Home Secretary says British campuses ‘complacent’ in dealing with Muslim extremism

Tuesday, 07 June 2011

the British government has identified 40 British universities, which are at risk of radicalization. (File photo)

By LUCY STUART
Al Arabiya London

The sensitive issue of tackling Muslim extremism in Britain is once being highlighted with the publication by Home Secretary Theresa May on Tuesday of an updated version of “Prevent Strategy,” a £63million-a-year—now reduced to £46 million—scheme, which was launched in 2007 to prevent the growth of British home-grown terrorism.

The report has a strong focus on university campuses, which Ms. May criticized in an interview with the Daily Telegraph for their “complacency” in tackling Muslim extremism. She went on to say, “I don’t think they have been sufficiently willing to recognize what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalization that can take place. I think there is more that universities can do.”

According to the report, the Government has identified 40 British universities, which are at risk of radicalization and it states that “more than 30 percent of people convicted for Al Qaeda-associated terrorist offences in the UK … are known to have attended university or a higher education institution.”

However, Nabil Ahmed, President of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) said: “We find it disrespectful for commentators to throw around accusations of extremism so easily – especially when not only university vice chancellors but David Willets, the Universities Minister, himself have clearly elucidated how extremism is not widespread on campus, and have questioned whether universities are the “trigger” for radicalization.”

Since its creation, Prevent has been criticized by some who see it as a way to spy on the Muslim community, but Minister May said to the Daily Telegraph: “I don’t see anything wrong with identifying people who are vulnerable to being taken down a certain route, who could become a threat to members of the public.”

Nabil Ahmed again argues: “I don’t think that we should be viewing Muslim students or students in general with such suspicion. I think it very counter-productive for our society and I think it demonizes Muslim students as well.”

The Prevent strategy itself has been attacked for being wasteful and ineffective, and some organizations that have been previously funded by the scheme will be losing their funding with Tuesday’s review, which has found them to “hold extremist views or support terrorist-related activity.”

Minister May, in her statement to the House of Commons, said that “funding sometimes even reached the very extremist organizations that Prevent should have been confronting.”

The report also names 25 boroughs in the UK which are noted as “priority areas,” and said to be most at risk from Islamist extremism, including areas of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and Manchester.

Other measures set out in the scheme comprise encouraging doctors, nurses and health workers to help identify the signs of Islamic extremism, panic buttons for internet users to alert police to potential terrorist activity and a “national blocking list” of violent and unlawful Websites.

(Lucy Stuart, a member of Al Arabiya’s London bureau, can be reached at: lucy.stuart@mbc.net)