Muslim leaders ‘failing to tackle extremists’

Muslim leaders have been criticised by a University of Oxford academic for not doing enough to tackle extremists.

At the same time a parliamentary committee has attacked a central plank of the Government’s counter-extremism programme by arguing that its “Prevent” strategy has “stigmatised and alienated” Muslims.

Nick Chatrath, a researcher at Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, claims in a paper to be published this week that in the face of growing radicalisation in Britain, Muslim leaders are ignoring extremists’ points of view and glossing over some of the more unsavoury parts of Islam’s ancient texts.

In an essay in next month’s Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Mr Chatrath called for a more open engagement by moderate Muslims with the arguments of extremists.

Based on interviews with Anjem Choudary, of the banned extremist group Islam4UK, and Dr Musharraf Hussain, an adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain, Mr Chatrath said: “Moderate Muslim leaders are doing a poor job of tackling extremism in Britain.” He said that extremists such as Mr Choudary, who has argued that democracy should be replaced with obedience to Allah, were using the Koran and other ancient texts to justify their actions. He called on moderate community leaders to do more to counter this.

“This attitude must change, as the best way to extinguish extremist arguments is to deal with them out in the open, not just sweep them under the carpet and hope for the best,” he said.

“Some recent polls suggest ordinary British Muslims are becoming more sympathetic to extremists, and this could be related to the way moderate Muslims are ignoring the extremist threat.”

His paper came as a committee of MPs said that the programme set up by the Government to stop radicalisation and reduce support for terrorism had undermined community relations. But the Communities and Local Government Committee said that many Muslims feared that it was an attempt to spy on them and called for ministers to investigate claims that Prevent was being used by police and MI5 to gather intelligence on alleged radicals.

The committee’s report, Preventing Violent Extremism, also accused ministers of trying to “engineer” a moderate form of Islam and sidelining those who did not fit in.

Phyllis Starkey, the committee’s chairwoman, said: “Many witnesses made plain they believe Prevent has been used to ‘spy’ on Muslim communities. The misuse of terms such as ‘intelligence gathering’ amongst Prevent partners has clearly discredited the programme and fed distrust.

“Information required to manage Prevent has been confused with intelligence gathering undertaken by the police to combat crime and surveillance used by the security services to actively pursue terrorism suspects.”

The Muslim Council said: “The committee’s findings reflect the deep anxiety felt by Britain’s Muslims as it has become the central policy tool for Government to engage with Muslim communities. In effect, Britain’s Muslims are only seen through the prism of security.”

The council said that the Government’s policy had become inadvertently sectarian. “Britain’s Muslim community is one of the most diverse communities on Earth. It is the responsibility of government to facilitate that diversity, not to promote discord. We are glad this instructive lesson has been taken up by the current Communities Secretary, and we hope it is not lost on all those who are engaged with public policy and the Muslim community.”

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