Stop demonising the mainstream Muslim community, the biggest barrier to violent extremism

FOSIS logoFOSIS president Omar Ali warns that false accusations of extremism against mainstream Muslim organisations like his own (no doubt he has in mind articles like this and editorials like this) can only play into the hands of the tiny minority of real extremists within the Muslim community.

He concludes: “What the government and counter-terrorism commentators need to realise is that the work of mosques, Islamic schools and Muslim student bodies are the barrier to extremism. Policies which demonise and create suspicion of the Muslim community need to be dropped and a real engagement of the Muslim majority must be factored in to the government’s reassessment.”

Huffington Post, 28 May 2013