British gov't secretary urges action on Muslim extremism
Senior U.K. Muslim leaders accuse the government of running an Islamophobic agenda.
By ReutersLONDON - British Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly is to meet police and council leaders on Monday to discuss how to target Islamic extremists as senior Muslim leaders accused the government of running an Islamophobic agenda.
In a private meeting, Kelly will tell 20 officials of plans to target Islamic extremist "hotspots" by encouraging the council and police chiefs to pick out mosques, schools and universities where young Muslims are being influenced.
"The new extremism we're facing is the single biggest security issue for local communities," Kelly will say. "This is not just a problem for Muslim communities. We all must play our part in responding to it."
The Guardian newspaper said other measures being planned includes asking university lecturers and staff to check on Muslim students and to report on those they suspected to be supporters of militants.
However the focus of attention has prompted the Muslim Council of Britain, the UK's largest Islamic group, to write to Kelly complaining that there had been a "drip-feed of ministerial statements stigmatizing an entire community."
"What is happening, especially in the last few months, has been a barrage of demonization of the Muslim community to such an extent that the community is now scared and the whole community feels vulnerable," MCB General Secretary Muhammad Abdul Bari told BBC Radio.
"What simply [ministers] are doing is trying to undermine and marginalize further the Muslim community, especially those organizations which have been working so hard for community cohesion."
The debate over Muslim integration has been growing steadily in the last few weeks since Home Secretary John Reid made a powerful speech at the Labour Party conference last month when he vowed to stop Muslim extremists setting up "no-go" ghettos.
That was followed by Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw saying that Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations more difficult because they acted as a "visible statement of separation and difference."
A number of government ministers have spoken out in support of Straw since then and the debate escalated further last week when a Muslim teaching assistant was suspended from a school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for refusing to take off her veil.
Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis wrote in a Sunday newspaper that there was a feeling that Muslim communities were "excessively sensitive" and that Muslim women wearing veils risked creating a "voluntary apartheid."
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Peter, I assure you the major problem already is here. An ICM opinion poll indicated that 20 percent of British Moslems have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people. Forty percent want Shariah Law in Britain. Is this a real and present danger, or what?
I agree with you. Problem is how? Suppose (for arguments sake) a few Lebanese Australians has jihadi plans for attack. How do you weed them out? How do you prevent others to become jihadi's too? What should Britain, France, Holland and others do? Please concrete proposals from anyone.
Dan, actually they do often have security guards outside flagship installlations such as the Regents Park Mosque - but as you said this is not out of fear being blown up - rather fear of being infiltrated and exposed for what they really are. Reminds me of that old 80's TV show "V" - remember how most ordinary people refused to accept that the "visitors" were lizards and were convinced that they were humanoid...wake up world, Islam is bad for us.
Kelly is a member of the secretive Catholic Opus Dei sect which is shrouded in secrecy but are instrumental in turning the church on a more backward, reactionary path. I won't be lectured about exremism by a woman who probably engaes in self-mortification to cleanse her of her sins.
Britian is a problem for everyone. If British intelligence hadn't foiled the plan to blow up airliners en masse we would be facing a day of murder more heinous than 9/11. I understand that plot was thwarted only because onr tip form one Muslim brought it to the attention of the police. What is they didn't get that tip? CLearly the solution is clearly as close as possible to the Chinese model. In China's Xin Jiang province, mosques are under the watchful eye of the Party. Mullahs are forbidden to preach jihad. Mosques are monitored and if a mullah begins to firebrand- well it's the end of his career and possibly even worse. Britian has unfortunately jihadist sympathizers among non-Muslims like George Galloway and the mayor of London- Livingstone. Galloway began his won fringe party but Livingston should be marginalized byu the Labour Party. Let him join Galloway's party and see how far that gets him.
They got a round of abuse. You only need 10% of the British Moslem community to sympathise with the tube bombers to have a major problem. Well the British have got it.
The British Muslim leaders are on an another planet and are quite pathetic. It is Moslems who are blowing up British citizens. All they do is complain like with the veils. Now they are scared? I think it should be the other way round.
Excellent point Dan! It seems that everyone else is supposed to be ultra sensitive to the feelings of Muslims and we are urged by the media to try and "understand" Islam but I see no effort on their part to understand other religions. Here in the U.S. we have the same situation though I think in Europe, Islamic fanaticism is more widespread.
What if one day, all islamic immigrants from countries with anti-western sentiments (e.g. arabs, pakistanians) will decide or will be sent to their home-countries? Will it bring prosperity and development to these countries (the West gave them education and for many, an opportunity to make big money) or will it cause more aggressive islamization of these countries with more practical nuclear weapon ambitions (?thanks? to excellent education of some of these immigrants in generally more advanced Western universities)? Note sure, may be it is still not too late to close the doors both ways.
long overdue
I don't see secuirty guards outside mosques...but I do outside synagogues...I don't see them outside Islamic country embassies...but I do outside others...I don't see Muslim areas getting blown up, I do see London Underground getting blown up... The only thing the Muslim community are scared of is standing up to their radical brothers within their midst. The sooner they do that, the better we'll all be.
That's when they are waking up to the reality of terrorism.Any religion or ideology that threatens freedom and public safety should be seriously placed on check.I totally believe that Muslims,like other people have the right to freely,practice their religion.However,when a religion resorts to sensationalism,protests,intimidation,chaos and militarism,it has to be called to order.This is the time to call Islam to order.
The actual threat is the insidious agenda of the fundamemtalist Islamic establishment in the UK to supplant British democracy with a Shariah Islamic state. These intentions are public and on record.