The leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance on Newham Council, Councillor Alan Craig has called the controversial Muslim group behind the proposed Olympics mega-mosque “secretive” after they refused to attend a Muslim-organised public debate on Friday.

Cllr Craig, who spoke at the meeting, labelled the Tablighi Jamaat “controversial” and “secretive”, and added that the group’s no-show was “a classic illustration of Tablighi Jamaat’s rejection of Western democratic values and their secretive, isolationist ways of conducting themselves”.

He continued: “We can only conclude that their hidden arrogance is as large as their secretive ambitions. They reject face-to-face public debate and scrutiny of the issues. This simply feeds the silly superficial knee-jerk reactions of those like Ken Livingstone on the left and the Islamophobic racist hostility of the BNP on the right.”

Christian Today, 10 September 2007

For a statement by the trustees of the Abbey Mills mosque, see here.

See also coverage of the debate at BBC London, 10 September 2007