While Britain’s university lecturers and Vice Chancellors obdurately continue to refuse to offer any form of assistance in the fight against on-campus violent extremism, a trial currently underway in a Glasgow courtroom suggests that the problem towards which Britain's academics seem willing to turn a complacent blind eye could well extend much further than the University sector.
Testimony has been emerging there from former lecturers and fellow students of 21 year old Mohammed Atif Siddique, currently standing trial on five terror related charges, that, while a student at Glasgow Metropolitan College between 2003 and 2005, he on several occasions used the college facilities to download clips of beheadings and other acts of terror and showed some to fellow students.
One lecturer at the college has testified that, over a three-week period in 2003, he twice found the accused looking at inappropriate material on the internet. The lecturer testified:
‘I think I saw a video of Osama bin Laden or someone like him. … I told Siddique to stop it and he switched it off.’
Three weeks later, the lectuer said he again found Siddique watching a clip, this time of a ‘Palestinian suicide bomber’.
‘I told Mohammed that it was against college policy to look at terrorism violent or pornographic sites, and again he simply switched it off.’
The trial is not yet finished, so we await its outcome. Regardless of its verdict, what the case has done is provide a useful reminder that the potential for on-campus violent extremism goes beyond the university sector.