April 2009 Archives

Reproduced below is my article from this month's edition of political magazine, Standpoint.

There have recently been signs of an encouraging shift in attitudes towards Islamism within sections of the British government. Though there are still plenty of insiders claiming that "non-violent" Islamists are our best defence against the violence that their ideology inspires in others, at least the error of this has been recognised by some.

Reproduced below is my article from today's Lebanon Daily Star, the country's main English language daily.

Imagine this scene: One of the senior leaders of a movement the European Union has designated a "terrorist entity," and that for the last two decades has based a good part of its military strategy on attacking civilians; that has repeatedly heightened the prospect of conflict whenever there has been an increased probability of peace; and that has a founding Charter effectively advocating the elimination of a United Nations member state, is allowed to address the government of a European nation in the heart of its democratic institutions, with no strings attached.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain (HT), the Islamist revolutionary group, has always claimed that it is a non-violent political party which seeks to overthrow secular regimes peacefully. However in Saturday's Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) has revealed that HT support violence around the world. Two recent events highlight their support for violent jihad, including the group's role in the recent visit to the UK of a Sheikh who is banned from Indonesia.

Full press release here.

One of the trustees of the North London Central Mosque (aka Finsbury Park Mosque), Mohammed Sawalha, supports jihad in Israel and attacks against her allies.  It has been reported that Mr. Sawalha was a signatory along with Muslim Council of Britain deputy director-general, Dr. Daud Abdullah, to a statement which supports jihad.  However, his connections with the North London Central Mosque were not revealed.

Full press release here

CSC Researcher Alexander Hitchens wrote a guest piece for the political blog Harry's Place, reproduced below:

Much has been written on the blogosphere about a dinner for Islamist extremists being held by the City University Islamic Society.  This event was originally scheduled to take place on the 1^st of April. On 30^th March 2009 my organisation, the Centre for Social Cohesion, sent the following email to the University expressing our concerns over the extreme nature of the speakers:

The Iranian government has revealed that it is in talks with British Islamic studies departments to "train and educate experts on Islam". The UK government has subsequently announced these Islamic studies centres are part of its counter-terrorism strategy. The most charitable spin you could put on this is that the government is unaware of whom exactly is funding the centres that they hope are a barrier to stopping radicalisation.