Allegations of an Islamic takeover plot in Birmingham schools aren’t justified by the evidence – and the government response is way out of proportion, argues Salma Yaqoob.
See also “Birmingham MP criticises Gove over ‘Islamist school plot’ investigation”, Guardian, 16 April 2014
A police investigation into allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement by the mayor of a London council has found “no credible evidence of criminality”.
Lutfur Rahman, elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, east London, was accused by the BBC’s Panorama of more than doubling public funding to Bangladeshi and Somali groups from £1.5m to £3.6m in the face of recommendations from council officers. He denied the allegations, saying they had been motivated by racism and Islamophobia.
The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, sent inspectors into the borough to investigate Rahman’s activities, but Metropolitan police officers who reviewed the allegations found no evidence of fraud or other offences.
He will face no further action from police “at this stage”, but the force said it was appropriate for outside auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to continue their financial review of the council.
A Scotland Yard statement said: “On Friday 4 April the Metropolitan Police Service received three files of material from the Department for Communities and Local Government relating to the London borough of Tower Hamlets. These comprised material referred to the DCLG by a member of the public and by the BBC Panorama programme.
“The files have been reviewed by a team of officers over the past six days. In addition, officers have liaised with PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are conducting a full and wide-ranging audit of financial matters at the London borough of Tower Hamlets.
“There is no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed at this stage. Therefore the MPS will not be investigating at this point in time and believe that it is appropriate for the material to be reviewed further by PwC and DCLG. We will continue to liaise with them should their audit uncover any evidence of criminality.”
PwC has been asked to report back to Pickles by 30 June. Tower Hamlets council, which says it has seen no evidence that its processes have been run inappropriately, welcomed the police statement.
A special New York Police Department unit that sparked controversy by tracking the daily lives of Muslims in an effort to detect terror threats has been disbanded, police officials said Tuesday.
NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis confirmed that detectives assigned to the unit had been transferred to other duties within the department’s Intelligence Division.
An ongoing review of the division by new Police Commissioner William Bratton found that the same information collected by the unit could be better collected through direct contact with community groups, officials said.
In a statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, called the move “a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys.”
One of Britain’s most senior police chiefs has attacked Michael Gove’s decision to appoint a counter-terrorism expert to investigate claims of a Islamist plot to take over schools in Birmingham.
Chris Sims [pictured], chief constable of West Midlands police, condemned as “desperately unfortunate” the appointment of Peter Clarke to look into allegations of Islamic fundamentalists infiltrating schools.
Peter Clarke, who served as head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit and led the investigation into the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, has been asked to examine claims made in an unsigned and unverified document, circulated in Birmingham and beyond, boasting of an plot named Operation Trojan Horse.
The alleged plotters claimed to have “taken over” secular state schools in Birmingham, ousting non-compliant heads and governors and running the schools on “strict Islamic principles”.
Sims told the Guardian that the letter that sparked the controversy could be a hoax and was not being treated as a criminal matter. He said Clarke’s appointment made it appear as though the saga was being officially handled as a counter-terrorism issue.
Asked whether he thought the appointment may damage community relations, Sims said: “It must be a concern. People could be made fearful if they think that is the way this issue is being perceived.”
He added: “Peter Clarke has many qualities but people will inevitably draw unwarranted conclusions from his former role as national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism. I am a strong supporter of open and inclusive education for all children in Birmingham and across the West Midlands and am committed to the process adopted by Birmingham city council with educational and social inclusion at its heart.”
Education bosses in Bradford say none of its schools are being investigated over an alleged hardline Muslim plot to force out governors and headteachers despite claims the issue was affecting the city.
The leader of Birmingham City Council, which is investigating 200 complaints in relation to the Operation Trojan Horse allegations, says his officers had spoken to authorities in Bradford and Manchester about the problem. Sir Albert Bore said: “There are certainly issues in Bradford which have similarities with the issues being spoken about in Birmingham.”
There are now 25 schools under investigation in Birmingham after an anonymous letter claimed a small but radical group of Muslims were pursuing their own agenda in the classrooms, with uncooperative headteachers and governors forced out. The council’s investigation, running in parallel to a separate inquiry by the Department for Education, is due to initially report back in May.
Michael Jameson, strategic director of children’s services at Bradford Council, said the authority and West Yorkshire Police were aware of the claims made “several months ago”. He said: “We work very closely with West Yorkshire Police and will continue to liaise regarding any potential issues that may arise locally. No schools in Bradford are being specifically investigated in relation to the allegations made in the Trojan Horse letter.
“The council’s primary concern is always the education of all the children in Bradford’s schools. If the council has any concerns about the effectiveness of a governing body, we will act quickly and appropriately to help that school make rapid progress in improving the education experience and outcomes for its pupils.”
Yediot Achronot reported that several IDF officers created a T-shirt for their soldiers with a chilling explicitly racist, Islamophobic message. It read: “Every Arab mother should know that the fate of her children is in our hands…Schem [Nablus] we’re on the way.”
The T-shirt features a graphic image of an armed soldier toppling the minaret of a mosque. It’s certainly designed to reassure the mothers of Nablus that the IDF believes in the purity of arms and is the most moral army in the world, as liberal Zionists and others like to claim.
This T-shirt is not an anomaly. Veterans of Operation Cast Lead made a variety of equally offensive products which were proudly modeled and sold online.
Steven Rose responds to Peter Hill’s Daily Express article “Why does Britain feel so obliged to accommodate for minorities?” Tell Mama, 13 April 2014
“The lunacy which has dominated the discourse coming out of Quebec over the last year has finally been countered with a dose of sanity. In a historic vote this Monday, the ruling Parti Québécois (PQ) suffered a major defeat after just 19 months of taking office. Premier Pauline Marois organized an ugly campaign which centered on identity politics and secession from Canada. Her gross miscalculations resulted in a humiliating loss and allowed the federalist Liberal party to form a majority government in the Francophone province.
“The madness which characterized PQ’s odious agenda is best exemplified with their proposed secular ‘Charter of Values’. The notorious document, an affront to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, proposed banning all public employees from wearing religious symbols: hijabs, turban, skullcaps – anything ‘conspicuous’. This Charter paved way to a discourse which was perhaps the most jaw dropping display of xenophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric in recent history.”
Waleed Ahmed reports.
Christophe Lavigne, the French airforce sergeant with far-right links who was recently acquitted on a technicality of planning to shoot Muslims, is still to stand trial in June on a charge of desecration of a place of worship in connection with a terrorist enterprise, in connection with an arson attack on a mosque in Libourne in August 2012.
Despite his having reportedly admitted to that crime, Lavigne has been released on bail, according to his lawyer, because the court accepted that he poses “no risk of reoffending”. The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France wants to know how an individual with such a record, charged with a violent terrorist offence, could possibly have been allowed out.
Muslims in the UK say they are unfairly targeted by programme asking medical workers to identify potential ‘terrorists’.