Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > PR- Center for Social Cohesion: How UCL Authorities Ignored Islamist Extremism
PR- Center for Social Cohesion: How UCL Authorities Ignored Islamist Extremism
January 10, 2010
HOW UCL AUTHORITIES IGNORED ISLAMIST EXTREMISM
Proof of UCL President's systematic failure to tackle campus radicals
Centre for Social Cohesion Press Briefing - 5 January 2010
Failed Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was president of the University College London (UCL) Islamic Society (ISOC) in the academic year 2006-07, and organised a controversial 'War on terror week' featuring a debate 'Jihad v Terrorism'.
Abdulmutallab's politicisation of the UCL ISOC is not an anomaly. The CSC can reveal that a wide range of extremist speakers have regularly addressed UCL ISOC. Speakers since 7/7 include supporters of the terrorist group Hamas, members of Hizb ut-Tahrir (while subject to a NUS ban), and those who have spoken in support of the Taliban, warned Muslims not to integrate into western societies, argued in favour of domestic violence and advocated the destruction of Israel.
Professor Malcolm Grant, president and provost of UCL since 2003, has recently sought to absolve the university of any responsibility for the actions of Abdulmutallab. Furthermore, referring to the UCL ISOC's recent invitation of the extremist speaker Abu Usama adh Dhahabee to campus, Grant said the it was 'swiftly withdrawn by the students' once 'his views became known'.
Grant further said he would 'intervene' if invitations to speakers were not issued in accordance with UCL's Code of Practice for freedom of speech. This system has clearly failed. The following speakers have all been invited to address UCL students since Grant became President:
Azzam al-Tamimi
Al-Tamimi was invited by the UCL ISOC on two occasions in February 2009. The events were only cancelled after the CSC informed university authorities of al-Tamimi's extremist views.
Al-Tamimi has repeatedly made public comments glorifying the actions of proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas and Hezbollah (whose military wing is proscribed by the UK), and questioned the legitimacy of Israel. Al-Tamimi supports suicide bombings and said in a BBC Hardtalk interview in November 2004:
Sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause ... I would do it if I had the opportunity.
Abu Usama adh Dhahabee
Dhahabee was invited to address UCL by the ISOC on 6 September 2009. He was also due to speak on 30 November 2009. The event was only cancelled after pressure exerted by campaign groups.
Dhahabee advocates holy war in an Islamic state; preaches hatred against non-Muslims; that apostasy and homosexuality is punishable by death; and women are inferior to men. In a 2007 Channel 4 documentary Dhahabee told his audience.
We ask Allah to bring about the means and the ways in which the Muslims will get the power and the honour of repelling the oppression of the kuffaar, where we can go out and perform the jihad. We ask Allah to bring that time so we can be participants in that.
No one loves the kuffaar. No one loves the kuffaar! ... [...] Whether these kuffaar are from the UK, or from the US ... We love the people of Islam and we hate the people of the kufr. We hate the kuffaars.
Whoever changes his religion from al-Islam to anything else kill him in the Islamic state.
Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.
Allah has created the woman, even if she gets a Phd, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete. Deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal one witness of the man.
Following the broadcast, Dhahabee was interviewed by Channel 4 News where he refused to reject these statements.
Sheikh Riyadh ul-Haq
Ul-Haq was invited by UCL ISOC to speak on 9 November 2005.
Speaking on the topic of Israel, ul-Haq previously called on Muslims to 'be willing to sacrifice anything that may be required of us'. He claimed that al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem must be liberated and 'we are willing to die in the process' and that when called upon, 'we will consider it an honour and a privilege to shed our blood'. He stated that Allah has promised that Islam will 'prevail over all other religions, even though the disbelievers may dislike it'.
Ul-Haq has previously supported the Taliban, stating in 2000 that they are 'The only group of people upon the earth who are establishing the Sharia and the law of Allah.' In 2001, ul-Haq said:
What crime has the Government of Afghanistan committed? All they have done is they have refused to hand over a person (Osama bin Laden) whose guilt is yet to be proven. Because of that crime, the entire nation is being punished. And as a result, because they strive to represent Islam, the whole of Islam is being demonised. And as a result, Muslims all over the globe are being discriminated against.
Ul-Haq has also made anti-Semitic statements, warned against Muslim integration and labelled the 'culture' of non-Muslims as 'evil':
Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffar [unbelievers], do not align yourselves with the kuffar.
Today, the culture of Coke and the Big Mac, the culture of the Americans, the culture of the Europeans, these cultures are dominant and they are all pervasive. We stand in awe of their culture and we are imitating them in everything. This culture, this evil influence, this imitation of the kuffar...
They're all the same. The Jews don't have to be in Israel to be like this. It doesn't matter whether they're in New York, Houston, St Louis, London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester. They're all the same. They've monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions . . . they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well. And injustice.
A Jew is generally allowed to kill a non-Jew without fear of punishment, repercussions, neither in this world or the hereafter.
Taji Mustafa
Mustafa is currently the media spokesman for the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and serves on its national executive. He was invited by UCL ISOC to speak on 25 November 2005, despite the group being banned from campuses by the National Union of Students in 2004.
Murtaza Khan (aka Abu Hasnayn Murtaza Khan)
Khan regularly speaks to university ISOCs. Last year he was invited to speak by UCL ISOC on 21 January 2009 and at the UCL annual conference on 6 September 2009. Khan advocates extreme intolerance towards non-Muslims. In a 2007 Channel 4 documentary Khan asked a Muslim audience:
For how long do we have to see our mothers, sisters and daughters having to uncover themselves before these filthy non-Muslim doctors? We should have a sense of shame.
Khan had spoken to UCL ISOC on other occasions, including 22 November 2005, 5 February 2007 and 7 December 2007. Khan currently teaches Islamic Studies at Al Noor primary school in London and is described as a 'visiting khateeb' (person who delivers the Friday sermons) at the University of East London.
Abdul Raheem Green
Green was invited to UCL to address students on 23 November 2005, 4 October 2006, and on 22 January 2009. He has spoken in favour of domestic violence, saying that a husband may use 'physical force... a very light beating' against his wife and has argued that 'Islam is not compatible with democracy.'
Uthman Lateef
Lateeef was invited by UCL ISOC to address students on 25 February 2008 and on 13 February 2009. He was recorded telling audiences at Queen Mary University, 12 December 2007:
We don't accept homosexuality ... we hate it because Allah hates it.
[...]
We excommunicate people when they transgress their limits of God and ascribe partners to him or disbelieve in him ... Look at the dangers of compromise, look at the dangers of appeasement, when you accept something from an alien or foreign tradition that is not from the core religion, down the line, decades, centuries, millennium after that, you're going to get a very rotten apple.
Haitham al-Haddad
Al-Haddad was invited by UCL ISOC to speak at their annual conference on 6 September 2009. He had previously been invited to UCL on 2 November 2007.
Al-Haddad openly supports Hamas and advocates the destruction of Israel:
My proposed solution for the Israelis is to leave Palestine and to go back to their own countries to live in peace. If they want to live in peace, in real peace, they should leave Palestine and leave it for the Palestinians and those Jews who would like to live in Palestine, but under the Palestinian government, not under the Israeli government.
'Know Your Rights'
At a UCL ISOC event titled "Know Your Rights", attended by the CSC on 25 January 2008, an unknown speaker argued that Muslims should retaliate by refusing to cooperate with police on tackling neighbourhood crime:
The police always say 'Well, we are doing what's best for the country'. This is why the police lobby, the security services lobby, have to be watched very carefully ... We'll put the word out around the whole streets, everywhere in the country, that Muslims should not co-operate with the police. And what that in fact means is, most of the police's job isn't terrorism, it's ordinary crime. And they know as well that ordinary crime, for which they need the cooperation of the communities, not just Muslim, but Afro-Caribbean, white communities, any of the communities. We say, we'll put the word out and campaign that police have become anti-Muslim, they are political, no one will co-operate with you, all your statistics will go down the drain, you want to get drug dealers, you want to get burglars, then we'll see what we can do.
CSC Comment
CSC Director Douglas Murray said:
Professor Grant has shamelessly attempted to deflect attention from the very real problems of radicalisation occurring on the UCL campus. The bigoted and extreme nature of some speakers who regularly address young Muslim students at UCL campus is astonishing. Instead of criticising those raising this issue, Professor Grant should be looking to rectify the very real problems that exist on his campus.
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