A Scottish Islamic group has been accused of sharing the ideology of terrorists in a secret list prepared for top British security officials. The Scottish Islamic Foundation, which receives funding from the Scottish Government, has been described as an “entry level” group for Islamists by the Quilliam Foundation. The list it has compiled identifies groups that it says local and central government should be “wary of engagement” with.
The Quilliam Foundation was co-founded by Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, former activists in the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir. In a document sent to Charles Farr, the director-general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, a directorate of the Home Office, it lists the Scottish Islamic Foundation and the Muslim Council of Britain along with numerous other groups as alleged extremist sympathisers.
The briefing document went on to say: “The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists, they disagree only on tactics.”
Yesterday a spokesman for the Scottish Islamic Foundation said: “This is without any basis and we will take legal advice on our options for redress wherever allegations appear. QF (the Quilliam Foundation] is run by a pair of individuals whose intellect is such that they were self-confessed bona fide extremists as late as 2007. They now lecture others in a McCarthyite fashion about supposed links, when QF themselves actually support scholars who advocate a global Islamic state.”
Last night a Scottish Government spokesman said: “There is no evidence whatever for such an assertion. We have good community relations in Scotland, and anything that risks undermining that is irresponsible. Audit Scotland examined matters connected with the SIF funding, and clearly and definitively concluded that the appropriate procedures and processes were followed by the Scottish Government.”
See also “Latest SIF allegations: Full investigation needed”, Scottish Conservative Party news release, 9 August 2010