Extremist groups active inside UK universities, report claims

A report due to be published next week by Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University’s centre for intelligence and security studies, lists more than 30 institutions – including some of the most high-profile universities in the country – where “extremist and/or terror groups” have been detected. “This is a serious threat,” Professor Glees told the Guardian. “We have discovered a number of universities where subversive activities are taking place, often without the knowledge of the university authorities.”

Guardian, 16 September 2005

Note the weasel formulation “extremist and/or terror groups”. The only Islamist groups the article refers to are Al-Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir. The former has in fact dissolved itself, and its successor organisations, the Saviour Sect and Al-Ghurabaa, reportedly have a total membership that doesn’t even reach three figures. Hizb ut-Tahrir, by contrast, has a couple of thousand members, but publicly dissociates itself from terrorist violence. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the report, but on the face of it this looks like another anti-Hizb witch-hunt.