Recently in Social Cohesion Category

Reproduced below is my latest blog for Standpoint

Revolution Muslim, a US-based extremist organisation, has issued death threats against Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the makers of animated sitcom 'South Park', after their latest episode which satirised the ongoing hysteria about depicting Mohammed.  In what is yet another example of the ongoing influence Anwar al-Awlaki has on Western jihadism, the religious justification used by the group for killing Stone and Parker was taken from a 2008 Awlaki lecture 'The Dust Will Never Settle Down'.

Reproduced below is my latest blog for Standpoint:

The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) has been the subject of much scrutiny since Andrew Gilligan's investigation into them revealed that the group was using effective entryist tactics to infiltrate and influence local politics in East London. Local MP Jim Fitzpatrick even went so far as to say that the IFE was "trying to get individuals selected and elected" so that they could eventually achieve their goal of establishing an "Islamic social and political order" in Britain.  The IFE and its parent organisation the East London Mosque (ELM), have since been protesting against accusations of extremism.  Despite this, senior IFE member, Azad Ali, wrote a blog yesterday in which he suggested an ideological affinity between his group and Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT).

Reproduced below is my latest blog for Standpoint magazine:

Yesterday, Home Secretary Alan Johnson banned Islam4UK in what seemed a knee-jerk reaction to their planned march in Wootten Bassett.  Although the ban has come late and was quite clearly done with the upcoming election in mind, it is still the right move.

Cross posted from Harry's Place

Hannah Stuart & Houriya Ahmed

Regular readers of Harry's Place don't need us to tell them about Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). However, as authors of the Centre for Social Cohesion's recent report, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology & Strategy, we feel obliged to respond to HT's 'smear  aimed at distracting our organisation from its work'.

I've just completed writing a report for the CSC, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy. The full report can be accessed here and an executive summary here.

In my last blog, I wrote about the decision to ban an al-Qaeda supporter from a London local council.  The government's Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) have now released a statement about this move.

This is a guest post by CSC Research Intern Natasha Hausdorff.

The BNP is turning to religion to justify its extreme policies.

The BNP MEP candidate Rev. Robert West has been a leading figure in the party's turn to the Bible as a founding member of the 'Christian Council of Britain', upon which the BNP relies for interpretation of Bible passages. Its stated aims include 'to promote understanding of Christian values in Great Britain and to develop efforts for the benefit of Christians throughout the country'. These undertakings increasingly involve attempts by the Christian Council to use the Bible in order to justify racism.

This is a blog which first appeared on my Standpoint Focus on Islamism blog.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Labour MP for Poplar and Canning town was offended this week when he was asked to sit separately from his wife at a private Muslim wedding.  He has taken the wrong fight to the right people.

This is a guest post by CSC Research Intern Tom Bumstead:

The Metropolitan Police Sikh Association (MPSA) has recently made the transition from being merely incoherent viz a viz social cohesion into being actively insulting to that principle.

The Stop the War Coalition's latest campaign, Kafa, was officially launched last Friday. Click here to read my account of the event.