increased reporting of Islamophobic and racist attacks on Muslims, Channel 4 has acted wholly irresponsibly. The IFE is a mainstream Muslim organisation which has for many years worked to encourage active citizenship and community development. It is reprehensible that the Dispatches programme has made such a crude attempt at defaming the IFE. It appears that Dispatches has joined those in society who are hell bent on creating division, paranoia and distrust amongst communities.

Yours faithfully

[insert here your name and city]

even more helpfully, the following are also included:

Additional Points for Individualised Letters and Points to Raise When Making Telephone Complaints.

You may also choose to incorporate some of the following in your letter of complaint If you are able to, please consider using the following points in your letter of complaint:

1. Coming so close to a general election, the documentary is politically motivated.  
2. The programme will undoubtedly increase community tension and harm genuine attempts at community cohesion.
3. The documentary is a dishonest attempt at scaremongering and vilifying Muslim communities and religious institutions.
4. The documentary panders to the BNP and the Far Right
5. It begs the question; what is wrong with Muslims being politically engaged and active in civic society and the politics of the common good?
6. This dishonest portrayal of a mainstream Muslim organisation like the IFE will only contribute to further alienating young Muslims and draw them towards extremism.
7. Similar claims were made in the not so distant past against the Irish and Jewish communities.
8. This is part of a series of organised, vindictive and orchestrated witch hunts against Muslim personalities, institutions and organisations which aims at undoing the excellent work done by these.
9. This is irresponsible and reprehensible journalism by Channel 4, which makes a mockery of its stated aim of representing and celebrating Britain’s diversity and multi-culturalism.
10. The picture painted of IFE is contrary to our knowledge and experience of the organisation and indeed its track record.

but not, i fear to ours. jolly well organised, though – i’m sure this is an excellent way to strike back against jewish zionist control of the media and, y’know, how islamists muslims are denied a voice and that. anyway, i’d like to thank naeem for showing me how to complain about this programme, which i’ll undoubtedly want to do, of course.

in the spirit that got these imbeciles to cancel their most recent demo and, naturally, in tribute to the recent foiling of the detroit pants bomber, i humbly propose the following:

let all who wish to show this truly grotesque man up as the nasty, ridiculous bigot he is – FLY THE UNDERPANTS!

some pants yesterday

yes, we all know that angry andy and the bombastic beards of barminess would be applauding the Glorious Pants Of Terror right now if it had all gone as planned on flight 253, so let’s throw it right back in their faces. take a broomhandle or some other stick-type object and fly a pair of y-fronts off them as a flag. stick them in the window of your house or the window of your car, like people did in the last world cup. if all else fails, leave your trousers at home or wear your pants outside your trousers like a superhero! yes, the humble underpant must now become a SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE!

This article hosted on the IHRC’s website should go some way to answering that question:

I refuse to buy a poppy for remembrance day, because Britain hasn’t remembered anything at all.

Sentimental rituals such as poppy-wearing only help the collective amnesia. We don’t remember that Britain was defeated in Afghanistan twice in the 19th century, that the mighty Soviet Union was defeated there a couple of decades ago. We don’t remember, or we never learnt, that imperialism is fundamentally wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong, in every case. And stupid. We don’t remember that imperialism only ever makes social conditions worse and increases the hatred of the imperialised for the imperialiser.

If Britain had learned this simple lesson it would not have stumbled into the US-Israeli war in Iraq or into Afghanistan years before an al-Qa’ida attack here.

If Britain knew and remembered that people can only develop their social mores in their own way and at their own pace it wouldn’t accept for a moment the noxious propaganda that we are bombing Afghan women in order to liberate them. If Britain understood that people of darker complexion are just as attached to their land and rights as white people it would never have supported apartheid in Palestine and Zionist assaults on Lebanon.

Here is what I will do to support British soldiers. I encourage them to desert, so that they may become true heroes.

So to summarise the fatuous, offensive and hateful arguments in the article:

• Britain’s role in Afghanistan is a continuation of the Imperialist tendency of the West and is racist (‘white people versus brown people’) in nature.
• Events in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to motivate “terrorist activity in the UK”.
• We in the west have no obligation to the people of Afghanistan to help them rid their country of Arab-funded terrorist activity.
• Al-Qaeda terrorism against the Afghan people goes unmentioned. Possibly because Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism is of no consequence, benign and possibly good for the Afghans.
• To support British soldiers in Afghanistan is “false patriotism”. They are there to commit murder.

The article admits that “old school al-Qa’ida had training camps in Afghanistan” but latterly terrorism in the west has been incubated in the west.

Although old-school al-Qa’ida had training camps in Afghanistan, the September 11th attacks were planned in Hamburg, not Helmand, and the necessary training was done in the United States

However, the IHRC is on record for criticising the west for tackling homegrown terrorism in it’s own backyard as well. When Abu Hamza was convicted in the UK, Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the IHRC had this to say:

“This is creating an environment that can only further alienate the Muslim community.”

So it looks like the IHRC is an operation created to criticise any form of opposition to terrorism whether in Afghanistan or Britain as “anti-Muslim” and to support the work of Islamists and terrorist cells by conflating their interests with that of the British Muslim community.

Let us hope that the members of the Select Committee on Monday’s hearing will be able to identify the IHRC for what it truly stands for.

Opposing the IHRC

The appointment of Asim Hafeez as head of intervention at the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism has caused serious concern among more moderate Muslim advisers across Whitehall. [...]

Mr Hafeez was described by one fellow adviser as “hardcore Salafi”. Salafism is a strictly puritanical branch of Islam, often associated with Saudi Arabia. It does not promote violence, but does urge the creation of an Islamic state.

The new Home Office adviser is reported to have raised eyebrows at his new department during the Muslim festival of Ramadan, when he lectured guests at a reception about the benefits of fasting. Before his appointment at the Home Office, Mr Hafeez worked as an adviser to the Welsh Assembly, government where he had a reputation for his strict views on Islam. He also regularly lectured on Islamic issues at Welsh universities.

The Home Office appointment coincides with a change of regime at the Department of Communities and Local Government, where John Denham has replaced Hazel Blears as Secretary of State.

Sources at the department have told the JC that Mr Denham’s deputy, Shahid Malik, has announced his belief that ministers have been “talking to the wrong people”.

The Home Office last night confirmed that Mr Hafeez had been given the job, but said that all appointments followed government procedures.

Now, the headline is admittedly somewhat misleading. Asim is Salafi – and no doubt Spittoon readers can think of a few other adjectives – but there’s no evidence of him being an Islamist. Otherwise it is interesting (and reassuring) to see that “more moderate Muslim advisers across Whitehall” share the Spittoon’s concerns about Mr Hafeez. When will the Home Office wake up?

A few days ago, Shahid Malik MP issued a statement in the Guardian in support of the Prevent initiative. Malik is careful to take pains to explain clearly the Prevent agenda; what it is and what it is not.

It is important to set the record straight: Prevent is not about spying on innocent people. Nor is Prevent about criminalising free speech. Recent comments have claimed that the focus of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, Contest, is nonviolent extremism. This is not the case.

Contest is a counter-terrorism strategy that is freely available online, and which we would urge people to read before entering a debate without all the facts. The primary purpose of Prevent, one part of that strategy, is to protect the public by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. We would be astonished to find anyone who would disagree with the importance of this work. We know, and have set out publicly in Contest, that we face a real and sustained threat from al-Qaida and al-Qaida-influenced groups. Pretending the threat does not exist would be a failure of the most basic duty of government, which is to protect the public.

Halfway through the middle of the article, Malik introduces Inayat Bunglawala to our attention. Bunglawala obliges Malik with an effusive comment about the advantages of the “Prevent” strand of the government’s security strategy:

As Inayat Bungawala – a frequent contributor to Cif – has said, “it should be self-evident to all that Britain needs to have an effective and successful Prevent strategy in place to safeguard all our communities.” Law enforcement work alone will not protect vulnerable individuals from radicalisers, resolve grievances that are manipulated to recruit vulnerable individuals, or support communities to actively speak out and condemn violent extremism.

This is a curiously anodyne statement on the benefits of Prevent coming from Bunglawala when, only a few months ago and on the pages of CiF, no less, he was pouring scorn on the very same Prevent, suggesting that it had

“quickly lost the trust of UK Muslims and became widely discredited and ridiculed among UK Muslims as the “provoke” agenda.

The large amount of money – £45m over a three-year period – set aside for funding “preventing violent terrorism” initiatives among British Muslims also caused disquiet among some non-Muslim faith communities who believe the funds should be more evenly distributed.”

The question is, why exactly is Bunglawala specifically quoted in Malik’s statement now, giving a glowing endorsement of the Prevent strategy which Bunglawala regarded as having:

“brought relations between the government and British Muslims to an all-time low.”

Bungles took special care to damn Prevent when it was under the portfolio of Hazel Blears. He reserved his ire for Paul Richards, who worked for Blears’ office and his connection with the UK Jewish community. There must be a reason why Bungles took the effort to insinuate a causative relation between Richard’s support for Prevent and the fact that he wrote for the Jewish Chronicle. I wonder if the readers of The Spittoon could speculate on what that causative relationship might be?

“Richards’s approach – to deliberately blur the distinction between peaceful Muslims engaged in legitimate, democratic political work and violent groups inspired by al-Qaida – was one actively promoted by neoconservative thinktanks like Policy Exchange and the inappropriately-named Centre for Social Cohesion. Expect more attacks on Denham and Malik if they continue along their new course.”

Perhaps this is what makes Bunglawala so attractive to Shahid Malik now. After all, back in October 2008, Malik spoke at the Global Peace and Unity Conference. Here is part of Malik’s very own “I have a dream” speech, in which he spoke of his desire to see an ‘entirely Muslim’ British Parliament:

Now that Bunglawala has been endorsed by the likes of John Denham and Shahid Malik, expect to see a complete about-turn in Inayat Bunglawala’s opinions on Prevent. The new Inayat Bunglawala will come forth espousing wonders of Prevent. And the heavy hitters from John Denham’s office will be willing to forget all the articles and blogs spewed by the self-styled ‘grassroots Muslim representative’ who has spent so much time and energy discrediting Prevent.

****

Iran is a brutal theocratic dictatorship that executes minors, stones adulterous women to death, persecutes religious and ethnic minorities and murders and imprisons non-violent protestors for calling for free and fair elections.

Fareena Alam presenting on Press TV

It is also not exactly supportive of the UK’s struggle against Islamist extremism. The Iranian government is widely believed to have supplied Iraqi insurgents with many of the roadside bombs that killed British soldiers in Iraq, Iran’s leaders have also called for the extrajudicial murder of a British novelist and funded London-based radical Islamist outfits such as the comically misnamed Islamic Human Rights Commission.

One would think, therefore, that the British government would regard employees of the Iranian government as being less than ideal partners for the UK domestic ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ programme.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

One of the UK government’s flagship counter-extremism programmes is the Radical Middle Way (RMW) which was established with £460,000 of government money in 2005 by former members of Q-News magazine, namely Fuad Nahdi, Abdul Rehman Malik and Malik’s wife Fareena Alam.

Fareena Alam first shot to fame two days after the 9-11 when she told a former US ambassador in a now-notorious edition of BBC Question Time that the US had deserved for the attacks because of its support for Israel, which she described as a ‘terrorist’ state.

Of the resulting media furore, she later said that ‘I think I got picked on in the papers because I had tanned skin, I’m a Muslim, a woman and I was wearing a headscarf’ and that ‘If it was untimely, it was the BBC’s fault for running it two days after the attack’.

Despite this, Alam became one of the RMW’s most main public faces. She also chaired a number of the group’s public events, including one event in April 2008 that included Fuad Nahdi’s wife, Humera Khan, and Catherine Heseltine from MPACUK, an organisation which has been widely described as Anti-Semitic.

In around mid-2008, however, Alam joined Press TV, the Iranian government-run and –funded propaganda station, as a reporter. She immediately began producing a stream of blatantly one-sided TV pieces that parroted the Iranian government’s line.

For instance, in one story nominally about the Iraqi president’s visit to London, Alam concluded that “Maliki’s visit to London occurred on the day that British troops started to finally withdraw from Iraq after six years. Most Iraqis will be glad to see the back of them and if they return in business suits instead of jackboots, their welcome will be far from certain.”

Leaving aside her sweeping assumption that ‘most Iraqis will be glad to see the back of them’, it is striking that Alam used the word ‘jackboots’ in reference to British troops. As far as I am used ‘jackboots’ references are used almost solely to make Nazi comparisons. Does Fareena Alam really think that British troops are comparable with the Nazis? And if she does, what does she make of the totalitarian and undemocratic Iranian government that pays her wages?

Despite producing such anti-British propaganda on behalf of the Iranian government, Alam has remained one of the RMW’s public faces. For instance, in May 2009, she chaired an RMW event called ‘Wired Warriors for the soul of Islam’ featuring Muslim bloggers. This event was presumably funded through the £350,000 that the Department for Communities and Local Government gave to RMW during 6-month period from October 2008 to April 2009.

Alam, while working for the Iranian government, also remained closely involved in the RMW’s day-to-day administration. In April this year, for instance, she posted on the RMW’s facebook page to thank the group’s followers for RSVP-ing to the group’s upcoming events and telling them about RMW’s future plans:

Since starting work for Press TV, she has also written she written on the group’s facebook page that RMW had joined twitter, telling readers to “follow us” – by which she presumably means the RMW rather than Press TV:

Of course, the RMW could argue that Alam was not making these statements on behalf of the group and has been doing so without its knowledge. I don’t believe that this is the case however – RMW employees could hardly fail to notice that she is regularly posting in the group’s name on their popular facebook page.

And even if this is the case, then why is Alam also one of only 7 administrators in the group’s facebook page – one of its main points of contact with its youthful audience – if she is no longer seen as being part of RMW?

Now, I’m sure that Fareena is a lovely person in many ways. And I also appreciate that because her husband, Abdul Rehman Malik, is heavily involved in RMW, it is difficult for her to sever contact with the group.

At the same time, however, it is manifestly insane that an Iranian government employee, especially one who works for Tehran’s main English language propaganda outlet and who compares British soldiers to fascist storm-troopers, should be involved in running the UK’s most lavishly-funded counter-extremism programme.

The money shot comes at the very end and it is spot on:

Even more worryingly, a new generation is being radicalised, often with the very government funds that are supposed to be countering radicalisation. The British Government’s counter-terrorism strategy is called Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE). In the past three years, 90 million pounds have been spent on PVE. However, by focusing on ‘violent extremism’, as opposed to all extremism, the government has allowed itself to hop into bed with organisations and groups deeply opposed to liberal, democratic values. These groups have ties with the Muslim brotherhood, and our very own Jaamat-e-Islami. Perhaps by joining hands with non-violent extremist groups, the government hopes to provide a defence, a pressure valve if you like, against violent extremism among the angry Muslim youth. But by collaborating with these groups, the government is effectively supporting and funding the Islamist ideology that spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-western view.

In any liberal democracy, there are constant tensions. How can one protect the rights of the few from the tyranny of the majority? How il-liberal should the state become in order to protect the liberal values it professes to uphold? These questions always need debate and vigilance. The BBC is right to invite the BNP leader on ‘Question Time’. However abhorrent and racist his views, the electorate has given him a mandate. If the Jaamat-e-Islami were to obtain a similar mandate, they too should be invited on the show. However, allowing freedom of speech is one thing — actively funding and supporting that speech is quite another. The British government must stop all public money to Islamist groups whose views are in conflict with liberal democracy — however non-violent or representative of the community they purport to be. If a liberal, democratic government continues to fund these groups it will become the political equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas. Or should that be goats for Eid.

For the past couple of days, the Guardian has been running scare stories about the Government’s Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme. Gleefully feeding Islamist propaganda about the government’s supposed demonisation of Muslims, it is an irresponsible and potentially dangerous attack.

PVE is a strand of the CONTEST strategy designed to fight terrorism, and a large part of the PVE strand is the Pathfinder Fund which, through local authorities, allocates funds to local organisations that they assess can help prevent people from becoming radicalised.

The main Guardian report focuses primarily on the use of information sharing agreements (ISA) which have been drawn up between the Metropolitan Police and two councils that receive PVE funding for certain projects. These ISAs specify that PVE funded projects can share with the police detailed personal information about innocent Muslims, including details about their sex life. Having got hold of two ISAs, one from Islington and one from Waltham Forest, the Guardian has presented the Prevent strategy as nothing more than a covert dirty tricks programme designed to create a police state for innocent Muslims.

Rather, these shockingly invasive ISAs are much more likely to be an aberration from what Prevent is in fact all about, and yet another example of the error of allowing the Police to take the lead in running this programme. Looking beyond the immediate hysteria (which the MCB have predictably spearheaded) it is important to keep the following in mind: so far, from a pool of hundreds of local councils and numerous PVE funded projects, the Guardian has presented us with two ISAs. If the newspaper can provide us with more evidence that the use of ISAs is in fact the rule rather than an aberration, I will be more than willing to retract my current stance that Prevent is by no means an intelligence gathering programme.

Ed Husain, director of the Quilliam Foundation, has found himself in a spot of bother over this after being quoted by the Guardian as saying

“It [Prevent] is gathering intelligence on people not committing terrorist offences. If it is to prevent people getting killed and committing terrorism, it is good and it is right.”

In this assessment, he has got one thing terribly wrong: the stated aims of Prevent make it clear it is not designed to do this, and detailed intelligence gathering is instead the purpose of another strand of CONTEST, namely ‘Pursue’. Prevent is not an attempt to subvert local community groups that are receiving Pathfinder money, and perpetuating the idea that it is can be hugely damaging. His failure to properly explain the nature of Prevent must be rectified.

Even more damaging was the article written today by Islamist enabler Robert Lambert, who, rather than criticising the Prevent strategy, tries to put the boot into Quilliam by suggesting that instead of them receiving any PVE money, it should instead go to his Islamist friends. Before a brief look at his article, here is a bit of background information on Mr. Lambert:

• As a leading light of the Metropolitan Police Muslim Contact Unit, he handed over the Finsbury Park mosque to, among others, Mohammed Sawalha. Described by the BBC as a ‘fugitive Hamas commander’, Sawalha was also a signatory to the Istanbul Declaration – a pro Hamas statement which not only rejected any possible peace settlements with Israel, but also included indirect support for attacks on British Naval vessels.
• According to the most recent documents, he is an employee of iEngage, a pro Islamist website headed by Mohammed Ali Harrath – a man who is currently the subject of an Interpol Red Notice for, according to the Interpol site, ‘counterfeiting/forgery, crimes involving the use of weapons/explosives, terrorism.’

In his piece today, Lambert suggests that instead of Quilliam, a far more suitable candidate would be Anas Altikriti, CEO of the Cordoba foundation. Identified last year as a problematic Islamist organisation by David Cameron, the Cordoba foundation recently sponsored an event in the Kensington and Chelsea town hall which was to showcase a video sermon by pro-al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki (the sermon was pulled at the last minute only after immense pressure from the local council). Awlaki has also been identified by the US Department of Homeland Security as the spiritual leader of three of the 9/11 hijackers. The author of ‘44 Ways to Support Jihad’, his sermons enjoin Muslims to join al-Qaeda affiliated groups like Somalia’s al-Shabaab militia. Surely it is not unfair to ask how Lambert could possibly justify promoting a group that sponsors an Awlaki sermon? It is also worth noting that, despite the controversy about Awlaki’s virtual presence at the event, the front page of Tikriti’s Cordoba’s website still carries the ad for the event, in which Awlaki is described as an ‘Islamic scholar’.

Lambert also promotes Inayat Bunglawala as a viable alternative to Quilliam, surely it is just a coincidence that Inayat is also his colleague at iEngage…

There are a number of things wrong with Prevent, in particular how PVE funds have very often fallen into the wrong hands (many of them rather inexplicably, are friends and associates of Robert Lambert), but from what information is currently available there is no evidence to suggest that it is a wide ranging sinister programme to invade the privacy of innocent Muslims. Additionally, the Guardian should have seriously considered the ramifications of discrediting the Prevent strategy in the eyes of truly moderate Muslims, and they better have something better than the two ISAs they have so far come up with.

****

The Enemy (according to the BMI)

At the risk of sounding like Richard Littlejohn, sometimes you just can’t make it up. In response to the Guardian’s report on Saturday on how the government’s ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism programme is allegedly being used to spy on British Muslims, the British Muslim Initiative, a moribund Muslim Brotherhood front-group run by former Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Anas Al-Tikriti, briefly stirred into life in order to issue a single crazed press-release:

BMI president Muhammad Sawalha said, “This campaign of espionage is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. It is an unfortunate throw back to the Cold War years when spying was the order of the day.”

“We are deeply aggrieved that such measures should be adopted to target law-abiding citizens in a modern democracy”, he added.

The BMI recognizes in the government strategy a dark political undercurrent of hostility engineered by the Zionist, Islamophobe and Neo-Con alliance (ZINC).

…

The BMI calls on our government to scrap the discredited and wasteful Prevent programme and disassociate itself forthwith from the jaundiced advices of the anti-Muslim ZINC alliance.

I suppose I should really take issue with the irony of Muhammad Sawalha, a fugitive Hamas commander, characterising the UK as a “totalitarian society” or else draw Spittoon readers’ attention to the remarkable speed with which the BMI’s eagle-eyed activists detected the influence of “the Zionists” as being behind the Home Office’s domestic counter-extremism ‘Prevent’ policy.

Alternatively, I should perhaps observe that this underhand and grubby little press release, with its conspiratorial mutterings of “dark political undercurrents” which are (naturally) “engineered” by the “Zionists” and their co-conspirators, somewhat undermines Robert Lambert’s rosy depiction of Anas Al-Tikriti as “a well-known political activist” in Comment-Is-Free earlier today.

However, I am much more inclined to simply say: “Anti-Muslim ZINC alliance? The BMI should zinc before they zpeak!”

****

On Saturday the Guardian published a front page article by Vikram Dodd on the Governments PREVENT strategy. This article claimed there were concerns that the agenda was being used to spy and to gather information.   On Sunday another article by Dodd stated that influential MPs were going to investigate these allegations.  Interestingly, Dodd was also behind what was claimed to be a leak of the new Contest 2 strategy back in February 09, the actual strategy did not include anything of what was alleged.  Two important questions need to be asked then: is PREVENT really about spying and is it effective?

On 07/09/09 three British Muslims were found guilty of the Liquid bombing plot.  Had the plot gone ahead seven planes would have exploded in mid-air at the same time. The carnage would have exceeded the September the 11 attacks. The would be Bombers were under surveillance for some time, but was it wrong to spy on them? Several months prior, on 17 April 09, Isa Ibrahim, a convert to Islam, was arrested in Bristol and later charged under the terrorism act.  Ibrahim was in possession of an explosive substance and was intent on committing a terrorist act.  The tip off came from the local Muslim community.  Was the local community in Bristol wrong to tip of the Police? Was this an example of unacceptable prying (spying) into an innocent individual’s life? Of course not.

Having been involved with community groups that have worked on PREVENT, I know its strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who has read the strategy properly will know that it doesn’t encourage spying, rather it promotes ways of identifying and tackling extremist ideologies.  It encourages people to be vigilant and resilient against those who wish to cause harm to our society. The Andrew Ibrahim case was hailed as the first visible success of the strategy.   One perceived weakness in the strategy was that it didn’t go far enough in naming some of the groups that were pushing extremist ideology in the UK.  An attempt was made, however, to clarify this in the later CONTEST 2 strategy.

So why all the fuss about PREVENT?   There are groups which feel threatened by this strategy and have opposed it all along.   These are mainly Islamists who feel threatened because the agenda exposes their ideology and their allies, some leftists, who mistakenly perceive Islamists as allies in a continuing post-colonial struggle.  Dodd’s misleading Contest 2 ‘leak’ has been picked up by Islamists and used to spread fear amongst Muslim communities.  An example of this was a talk arranged in Hounslow on 11/07/09 called Putting Contest 2 into Context.  The government needs to make sure it doesn’t inadvertently help such groups either by funding them or by consulting them on policy making decisions.  There should be no empowering of Islamists, even if they claim to be non-violent, when their world view can be used to justify violence or encourage the mistrust and separatism that is so damaging to our whole society.

Extremist Islamist ideology in the UK has been around for at least three decades and it’s not going to be undermined overnight. Over the course of the past year a lot of hard work has been put into tackling extremist ideologies.  There is no doubt in my mind that the police, public sector workers and community groups are far more aware of what this ideology is now than they were prior to the PREVENT strategy  being launched.  Accusations of spying do not help and only undermine the hard work that is being done to protect our society.

There is a Facebook group called ‘Say No To Andy’s Fanatics’ which has some details. It reads:

The extremist AND UNREPRESENTATIVE cult group al-Muhajiroun intends to provoke hatred and division in both Muslims and British people of all backgrounds with a demonstration in Central London….

I AM ASKING ALL TO STAND WITH LONDONERS AGAINST THESE EXTREMISTS ON OCTOBER 31st 2009….

The way we have stood together against the EDL we now need to stand together against those who want to harm the UK and its people.

Publicise this far and wide – and make sure you get down there. A big attendance is vital.

Afterwards, we’ll all go for a swift half.

Andy in happier times...

]]> http://www.spittoon.org/archives/3093/feed 13 http://www.spittoon.org/archives/2778 http://www.spittoon.org/archives/2778#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:35:43 +0000 Yossarian http://www.spittoon.org/?p=2778 The Guardian yesterday reported on Charles Farr (director-general of the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism) and a briefing he gave on 26th February this year to MPs on the topic of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It appears to have been online for a while but only recently to have been picked up on by the media.

The transcript of his briefing (at least a redacted and approved version thereof) is available online and it’s well worth a read. Here are some highlights (with emphasis added by me):

On RICU (the Research, Information and Communications Unit):

RICU has two functions within our organisation. It is responsible for advising the rest of government but actually, not just government, officialdom, from a brigade commander in Helmand province through to a chief constable in Yorkshire, about how they may wish to characterise the threat we face and describe the response that we are making and, secondly, rather different, they are responsible for challenging the propaganda which comes to us from al-Qaeda and associated groups—generally not from people in this country; usually from the incessant 4,500 websites that are in one way or another associated with radical Islamist terrorist organisations around the world. That is a very difficult task and it has only been going really substantively staffed for a year, about 35 people, across government, and a bit of the private sector in there to advise us on aspects of communications. [...] It is pretty small in the overall scheme of things, 35 people.

On his own role:

I am the SRO for CONTEST, the senior responsible official, which means, in government speak, senior civil servant responsible for the strategy. We provide, we aim to provide, we were set up to provide a policy and strategic framework for the activities of delivery organisations working on counter-terrorism in this country and overseas. That would include the police, Communities and Local Government, the Foreign Office, but it would also include the agencies. We provide them with parameters, a strategic framework—it is as simple as that—within which we expect them to be operating. Once we have established that framework, the day-to-day conduct of the operations is not my business; it is their business and, in pursuit of those operations, fulfilling their operational mandate, they do not report back to me. They report respectively to the Home Secretary in the case of the Security Service and to the Foreign Secretary in the case of GCHQ and SIS. We will certainly keep an eye that their operations are within the strategic framework and objectives that we collectively have set and established.

[...]

My role with the police is to provide them with a policy framework in which their operations should take place. I then have oversight of the operations and I know what they are but I do not run the operations.

On foreign intelligence agencies (especially the CIA) being active in the UK:

Do those organisations from outside have representatives here? Most certainly, yes. Are they declared? Yes. They are in regular dialogue with our agencies here. The cornerstone of much of this, of course, is the American relationship. Why? For two reasons, I think, above all: because of the huge American capability that can be brought to bear on counter-terrorism, and has been since 9/11. Secondly, as you well know, because people who pose a threat to this country are six hours away from the eastern seaboard, something which the Americans are acutely aware of, as are we, and therefore take a very close interest in. Operations that we are conducting here, people we are investigating and the whole counter-terrorist strategy that we have is intimately connected to and relevant to their own national security. So the relationships are very close.

On the need to challenge Islamism even when it stops short of promoting violent extremism:

No-one is suggesting that we criminalise extremism. We are not arguing that extremist views should somehow now be criminalised; nor are we necessarily saying, “By the way, challenging extremism is part of the counter-terrorism policy”. I am not sure that it is. I think it may be part of the community cohesion policy but that is rather a different thing. However, it does seem to me from where I sit entirely appropriate that this Government, and I think probably any other government, will want to challenge aspects of what we might call Islamism which fall short of espousing violence—to give you an example, reporting from CIVITAS, the think-tank, the other day about views in some quarters here that western culture is evil and that Muslims living in this country should not engage with western cultural organisations, for want of a better term, with western culture itself. There is nothing violent about that and it is not necessarily going to lead to terrorism, but it does seem to me to be unreal for this or any other government not to say that they are going to challenge that, and that is no more nor less than what this Government is now saying. It is saying, “Yes, we will challenge violent extremism and, by the way, we will criminalise it and we will proscribe groups who espouse it, but we want to go a bit further. We are not going to sit on the sidelines and listen without responding to either Islamist extremist views or indeed to the far right” [but] the risk is that by saying that we want to challenge these views we are going to alienate the communities or parts of communities on whom we necessarily depend for our key objective, which is to challenge violence and the ideology of terrorism, but I think any government in this country is going to face this challenge.

On promoting shared values:

This is about promoting the values on which this society depends, whichever government is in power, and there is more about that than counter-terrorism.

[...]

The way we want to put this is not about defending anything, by the way; it is about promoting our shared values. What we have tried to say on the strategy is, “Yes, we are about attacking the ideology of violent extremism but we are also about promoting the basis on which our society depends, whichever government is in power, and we will challenge people who are attacking those values”, and your definition of extremism, which I think is otherwise very difficult, relates to people who are challenging values. In a sense that is what we are saying extremism in this context is. I think it is very difficult to define extremism in another way. I do not know whether I have been clear about that.

On banning extremist speakers:

Q158  David Davies: What influence then do you have over people coming into this country whom you might or might not think are appropriate visitors? We have seen recently the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was banned, but I read today that a senior member of Hezbollah is due to speak at a university and there seems to be an inconsistency here. Do you have any influence over that and should you not have an influence over it, given your role in defending our values?

Mr Farr: Yes, we do have influence. Decisions on these issues are made by the UK Borders Agency in consultation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and up to the Home Secretary, sometimes the Foreign Secretary and sometimes the Communities Secretary. It is a complicated landscape, necessarily, and into that, yes, OSCT will put a view. That is the policy framework. The practical issues are quite complicated. If you look at the person concerned, Ibrahim Moussawi, who is, as you rightly say, a member of a part of Hezbollah, things get a little bit more complicated. Not all of Hezbollah is a proscribed organisation. As you know, it is a very complicated movement. It is a parliamentary organisation, and the person concerned, from memory, operates in the Hezbollah television station al-Manar.

Q159  David Davies: He may not be a good example. I take your point entirely: there are elements of Hezbollah and Hamas who are more moderate than others, I fully accept that, but there have been people who have come over here who are clearly not in that moderate section. I suppose the question for you is, how much influence do you have and do you use it?

Mr Farr: We do have it and we do use it, and if you notice inconsistencies, which to a degree I plead guilty to, I think it is partly because consistency is so difficult. Every case is a bit different.

On Qaradawi:

A notorious Islamist preacher operates on al-Jazeera, Qaradawi. You may remember Qaradawi came to prominence in this country when he came here and met Ken Livingstone. Qaradawi highlights all the difficulties of this for us. In some ways Qaradawi holds views which are certainly extremist by the definition that we suggested earlier. In other words, they are critical of the values on which our society rests.

Q160  David Davies: Women, gays, all the rest of it.

Mr Farr: Correct, all of those things, reprehensible. Equally, Qaradawi is one of the most articulate critics of al-Qaeda in the Islamic world. I think for any government, and I really passionately believe this, this is a real problem. If we refuse him a visa people will come back to us and say, “Hang on a moment. This person is coming here to speak against the organisation which most threatens you. Surely you need to operate within a degree of latitude which allows that”. I do not say that is a compelling argument.

David Davies: It is a moral dilemma; I agree.

Q161  Ms Buck: It is a fantastic example of the dilemma but it did not come out at all.

Mr Farr: No.

Chairman: You mean it was not communicated?

Ms Buck: No.

Q162  David Davies: But, actually, if it had been communicated, it would have come over as being rather cynical anyway—we are only letting him because he is attacking our enemies.

Mr Farr: I do think that is, by the way, a perfectly good argument and Qaradawi is a current issue for us: should we just refuse him a visa? By the way, his programme on al-Jazeera is probably the most watched programme on al-Jazeera and, of course, he will go on al-Jazeera as well and say he has been refused a visa to the UK. We could live with that, but certainly, when we put advice out to ministers, we have to say, “That is what is going to happen and you need to weigh this in the balance”.

On radicalisation:

It has become a huge issue for the academic world as well as the intelligence and security world, what drives radicalisation. I have two or three remarks. One, there is no consistent answer to the question: what drives radicalisation? It varies significantly from country to country. Two, it varies most significantly from one terrorist organisation to another and even within a terrorist organisation what drives the leadership as opposed to the foot soldiers is very different. There is also a lot of rubbish out there, you have probably read some of it, which collapses all those things into one big basket and comes up with a generalisation or several generalisations which are often the source of some despair to us and can be very misleading in policy development terms. In simple terms, for us, subject to those criteria, we think of three factors driving radicalisation, some political, some psychological and some behavioural. Political factors driving radicalisation certainly include foreign policy, or rather, more strictly, a perception of foreign policy. They certainly include people living overseas, the experience of living in failed or failing states. They certainly include the experience of conflict. And, going back to your second question, they include the experience of deprivation, inequality, and, as it were, missed opportunity; I put it like that, and we can talk about that. There is a range of psychological issues driving radicalisation which I think are particularly relevant in non-Muslim societies where there are issues about identity and the relationships between individuals and their families, their communities and the state itself. In very simple terms we think of radicalisation as having political drivers, psychological drivers and behavioural drivers. Amongst the political drivers are, as I have said, foreign policy and certainly economics. If you then look at the impact of the recession in this country, of course, it could be quite problematic. There is no doubt that under-employment and under-achievement can drive radicalisation. There is some very interesting literature around on how radical Muslim organisations in this country have recruited people. We have done some research on that and some academic research has been done which is really good. These organisations have talked about how they recruit people and have told us that there are two real drivers—a sense of thwarted ambition and racism. Those two things encourage people to join that group. It does not make them terrorists but it does get them on the track. It is a long answer to your question. We look at radicalisation under the three headings—political, psychological, behavioural. Under “political”, yes, foreign policy creates grievances, or the perception of foreign policy, and the recession could do so too.

[...]

There is a group of people that have been radicalised and are committed to violent extremism and the only solution to that group of people in this country is criminal investigation and prosecution. There is a much larger group of people who feel a degree of negativity, if not hostility, towards the state, the country, the community, and who are, as it were, the pool in which terrorists will swim, and to a degree they will be complicit with and will certainly not report on activity which they detect on their doorstep. We have to reach that group because unless we reach that group they may themselves move into the very sharp end, but even if they do not they will create an environment in which terrorists can operate with a degree of impunity that we do not want. By the way, that generalisation applies in other countries as well. We have to reach that group. That is to a degree what Prevent is all about.

Radicalisation in prisons:

Q175  David Davies: There is radicalisation going on in prisons; we think there is. Are you aware of that and, if so, what role do you have in preventing it?   

Mr Farr: We are very aware of it Muslims constitute a disproportionate percentage of the total people in prison in this country, somewhere between 12 and 13%, from memory. That is over 8,000 people; it is a very significant group, and we know that once they get inside prison there is a danger that they will be radicalised. It is not a danger just in this country; it is a danger throughout every prison system in the world, including the United States and prisons in the Muslim world as well. There is an additional risk that, for entirely legitimate reasons, people can get converted in prison to Islam. We are very aware of the risks. Since we were created, and it was one of the priorities we were given, we have worked very closely with the Ministry of Justice to develop a counter-terrorist programme inside prisons. I do not think you are taking evidence from the Ministry of Justice but if you had more time it would be well worth doing, if I may say, because I think it is not yet a success story but it is a story of real progress. We have certainly enhanced the intelligence infrastructure in prisons; we have created an intelligence infrastructure, in fact, working very closely with the police as well. Of course, we are anticipating—which is already happening—what we are going to do when people who are convicted of terrorist offences are released; that sounds very odd but it is already happening, and when they back into the community what are we going to do about that? There is a very large complicated programme run by NOMS, the National Offender Management Service, under the strategic framework that we have provided. We are funding it. They do not have enough money so we have transferred some of our programme budget, and it is a good thing that we are able to do that, into the Ministry of Justice to enable them to get it off the ground.

[...]

there is a direct relationship between criminality and radicalisation and it is not just in this country; it is overseas as well. In other words, people who have criminal records, and criminal records not related to terrorism, appear to be vulnerable to radicalisation more than many others. We think this is because they find in terrorist networks a refuge from the blame that otherwise gets attached to them in the community as a result of their criminal activity. They may not have been convicted but simply the isolation and alienation that can happen in a community as a result of their criminal activities can drive them into a terrorist network and can drive them towards Islam as a sort of solution to some of the problems they face. I am simplifying it hugely, but criminality and radicalisation—there is a causal relationship there that greatly interests us.

On the Olympics:

Q186  Chairman: Just coming back briefly, if we may, to the Games, what do you think the major threat is to the Games?   

Mr Farr: We have got four threats, we believe. One is terrorism, of course. Another is public disorder. The third is serious crime and the fourth is what I would call non-malicious hazards, which could be anything from heat or flood to epidemic. Globalisation and globalisation movements could yet prove to be a very big challenge for us. Even with non-malicious hazards, if you are looking at the sorts of crowds we are expecting for the Olympics, the task is immense. I am sure you know the figures, but you are talking about an event which is 20 times the size of a World Cup. Simply crowd control, without public order problems or terrorism problems, is a great challenge, so we have got those four areas.

And then a discussion at the end that reveals how classified material was removed from this transcript prior to its publication.

Q191  Chairman: May I ask for guidance, please, and discussion if we need to, very briefly? How much of this could we have done not in camera?

Mr Farr: My problem about not being in camera is that for every answer that we give there is often a bit that is classified and you cannot separate unclassified questions and answers from classified questions and answers. The classified and the unclassified are mixed together. That is the difficulty. When you see the transcripts you can split off the classified bit and you are left with an unclassified answer, but what you cannot easily do is break the session in half because you then end up having to go over every question again, saying, “I want to add this to that, that to that, that to the other”. That is why, I am afraid, we suggested it was easier to have the whole lot in camera and then to look at the transcript and deal with it through the transcript rather than through the evidence session.

Q192  Chairman: Ms McGregor?

Ms McGregor: Yes, and if the transcript can come to me in the first instance we will discuss it with Charles and then we can quickly separate out those things. There are quite a number of things that were said that we could not have said in a public transcript.

This is the first time I’ve read about the government’s approach to Prevent and come away reassured.

There are two main problems with this report and, unfortunately for ippr, they are the two main assumptions underpinning it. Firstly, that engagement is always good and must occur with Islamists rather than anybody else (p16 and pp41-42). Secondly, that those poor little political Islamists are simply “misunderstood” and if only we understood them better (like wot ippr do) then everything would be AOK (p41 and p45).

Sorry, but engagement for the sake of engagement is not an argument. The onus is on ippr to argue why political Islamists should be engaged and particularly why they should be engaged ahead of anybody else. Secondly, it is not other people “misunderstanding” Islamism that makes them wary of engagement with Islamists – quite the opposite. A mere faint familiarity with the principal Islamist ideologues is enough to make you very wary of engaging them and their followers.

ippr admit, in passing, that many Islamists are not very pleasant, that the Muslim Brotherhood have been involved in assassinations, bombings and the like (p13) and retain unpleasant ideas about the role of women and religious minorities in society (p15). All of which might make you think that the Muslim Brotherhood are not particularly plausible partners for encouraging positive developments on human rights and democratisation in the MENA area. Not so for ippr, however.

They remind us that the political Islamists are “[o]ccupying a middle ground between authoritarian regimes and violent jihadists” (p40) and that they will have a greater influence on the future political evolution of the Middle East than the jihadists (p8). Well that’s very nice, just not a logical argument. There are more groups out there than “authoritarian regimes”, “violent jihadists” and “political Islamists”. Why don’t they get a look in?

We are told not to ignore “the fact that across the Middle East and North Africa, Islamist parties are frequently more vocal in their support for democracy than their secular counterparts” (p41). So what? They’re only advocating democracy because they see it as a means to an end – power. Anyway, that is an argument not to engage with those (unnamed) secular groups, not an argument to engage with Islamists.  You are left wondering what Islamists would have to do to convince ippr not to engage with them. Advocating violence would not be enough (p43) and the Muslim Brotherhood’s moves away from liberalisation are actually taken as an argument for engaging with them (p41).

So what kind of engagement are ippr advocating with these people they have so singularly failed to make the case for engaging? There is a good clue on page thirteen.

Changes to Egypt’s constitution that have made the Shari’a the ‘main source’ of legislation have enabled [emphasis added] the Brotherhood to retract its claim that the Egyptian government is apostate.

According to ippr, it was the Egyptian government’s fault for being secular that the Muslim Brotherhood had to use violence against it. Some might call it engagement despite the fact that, to begin, Egypt was requird to give up the most fundamental aspect of its previously secular nature.  Others, more accurately perhaps, would call it capitulation.

Despite its plea that readers not misinterpret the project “as implicit support for [Islamists'] political agendas” (p6), ippr here has made a virtue of acceding to Islamist demands. The same is seen on page fifteen.

Unfortunately, [the Brotherhood's release of a draft policy platform] did not generate the wider policy debate that the Brotherhood had hoped for. Instead, it prompted a re-emergence of concerns about the Brotherhood’s stance on equalities and human rights, particularly as a result of the document’s assertion that non-Muslims and women should not be allowed to hold senior leadership roles within the state.

Why would it be “unfortunate” unless you are allying yourself with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than the non-Muslims and women whom the draft policy would have discriminated against?

What is ippr up to? Rather than chosing partners on the basis of genuine shared values, ippr seem to have chosen to make common cause with the Muslim Brotherhood simply because they are Islamists. Instead of pretending that the Brotherhood are moderate progressives, why not ally with groups that actually are?

****

During the last few years, the left-leaning Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank has built up an unenviable reputation on the tricky subject of engaging with Islamists. And for good reason. Previous IPPR papers have argued that hard-line British Islamists from groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood are our best allies against al-Qaeda because ‘shared interests, if not ideologies, are paramount: it is not in our interests or theirs for terrorists to mount another attack.’

The most troubling aspect of IPPR’s previous calls for the empowerment of Islamists has however been IPPR’s underlying argument that, in order to stop jihadists blowing up middle-class white people on planes, trains and buses in western capitals, governments should sell out their own Muslim citizens to religious fascists by empowering Islamists who want to dictate every aspect of ordinary Muslims’ social, political and spiritual lives.

In the UK, for instance, IPPR seemingly believes that security for white people is best achieved through empowering Islamists from pro-jihadist, anti-Semitic groups such as the Muslim Association of Britain. IPPR is fine that these groups and their allies also believe in beatingMuslim women into a bloody submission, killing Jewish children or blowing up ordinary non-Islamist Muslims around the Middle East – just as long as these groups don’t call for attacks on Guardian-reading white people.

Of course, ‘left-leaning’ IPPR can’t actually come out with such openly white-centric arguments. Its previous reports have therefore had to go through intellectual contortions in order to reach these same conclusions – for instance by arguing that hard-line Islamists groups and the west are progressive and have ‘common values’ while also arguing that Islamists are so influential and powerful that we must engage with them or risk jihadist attacks.

This transparent carrot and stick approach is repeated in IPPR’s new report on engaging with Islamist organisations in the Middle East,‘Building Bridges, Not Walls’ which was released earlier today.

Thus we are told that ‘Islamist parties are frequently more vocal in their support for democracy than their secular counterparts’ and that they have even ‘demonstrated their willingness to share political power by entering into alliances with other -often secular – opposition groups in an effort to achieve their goals’. At the same time, however, the report claims that Islamists’ failure on issues such women’s and minority rights ‘only makes the case for engagement stronger’.

In other words, when Islamist are progressive, this is evidence that they are moderate (and that we should therefore engage with them) and that when they are regressive they are in need ‘dialogue’ (and thus we should also engage with them).

Where the carrot and stick approach does not suffice, IPPR simply makes things up. For example, on page 15 the report claims that ‘Egypt’s large community of Coptic Christians have frequently complained about their experience of discrimination and harassment at the hands of the state and of radical Islamic groups (although not the Muslim Brotherhood specifically).’

This will be news to the many Egyptian Copts who are desperately worried about the Muslim Brotherhood’s aggressive and bullying tactics. In the words of Magdi Khalil, a Coptic journalist writing in the ‘Watani’ newspaper:

‘The Copts have particular reasons to fear the Muslim Brotherhood. First is the Muslim Brotherhood’s racist declarations against the Copts. A famous fatwa (a legal pronouncement in Islam) prohibited the construction of new churches in Egypt. The fatwa was published in Al-Dawaa magazine, which speaks for the Muslim Brotherhood, in December 1980, and was issued by Mohammed Al-Khatib who was, and still is, a member of the guidance council of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Twenty-five years later, the Muslim Brotherhood still acknowledges the validity of this fatwa.’

Khalil added that many Copts particularly fear that the Muslim Brotherhood aim to destroy the Coptic religion:

‘The Muslim Brotherhood has in mind for the Copts a sort of “religious assimilation,” and there is a big difference between the two. The Brotherhood pushes for the religious assimilation of the Coptic minority through a gradual desertion of their faith, or at the very least through a loss of their cultural and religious identity as it melts into the majority’s Islamic culture.’

One can easily find evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood’s vicious anti-Coptic campaign. Earlier this year, for instance, The Voice of Coptswebsite reported that two Muslim Brotherhood lawyers attacked a female Coptic lawyer outside an Egyptian court, tearing her clothes off, sexually molesting her and beating her unconscious. Her crime in their eyes? To have the audacity to file a lawsuit against another Muslim Brotherhood lawyer who had also physically attacked her the previous morning. Presumably IPPR doesn’t believe that such attacks are reflective of our ‘shared interests’ but rather that such attacks ‘only make the case for engagement stronger’.

The report’s other cunning ruse is to profile only ‘moderate’ Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and radical ones like Al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad – while lambasting the region’s totalitarian national governments. This deliberately creates the illusion that the only choice is between moderate Islamists, jihadists and the region’s incumbent dictatorships. This is spelt out in the report’s conclusion which claims that Islamists ‘occupying a middle ground between authoritarian regimes and violent jihadists … represent a political force that European and North American governments can no longer afford to ignore.’

Secular parties and movements, which might cloud the issue and undermine IPPR’s thesis, are left unmentioned. One searches the report for in vain for mention of Lebanon’s Tomorrow Party led by Saad el-Hariri, Algeria’s National Rally for Democracy party or Morocco’s Popular Party. These parties are all secular, liberal parties that are opposed both to their country’s existing dictatorships and to sectarian Islamist opposition parties.

Why does IPPR ignore the millions of Arab Muslims who vote for these parties who are on ‘our’ side, on almost every key issue? These parties are not just against al-Qaeda’s violence as Islamists narrowly are; they are against all forms of fascism whether Nasserite, Baathist or Islamist. Why then is ‘left-leaning’ IPPR siding against them, against these genuine social revolutionaries, in favour of regressive, medievalist Islamists? Why is IPPR willing to sell-out women, religious minorities and liberal democracy in favour of Islamists? Why does it not stand with the thousands of Muslim feminists, democrats and liberals who are presently under attack from both Arab dictatorships and from opposition Islamists?

I think there are several reasons for this. Above all, however, I think that IPPR’s researchers and authors genuinely don’t give a damn about Arabs or Muslims. They don’t care if Arab or Muslim women are beaten for defying religious or social mores, if religious minorities are persecuted by Islamist ‘activists’ or if the Middle East’s present dictatorships are replaced by equally fascist Islamist ones. They just don’t give a shit about Arabs or Muslims.

Just as IPPR’s calls for the empowerment of British Islamists aim narrowly at securing middle-class white people from terrorist attack, so their overseas strategy merely aims at not antagonising Islamists who might turn into jihadists and blow up white Brits.

And that is fucking disgrace from a supposedly left-wing think tank.

It also does a sideline in hosting the nastiest Islamists London has to offer. It has regularly been the location for talks held by “Young Muslim Cooperation”, a blatant front for al-Muhajiroun. Salafi Media (another al-Muhajiroun front) hosts a large number of videos recorded at Oxford House. So unwilling is Oxford House to recognise the unpleasantness of their guests that, when the police stepped in to stop an event being held at Queen Mary’s University of London, al-Muhajiroun were allowed at the last minute to move the festivities to Oxford House. Islam4UK, the most open of al-Muhajiroun’s many fronts, even planned a conference Rise of the Khilafah there back in February.

Now Oxford House is being advertised as the location of a meeting held by ‘Salafi Youth Movement’ (yet another al-Muhajiroun front) called ‘Jahanam – A Gangsters Paradise II’. Flyers for this event are circulating in east London advertising two important details. (1) It is to be held at Oxford House and (2) it will take place on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

‘Salafi Youth Movement’ doesn’t exist. If you look at the back of the flier (not pictured) two contacts are given. Abu Yahya and Abu Muaz, both of whom are openly members of al-Muhajiroun front Islam4UK. If you doubt this, here is some more evidence of these two men being linked to al-Muhajiroun.

Abu Yahya, was a leading member of Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma, a successor organisation to al-Muhajiroun when it temporarily disbanded in 2005. His telephone number is given as 07961 577 221, this is also the contact number given in Anjem Choudary’s (leader of al-Muhajiroun) The Islamist magazine as a contact number for “The Shariah Court of the UK”. The Shariah Court of the UK is, you guessed it, an al-Muhajiroun front.

The other contact given is Abu Muaz. Islam4UK has a video of him accepting Glen Jenvey’s conversion to Islam in his role as a “lecturer” at the “London School of Shariah”, of which Anjem Choudary claims to be principle lecturer. Abu Muaz’s number, 07852 749 999, is given on Islam4UK’s website as a contact for the Rise of Khilafah conference they held at Oxford House.

Al-Muhajiroun are one of the vilest organisations out there. This is how they marked the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, calling the hijackers the “magnificent 19″. Their links to terrorism are well documented and yet Oxford House, which would not dream of hosting the BNP, is willing to host an even nastier organisation, al-Muhajiroun. Now Oxford House is willing to host them on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

This should be a no-brainer for Oxford House. Cancel the booking. Now.

Quite apart from this making no sense at all (How does he know what the silent majority are saying if they are silent?), it is a portentous claim. If the MCB know what all Muslims are thinking then, as discussed yesterday, it makes sense for the government to treat them as gatekeepers to British Muslims. Bunglawala clearly knows better than British Muslims themselves, only six percent of whom actually believe the MCB represents them.

To further bolster the MCB’s pretensions to represent British Muslims, Bunglawala stated that the MCB now has over 550 affiliated mosques, organisations and the like. This is another interesting claim and, fortunately for us, an easily verifiable one – the MCB has published a list of affiliates on its website.

I copied all of the organisations on the MCB’s list into a spreadsheet and, far from the “over 550” affiliates of which Inayat boasted, my list totalled 457.

And then something else struck me, I should do a little rough mathematics. There were quite a few duplicates on the list and, although some of them are probably innocent slips, there does appear to be a concerted effort to beef up the numbers. For several different organisations not only is the national organisation named as an affiliate but also the regional and local groups. For example, there are 12 different varieties of Islamic Forum Europe on the list, 16 of the Islamic Society of Britain, eight Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith and no fewer than 35 different varieties of UK Islamic Mission.

Then there are some rather bizarre affiliates like ‘Muslim Directory’ and ‘Trends Magazine’ – how exactly can a directory of services and a magazine claim to be organisations? And Islam Expo (which appears twice, once purely as Islam Expo and once as Islam Expo Ltd) is an exhibition. In what sense is a four day Islamist extravaganza an affiliated organisation? And another one I found, ‘Save Chechnya Campaign’ seems very unlikely to still be active. This leads to the suspicion that several of the other organisations on the list may no longer be active but, unless somebody is prepared to spend hours seeking out Companies House records for each name on the list, the MCB will have to get the benefit of the doubt.

So, from my master list of 457 organisations I produced some sub-lists. Firstly, duplicates (111); then organisations which were not actually organisations, like Islam Expo and the Muslim Directory (8); then mosques (69) and schools (17). And finally, actual bona fide organisations (just 254). On the radio this morning, Inayat Bunglawala boasted that the MCB had started with 150 affiliated mosques and organisations, a number which had grown to over 550. My rough and ready analysis suggests that the MCB really only has about 340 affiliates – of which just 254 are actually organisations in the normal sense of the term (rather than a building) and several of those are probably one-man-bands. If you take a look in the (MCB-affiliated) ‘Muslim Directory’ you will find thousands and thousands of mosques, Islamic centres, organisations and the like, only a tiny (generally Islamist) fraction of which want to have anything to do with the MCB. So much for being representative.

Yet another reason for the government to disregard the MCB’s arrogant claim to be the voice of British Muslims.

Here at the Spittoon we have been horrified by the rise of the viciously anti-Muslim BNP; a government policy to address the rise of far right politics must surely be welcomed. But then this was accompanied by the news that the Muslim Council of Britain’s banishment from Westminster may be coming to an end.

The official attempt to mend fences follows a controversial phase in the history of the programme, which culminated in an acrimonious dispute between Hazel Blears, Denham’s predecessor, and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

That remains an issue, but Whitehall officials have contacted senior MCB members to discuss the best way forward.

Upon hearing this news, the MCB issued a gloating press release featuring a long, semi-coherent quotation from the MCB’s Secretary General, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari.

We recognise the challenge that violent extremism poses to all of us, and we welcome the overdue acknowledgement that we need a judicious and collective response to the problem. Our message – ever since 9/11 – has been unequivocal and focused – to call on all members of society to eschew criminality and participate positively in society. It is the job of the professionals – the Police and intelligence agencies – to uncover criminality and ill-intent. In so doing we believe that everyone should help in efforts to prevent injustice being perpetrated. The rise of the Far Right, and the violence that has come with it means that we must redouble our efforts, and reach across the divide to foster a Britain at ease with itself.

I don’t think anybody would want to dispute much of that.

In recent years, we have endured a policy that has been at the mercy of a handful of cynical ideologues that have appeared out of nowhere, but are now the benefactors of a massive stimulus package to the ‘prevent economy’. They have sought to portray British Muslims as a policy problem through the narrow focus of security and demanded that only those who sign up to their own undefined set of values be considered part of British society. The effect is that millions of pounds and thousands of man-hours are being wasted on a PR exercise that aims to make some look more attractive to anti-Muslim bigots.

If Muslims, as individuals and groups are not allowed to take part in the life of this nation without first signing an anti-extremism waiver as defined by dogmatic and self-appointed group of ideologues, they may be forgiven for being sceptical of the message they hear from such ill-conceived initiatives.

Now now Muhammad. Have the courage of your convictions and name the group you’re getting at. You mean the Quilliam Foundation and we all know it.

Anyway, about those cynical ideologues who appeared out of  nowhere, could that description not also be applied to a small group of Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood linked Islamists who claim to be representative of all Muslims in Britain? And is it really wise for the MCB to start casting stones on this matter. Has it never benefited from the ‘prevent economy’? Even after the Daud Abdullah fiasco the government continued to deal with MCB affiliate FOSIS. And what about MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala’s  wife who was a Preventing Violent Extremism Consultant for Redbridge Council?

But there are more fundamental problems. The “anti-extremism waiver” is a bizarre flight of imagination that nobody has asked for.  It would appear that Abdul Bari is trying to head off a repeat of the Abdullah affair, where government coooperation with the MCB was pulled because its second in command, Abdullah, signed a pro-Hamas declaration which legitimised attacks on foreign navies. Abdul Bari wants to continue receiving government money and cooperation even if another MCBer goes off message and signs a crazed statement supporting a terrorist group. Most simply, he wants the government to resume funding the MCB regardless of the fact that its leading lights remain devoted to Islamist ideals.

As for the emphasis on people who have “appeared out of nowhere”, Abdul Bari is clearly calling for a return to the bad old days when the MCB were treated as the gatekeepers to British Muslims; rather than trusting to the democratic process to let British Muslims express their views, the government would turn to the MCB and ask them to give their views instead. These views were then considered to be representative of all British Muslims rather than the small group of Islamists who actually contributed them.

This 21st century return of the colonialist mindset – “Oh no, Mr Muslim, I don’t want to talk to you. Bring me your leader instead.” – denies British Muslims equality in their own country. It pretends that, somehow, they are not to be trusted to speak for themselves within the democratic structure of the state. Rather, decisions affecting them – counter-extremism policy, funding of Islamic groups and the like – should all be passed before the MCB for approval. If anybody else claimed that British Muslims all share the same interests, concerns and problems then they would (rightly) be condemned as Islamophobic. But, when the MCB does this, it’s the best bet to preserve community cohesion.

The upshot of this press release is, therefore, that Abdul Bari is fantasising about a return to the time when the MCB could receive government money whilst boycotting holocaust memorial day. Fortunately for us, John Denham was only talking about the possibility of a reorientation of policy, and the communications between government and MCB are, at present, still tentative. Now Abdul Bari has put out this press release we can all see that nothing has changed since the government decided to stop dealing with them. The MCB is the same organisation with the same people at the top and the same attitudes towards British Muslim life and it would be wrong to end their banishment.

On his website, Awlaki publishes a leaflet called 44 Ways of Supporting Jihad. Awlaki tells his readers that, in the current day and age, it is compulsory for them to get arms training then to go and fight jihad. And, before any apologists pop up to say I’m misrepresenting the concept of jihad in Islam, no, he is not talking about jihad  al-nafs. If it entails arms training then what Awlaki is talking about is religiously justified warfare.

This is a point Awlaki makes clear when he tells readers of his website to fight against government armies in the Muslim world.

They stand against those who want to establish Islam through Jihad and they even stand in front of those who seek to reach government through peaceful means as what happened in Algeria in the past.

In other words, there can be no Islam with the presence of these armies. The Islamic rule states that whatever is needed to establish an obligation becomes an obligation. Establishing Islamic sharia is an obligation, and fighting in the cause of Allah is an obligation, and if that cannot be achieved except by fighting against these armies then that becomes an obligation.

[...]

These armies are the number one enemy of the ummah. They are the worst of creation. Blessed are those who fight against them and blessed are those shuhada who are killed by them.

It’s not just Muslim majority countries that Awlaki wants Muslims to fight, it’s also America.

In this recording Awlaki suggests that America is at war with Islam and therefore all Muslims should fight against America. What Awlaki says here is no different to al-Qaeda’s ideology.

Which probably explains why Awlaki is such a fan of the al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamists al-Shabab connected to recent terrorism arrests in Australia. In December 2008, Awlaki sent salutations to al-Shabab of Somalia.

We are following your recent news and it fills our hearts with immense joy. We would like to congratulate you for your victories and achievements.

Al-Shabab not only have succeeded in expanding the areas that fall under their rule but they have succeeded in implementing the sharia and giving us a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation. The ballot has failed us but the bullet has not.

al-Shabab who are with limited resources in an impoverished country are a manifestation of what tawakul on Allah means. We see in them the meaning of “And whoever has taqwa, Allah will make a way out for him. And will provide for him from where he does not expect.” [al-Talaaq 2-3]

Heart warming stuff. And it gets sweeter, al-Shabab sent him a response.

Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar

O beloved Sheikh Anwar,

We ask Allah to reward you for your encouragement and words of advice. Your words have reached us and, by the will of Allah, we will benefit from your recommendations [...]

Sheikh, we look to you as one of the very few scholars who stand firm upon the truth and defend the honor of the Mujahideen

It seems that Awlaki is so keen on al-Shabab that he has even been acting as their recruitment sergeant. In America, young Somali Americans began disappearing off to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab – it turned out that they had been watching lectures recorded by Awlaki and distributed online.

He even says that Muslims must not side with non-Muslims against perpetrators of terrorist attacks.

The ones who are behind bombings in the West that kill civilians. This is an issue that cannot go beyond the boundaries of fiqh. Whether the author agrees with such operations or doesn’t this issue can never be an issue of aqeedah. So even if he believes that the perpetrators of such acts are wrong and have no basis in sharia, the most he can say about them is that they have followed an invalid ijtihad. But under no circumstances is he allowed to side with the disbelievers against these Muslims. If a Muslim kills each and every civilian disbeliever on the face of the earth he is still a Muslim and we cannot side with the disbelievers against him.

Which makes it all the more disturbing when you discover that Cageprisoners has invited Awlaki to deliver a video message at Kensington Town Hall in West London on 30th August.

At first I thought this was just a horrendous mistake, an oversight which would swiftly be corrected. But then I read this report in Counter Terrorism News.

CTN spoke to the Community Safety Officer at Kensington and Chelsea Council who confirmed that the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT) and the Metropolitan Police had given their approval for this event to go ahead without any changes to the advertised speakers.

How can Kensington and Chelsea Council reconcile providing a platform for a preacher of violent extremism with its own Crime and Community Safety Plan‘s (pdf) commitment of “working to minimise opportunities for radicalisation to flourish”.  It is astounding that the local council, Metropolitan police and the Home Office all fail to appreciate that when Kensington Town Hall (a council run venue) hosts a man whose personal ideology differs little from al-Qaeda’s then this provides an appallingly convenient opportunity for radicalisation of the very worst kind.

Will they only realise the danger of such speakers when, like their American peers, groups of young British Somalis – with Awlaki’s pro-Shabab rhetoric ringing in their ears – start signing up to fight in Somalia?

UPDATE:

And this is what Awlaki thinks about killing innocent Jewish women and children.

My opinion which I have stated in past recordings and is still my opinion now is that non-combatant women and children cannot be targeted. However if the type of war forced on us to fight is one in which non-combatants would end up being killed in order to reach to the fighting force then it is allowed in this case. Examples of this are the striking of al Taif by the catapult during the time of Rasulullah(saaws). Parallels of this today are the two methods that our brothers in Palestine have adopted: martyrdom operations and the firing of rockets into the occupied territories. Both of these methods inevitably do kill women and children. The current case of Gaza adds another dimension and that is that the Jews are targeting the entire community in Gaza by siege and indiscriminate bombing and this is why I am inclined to the view of Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen in this particular situation.

In the current situation of Palestine I must say that I agree with the methods adopted by the mujahideen and I agree with them when they state that they would not stop targeting civilians until the Israeli’s do the same.

For those who asked that I reconsider my view on this, I promise I will review it again and would be happy if you could send me textual references pertinent to the discussion.